Chapter 448 — The New Order Is Complete
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
At the lord's mansion in Xuanyao City, a silver-white metal sphere one meter thirty across, its surface painted with a delightfully comical grinning face, was thumping against the front gate with a force neither too hard nor too soft, and behind the sphere floated a metal case less than a meter long.
After two knocks the gate swung open from within, and Betty appeared in the doorway in her maid's dress. The little maid blinked at the iron-ball visitor, a flicker of surprise on her face: "Mr. Egg? You're here?"
Though this iron-ball visitor rarely left his "mechanical throne," Betty had often been dragged all over the city by Rebecca — most often to the factories and research facilities — so she was naturally well acquainted with the "Mr. Egg" standing before her.
"Is the lord in?" A cheerful humming voice came from inside the silver-white sphere. "Or Miss Rebecca will do — I have something good to show them!"
Betty blinked and took a second to react. "The lord and the young lady are both out. They've gone to the Magical Technology Institute, but they should be back soon."
Nikoxi Egg bobbed his round body up and down. "That's fine. I can go in and wait."
The oddly shaped "Mr. Egg" was the territory's master of mechanical technology, a figure the lord valued greatly — Betty knew that much — so she did exactly as Gao Yang had instructed her before, and led Mr. Egg up to the study on the mansion's second floor.
As the territory's chief of machinery, Nikoxi Egg seldom left the Mechanical Institute, and even less often the industrial district in the city's east, but that did not mean he was ignorant of what went on in the territory. The moment he entered Gao Yang's study, his gaze fell on the map of the Southern Region hanging on the wall, and he noticed that in the upper part of the map, the spot marked Boulder Fortress now bore the Cecil emblem.
"At least we can sleep soundly now," a low humming voice came from inside the metal sphere. "All those shells weren't wasted after all."
The little maid Betty stood in a corner of the study. She did not much understand the lord's business of war, nor was she interested in it; she simply stood there quietly, looking for all the world as though her mind had wandered off to the heavens, and who could say what was going on in that little head of hers.
Nikoxi Egg waited in the study a while, grew a little bored, and could not resist striking up a conversation with Betty. "By the way, girl — can you read?"
Betty snapped out of her reverie with a start. She froze for a moment, then nodded with some uncertainty. "I can... not all of it, though."
Only after saying this did the slow-witted little maid finally seem to catch up with the situation and belatedly realize she had not yet offered the guest any hospitality. She hurried to pick up her big teapot from the side and carried it toward Nikoxi Egg, who was still rambling on: "Oh, you can read. That's good enough. So do you usually read... hey, wait, what are you doing with that teapot?"
Nikoxi Egg "looked" at Betty with a comical expression (he really had no other expression to use), and then heard the dull-witted little maid say very earnestly, "Mr. Egg, would you like some black tea?"
Nikoxi Egg was instantly dumbfounded. "...Have you seriously never noticed that I don't have a mouth?!"
Only then did Betty seem to study the iron-ball visitor's structure in earnest, even circling him twice as though searching for an opening into which tea could be poured. When she was sure there was none, she drew out a long "Ehh—": "Ehh... you really don't have one!"
"Of course I don't — that face on my surface is painted on, you know that perfectly well." Nikoxi Egg rocked his body and returned to the earlier subject. "Anyway, if you can read, can you read a newspaper?"