The Devil's Evolution Catalog

The matter of the intruders did not affect my daily routine much. Even the outcome of the investigation ended with Misseger telling me, the women and children have been spared, and that was it.

I did not bother questioning her further – Andassis the Seventh really had no reason to deceive me on such an inconsequential matter.

In fact, the king was more than busy with recent events. The palace was on high alert, though I would still spot the king from time to time, and perhaps glean some passing information off him.

Essentially, he was hurrying about in preparation for their countermeasures against the kingdom of Ertalon. Lest one forgot, they were the true masterminds of that recent party in the lab.

If there was someone most affected, it would be Meister Belud. It was his disciples who turned out to be spies, and Misseger spared no efforts in digging out this fact. Her decision to use psychic magicks indiscriminately against the two meisters’ students was not well-regarded.

Meister Amori was a member of the royal family, thus he was never likely to make a fuss out of this, but Meister Belud was no loyal family member. He was a temperamental dwarf to begin with, and this stint in the kingdom was only temporary Thus he was beside himself when he learnt of his disciples’ fate. Though it was worth noting that he himself was a suspect by association.

It was only after a round of intense surveillance that he was declared innocent. Freedom returned, the dwarf immediately went on strike. It took the combined efforts of Andassis the Seventh and Meister Amori to finally convince him to return to work, but that did not mean he was happy about it either.

For the first few days, his face was blacker than a hammer, raring to find trouble with anyone he could -not me, of course.

In spite of that, the dwarven meister was still a valuable team member.

Thanks to the completion of the first prototype, the only question that remained was how to preserve as much strength of the first inside the subsequent mass-produced pieces.

It took another whole week of tests and discussions to finally iron out a new prototype.

The Meditation Stones were still required, but the amount required per armor was reduced from three to one. This had the effect of increasing the activation time from 0.5 seconds, seen in Wyrm, to 3.0 seconds. The synchronization rate had also taken a hit, meaning there was a greater time lag between the pilot and the machine.

However, the reduction of two Meditation Stones meant that we saved a total of 4000 gold pieces per suit. Yet even that was an underestimation of the future cost savings. With the roll-out of these machines, the prices of Meditation Stones would only skyrocket. No amount of legislation would reverse this trend. The lure of money was no small temptation, one that could even supersede the law at times!

The durability of Wyrm was in large part due to the use of dragon scales and Redleaf’s arrays. Such extravagance was naturally impossible in a mass-produced magitek armor.

The scales alone were a headache. Adding on the fact that carving those arrays required manpower and were prone to failure, the cost would be astronomical.

In the end, it was decided that the magic resistance would be provided from the use of Duranium. For its cost, it was one of the better magic resistant metals.

The dragon skeleton used in Wyrm was also swapped out for any high-level magical beast skeleton. The outer armor plating was changed to use a newly-developed alloy, invented by Meister Belud himself. Its durability could withstand the full-force strike of a six-star, bordering that of a seven-star’s defense.

Even so, the total cost of producing magitek armor came out to 25000 gold pieces…

Thankfully, the effectiveness of a magitek armor far-outweighed its cost. A trained pilot could easily take on a five-star, while an ace pilot could take on a six-star!

This newly-developed model capable of mass production was called the Messianic Knight. It was a full set of jet-black armor that was very reminiscent of heavy infantry -Redleaf gave the aesthetics a flat 0/10.

Aesthetics aside, this new model was a force to be reckoned with, whether we were talking about its physical defenses or magical defenses.contemporary romance

Its armaments were a greatsword or a spear, basically medieval weapons. Of note was that the Messianic Knight model inherited the shoulder cannons of Wyrm, albeit at a lower firepower.

All in all, it took us two months to finish the first batch of mass-produced Messianic Knights. But that celebratory mood was swiftly dampened by the onset of bad news… War had broken out…

Andassis’s northern neighbor, the kingdom of Ertalon had declared a surprise war. With lightning-fast tactics, they had swept up ten territories, and were on course towards the heartlands of the kingdom!

The reason for their rapid progress was simple -the nobles in those lands had surrendered.

This news arrived at the dead of night, rousing the king from his slumber with a fury that nearly blew the palace up…

On the morning of the following day, a visibly older, and visibly tired king came knocking on our lab door with his bodyguard.

Honestly speaking, his visit caught me off-guard. Shouldn’t he be busy working on the war? What was he doing here? A movie?

The majority of his lords had already surrendered to the enemy. Those who did not give up at first quickly did so upon seeing the massive army of the enemy. Even those who chose to fight to the death could do nothing against a giant army of 20000.

With the threat of a giant army on their doorstep, and treacherous nobles to contend with, the kingdom was in turmoil. The peasants were fearful, and the remaining nobles were contemplating switching sides. By this point, the king was on the verge of collapse… So what was he doing here?

done.co