A Black Market LitRPG

The redevelopment of the Culdao Peaks area went smoothly, save for a few minor hiccups from rebellious tribes, which were easily solved by the strike force under Sasha’s control.

Thanks to the effects of the evolution chambers, hobgoblins were now much more common among the goblin population. This made the agricultural, mining and irrigation projects a lot easier – though Kyle controlled the number of hobgoblins carefully, with only a thousand being uplifted in two days.

“Why do we not just evolve every goblin to a hobgoblin?” Sahusa asked Kyle. He, of course wanted to see every member of his race uplifted to their full potential – who would say no to a thousand more improved hobgoblins?

“Not yet. Increased strength does not come for free. Let’s wait and see if there are any side effects before allowing the general population to evolve.” Kyle remained wary of the significant age of the evolution chambers as well as the inherent nature of genetic enhancement.

He himself was a designer baby in his former life – and it required special nutrition up to two times that of a normal human in order to maintain the body. If that occurred to the improved hobgoblins who were now bestowed with extra strength, it would only make the famine worse. Kyle could easily afford the food now for the entire population, but doubling that without worrying about the consequences would cost him even more.

It was also not necessary for every single goblin to be a hobgoblin – the projects could only handle so many other hands working on them. Kyle got started on having the goblins build drainage and sewer systems, improving the basic utilities of the valley, as well as reconstructing many of the damaged homes over the course of the rebellion.

Orisa continued to guide the goblins on terrace farming, calculating the number of seeds and plot area needed for the entire goblin population to achieve self-sufficiency. “Sir, in twelve days’ time, the first round of harvest will be ready. I have staggered the growing periods of each terrace farm area for continued harvesting over two weeks, which means there should be continuous food production.”

Kyle was slightly surprised. “This seed can grow in all conditions?”

“Unless a natural disaster occurs, this is one of the hardier grain variants that can survive nearly every other weather condition. It will be perfect to serve as a staple for the goblins. I have already tested its compatibility with the goblin’s digestive system.”

With the food issue slated to be solved, Kyle turned his attention again to the irrigation project. Hundreds of hobgoblins were now chopping away at trees and digging ditches all across the valley, preparing to divert water trapped in the glacier between mountains. Kyle continued planning the route of the water, wondering if he could redivert it entirely towards the factory to serve as a consistent water supply.

However, creating a brand new river just for the factory would alarm many observers within Raktor, not the least of all Count Leon, who held overall ownership over the entire region of Raktor. Theoretically, all land in the Culdao Peaks belonged to him; it was just that the Count did not find any reason to occupy the area and flush out the goblins.

Once I build the railway connecting the goblin dens and the factory, Count Leon would immediately come running asking for their piece of the pie, or maybe the entire pie himself… Kyle thought carefully, considering all his options. He needed to find a way to transport the coal and iron ore over without being detected.

Kyle moved over to the mines, where the goblins were all hard at work digging a well-supported tunnel through the mountain. Raksha, Merissa and Feldon were all overseeing the project, aiming at joining up all the goblin den through the network.

“How feasible is it to have the resources be transported to the factory instead of overland? I need the railway tracks to be built underground.” Kyle asked them.

Merissa and Feldon were no experts in underground mining, leaving only Raksha as competent enough to answer. “Should not be a problem. It would simply be a concept of slope mining, albeit with a very gradual slope. The main issue would be air ventilation – do we even have enough arcite ore to ventilate the entire network? We might drill shafts into the tunnels to provide filtered air along the way as well.”

It was a fifty-kilometre distance from the iron ore deposit to the factory, which meant significant amounts of ventilation and filtering of air would be necessary to make it less dangerous for the workers. Luckily for Kyle, they had already been digging a tunnel for the transfer of Euria seeds before, so close to three quarters of the job was already done. The remaining sections were simply joining up the old tunnel networks, which only left less than five kilometres of digging to be done.

Kyle shook his head, drawing out the plan he had in his head. “We only need ventilation for the mine and the receiving end of the resources. For everything else in between, the carriage would be completely encased and supplied with its own air.”

“Like a diving bell… but how are we going to lay the tracks?”

“We’ll do it iteratively. The steel factory will buy iron ore and coal from another supplier temporarily and make the steel tracks. Once they ferry the completed tracks over to us, we just need to lay them down one section at a time, using the completed tracks to rotate the workers in and out continuously.”

The plan went as expected, with Kyle sending an order through the Euria Seeds distribution network to Keith and Reese, explaining what the factory needed to build.

On the steel factory side, many of the heavy-duty equipment had been bought from other suppliers, having no time to develop them from scratch. The sinter plant, coke overs, blast furnace and ladles were all ordered from other manufacturers under the wing of Baron Cain. Reese got to work, hiring more and more workers to implement the post-processing of the casted steel, churning out railway sections after a week of setup.

With the new railway sections delivered under escort by Sasha and her strike force to ensure no disruption and observations, the goblin miners began to lay the sections down in the planned direction. The depth of the tunnel became longer and longer, and at some point, the ventilation provided by the normal flow of air was not enough.

Thanks to the already existing underground tunnel network system as well as the work put in by Gulak’s goblins since four months ago,the amount of rock they actually needed to dig through was not as much as anticipated.

Raksha helped to map out the tunnel system calculating the route needed to be taken. Many of the old tunnel systems created by previous abandoned mines that were scattered around the area simply needed to be linked up, many being a few hundred meters away from each other.

With this, the goblins simply split up and built sections separately in parallel, allowing the digging to go faster while eventually joining all of them up.

Long pipes made of fired clay were laid in the tunnels stemming from the entrances of the former goblin dens, along with air pumps worked by hundreds of small goblins pumping air through the clay pipes in to ensure the workers could still breathe.

With the sheer amount of workforce working day and night, the tunnel was completed in twelve days thanks to the prior work done as well as the old tunnel networks, finally reaching the factory.

Reese waited in the basement of the factory, checking the time when the soil in front of him began to crack open, bursting out to reveal fifteen goblins, all sweating and panting. Behind them lay a continuous stretch of railway tracks, big enough for a series of mine carts to fit on it.

Reese quickly added his own air pump on this end of the tunnel, filling the tunnel with air. As he worked with the goblins, a rumbling sound could be heard as a mine cart hurtled down the tracks like a rollercoaster, with Kyle being the first test passenger. The cart came to a stop at the end with manual braking. He stepped out of the cart shakily, immediately jotting down notes on a clipboard.

“Section 4-D is not aligned properly; Section 2-A nearly took my head clean off – needs to be wider. Steel quality in 5-D is not good; severe fatigue noted – mark for replacement.” Kyle muttered to himself.

With this, in two short weeks since the unification of the goblins, they had a functioning steel factory now with its own vertically integrated iron mine and coal deposits, worked by the goblins.

In exchange, goods such as food, household appliances, basic tools and equipment were sent back to the goblin territory, forming the first major trade route between the two territories.

Kyle was now back in Raktor, having solved the dearth of resources. It went a bit slower than he expected, but the factory was up and running now. Baron Cain visited on the day of it’s official opening, smiling widely to himself.

“I never expected you to have the factory ready for me one month ahead of schedule – truly amazing.” Cain praised Kyle, joyous of the fact that he could one-up his fellow Barons and even the Count himself who were all in some sort of race to provide the best equipment and support to the military for the upcoming war. “With this headstart, it means we can start producing weapons for the military.”

“Are you sure the military will buy our weapons?”

“As corrupt as they are, they will once we show them a demonstration. As a start, I will need you to produce enough equipment to arm one of my knight squads to engage in mock combat with their soldiers – this will serve as a good exercise to prove just how effective the new equipment really is.”

Over the next few days, Kyle created various moulds for the steel parts required to create the handguns. The factory’s production was split between railway tracks and weapons, as the military also needed the railway tracks to serve as the backbone of their logistics.

With the low input cost of Kyle’s steel factory, the military public tenders were easily won over by his low bid price, undercutting the market by nearly a tenth of their original price. Even the military generals in Count Leon’s pocket were unable to publicly reject the offer – money was everything in waging war.

“Who is this lowborn peasant under Baron Cain spoiling the market?!” Count Leon raged to himself, calling up all the steel factories under him. “Why can’t you idiots beat his price? How is this new upstart better than all of you combined?!”

[Count Leon, we were the ones who increased the price in the first place due to the unionisation of jobs in order to get a better cut. If we drop it now, the workers may start to rebel!]

“Why haven’t we cut off all sources of iron ore to the new factory?!” Count Leon pressed, knowing the region of Raktor and all prospected iron ore deposits. He was sure that he had full control of all of them.

[That’s the thing we have! We stopped selling iron ore and coal to them three days ago when they applied for the contract, but according to our observers, the factory is still running.]

Count Leon hung up in anger, pondering the situation. If they are still able to run, it either means they are stealing from my iron mines or they have found a new one.

He found the notion of the first theory ridiculous, seeing as he had his own thugs and armed forces guarding the iron mines tightly, which meant that the second theory was far more valid. He immediately arranged a meeting with Baron Cain, planning to pressure him into giving up the mine.

“Baron Cain, you understand well that this entire region of Raktor is under my jurisdiction. Running an illegal mining operation in my territory is tantamount to a declaration of war on my title.” Count Leon smirked as he entered the meeting room.

“You don’t have any evidence of such an operation.” Baron Cain calmly replied. “However, if, hypothetically, there was such a mining operation, it can only be considered illegal if the mining rights have been given to you.”

“All mining rights in Raktor have been given to me by the Emperor himself.”

“Ah, but not for every mine, am I right? I seem to recall a few illegal arcite mines that have not been declared to the Emperor as well. Has he given you the rights to them as well? I’m sure Tryas would be very interested in such mines.”

Count Leon stiffened slightly, his eyes narrowing at Baron Cain. “You… what are you aiming at?”

“Count Leon. We have much to benefit from a mutual agreement here. How about this? You get a cut from the factory, and we both share the prestige of having the county of Raktor be one of the top contributors to the military. Maybe together, we could even put the nobles of Tryas to shame. Don’t you hate how every year they gather us in the capital simply to look down on us?”

Leon did not reply immediately, thinking carefully. As much as he hated how Baron Cain managed to get the upper hand on him, he did not disagree with the concept of showing up the nobles in Tryas. Far too often, he had been looked down on for the rowdy and crime-ridden city of Raktor, which was why he aimed to start a war with Versia to expand his territorial influence.

“Fine.” Count Leon eventually compromised. Starting a fight with Baron Cain would be counterproductive. “I agree to the deal. Let us negotiate on the cut in a moment’s time. I have a call to make.”

Heading outside, Count Leon grabbed his arctech radio, tuning to a specific channel. “Sebastian, I have a job for you.”