This is the blast furnace.

　Liv said, looking up at the long, narrow facility made of brick 《brick》.

　A blast furnace.

　First, iron ore, charcoal and limestone are poured in from the top of this chimney-like mouth.

　Next, the furnace with the rare magic stone and red ball at the bottom releases the magical energy of the 【Magic Ore】.

　It's also familiar to use the rare magic stone/blue ball from the side to raise the temperature with the rare magic stone/blue ball.

　This is basically the same as the method of defeating the kilns and golems in the blacksmithing workshop until now.

　But with this 【Melting Furnace】, the temperature reached by this 【Melting Furnace】 can achieve an incomparable level of temperature by adjusting the magic power release of the magic ore.

　Iron ore and charcoal react with the high temperature inside the furnace, and the result is pig iron that has melted into sludge.

I see. I wondered what the hell it was all about because of its odd shape.

There's nothing weird about it.

　The woman blacksmith said with a plump, angry tit.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that's pretty cool.

Heh, that's all right.

　Liv was immediately in a good mood when I praised her.

　She is still a woman with a personality like a split bamboo.


　If you ask her further, if you simply wanted to raise the temperature (because all you had to do was increase the amount of magic in the furnace), you could do it in the past.

　However, what was newly introduced in this furnace was a "fireproof brick" that could withstand extremely high temperatures.

　That's right, the bricks were made of refractory bricks that could withstand extremely high temperatures.

　Even if the temperature could be raised, it would be useless if the facility could not withstand it.

　And it seems that the fire-resistant bricks were made possible because Akira's geological survey had revealed the distribution of clay and feldspar in the territory.

　Shohei Yoshioka, who has the data, and the carpenter's master carpenter, consulted with each other before making the bricks.

Looks like everything's going well.

'But hey, ....... There's a bit of a problem, too.

　Liv scratched her head.

'The engineers have been working on the detailed design of the ship, but it looks like we're going to need quite a bit of fusion stone in the building process as well.

What does that mean?

'Yeah. To build a steel ship, you have to form the body parts separately and then 'weld' each one together later in the dock.

　Welding. .......

　This is a technology that melts a joint at an instantaneous high temperature to attach iron parts to each other.

　This technology is said to be necessary because it is not possible to mold a large hull all at once with iron.

　And the instantaneous temperature required for that purpose must be of the level 4 magic [Dociladon] level.

''I see.''

I'll put the burden on you, though: ......

Yeah, you're on your own. I'm on it.

　With that, I bumped arms with the woman smith with a crunch.


　After that.

　I've been struggling a bit to decide who to replace the receiver that was attached to Ichitaro.

　The training of blacksmiths is important, but in the meantime, we still need to build more facilities.

　Besides, we'll need to have the docks built as well.

　I think we should focus on training the construction workers for a while.

　So, I replaced the receiver's floating frame with one of the young men at the carpenter's place.


　Heen! ......

　Well, as soon as that's done, I'm off to Dragonfly.

　I'm going to fly the Black King's circle again and return to the town of Ramu.

　Then I'll lead my elite troops to the tower of the One-Winged Wing and start collecting experience.

　After gaining experience, you will be transferred to your territory to collect the fusion stone.

　Then, after a while, fly to the territory to replace the receiver.


　Hunt for the golem in the tower→replace the receiver in the territory→golem hunting in the tower......


　It's just the same thing.

　For now, we're focusing on training the young carpenters.

''My lord. We're running out of items.''

　After a while, Nao pointed that out to me.

　So when I returned to my domain, I loaded up the remaining sailing ship, the "HANSEN", with magical ores and rare magical stones, and sent it to supply the mini expeditionary force.

　It was a good thing that we had three sailing ships.

　We can use one of them as a supply ship.

　Once the elite troops have completed their supply of items, the sailing ship will carry the fusion stones they have acquired and send them back to their territory.

　When that is done, this ship will be headed to Onigashima.

　Since the ships are loaded with the iron ore that Akira has drilled, the ships will dock on the island in place of the ones transporting the goods to the territory.

　The three sailing ships, the "Hansen", were to be rotated in this way.


　◇


　As I went back and forth between the tower and the territory several times, gradually, strange facilities were built around the blacksmithing workshop, one by one.

　For example, this egg-shaped facility.

　This facility is called a converter, and it is used to force air into the rough pig iron made in the blast furnace.

　Through this process, the pig iron is refined into a strong piece of steel.

　After that, it is fitted into a mold, cooled down, and then made into weapons, buildings, and parts of ships through subtle distortions and the like.

　I guess that formation is where the blacksmith's skills come into play.


　Cancancancancan: ......!


　In addition to the iron-making facilities, the construction of the dock also progressed.

　It was decided to use bricks because the dock had to be protected in sections over a large area.

　In other words, the technique used for steel manufacturing was also useful for building the dock.

　Whenever the Kuroo Maru returned to its territory, bricks were neatly piled up in the hollows along the shore.

　Once the bricks were piled up to a certain extent, they used iron pillars to build a scaffold-like framework.

　The bricks could be used as scaffolding and as an earthquake resistant reinforcement.

　I heard that this was also a trial for iron products.

Eiga-sama (......)

　As I was looking down at the dock construction site, I was startled by Igarashi-san, who was behind me, whispering in my ear.

What is it?　Igarashi-san.

The busy season for ...... Nakamura is over.

Does that mean you're done planting rice?

'Yes. We still have a lot of work to do in the fields, but our busiest period is over.

'Right. Okay, then: .......

Yeah.

　You can mobilize people from Nakamura's unit for quests.

　This means that you can gain experience with 150 troops.