Wrecking Fantasy with Technology

The Country of Eruchea:-

After Harry changed up, he returned to his office and called for his butler.

“Stephen, do you know about the trading of ores mentioned in this letter?”, asked Harry when he saw his butler entering the room.

“Yes, your majesty. That would be about the ore exports to the demon country being done since the time of the previous king’s father.”, replied Stephen, the butler, in a courteous manner.

‘So, this wasn’t some shady side business that the meatball was doing. Seems like the demons wouldn’t be trying to harm us then.’

“This letter says that they will be coming today for conducting their business. Is there anything special that I need to keep in mind for this meeting?”

Harry felt the need to ask this.

He was new and didn’t even know of the trade with demons until he read the letter.

That seemed to be an important revenue source for his country and Harry didn’t want to mess it up so early on.

“There isn’t much to worry about, your majesty. They usually come around midday every month. All the things to be sold have already been collected and stored at the proper locations. You don’t need to worry about that as well.

But there are three things that you must keep in mind.

First, they are a race that values the strong. So, they might not treat you with much respect if you are weaker than the person talking to you.

Second, they rarely come to the palace and the trades are conducted at the location of their arrival.

And most importantly, their appearances, though like us humans, are still significantly different from us. I hope that it doesn’t affect you when you face them. For if you aren’t lucky, the demon you offend might try to harm you or even kill you.”

Harry wasn’t too fazed by this.

He had already asked the system about the demons when he went to change clothes and was just confirming things from his butler.

“Hmmm, is that so? I’ll try my best to stay calm. But what is this place that you’re talking about?”

Harry was pretty curious about how the demons managed to travel halfway around the world just for ores.

“You may not worry about that. Though the place is a bit far, you can reach there in about two hours by carriage. When the time comes, one of the servants will guide you to the location themselves.”, replied the butler.

“Ah, I understand. Thanks a lot for helping me out Stephen!”, Harry thanked his butler with a smile on his face.

“No need to thank me, my lord. For I was just doing my duty.”, replied Stephen before he stepped towards the door.

A few seconds after he left, Qing and Shin broke in through the door.

“Elder brother! What’s going on!? 

Another attack!?”

“We were a little far away when you shouted.

And when we asked a nearby maid, she said that you shouted something about people coming over here!

Is everything okay, Harry?”

The two of them looked as if they were prepared to go to war or something.

“Woah, Woah, guys! Stop right there!

We’re not going to war or anything!

Just some people are coming in for business purposes, not to try and kill us, okay?”

Harry thought that it was best to stop them before they make a mess.

“But Harry, the last time you said that people were coming, you blew up that large area in the forest and were asleep for 2 straight days!

How can we be calm right now!?”

“Yeah, elder brother Harry, elder brother Shin is right!

Last time we weren’t prepared. But this time, we will surely defeat whoever comes our way!

And you can’t be sure if the people coming might not try to hurt us!”

The two sounded as if they would be ready to fight Godzilla in hand-to-hand combat right now.

“Guys! At least confirm from me about what I said.

I remember saying that they weren’t coming to fight.

But instead of asking me, you asked the maid and built upon your misunderstanding!

And don’t blame the maid for not telling the entire thing properly!

How would she know what ‘people are coming’ meant for you guys?

She just heard me and told what she felt was a simpler version of that to you guys.

That’s it!

And remove all this get up quickly. We will need to move in some time.”

The two were wearing makeshift camo clothing and face paint from God knows where.

Harry couldn’t go meet the demon traders while carrying two people who would basically look no different from savage tribals to the people of this world.

He couldn’t exactly leave them behind either.

Since if he did that, he’d probably find a much scarier demon waiting for him back home if he came back late.

Finally, after sorting all this out, Harry returned to doing as much of the remaining paperwork as he could before the time for departure came.

And after about one hour more of working his life away, he heard a knock on his door, calling him to the carriage.

And so, Harry departed the palace on his carriage along with Qing, Shin and a maid from the palace, who was there to guide him.

They travelled to a location that was a bit far from the populated areas.

Harry figured that it was just to prevent any person living in the country from coming in contact with the demons.

Otherwise, the trading might be negatively affected if the representative from the demons’ side takes offence to anything someone else might say.

The place they arrived at seemed to look like a noble’s mansion that had been abandoned since long back.

The insides, however, looked more like a warehouse filled with a pretty large amount of ores and similar material.

There were many pillars to support the entire structure but no rooms were made to increase storage space.

There was a door on the other side of the warehouse as well.

And in the middle of the building was what seemed to be a meeting table with several chairs surrounding it.

‘That door must be the entrance for demons and the table would be for any discussions that any side might want to hold.’, Harry thought to himself as the four of them walked into the building.

“Ah, your majesty, it appears that we have come a little early than the usual time. Since the other gate seems unused, it doesn’t seem like the d-de- the other party have arrived yet!”

The maid accompanying them seemed to hesitate in speaking about the demons.

“Hey, what happened? Anything wrong?

You seem to be a little afraid of, as you called them, ‘the other party’.

You don’t have to hesitate. Just speak your mind.”

Harry asked the maid in a gentle voice.

“A-ah, no, it’s nothing, your majesty!

It’s just that I’m very new here, just came in a little more than a week back.

And I was only told about the d-de-demons and all that a few days ago.

I haven’t actually met them and from what I know from old legends, they are very scary and dangerous beings. That’s why I got a bit scared…”

Harry could help but smile at her cute little personality.

‘But wait! Why did those guys send a completely new maid with us!?

I think I’ll need to have a serious talk about this incident.’

Harry was just thinking this when the opposite door started glowing from its edges.

“Ah, so they use some sort of portal spells!”

Harry voiced out his thoughts as the door opened.

And from the other side, came a single woman followed by what seemed like her bodyguards.

These demons looked somewhat humanoid, with upright bodies, heads on top, legs at the bottom and arms at their sides.

But other than these very basic similarities, they were very different from anything Harry had seen in real life.

The bodyguard demons were very bulky and covered with very rough-looking grey skin, thick scaly arms and legs that looked somewhat like thick tree trunks made of stone. Their body also seemed to have some form of a rocky layer over most of their skin and they didn’t seem to be wearing any visible clothing.

The lady, on the other hand, looked very slim in comparison.

However, her entire head looked like it was covered with eyes, sort of like a horror-movie version of the Greek monster called Argus Panoptes, and had no hair.

The rest of her skin looked pitch black, as though it was sucking out light like a black hole.

Her limbs seemed to be made of intertwined tentacles of some sort.

And the short dress that she was wearing seemed to keep changing colours.

The woman walked straight to the table while the other men walked to the side and started collecting the ores.

‘Seems like they were workers and not bodyguards…’

Harry thought as he also approached the table.

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see that Qing and Shin looked a little tense while the maid seemed to be quite afraid of the newcomers.

“Hooh, it seems like that meatball sent someone new to greet me...”, the demoness said with what seemed to be a smile. (It was difficult to tell with all the eyes covering her face.)

“Ah, you’re mistaken about that one.

You see, that ‘meatball’ isn’t king any longer.

I bought the kingdom from him and am its new king.”, Harry said with a business-like smile on his face.

He was going to be working with her for a long time, so it was better to come clean about his identity.

“Oh, a new king and you say you bought the kingdom?

Quite the bold man you are!

And quite fearless as well! Just look at how calm you look compared to the other three newbies! Hahaha!”

The demoness started laughing while looking at Harry’s companions.

Suddenly, the system’s voice rang in his head.

[Neural damage due to invasion of external energy detected.

Commencing cellular restoration.

…

Cellular restoration complete. All traces of external energy have been expelled.]

‘Oh, it seems she tried playing some mind games with me…

Too bad for her, I got my system to protect me!’

“Why thank you, ma’am.

How about we sit and talk? I don’t think you would prefer to tire your legs if our talks take time.”

Unlike her, Harry continued to be formal, not showing the slightest hint of noticing her failed attempt.

“No need to be so formal, boy!

I can see that you are the strongest mortal I have met in my life.

If you didn’t know, we demons respect strength and you don’t need to be too formal with me as I have deemed you to be strong enough!

Just call me Liang!”, the demoness said with an amused-looking expression as she sat on one of the chairs.

“Alright then, Ms. Liang. You can call me Harry.

From your name, I guess that you’re the one who sent the letter?”, said Harry in a less formal manner.

“Ah, yes! I did. But I addressed it to the former king.

Totally didn’t know that you guys would change rulers so suddenly...”

“Oh, yeah, I know it was sudden. But what can I do?

I offered that meatball some money and he gladly gave everything to me and ran like he’d been preparing for this for days!

I really felt like laughing my a*s off when I saw that guy!”

Harry felt that he could be a little more relaxed with her compared to most other people.

She looked like someone who wouldn’t care if God was in front of her as long as she found him weak enough.

Meanwhile, Harry’s three companions had expressions of shock on their faces when they saw him joking around and laughing with such a monstrous-looking person.

‘I have seen a bunch of horror movies back on Earth. To the point that most of them didn’t scare me one bit.

And Ms. Liang seems so much more friendly and so less scary than those ghosts and monsters from those movies!’, Harry thought to himself as he continued discussions about the ore business.

The discussions mainly consisted of talks about what kind of things were currently being exported, what more the demons wanted and the prices that the humans demanded.

But after a while, the talking even shifted to more scholarly topics like languages and sciences.

“It seems that not only are you exceptionally strong, but exceptionally wise as well!

And you say that you found this from your own experiments?”

Liang looked very intrigued with Harry when she heard about some of the scientific knowledge he had.

“Yes, I did experiments to verify the results.

But the initial knowledge came from some very old books which I, unfortunately, do not possess anymore.”

Harry decided to stick to his old excuse since he still had Qing and Shin sitting beside him.

“So, Ms. Liang, how long do you plan on staying here? I have some new products that you might be interested in. But they will take a few days to mass-produce.”

“New products? If they’re coming from a man like you, I think I’d love to hear more!”

Liang looked quite excited about hearing about new things.

“Well, I have made a plant-based high-quality parchment that I’m calling ‘Paper’.

Unfortunately, the first batch is probably still not finished and even that isn’t in a large quantity.

You might have to wait a few days before we can produce enough for export.”, said Harry while feeling like a salesman.

“A plant-based parchment, you say?

We too have something similar, but it’s still of worse quality than animal hide parchments.

If you say that it’s ‘high-quality’, it needs to be the quality of top-quality parchment, you understand?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about the quality, Ms. Liang!

Currently, it’ll be just as good as some of the best parchments in the market.

But if you give us a year to develop, its quality will far surpass the quality of even the most expensive ones.”