B2 - Ch 16 - Books and Bullet Casings (Patreon)

Within the first day, Scribe transcribed one copy of the Farmer’s Almanac. After that, I walked down the street with a hood, entered Riley’s Printing Press, and patiently waited in line.

It was a busy day, and it was rather pleasant to act, well, normal for once. However, that was rudely interrupted when Riley saw my face and started bowing, yelling, and apologizing until the entire line of customers thought they might get executed.

“Relax,” I sighed. “Now listen. I’m going to need 80% of your paper and ink. Order eleven times the usual amount tomorrow. I’ll need 80% of that, too.”

With those words, I put a metric ton of paper (she was the largest printer in the world) into a massive spatial bag, put ten gold coins on the counter, and left before she could continue making a scene.

I thought she’d get used to me.

I was wrong.

‘Maybe it would be good to hire a PD to figure out how I could help her stop being obsequious….’ I thought. However, I stopped walking. ‘That’s what stalkers do. Well, and kings. I know everything about my enemies….’

Thinking about the ethics of institutionalized stalking, I returned to my room and drank some tea with Thea. Then, I started unpacking paper into 40 stacks of paper.

Then, with a mighty raise of 40 pens, I set to work.

“Euclid’s Elements,” I said, watching one pen get started. Once it got into the rhythm, I added another book, like violas to violins: “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Medicine.”

Another pen worked in unison, drawing, writing, and printing these novels.

Since my mind was a blueprint for memories, Scribe didn’t have to read through my mind to remember. Instead, it was very low maintenance, allowing me to get to work on the next one.

“On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin,” I continued. “CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers….”

…

An hour and a half later, my eyes were bloodshot. “Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook by David Werner,” I sighed. “The Nature and Properties of Soils by Nyle C. Brady and Ray R. Weil, Gray’s Anatomy… the long ass medical textbook by Henry Gray, not the show….”

After mastering Scribe, I had over thirty-six books printed simultaneously. I doubt this was a skill that people were supposed to “master” at this level or if someone could “master” it. All I knew was that my logged memories were like a digital Word doc, ready to be printed.

Still, I figured that my photographic memory (to be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference yet) would be slower for Scribe. Or maybe not. The shit was magic. I guess we’d just have to wait and see.

The reason it took so long was because prioritizing books was ridiculously hard. Many books, like Euclid’s Elements, were easy to understand and game-changing. Other books, like The Organic Chemistry of Drug Synthesis by Daniel Lednicer, are world-changing but useless with the current level of technology. It was frustrating.

My solution? Just print them all and then see how well they jive.

“Principles of Agronomy by T. Yellamanda Reddy and G.H. Sankara Reddy,” I said, my eyes watering from boredom. “I wonder if I should start printing children’s books first….”

My head fell on the desk, and all the pens dropped in unison, making my eyebrow twitch. Then, once again, I went through the laborious process of restarting them one by one before I looked to the sky with vacant eyes. “Why is life this hard even with magic?”

By the time the night finished, I had copied the first 50 pages of 36 books. Woo….

What a brutal number.

“I need to figure out if Scribe can work on 40 chapters simultaneously….” I muttered. “Otherwise, it’ll take two months to finish 40 books.”

Never underestimate page numbers. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Medicine alone was 5,000 pages. Gray’s Anatomy is 1,600 pages, and it has to copy hyper-realistic images. It was a miracle that Scribe could reproduce them.

Either way, I had to get Riley working around the clock. That meant she’d feel Carter’s pain. With any luck, she’d stop worshiping me and would be ignored.

Hopefully.

The moment I walked into her shop, I dumped all 300 pages of the Farmer’s, which was my first usage of Scribe, on her desk.

“O-Oh, King Everwood!” Riley bowed.

I took a deep breath. “Riley. Hire 500 employees and contractors. I need my English translators to translate these into multiple languages. Then I need copies mass-produced. You’re going to print over ten million pages this year, and artists will need to create images for all of them.”

In preparation for Scribe, I taught 50 multi-linguists how to speak, read, and write English so they could translate the works. Those people worked for Riley. Still, we’d need a lot more.

“R-Right away,” Riley bowed again. “Wait….”

I gave her a thin smirk that said, You shouldn’t just agree from now on. However, I pulled out a small treasure chest filled with 1,000 gold. “This is your advance. You’ll make twenty times this year—personally.”

While her eyes trembled, I gave her a contract. “Welcome to the Everwood Company. This year, you’ll be as famous as Carter.”

With those words, I walked out as Thea giggled. The brunette’s face was priceless. Overwhelmed, stressed, happy, grateful, and downright crushed all at once.

“Once she processes that, she’ll be a lot less formal,” I chuckled. “Poor woman.”

With that chuckle, the printing revolution started. I learned that I could have 50 transcribing simultaneously and could do 50 chapters as easily as I could do different books. However, the only weak point was that the book images took at least ten times longer per page. Still, images are the only thing that keeps people going for non-fiction textbooks, so they were necessary.

More importantly, there were blueprints.

It was simple living, and Thea and I enjoyed it.

That was until, of course, Rema figured out that I was in Sundell for the better part of a week. After that, the easy days instantly ended. It all started with three loud knocks that rattled my chest. “RYKER!”

“Coming!” I said, half sarcastically, half mourning.

When I opened my door, a fiery redhead stamped her foot. “What have you been…?” I opened it further so she could see fifty pens copying books in my room.

“I’ve been creating civil engineering manuals, text manuals, carpentry manuals, steam engine blue—”

“That doesn’t explain how you’re doing it!” Rema exclaimed, more bewildered by the second. It wasn’t aggressive, just overwhelmed.

As if anticipating this dreaded day, a lone pen flew to my palm and inked out a reply:

“Magic.”

Rema almost slapped me senseless as soon as she read it.

“It’s called Scribe, literal magic that transcribes books from my memory,” I said. “We’re going to mass produce one million copies of books and change the world again. Would you like to join us? We have tea.”

She blinked a few times in a haze, but then she snapped out of her daze. “No, I will not have tea and watch your pens fly around! There’s work to do!”

“Suit yourself. Is there anything else?”

Rema’s eyes flashed with murder as she saw my cheeky smile. Then, she physically grabbed me and started pulling me out of the room while I dramatically complained about not wanting to go back to work.

Thea followed behind, giggling at my mockery because it made Rema very, very frustrated.

The next thing I knew, I was in the audience chamber for ten hours, blanketly saying yes to things. However, every so often, I would say, “Stop being greedy,” and then look to the next person in line as if I were at the DMV and call, “Next!”

Rema wasn’t happy. However, as always, the efficiency with which I got things done pacified her. “It’s impressive how you rule,” she admitted after I finished. “It seems so hands off, but it’s more….”

“The word you’re looking for is murderous,” I smirked. “Everyone airs on the side of caution when you attach: ‘Exploit people, and I’ll replace you.’”

That was indeed how I ended every person’s request. It was a charming touch that reminded people—no matter how prominent they were—that they were replaceable in my eyes.

“Yes. It’s just… strange, I guess.”

I shrugged. “Back in my world, everyone was disposable. We had this thing called the internet, and it could dethrone almost anyone.”

Rema blinked twice. “What was it?”

“I tool with the power to shatter civilizations, but mostly used to watch cute cats doing dumb shit,” I chuckled. “Okay, we’re going back to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow… for work.”

Rema’s eyes lit up, but then she smiled wryly. “Okay. See you then.”

As I left, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of her excitement. I’d be seeing her until she got sick soon. Things were moving very fast.

Very fast.

Within the week, the translators had translated the Farmer’s Almanac, and Riley was mass-printing it. Then she sent copies to the school. After all, most people couldn’t read. However, the children we were teaching could. As a result, they would be the kingdom's advisors and get paid well.

It was a strange dynamic. However, the world develops differently depending on one’s circumstances.

We started selling the book to merchants as well. It was the most practical book of its kind and would fetch a pretty penny. Soon, there would be a book trade, and we’d supply them by the metric ton.

The railroad was coming along at a rapid speed. Since earth mages could easily do the sub-grading (leveling the ground and covering it in gravel), Carter was mass-producing spikes, and Timothy was mass-producing railroad ties. The only time-consuming task was getting people to hammer in the spikes. However, with the soul meat incentives and the aid of magic, we were covering the process far faster than Earthians.

Magic was convenient to the core.

Due to the volatile situation with Cyrvena, leaving for Desiderata was temporarily on hold until I contacted Edikus. However, if the man agreed, then I’d have my entrance into Antigua. Once that happened, I’d be on my way to conquering the world.

Besides, I had something important I needed before we went anywhere.

After another month of mass-producing books, setting up schools, overseeing the railroads, and dealing with the daily affairs of my growing empire, I walked into Carter’s Steelworks, which was now the size of an Amazon Warehouse. It employed over a thousand employees to meet the needs of Novena and now Antigua as well.

While I had paused trade with Cyrvena, I was still trading with Kenrai and Komori on the northern continent, Robensang and Forge in the middle, and Celestium and Rythorin nearing the south. The last two could potentially bring us oil, but it’d take time for us to create systems to allow them to pump and store it.

For now, we built our trade relations and primarily did that through steel weaponry and cooking supplies. That’s why Carter’s shop took up an economic district’s space at this point.

“You know, I almost thought that you forgot about me,” Carter chuckled half-bitterly.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I deadpanned.

He smiled. “Come on. Let’s get a drink.”

“Even though it’s pointless?”

Carter grinned. “Especially because it’s pointless.”

When I asked why, he responded, “Because you can do it as much as you want at work.”

It made me frown. To me, it was like he wanted to spend a lot of money just to drink things that dehydrated his body and tasted like battery acid. But hey, he had the money to drink the tears of poor people. So good on him, I guess—

—but not good on me. I took a single precursory sniff of the glass he gave me and shuddered.

“Is this your way of punishing me for coming back?”

Carter offered me his glass to trade, but I declined. “Nah, I was honestly getting bored. It’s just stamp, stamp, stamp nowadays. There’s no passion in blacksmithin’. The only thing that’s interestin’ is….” He took a thick swig and exhaled it.

“Don’t jinx it,” I frowned.

“Jinx it? Why? You got somethin’ harder than the train?” he asked. “Compared to the ships we’re makin’ in Bringla, the train’s not that difficult. It’s getting borin’ with your ‘stan-dard-ized’ measurements, or whatever the hell you call them. It’s bullshit.”

“You got an ego on you now.”

“Damn right, I do. I serve the whole damn world,” he chuckled, taking a swig that made me grateful I wasn’t on Earth anymore.

“Well, you’re in luck. This is indeed more difficult than creating a train, but not for the reasons you might think,” I pulled out a bullet casing and handed it to him. “This is top secret. It’s a 50-caliber sniper rifle cartridge. The challenge is creating something the exact shape and size with a stamping machine out of brass.”

Carter’s face stiffened. “How the fuck am I supposed to do that? There’s a big difference between stampin’ a pot out of a sheet and making something this tiny.”

“It’s the same as creating a pipe,” I explained. “Create a brass tube, then cut it to the right length. Stamp one side to make the base solid, load it with some top secret shit, and then put it through a drawing machine.”

Translation: Take a tube, smush one side, put in gunpowder and a projectile, and then elongate it into the right shape.

Carter snorted and took another drink. “Top secret shit? This is the miniature mortar, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “Do you understand what you’re askin’ for? This is precision. If a railroad spike’s a bit off, that ain’t a problem, yeah? But if this thing’s a bit off here, it will—”

“Explode,” I confirmed. “But that’s the beauty of trimming and modern equipment.”

He frowned and looked away.

“Carter.” I knocked on his desk twice. “While what you’ve made has changed the world. This….” I lifted the cartridge. “This determines who changes the world. And that person will be me.”

Carter looked me in the eyes and then chuckled in disbelief. “I met your crazy ass when you were ten…. Now you’re takin’ over the world. They grow up so fast.”

I rolled my eyes, pulled out a small treasure chest, and opened it. “10,000 gold as an advance,” I said. Then, I pulled out multiple books. “And these are on metallurgy pertaining to creating things like this. For obvious reasons, I don’t have exact books on manufacturing these things commercially. But these should help you a lot.”

His eyes widened in shock when he saw the book's detailed pictures, blueprints, and information. “What does this—”

“Chances are, I don’t know what it means.” I cut him off and made eye contact. “These books are for professionals—people like you. I don’t understand the specific terminology. However—”

I pulled out a dictionary. “Here’s a dictionary. Look up words, and they’ll tell you the meaning.”

Carter’s eyes bulged.

I knocked on his desk. “Gold. Books. Blueprints. Gold, gold, gold. Make it happen.”

With those words, I rubbed his bald head, something that wigged him out, and left the room. The world was moving too fast, and I couldn’t spend that much time on any given detail. There were thousands of things to make and not enough time.

This was the start of the industrial revolution, and soon, the entire world would change. We were moving out of the Everwood Empire and reaching an international stage.

2

After leaving his shop, I met up with Rema and continued running the kingdom. It was a boring time that mostly involved paying people, agreeing to things, and ensuring that the long list of shit that I started randomly would come to fruition.

It was almost winter, anyway. Soon, there would be more time, and I’d spend most of it transcribing books and setting up for the future.

There were just two loose ends to tie up.

First, I needed to speak to Edikus. Secondly—

“We’ve gotten ahold of world leaders who wish to witness King Aelius’ execution,” Rema said. “You need to focus on this, Ryker. This isn’t an event where you can do anything less than adhere to decorum. If you mess this up, you’ll break down trade relations with Juntao countries, Rabensang, and all the southern parties. You could bring a world war upon yourself.”

“Do you think I wouldn’t take this seriously?”

“It’s not about taking it seriously,” Rema replied. “You’ve gotten lazy.”

I glanced at her and snorted. “Lazy? Not irresponsible? Haphazard? Or immature?”

“No, it’s lazy,” Rema reiterated. “When I met you, you were a shining star of etiquette who got by through following the rules of society. Things were easy for you. Now you’re out of practice, and even trying brings subpar results.”

I opened my mouth to retort but found myself at a loss for words. “Okay.” Then, after a long sigh, I fished out a pack of invitations, each assigned to world leaders. “These will be the official invitations. Also….”

I pulled out small sheets of paper. There were the words: “Marcus Aurelius” in the standard Latin alphabet. Just seeing it raised my blood pressure. ‘Sending English letters makes me feel like I’m handing out secrets,’ I thought. ‘But in this world, these symbols might as well be hieroglyphs.’

With a nervous gaze, I pulled them back into my bag. “Never mind.”

The words “Marcus Aurelius” were my invitation to Edikus. If it attracted him, it would change everything. Whether he’d attack me or create a temporary alliance—well, we’d just have to wait and see.

Either way, I was holding back for now. There was time before the execution next summer, and I wanted 50-caliber sniper rifles posted on that motherfucker’s head.

I wasn’t unreasonable. I’d create a shaky alliance if necessary. However, if he tried anything, I’d teach him the consequences of taking Thea, Rema, and my parents hostage.

Unfortunately for Edikus, he fucked up before my hyperthymesia was reduced, and my minor forgiveness spell didn’t work on him. So, if I had any grievances about killing him, there weren’t any now. If he messed up, one of us would die, and I didn’t plan on it being me.

—

[A/N: Life’s been hectic getting set up with work, and my schedules all twisted. I need to lower writing to two days a week. However, I will post a beta read backlog for another novel I worked on before I got a job. It won’t be polished (as I can’t write more right now). However, I assure you, it’s literary crack on another scale. It’s worth it.

The story will be exclusive to my patrons for now. I doubt it’ll reach Royal Road for a month or two. It’s weird getting a job after two years of non-stop writing. So we’ll see how things play out. Cheers!]