Herald of Steel

Lady Miranda's acceptance of the deal naturally made Alexander very pleased.

Given her family's facilities and expertise, Alexander was hopeful he would be able to have a functional navy faster than he thought.

"Please wait here, let me fetch you the blueprints," 

And so, in return, Alexander quickly showed them the ships they were building, and how they were able to get such a huge size.

"Using iron pegs instead of wood! Ingenious!" 

Lord Janus was both very surprised and a bit bitter that he had not been able to think of such a simple solution sooner.

But at least he knew it now, and with his expertise as a shipwright, did feel that with this stronger skeleton, a much bigger ship could likely be built.

Which made the aged lord very happy.

"Hahaha, good, good, with these new ships, we can definitely beat the Kaiser family in the water. Definitely! Bastards won't stand a chance" 

He loudly roared in elation, knowing that even if outnumbered, these ships would be able to take multiple ramming attacks before going down, thus allowing them to stay in the battle and fight for longer.

And as long as one could fight, they had the possibility of winning.

He hence even turned to Alexander to even propose this, 

"Hahaha, Lord Alexander, I'm currently looking for a suitor for my granddaughter. Would you be interested!" 

The old man seemed to want to make Alexander his kin for inventing this new type of ship. 

A proposal that Alexander gently rejected.

Instead, taking advantage of the old man's euphoria, he added this, 

"Actually, I have another ship I was thinking of building. But I seem to not have the experience to," as he then quickly showed the two his blueprints for a huge barge-like cargo ship, the same one he had shown Lady Inayah.

"We will make the ship of wood and concrete."

"This type of ship will be very stable because most of its hull will be underwater, so it won't tip over easily."

"And we can fill that massive hull with enormous amounts of cargo."

"I estimate it will be able to hold 10 times what the usual merchant ships can carry, at least 10,000 tons!" Alexander sounded very excited, as he continued, 

"As for moving the behemoth, we will use huge sails to harness the power of winds."

"We are already building a new port to accommodate these vessels, but we lack the expertise to build it."

"So I was hoping the Margrave family would be interested!" 

Lord Janus seemed to think he noticed Alexander's eyes were twinkling as he posed the question.

"Hahaha, well let us first build the first kind of ships first. Then we can talk what the others," But he gently rejected Alexander as such.

Frankly, Lord Janus thought the size and cargo capacity Alexander was hoping for to be a bit on the fantastic side.

He did not think building such a huge ship was possible.

Whereas Alexander was not discouraged, and pressed, "But with this, we can trade across the Mad Sea all year around? Should building it not be a priority?" 

"Thign of the voluem of trade? It will be enormous."

"And safety! Even bad storms won't be able to sink it."

Alexander truly believed such a ship was easily possible, and it would be so much that the rickety dingy they currently used.

It only required skilled and knowledgeable shipwrights to bring it to life, something the Margraves certainly had.

Thus Alexander's eagerness about the project seemed to be oozing out.

And it was Lady Miranda who decided to put a step on his brake pedal, pointing out, 

"Lord Alexander, brand new ship designs are never easy to build. It takes years to get everything right! Especially a ship as revolutionary as yours."

"Going by what you said, nobody has ever built something like that. The hull, the sail, and the rigging will all need many people to properly build."

"But I'm afraid currently we are too occupied to help you right now. We need to focus on rebuilding our navy."

And Lord Janus quickly supported her, 

"Yes, yes. This ship is very revolutionary, but it does not seem very suitable for naval warfare. So really cannot spare the manpower. Let us come back to it perhaps later."

It seemed that though the two were content to pay his new design beautiful lip service, they were not actually all that interested in building it.

Mainly because they found the dimensions too fantastic to think it was possible.

This rejection did hurt Alexander because he had thought a family expert in shipbuilding would be able to see his vision. 

But it seemed he was wrong.

"...Then could I commission you to build you one?" 

So, seeing a collaboration was out of the question, Alexander then asked if he could throw money at the problem and solve it.

He believed that once he could show his ship was actually possible, everyone would be building them.

"Please allow me to apologize. But I'm afraid all our docks are already too busy," But naturally Lady Miranda made this statement, as the Margrave family was trying to rebuild its navy as soon as possible.

"But we are willing to help build a prototype as soon as our docks clear, my lord!" And then, as if to appease Alexander, Lord Janus quickly made his offer.

"....*sigh*...mmm," And only got this anemic, not even a proper reply.

Alexander knew such an opportunity would be years away and made sure to express his dissatisfaction.

And it worked as his unenthusiastic reply set the room into a slightly depressing mood, letting a stifling atmosphere settle in.

Something Lady Miranda quickly tried to rectify this by saying,

"Ah, my lord, we have no problem giving you the 50,000 people or letting you join our shipbuilding."

"We agree to both those requests, no problem!"

"And even that concrete you said the ships will be made of. We want to buy them too."

Lady Miranda wanted to show Alexander the things they did agree with and even expressed her interest in buying more stuff.

To which Alexander only lightly replied,

"I'm afraid we currently have a shortage of cement. So if my lady wants it she will need to give about 1,000 workers so I can set up new facilities." 

He knew Lady Miranda was not serious which was why he made the offer and sure enough, Lady Miranda rejected it, 

"Ah! That's unfortunate. Perhaps another time then."

After her initial awe with this cement, Lady Miranda had grown out of her love for the white powder, because to her it did not seem all too special.

They could build similar structures with their own methods and so saw no point in spending so much to obtain the product.

"Okay, so what about the blacksmiths? I noticed Lord Janus flinch when I proposed that!" 

Feeling there was no use beating the dead horse, Alexander then let his dream boat go for the time being and went on to his last request. 

"Ahh…that." And Lord Janus produced awakard face.

After rejecting Alexander like that even he felt a bit embarrassed to again object so openly.

But it was only for a while as the old man thickened his skin to point that,

"Blacksmiths are usually part of many trade guilds my lord. So asking so many of them to move…"

"Guilds! What guilds" But before Lord Janus could go on Alexander harshly interjected in a slightly annoyed tone, saying, 

"You by now should control all of their iron ore supply. What do mean they will object? The day you stop giving them ore, the day they die."

Alexander would never buy that such a huge family could not order around a mere hundred artisans.

They were not that weak.

He further added, 

"Besides, I'm not asking them to become slaves. I will even allow them to return to their homeland once every year." 

"I just want them to work here for 10 years, then they can leave. I will even give each of them a generous parting gift."

Alexander's insistence on these blacksmiths was because there was indeed a shortage of them in Zanzan.

Particularly, he wanted to open his own shop selling cast iron products such as pots and pans, cutlery, farming tools, and many other kinds of civilian products to cater to the masses.

This would be a far better way to use his refined iron rather than sell them by the ingots.

But to set up such a large production facility he would of course need blacksmiths, a lot of blacksmiths.

Furthermore, he hoped that with more blacksmiths, he would be able to start making plate armor far enough along the line.

That was still a long way off, but he wanted to start on that journey now.

Which was why he was a bit frustrated when denied this progress.

And seeing this, Lady Miranda felt it would be better to just come and say the real reason for their objection, 

".....Lord Alexander is right. We indeed can send you these blacksmiths." 

"But you see these people also know various smithing techniques that are exclusive to our family."

"I'm sorry, but we cannot reveal them." Lady Miranda sounded very firm on this.

Those secrets that she was referring to had been learned over generations after all.

Anybody would be unwilling to share them so easily.

But Alexander only chuckled at this myopic view, feeling these two were still living in the past.

And decided to point out the obvious.