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Crimson Fogland: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG Transmigration
Chapter 20: Through Experience and Hard Work

Chapter 20: Through Experience and Hard Work

Regardless. I didn’t try to intervene with her work, though, and tried to understand the whole concept first. After all, to jump the gun without a firm grasp of the runic inscriptions would be nothing but foolish.

That much was logical.

About half an hour in, Tuilë was near to completing the engraving, exemplified by how the source crystal was filled with runic inscription in its nooks and crannies. Suddenly, her busy writing hand stopped in motion, and she slowly pulled herself back, sighing.

“Is it finished?”

“Well, almost.” She took a deep breath, her tail swaying a bit. “One of the benefits of using better source crystal is that it could take in more lines, meaning it has a larger capacity intake and higher durability than otherwise. Consequently, complex commands could be executed without the need for smaller ones, but my greed exceeded what even a Third-Order source crystal can contain. You get what I’m saying, hmm?”

“Yeah, sure. But can you split the runic inscriptions on the parts of the robot and make it so that only the most key elements are inscribed on the source crystal, maybe that will spare some space which can then further be allocated for other things.”

In a sense, it would be similar to utilizing object-oriented programming, which was a style of programming characterized by the identification of classes of objects closely linked with the methods (functions) with which they were associated.

In layman’s terms, it would be like offloading the redundant parts of the inscription to the core that could later be called upon.

“Riiight… I was so obsessed with the core that I forgot the whole frame. Where did the idea come from, just curious?”

“Uh, it’s…” It would be too late to feign ignorance here. I can’t tell her that I came from another world, can I—?

Seemingly aware of my dilemma, Lunaria interjected, “Maxim like to tinker with ancient relics such as computers… For your information, it’s…”

Lunaria had been aware of my situation since I first came to this world — the only one that understood me the most.

“Interesting.” Tuilë held her mouth in pondering and then said, “Very well. Usually, I don’t want anyone to get involved with my work, but I can make an exception for you two. Maxxy, do me a favor and show me what you can do!”

“Wha… Why so suddenly?” I was about to reject her offer, but this could very well be the time to let my programming skill shine.

Thereafter, I was given the mechanical pen, the catalyst marrow, as well as a paper containing a list of written runic inscriptions.

While runic inscription was simpler and more versatile by several magnitudes from other programming languages that I’d learned, it was by no means easy. Additionally, I had to learn to use it from the basics. What a daunting task.

With the help of both Lunaria and Tuilë, I spent hours inscribing runic inscriptions, adding set after set of commands and functions that made it all work. Since we were implementing my way of doing things, we had to erase some parts of the prewritten runic inscriptions.

There were parts of the robot that were hard to reach because of how tall it was, even with it sitting on the ground; I had to use a highchair to inscribe the back of its head. How hilarious.

One thing to take extra note of in doing this was that I couldn’t make a mistake; I couldn’t just press that backspace or delete buttons and revert back. There was, of course, a way to erase any errors, though I had to soak it with hot water before peeling the wrong part with a specialized tool, which was handled by Tuilë.

As I finished the last line on the leg, I stood tall and tilted my head back, feeling all elated. “That should do it.”

“Are you done? That took a while… Mmmm. This thing is dry as heck but delicious. It’s unfortunate that Lunaria can’t taste food…”

Why is she eating my food…? I thought while looking at her nonchalantly munching on the compressed energy bar that she took from my backpack I put aside while making remarks. Whatever.

“As I already said, I’m not an AI, a robot, or what have you. I’m. A. Digitized. Mind! I have…” Lunaria suddenly stopped.

There might be more to her statement than what was heard by the ear. However, I wasn’t too keen on forcing her to cough up answers to the many questions that she had presented… Not right now, at least.

“So? I can tell it to turn on?”

“If the inscriptions work, then it should be fine… I guess?” She tilted her head, wiping the food stain on her mouth.

“Alright then… Um…”

Come to think of it, this thing didn’t have a name — I basically set its name as “X” as a placeholder. Plus, wasn’t this thing closer to a mechanical golem than a robot? Right, it’s a mechanical golem…

“If I’m not mistaken, the command is… X, activate.”

No response.

Other than the burning on my cheeks, there was nothing else happening than maybe the imaginative sound of the cicada…

“Hmm-hmm. Leave the one to activate this thing to me, the creator.” Tuilë tapped my shoulder with a condescending smile and commanded, “X, activate… C’mon. Turn on? Pretty please?”

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Finding that it wouldn’t respond no matter what she did, she turned around at me with a long face. “Say, did you mess something up?”

“I don’t know…”

I’d made sure that everything was perfect, but then why wouldn’t it work?!

I scratched my head while internally screaming “Have I made a mistake somewhere?” A simple mistake such as missing syntax like a semicolon could cause the program to not function properly. Heck, it might not work at all like the thing before me, but the runic inscription didn’t use semicolons in any way.

Wait a minute… I didn’t connect the frame with the core, so of course it wouldn’t work. What am I, stupid?

It would work just fine if what I added was a simple enchantment, but it wasn’t as simple as adding strength nor durability.

With all that said, I connected the core with the main frame.

With a swoosh from the pipes on its back, the mechanical golem finally activated as the star shape gap in its space shone yellow, and it used its large hands to push itself to its feet.

“Eureka!” I sure am a genius!

Lunaria then commented with her usual snarky remark as Luna-1 floated closer, “This may be a bit late. But Maxim, your name sense is suck as always.”

“Hey, shut it. It’s only a placeholder.”

“Haha! Then, I’m gonna name it. I’ll call it Alfredo.”

I didn’t have a single objection to the name; It was her creation, after all. Moreover, the name “Alfredo” was about right in the mouth and reminded me of something.

The movements of Alfredo the mechanical golem was somewhat rigid and sluggish… There might be a need for fine adjustment and attunement, except that it wasn’t my field of work. Tuilë was the mechanic here, not me.

“Mind if I borrow Lunaria for a few hours? I sure wanna toss around some ideas about the ship’s redesign and prepare a list of the required materials. And… hehe,” Tuilë requested.

Luna-1 floated behind Tuilë and turned left and right repeatedly in quick succession as though telling me not to agree with her request.

“Uuh… No problemo. But on one condition: Please don’t do anything to the drone without Lunaria’s permission.” It was clear as day what she trying to achieve by being left alone with Lunaria, so I had to add this on the off chance that the worst happened.

With a shake of her head, she acquiesced, “Aw, shuck. Guess that will make do for now.”

“Maxim, yo—”

“Alright.” I cut Lunaria’s voice. “I want to sightsee the town for the time being.”

My hunch was telling me that leaving Lunaria here would regret me, but I didn’t want to depend on her too much.

“Why, of course. Do as you see fit.” She nodded, not bothering to see me off. How typical.

It wasn’t like I was expecting much from a girl that only had machines and inventions in her head to begin with.

***

Since I hadn’t had a good chance to take a closer look, I observed the town’s denizens. They moved with an air of purpose and engaged in a wide array of activities. Their shapes were borderline aliens from the usual fantasy races and sometimes bizarre, yes, but they weren’t mutated creatures. They were but native sapient beings that inhabited this place.

They acted no different than humans did — negotiating, talking, making snippy jokes — only their physical features were different from each other, mostly. However, on the surface, discrimination between races seemed to be not a thing here, at least as far as I was aware.

Incidentally, I once asked Tuilë’s race, and she said that it was “achlys” in her tongue. Nevertheless, if I had to remember every single race of everyone here, my head would’ve long since burst before I was done halfway.

In spite of what preceded, I conducted a self-survey about Vocations through [Identification]. I didn’t really get the chance the previous time. And thus far, I noticed that only one out of four or five people had a Vocation — with the majority of them being useless or having little use. Furthermore, not once did I see anyone with more than one Vocation…

People living in this world seemed to be not well aware of the term “Vocation” and called it “miracle power” or whatever. I never heard about the way to check them other than through my Vocation, but I had yet to ask about this to anyone.

Ugh… My head…!

As if to mock my ignorance, lightheadedness suddenly struck my head, and my whole body felt weak. I must have overused my Vocations so much that it gave me a backlash. This was the first time that I felt this strange exhaustion.

Before I knew it, I was standing on a stone-paved road. This place appeared to be a market of some sort, as evidenced by the stalls to my left and right.

“Meat! From dried to living, we got them all! Get ‘em while they’re fresh!” one stall owner that looked like a rhino person shouted.

“Be it for cooking or self-defense, we’ve got the sharpest blades you can find…” Then, there was another who had an appearance that resembled that of the insectoid monster, but without any sharp scythe-like hands and with a gentler face.

“How about some wild berries and tubers for the starving family members or even flowers as a present?” Another with that looked like a reptile man, similar to lizardmen common in fantasy stories but slimmer.

“…”

I strode through the market while inspecting the goods available. Several market stalls displayed curious artifacts, exotic fruits, and sparkling gemstones, enticing passersby with their mesmerizing allure. Curiously enough, there were some stalls selling modern appliances such as electric stoves, kettles, and even batteries, among many others, although most of them were random.

Of course, I didn’t waste time by simply strolling the market; I struck up a conversation with several stall owners to determine the prices of many items as well as to make connections with a “promise” to come back later. The prices might vary a lot depending on the place, but a single source crystal was worth quite a lot. I could buy ten days’ worth of food or even more if I tried to be thrifty. With this, I determined that a single source crystal was about a hundred bucks.

Because the town was located inside an underground cavern, ores were easily available for purchase, and they weren’t too expensive. In fact, some rare-earth elements were sold cheaply unbeknownst by the vendors, but I lacked the ability to use them anyway. Surprisingly, I spotted some unknown shining ores mixed in while I was making my way to the end of the market.

As curiosity got the better of me, I sneaked a peak at its detail through [Identification].

Mithril

A precious silvery metal, stronger than steel but much lighter in weight. Its superb magical conduction makes it an excellent material for making magic items.

Mithril?! So this metal exists in this world…

Gradually, the people around became sparse, the road was becoming grander than ever as opposed to getting dirty like a slum. Not to the point of being made out of gold or silver, but it was definitely cleaner than before.

Also, I was getting closer to the giant fluorescent mushroom in the center. Further ahead, there was a grand white altar situated at the foot of the giant mushroom with dozens of hooded people praying. On closer inspection, the hooded people were wearing masks and looked like cult members… To top it off, there was a symbol of a large mushroom on hooded people’s backs. No doubt. They must be members of the Divine Mushroom Cult.

As a mighty being that protected the realm from the malignant red fog, it was no wonder that the glowing purple mushroom had been consecrated by the people living here.

“Um, I don’t think proceeding any further is a good idea. Time to turn back,” I murmured.

In any case, I’d had seen enough about the culture and the inner working of Aquarine, so I shouldn’t linger here for long. Intruding on a restricted area would be looking for trouble.

But when I was about to do just that, a faint sound appeared beside my ear.