Chapter 565 — Steel

But in so short a time, so many people had already come to borrow the harvester and the tractor.

That was thanks to the several machine demonstrations the Office of Government had organized a while back. In front of the people, the Office had shown just how much the farm machines could do, and only then had everyone's doubts been laid to rest; after all, for a farmer, being able to reap more grain outweighed everything else.

The harvester was a new thing, one that had appeared only after the magic-car. It was said that the magical technicians of Xuanyao City had begun research on farm machinery the moment they built the magic-car, and had worked from last autumn to this spring before producing a whole series of incredible machines.

Whatever new technological product appeared, it was first applied to the military to keep the homeland safe, then turned by every means to civilian use to keep the people prosperous—and the pleasures of the upper classes always came last of all. That was what set Cecil apart from everywhere else.

The clerk sorted the records of harvester rentals over the past week, marveling at how fast this new thing, magical industry, had developed—and marveling, too, at this year's harvest.

Since the new policies were put into effect, Horsman had been the region most swiftly and thoroughly transformed. Through the efforts of Governor Daedalus, the Office of Government had applied Cecil's successful experience to this land, and practice had proved the borrowing remarkably effective—especially in agriculture.

Great numbers of farming households from the remote villages had moved to the outskirts of the city and to several key satellite towns; the old noble fields and knightly estates had been re-surveyed and redistributed as contracted land for the new settlers. By distributing seed grain, selling druid potions at low prices, providing unified agronomic training, and adding proper rewards and penalties, the old scattered and haphazard traditional tillage had been swiftly replaced by Cecil-style "planned agriculture"—and now all of it was bearing fruit before people's eyes:

a harvest that could be foreseen.

In the yard, Sam handed the card to the machinist in charge of the machine, then swung himself up by the handrail on its side into the seat beside the machinist and drew a deep breath, trying to settle his somewhat nervous heart.

He glanced down at the shoes on his feet, making sure they had not been damaged while he climbed over the treads and pedals, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

These were, after all, the first new pair of shoes he had owned in years.

The machine started up. Driven by magic, a clatter of moving parts rose from within its steel-built "belly." When it first began to tremble, Sam instinctively gripped the handrail beside him, his palm breaking out in sweat; but by the time the machine rolled smoothly through the courtyard gate, his pounding heart had already settled.

Beyond, he saw land stretching away without end, land waiting to be tilled—and one plot among it belonged to him.

Nothing else could calm him like that.

Sitting atop this mechanical beast, watching the machinist deftly work the levers, pedals, and steering wheel, commanding the ponderous steel creature forward with some technique he could not begin to follow, Sam felt a sudden twinge of envy.

He did not know whether he would ever have the chance to lay his own hands on those levers and pedals. Most likely not, he thought—he was too old now, and could never learn something so complicated. But Parni... he was still young. Perhaps he could manage it.

The boy had learned a great deal at school; he was the cleverest child the family had ever produced. If he kept at his studies, perhaps he too could become a "machinist"—one of those clever folk who devoted themselves to operating machines.

The steel machine rolled out toward the open fields.

Gone were the knights who once paraded through the towns and villages in their armor, flaunting their might; gone too were the noble lords who feasted all day in their castles. In the village taverns, the crowd that had once argued about black magic and sorcerers had now learned to hold up newspapers and hold forth at the top of their voices. And Sam...

Sam sat on the machine carrying him toward his own field, feeling the tremor and the power of the steel beneath him.

This, he supposed, was what they called the "Age of Steel."

...

In Xuanyao City, inside the Machinery Works—Agricultural Machinery Workshop I, Gao Yang gazed at the massive thing before him—crude and plain, yet brimming with a sense of power—and was overcome with feeling.

This thing... so in the end it really had been built in the tractor assembly workshop.

A White Knight from the Yaochen Church was intoning a blessing over the huge contraption: "...may the Holy Light bless its road wheels and tracks, that it may never overturn; bless its gun barrel, that it may never overheat; bless its engine, that it may never lack for power..."

Amid the White Knight's devout (more or less) and solemn (quite genuinely) prayers, the young knight Philip stepped forward and rapped on the hull of the steel war machine, feeling the cold hardness of the metal. Then he turned his head, a faint smile on his face: "My lord, I think I finally understand what you meant by 'the Age of Steel'—just as you said, this truly is an age of steel."