Chapter 538: Mechanical Town
As magic flourishes, it is inevitably accompanied by the backwardness of technology.
Since coming to the Albareth Empire, Kira has hardly seen any excellent magic items or magic weapons, which is very different from Ishgar.
You know, even in the Kingdom of Fiore, there are many adventure guilds, treasure hunters, mercenaries, killers... These people may not all use magic, but most of them can use magic props and weapons, and they are also the most loyal customers of some businessmen.
These merchants united and formed a chamber of commerce that specialized in buying and selling weapons. This chamber of commerce was not controlled by the Council of Councilors, but was under the management of multiple kingdoms, continuously supplying special magic weapons to these kingdoms.
Of course, this is a covert operation; on the surface, they are just ordinary magic shops.
Kira is a relatively famous businessman in this group of guilds. His "Hope Hut" was very active for a while, but because Kira later shifted his focus to magic toys, the production of weapons gradually decreased.
In the past year, Silver has been like a supernova. With his extraordinary magic weapons, he has come from behind and successfully crushed a large group of bosses in the Chamber of Commerce, becoming a leader in the Chamber of Commerce. The weapons he makes are deeply loved by royal families in various countries, and the purchasing volume is higher every month.
Unfortunately, even such an arms guild, which is spread almost throughout Ishgar, finds it difficult to extend its influence to Arakitasia, simply because there is an alchemist who masters mechanical refining here.
The Twelve Shields of the Holy Spirit, Val Ishit the Judge.
…
On the central street of a small town, several young boys and girls who looked to be in their teens or twenties, stared in amazement at the mechanical toys moving back and forth on the street, like country bumpkins entering the city for the first time, as if their worldview had been violently impacted by a hundred giant dragons.
"This... am I dazzled? Happy, did you see that?"
"I see, Natsu! It's amazing!"
"Quick! Hit me! See if I'm dreaming..."
"Leave it to me!"
BANG!!!
"It hurts! It seems to be true!"
"These mechanical toys have self-awareness? How interesting!"
The cherry-haired boy was running around excitedly with a blue cat . Whenever he caught a mechanical member, he couldn't wait to ask questions, his face full of curiosity of discovering a new world.
"Do you need to eat? Do you use the bathroom? Can you use magic? How cool!!"
"I say, you two, stop running around!!"
The pretty girl with long golden hair complained skillfully and chased after them with her voluptuous legs. This place was different. She had to keep an eye on these two troublemakers all the time. If she let them make trouble everywhere as usual, they might soon attract enemies that were difficult to deal with.
This isn't the Kingdom of Fiore, and Fairy Tail isn't that prestigious!
Gray looked around and scratched his short black hair with his right hand in confusion: "I always feel that everything here is weird... How can there be robots in this world that can move and talk like humans?"
The little girl Wendy at the side thought of Irene, who had just separated not long ago, and her exquisite and unparalleled personality-adding magic, and said delicately: "If I can master the personality-adding magic of Irene-san, I should be able to do it."
"But wouldn't personality addition allow them to become human like her two maids? These people in front of us still retain mechanical characteristics!"
Urrutia gave them some knowledge: "They are mechanical people. Like humans, transcendents, dragons, and demons, they are an independent group! However, there are very few mechanical people. Perhaps the citizens of this town account for more than 90% of all mechanical people. In addition, there are some people scattered outside."
"The mechanical people out there, like me and the harpy?"
As a transcendent who broke away from her own tribe and followed humans, Xia Lulu can understand this better.
"Of course, it is also possible that the mechanical tribe here is actually a branch that is distributed outside, and the real tribe is in an even more unknown secret place."
"So that's how it is..."
Although the surroundings were noisy and no different from a normal town, Erza did not relax her vigilance. After carefully looking around several times, she asked, "Is the person you are looking for in this town? It shouldn't be too difficult to find a human among the mechanical race?"
Kira spread his hands helplessly after hearing this: "I'm so sorry, the guy we're looking for is also a member of the Mechanical Tribe! - Although he looks no different from a normal person."
"Also, the mechanical people here are not all short and toy-like! Look over there..."
Several people followed the red-haired boy's gaze and saw several teenagers who looked like normal humans but got along well with other short robots.
The faces of these mechanical people are full of laughter. At first glance, they look like an older brother playing with his younger brothers and sisters. Obviously, even though they are of different races, they have emotions and hearts just like humans!
Thinking of this, several people couldn't help but smile knowingly.
This is the Mechanical Town. In the Albares Empire, it is under the jurisdiction of the Twelve Holy Shields, the Judge Val, just like the town where Kira stayed for a month before.
However, although this is a town directly managed by Val, it seems that out of consideration for the safety of the tribe members, it is not well-known. Even the natives of the Albares Empire may not know that there is a "mechanical town" here.
The boys and girls standing on the street making a fuss were naturally Kira and Urtia, two members of the "War End Negotiation Team", and Erza and her group from the "Support Travel Team".
As for Selene, she took Irene to Kiltina as a guide to find the alchemist who could use "Body Transmutation".
A few days ago, after Kira and Irene successfully negotiated, the two had a conversation that seemed unknown to no one, but was actually intended to be overheard by everyone.
That night, Kira, who happened to get up to drink water, unexpectedly saw Irene and Erza having . Because he didn't want to ruin the atmosphere between them, Kira did not go up to disturb them.
What puzzled Kira was that the next day, the two of them were still as usual, as if nothing had happened. Kira tried to probe them several times, but he couldn't find out what they talked about, how far their relationship had been repaired, or whether they had been affectionate with each other...
"I'm so envious! I'm so envious of both of them!"
As if she noticed Kira's gaze, Erza felt uncomfortable all over. She frowned and asked, "What happened to you these days? You always talk to yourself like this. What happened?"
“Nothing…Nothing…”
Kira waved his hand nonchalantly and returned his gaze to the busy street in front of him.
"Let's split up and move faster. Once we find them, send a signal to gather."
"Can."
“Yeah!”
"Let's go on an adventure!!"
Kira and the others came here naturally because they found out from Irene the location of Val, who was also one of the Twelve Shields. Of course, it was just an approximate location, and it was no different from the place Silver had found out at the beginning.
But when they were halfway there, Kira suddenly received a message from Silver.
Previously, due to Kira and Silver's many collaborations, the two of them 'jointly' created a communication device similar to a mobile phone to facilitate long-distance communication. This time they were able to find this place because Silver sent Kira the location.
The location is this mechanical town.
What surprised Kira was that this town, which looked about the same size as Magnolia, was actually in a state of near self-sufficiency. Although it still maintained open contacts with the outside world, almost no one went out and no one came in. All the external stations were basically for decoration, and the number of people entering and leaving might be less than a hundred in a year.
This is mainly because the mechanical race does not need to eat like humans - they do not have stomachs for digestion and absorption - so they do not need to conduct business with the outside world for food.
While these people were observing the town curiously, the residents here, those strange mechanical people, were also observing Kira and his group .
Normally, only mechanical people live here. Now a few humans have unexpectedly broken in, just like a few huskies mixed in with a wolf pack - they are mechanical people, they are sensitive to each other, and they can't tell whether they are wolves or dogs.
Heehee, heehee, heehee...pointing and talking...
The strange looks made Kira, who was the center of attention, feel a little weird.
