Chapter 1024 Suspicion
A roaring engine startled Noel as the train swiftly passed him. The speed wasn't as fast as the cars he saw earlier, but the sheer size of this train was beyond his imagination.
"This is…" Noel gasped. "So, this is a train!"
"That's right. There are a few types." Milinda nodded.
"The one at the front is the pulling type. There is also a passenger type, but the one that passed us earlier was the cargo type. Depending on the combination, we can change the consumption or optimize the benefits."
"That's right. You have made a plan for it in your city."
"Yes. In that case, it's better to name it Train. But…" Noel looked down, his eyes locked on to the rail. "This time the train is crossing this thin steel bar. The wheels are also made of steel, which allows them to withstand more weight compared to wood. But we have the rune right now, so we can reduce the burden.
"And because of it, I don't think we can make this track. No, should I say it's not necessary? Just looking at the car earlier, I think that a black wheel is more preferable in our case."
Milinda remained silent on the side, but she looked proud that her descendant didn't just copy everything from here. He wondered which one was suitable for their development. With this mindset, she didn't have to worry about the Ardagan family's prosperity.
"You're talking about rubber."
"Rubber?"
"Yes. You don't know it? In the previous civilization, it's one of the most common things we can find."
"Mhmm. Do you know anything about it? Maybe its characteristics? I can probably search for it."
"From what I know, it's a tough elastic synthetic substance. It should be latex from a certain plant. That's all I know."
"I see. I will look into it later." Noel nodded with a serious expression.
"So, what do you think about the train station?" Milinda asked.
"It's very practical. However, because the cities are still protected by the wall, it would become a problem to position them within the wall. After all, the train has a problem turning. They need a long distance just to turn slightly or it will put stress on the wheels and end up breaking.
"So, I am thinking about building it outside the wall. Then, we just have to design a wall that can protect the train station from the demons, but because it's not the main wall, we have to ensure the design won't mess with the city wall itself. And people should be able to enter directly into the city through the station.
"Unfortunately, I'm not expert enough to talk about the design, so I will ask my vassal to think about it."
"That's good." Milinda smiled. "Then, should we continue to the port? After that, we can go to the village."
"Yes." Noel nodded furiously.
Both of them got into the taxi again and headed to the port, where Noel got the shock of his life.
Instead of a train, this time, he saw a lot of container trucks parked in the harbor.
"Grandma… These things…" Noel looked like a kid who just found a new toy.
"That's called a container truck. As you can see, it has a lot of space inside. Unlike the trains, this is a smaller version, or you can even make it even smaller depending on the kind of terrain you plan to cross. If it's within the city, a small truck should be enough. If it's an expedition outside the city, something like this will be needed."
Noel thought for a moment. "But we have a train already, shouldn't we just forget about this?"
"Not necessarily. From the train station, you can directly bring out all that luggage to the client's or people's homes. And a smaller truck will be needed, right?"
"Ah! Like a small wagon. That's indeed possible. And we can sell these smaller trucks to private merchant groups or create a company to deliver all these items for a cheap price."
"That's correct. And the container is not a bad thing either. For example, a train station will be hard to create in a small city or village. Then, what if you create a station only in the big city and transfer the luggage to a smaller city by these trucks?" Milinda winked.
"Ah!" Noel nodded with a serious expression. The container truck was definitely useful for improving convenience. Lounstein was big. If he made a station for every city, it would devour his fund in no time.
But if he made all these trucks, his fund would still be fine while still getting the benefits.
"This is indeed good. With this container, the villages can have the supply they need. Most of the time, they have to find a merchant, but most of the time, the merchant takes advantage of the village's remote location to extort them. We can push down the price and not let the people suffer with these trucks." Noel nodded with a smile.
Then, his eyes moved to the ship that was about to depart. It was a cargo ship, so he saw all the containers being stacked up on top of the boat.
"This ship is so massive." Noel sucked a cold breath. "I don't know how much it can carry in just a single trip."
"This is the most efficient way to send items across continents."
"Continents… Are you talking about the distant land?" Noel frowned.
"Yes. From your memory, the Zaecuria Kingdom is directly connected to the sea, right? If you cross that sea in the right direction, you can actually find another continent."
"Does that mean there might be some survivors on those continents?"
"Who knows? The world is big. Even I haven't visited most of the world. It's just… a sea voyage without the right map will just send you to your death. Our world's surface is mostly covered with water after all."
Noel looked down. The battleship that he had agreed upon with the Zaecuria Kingdom might be the leading technology that would discover the new land.
"That is amazing." Noel pumped his fists.
"You're not afraid of meeting unknown people from another continent? You might end up becoming their enemies or they might even be stronger than you…"
"If they are stronger than me, shouldn't I feel glad? At the end of the day, our common enemy is the demon. As long as we have common enemies, I believe humans can walk hand in hand."
"What a positive kid." Milinda chuckled.
Another thunderous roar came from the sky, startling Noel. He thought it was thunder, but the sky was still clear and had no sign of raining.
Instead, he noticed a metal bird flying in the sky.
"Grandma…" Noel pointed at the sky with his mouth wide open.
"Oh. That's an airplane. It's another type of transportation that can fly in the sky. You're planning to do the same thing, right?"
"That's true. But I have never thought that the previous civilization could do all this without spiritual energy and runes. They are amazing."
Milinda smiled wryly. "Well, you can say they are amazing, but they are also not so much."
"Grandma?" Noel tilted his head in confusion.
"While we were able to do all this, the fuel we used to create this utopia ended up poisoning ourselves and this world."
"Poisoning the world? Are you saying they are destroying this world for the sake of all the conveniences?"
"Yes." Milinda pointed at the ship. "That ship requires a lot of fuel. And once they are burned, they will end up producing emissions. This emission is the poison I'm talking about.
"Our world is protected by ozone. You can say it's like an invisible layer of protection. It protects us from being burned by the sun. However, this poison creates holes in that invisible layer, which allows the sun to burn this world more violently, resulting in a lot of catastrophic events."
Noel couldn't believe what he had just heard. "But… isn't it fine now? We are using spiritual energy. I don't think there is any poison released into the air…"
"Maybe, but in the end, there will always be a human's never ending greed. When you continue advancing your technology, there will be a sacrifice. The previous civilization had created a legendary item that brought a lot of developments to the world. It was called plastic.
"However…" Milinda paused and walked to the edge of the port, feeling the wave that splashed on the barrier beneath her. She then waved her hand to calm the sea down and allow Noel to see the fish. But before that, he pointed at the beach not far from the port. "Those are plastics."
When Noel caught up, he was horrified by the sight before him. The beach next to the port was completely different from the one far away from it. The one near the port was filled with a lot of trash. On the other hand, the beach far away wasn't tainted by this junk yet, which showed an incredibly beautiful sight.
"Trash becomes a problem everywhere because this item is hard to decompose. The water from the river carries the trash, the ocean water claims them, and they end up getting buried under the sea.
"The humans feed on the fish, which have eaten these plastics, and end up poisoning themselves by ingesting this synthetic material. Not only sea creatures, but you can also consider land animals to eat them too.
"The humans end up poisoning themselves. They destroy the world by releasing the poisonous gas into the air. Even without the demons, humans are going to destroy themselves. Should I say… the demons actually let the humans survive? By killing billions of humans, nature can finally take over, and a few tens or hundreds of millions of humans will survive."
Noel fell silent, unable to answer that question. If that was what happened in the past, Noel could say the humans were wrong. The demons might come to this place, but they are not necessarily the bad guys. In the end, they prevented humans from extinction.
At the same time, billions of people died. He couldn't imagine the sorrow of people seeing those many deaths.
Still, the way Milinda spoke felt a bit weird. She sounded sad when narrating the tragic end of the previous civilization. But if that was the case, why was the Ardagan family still fighting back? She would have taught her descendants about it. But she still gave the sword to her descendant.
It was as if she was hiding something. It only took Noel a moment to realize why she was talking this way.
"Wait a minute. Grandma… I heard that the world was plunged into chaos when you died, but if you could protect this world, you could also destroy it. What if you were the one allowing these demons to invade this world so that the human race didn't go extinct?"
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