Chapter 378 - 269: You Can Drive on a Road Like This? (Part 2)

Chapter 378: Chapter 269: You Can Drive on a Road Like This? (Part 2)

Zog dispelled his Illusion Mimicry and struck a pose, preparing to welcome the distinguished guest from the Foreign Country.

Great figures throughout history, for the most part, shared a common trait: respect for talented people.

Things like spitting out food mid-meal or running out barefoot to greet a visitor.

No matter what they were really thinking, they had to show the right attitude first.

’But to be honest,’ Zog had never understood why they had to spit the food out. ’Wouldn’t it make no difference if they just swallowed it first and then went to greet them?’

The train slowly ground to a halt. Since it was composed entirely of freight cars, the sole passenger had been placed in the driver’s cabin.

This passenger was dressed in a woolen suit, the latest fashion, and carried a briefcase.

Judging by his slightly crooked mustache and his messy yet vaguely styled hair, he had probably taken great care with his appearance, only for it to be ruined by the strong winds here.

He stepped off the train and gazed with a bewildered expression at this... well, the letter called it a city, but it really just looked like a patch of wasteland.

"Excuse me, is this Deepwater City?" he asked, turning to the train driver.

"Ha, of course. There’s no other place called Deepwater ’City’," the driver replied, putting heavy emphasis on the word "City."

He was clearly mocking the idea that such a dump could be worthy of the name.

"Of course, this is Deepwater City, the most advanced city the Continent will ever see. Only a smart man can tell," Zog said with a smile as he came forward to greet him. "Isn’t that right, Mr. Benz?"

Mr. Benz gave an awkward laugh. "I’m sure it will be. You must be Mr. Zog? I thought you would be, uh, taller."

"Ha, that’s just the photos. Put the camera on the ground and angle it up. You’d look tall too," Zog replied.

He didn’t forget to tease the train driver. "Hey, train man! Want to buy a house in the city? I’ll give you twenty percent off today."

The driver declined. "No thanks. I appreciate the kind offer, but I’m not exactly wealthy right now."

"Believe me, for many nights to come, you’ll lie awake regretting this decision."

Zog offered his sincere "blessing."

Then he turned to Benz. "You don’t need to buy one; I’ll give you a place. Let me introduce you. This is Yuno Stone, the head of R&D at the Deepwater City Research Institute. You’ll be reporting directly to him from now on."

Benz seemed more interested in Yuno, eagerly extending a hand. "Mr. Yuno, I’ve studied many of your papers. Your ideas are simply genius! I just never expected to meet you here. I heard your lab was in Twin Tower City."

Yuno shrugged. "Twin Tower City is too small. Not enough room for me to work my magic."

This was a decision Zog had made long ago: to move all the R&D projects that required large testing grounds and had high destructive potential to Deepwater City.

Yuno, for his part, had volunteered for the transfer. A bigger space meant bigger Undead!

He had also recently become obsessed with a new field of study: Slimes. His intuition told him that the secretions of various Slimes could be extremely useful.

Raising large numbers of Slimes also required space.

Real Slimes were nothing like the cute, cuddly blobs you see in comics.

Most were just amorphous puddles of gunk, and many were corrosive and had a pungent smell.

"Alright, that’s enough pleasantries. Has your precious invention arrived as well?" Zog asked.

"Oh, right, of course! She’s in the first freight car," Benz said, moving to pull open the car door.

Seeing Benz walk away, Yuno whispered to Zog, "Did you hear that? He just called that thing ’she.’ I think his mental state might be a little unstable. You know how it is with inventors and researchers... after a while, they all get a little..."

Zog glanced at Yuno. ’He’s got a point,’ he thought.

"I don’t think someone who sleeps cuddled up with Undead and Slimes has any room to talk."

"Really? Is sleeping with one’s research results so unacceptable?"

Zog ignored Yuno, who was now lost in self-doubt, as Benz had already opened the freight car.

He yanked off a canvas tarp, revealing a car polished to a brilliant shine.

"Mr. Zog, look how beautiful she is."

Benz’s eyes shone as if he were gazing upon his one true love.

"Choosing to invest in her was definitely a wise decision. I believe she’ll become the greatest, most wonderful form of transportation in the world."

Yes, the inventor of the automobile on the Feilin Continent also had the surname Benz. He wasn’t Carl Benz, however; this was Henry Benz.

His family was better off than Carl Benz’s, but his current financial situation was still far from ideal.

He had poured his entire life savings into researching the car, even taking on significant debt.

But his final product had consistently failed to win over investors.

They called it a "piece of metal junk," a clumsy imitation of the "exquisite and noble horse-drawn carriage."

Until Zog appeared.

"Oh, she is beautiful. What’s her name?"

Saying the right thing to the right person had always been one of Zog’s innate skills.

"The Benz Patent Carriage," Benz replied, quite pleased with himself.

"..."

Yuno and Zog fell silent.

The two of them exchanged a glance, and both saw the same thought in the other’s eyes.

’So there’s actually someone out there who’s even worse at naming things than I am.’

"Ahem!" Zog coughed. "Have you ever thought about dropping ’Carriage’ from the name and just using its root, ’Car’?"

In the common tongue, the root "car" referred to anything that moved on wheels.

For example, wheelchairs were originally called that as well.

"Oh, you’re right! What a great idea! How did I never think of that?"

Benz had a look of sudden realization, which made him seem a bit dim-witted.

"We’re about five kilometers from the main part of the city. How about this: let’s test the car’s performance over that distance," Zog suggested.

"Yes, yes, of course, absolutely! She can handle a test like this. Yes, she definitely can."

He said that, but he was frantically fiddling with the buttons on his coat. Benz had no confidence at all.

There wasn’t even a road in front of them—it was just open wasteland. The good news was that the ground looked pretty flat, without any major bumps.

’Maybe it’ll be okay,’ he thought.

He’d only ever tested it on the well-paved roads of the city, and even then, the results hadn’t been great. But now, it just had to work.

"Alright, stand back," said Zog.

"Back?" Benz asked, taking two confused steps backward.

Immediately, a giant Mage’s Hand grabbed the world’s first car and lifted it down from the train.

"Wow, that’s an impressive trick."

"Okay, show me how to start it and how to drive it. I’m going to drive her all the way there," Zog said, rubbing his claws together in excitement.

"You want to drive?"

"Of course. Why, is that a problem?"

"Of course not," Benz said, wiping away some sweat as he jumped down from the freight car.

With the car out of the freight car, Zog could finally see its details.

To be honest, the car was in better shape than Zog had imagined.

First of all, it had at least four wheels and three seats: one driver’s seat in the front, and two seats in the back.

Zog had thought he was going to see a three-wheeler.

And visually, it seemed to have all the necessary functions. There was something that looked like a steering wheel, two other levers, and the tires were even wrapped in rubber.

"Looks pretty good," Zog commented.

"You think so? Just a moment, I’ll start her up." Benz took off his jacket, grabbed a large wheel at the back of the car, and began turning it frantically.

’Okay, maybe I was a little wrong,’ Zog thought.

Zog hadn’t expected starting the car to be such a physically demanding task.

Benz cranked for a full two minutes.

That was enough time to start several old-fashioned tractors with a hand crank.

"There, she’s awake now."

Benz stood up and began to introduce the car’s various functions. The handle in the middle was the steering wheel; whichever way you turned it, the car would turn.

Of the two levers, this one is to accelerate, and the other is the brake.

"That’s it?"

"That’s it."

"Then let’s get in." The last time Zog had driven a vehicle with such simple controls was when he was a kid, riding one of those little electric cars at the plaza that cost five bucks for half an hour.

The two men and one Dragon took their seats.

Seatbelts, of course, did not exist.

Zog pulled the throttle, and the vehicle slowly began to move.

It felt like it would take a lifetime to get from zero to a hundred.

It started smoothly, and Benz let out a sigh of relief, though he couldn’t relax completely. There were still plenty of things that could go wrong.

"I have a question."

Hearing Zog say that, Benz’s heart sank.

"Did~you~give~any~thought~at~all~to~the~sus~pen~sion~on~this~thing?"

Zog’s voice sounded like it was being run through an autotune filter.