Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 52

Chapter 52: The Road to the Sky Doesn’t Have to Be on the GroundYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Turicum. Inside the provisional Government Office Building—a structure still very much in its “future potential” phase of planning—the air was thick with the scent of hot tea and heavy ambition. Ernst, Nasti, and Aurora sat gathered around a heavy oak table, their attention anchored to a crude, hand-drawn map of Kjerag spread out beneath the lamplight.

Nasti traced a gloved finger over the jagged lines. “To be perfectly honest,” the Rhine Lab engineer began, her tone laced with professional skepticism, “the people of Kjerag have thrived in these mountains for thousands of years. Did it truly never occur to anyone to draft a detailed topographical map?”

Ernst offered a faint, dry smile. Easy for you to say, he thought. Take one look out the window at this frozen wasteland. Does it look like we have the luxury for a leisurely geological survey?

In his past life, the great westward expansions of his old world had cost thousands of lives just to chart the frontiers. Entire expeditions had vanished into the wilderness. And even here on Terra, Columbia’s relentless pioneer expansion consumed staggering amounts of money and blood every single year—and that was with professional equipment and dedicated surveyors.

The crude parchment sitting on the table wasn’t born from advanced technology. It was a mosaic of blood and frostbite, pieced together stone by stone, peak by peak, by generations of Kjerag’s tiger hunters and the most devout, ascetic monks of the Karlan Temple. Back in the dark eras when Kjeragandr slumbered, those trailblazers hadn’t enjoyed the divine luck of men like Matterhorn or Kent Windermere, who could tumble off a sheer cliff and be gently carried to safety by a miraculous gust of wind.

Since both maps were monuments built on piles of corpses, what gave one a higher status than the other?

Besides, Ernst swallowed a rather sharp retort: Do you Sarkaz have a detailed map of your own homeland? Oh, right. Kazdel is a crater.

Sensing the sudden dip in the room’s temperature, Nasti tactfully pivoted. “Mr. Ernst, constructing standard municipal roads in Kjerag, as you’ve outlined in this proposal, is far from a simple endeavor.”

She tapped a particularly dense cluster of contour lines. “Based on the core samples my engineering team extracted over the past few days, the vast majority of Kjerag’s terrain consists of either deep permafrost or massive, severely weathered bedrock. This is an extremely volatile foundation. If you force heavy construction, the sheer maintenance costs will multiply to an astronomical degree. Even if you somehow stabilize it, a minor avalanche or a routine rockslide could obliterate a ten-mile stretch in seconds. It wouldn’t just be damaged; it would be unrepairable.”

Nasti leaned forward, her expression dead serious. “Beyond the geological nightmare, the environment completely restricts the use of heavy machinery. Rhine Lab’s tower cranes and industrial bulldozers cannot scale sheer cliffs. There are no access routes to transport the necessary steel, concrete, and supplies to these proposed sites. If you intend to rely purely on manual labor for logistics… the financial hemorrhage would be catastrophic.”

It was the ultimate vicious cycle. To build railways and highways, you needed access roads to transport the materials. But to build those access roads, you needed the heavy machinery that only railways and highways could bring in.

Enciodes SilverAsh had poured over a decade of his life—and used the entire foundation left by his parents—just to carve out a single railway connecting the relatively flat basin of Turicum to the outside world. The capital invested in that single line was already enough to make a Victorian noble faint.

To achieve the flawless, unhindered network Ernst was proposing—connecting every clan territory and major settlement across the snowy peaks—was practically a delusion. It was like trying to pave a highway to the clouds.

But was a road to the sky truly impossible?

Ernst shifted his gaze to Aurora. The young Ursus girl sat quietly beside him, her eyes bright and attentive. As the only native Kjerag student to study abroad at such a high level, she represented the next generation. Their future was Kjerag’s future. The people of these mountains weren’t stupid; they were merely starved of opportunity. If this path wasn’t forged, they would remain trapped in the snow forever.

Taking a slow, measured breath, Ernst met the engineer’s gaze. “Cost is a variable I will manage. What I need you to tell me, Nasti, is this: assuming I secure the funding, assuming the capital is limitless… can this road physically be built?”

Nasti stared at him, stunned. A flicker of sheer incredulity crossed her features. She genuinely wondered if the Prime Minister of Kjerag had suffered a translation error in his brain, or if he simply lacked the concept of retreating in the face of reality.

“Mr. Ernst, you are missing the core issue,” she replied, her voice tightening. “Due to the severe lack of basic education infrastructure in Kjerag, we cannot recruit local labor for modern railway construction. From the specialized geological surveyors down to the grunts laying the steel ties, every single person would have to be imported.”

She shook her head. “You could scour the entirety of Terra and you wouldn’t find a single construction firm willing to take this contract.”and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

It was the cold truth. Whether in Columbia, Victoria, or Yan, massive engineering firms didn’t keep armies of basic laborers on permanent payroll. They recruited locally at the project site. Where was Kjerag supposed to source them? The locals here barely knew how to mix industrial mortar. Was Ernst expecting them to pave train tracks with thatch and red bricks, praying the locomotives wouldn’t notice?

“In short, this has transcended the concept of money,” Nasti concluded gently but firmly. “Perhaps in a few decades, when construction technology evolves and new automated methods mature, this project will have a higher probability of success.”

Waiting for the time to be ripe. It was the polite, corporate way of saying, Stop dreaming.

Ernst understood perfectly. The grand road to the sky he envisioned—a marvel capable of conquering the roof of the world—required the backing of a true superpower. It required a nation willing to mobilize its entire military as a labor force, absorbing horrific risks and monumental sacrifices to forge a world wonder. Kjerag simply did not possess that kind of raw, expendable power.

A heavy silence settled over the table, thick with Ernst’s lingering frustration.

Then, a soft voice broke the quiet.

“Um… what if we don’t use railways and highways?”

Aurora leaned forward, her Ursus ears twitching tentatively. “When I was studying in Columbia, I heard rumors. Director Kirsten of Rhine Lab has been investing heavily in a cross-era mode of transportation!”

Nasti’s brow furrowed instantly. “You mean aeronautics? Aircraft? Absolutely not. That is entirely out of the question. Not only is aviation technology in its infancy, but the accident rate is catastrophically high. Aircraft cannot operate in extreme weather conditions. The high-altitude atmospheric turbulence over Kjerag would tear any current prototype to shreds.”

“But what if we could carve out a stable, guaranteed safe flight path through the skies of Kjerag?” Ernst interjected, his voice suddenly sharp.

Nasti looked at him as if he had just suggested eating the table. Are you out of your mind? her expression screamed. Weather patterns and high-altitude jet streams were the raw, untamed forces of nature. They were domains untouched by mortal hands. To casually suggest controlling the weather to open a magical flight path out of thin air was the definition of a pipe dream.

“What if it is possible?” Ernst pressed, his tone dropping into a calm, unyielding register. “Hypothetically. If Director Kirsten’s aviation technology matures, and I possess the means to guarantee a perfectly safe, weather-controlled flight corridor over Kjerag… is aerial transport theoretically viable?”

Nasti held his gaze. She searched his eyes for a joke, for delusion, but found only a terrifying, absolute certainty. Where on Terra does this man get his confidence? she wondered.

Faced with the sheer weight of his conviction, the Sarkaz engineer forced herself to evaluate the impossible premise. She fell silent for a long moment, calculating the physics in her head.

Finally, she gave a slow, reluctant nod. “If you can actually achieve the impossible and control the sky… then yes. Compared to the geological nightmare of a ground-based highway system, an aerial logistics network is far more viable.”

Ernst leaned back in his chair, a long, slow exhale escaping his lips. A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.

The road to the sky didn’t have to be built on the ground after all.You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.