Her and him are alone

"Buddy! Standing in king Virtya's way was a foolish move! If I were you, I would have already started packing up and escape from this place. Even if that knight had not done anything or said that he would put you in the dungeon. The eyes of those knights behind him tell otherwise, those lunatics will surely come back for you." One of the workers said to Tolya in a low voice of concern. 

Tolya trembled as he searched for a way to escape. His fellow worker's words was the last nail to the coffin and Tolya was so afraid and he didn't want to work at this construction site anymore.

"I must get out of here." Tolya said to himself with determination, he turned to his fellow workers and saw that they were not even staring at him anymore. After they stopped him from rolling over, they had released him and allowed him to sprawl on the ground.

"The bastard is tricking me once again, right? I won't fall for it. Last time I lost so much on that bet, now, he want to get rid of me. I still have an incomplete mission in this place. I can not leave." Tolya's eyes burned with determination. The worker who had suggested that he leave very quickly was the person who tricked him into angering the foreman and he was almost dumped into Salto river, Tolya vowed to stay away from this worker but as for now, he was still around, no matter what.

"The glass plant is almost completed. I will come back here to inspect the samples of float and container glass manufactured by this factory." Virtya said to Osip assuringly. 

Apparently, Virtya had already inspected the float bath, the annealing lehr, the moulds for container glass and every part of the glass manufacturing factory. From his conclusion, this glass plant was 90% completed and it would only need a week for Osip to finalize everything and then the glass could start being manufactured.

As for the raw materials for glass, the limestone was plenty in Pollow district while soda ash which would be used to reduce the melting point of sand to transform it to glass at low temperature, this soda ash was in plenty in most lakes that populated the floor of the rift valley.

After he finished his inspection, the knights led Virtya to his carriage .

There was only Tanya and Virtya who occupied this royal carriage while the knights followed them on their horses or other carriages.

"With the completion of the glass plant, I plan to make one steam powered ship and several heavy vehicle. I don't know if you believe that I can do it or not but I can make this carriage to move without the aid of the horses. Do you really believe that Tanya?" Virtya asked with a low voice. His eyes darted around the figure of the taciturn Tanya.

Tanya was silent for a moment while Virtya continued to stare at her. He took a puff from his chillum and blew out several rings of smoke. Virtya had blew the smoke onto Tanya's face and he had done this intentionally as he couldn't help but want to trouble this beauty.

Cough! Cough!

"That thing reeks of something disgusting, it is so bad..." Tanya didn't have to finish what she was talking about as the carriage shook because it had run over a boulder. The contents inside Virtya's chillum escaped from it and splattered all over her.

One should know that the carriages didn't have a suspension, spring or shock absorbers to smooth a sudden shock impulse and that was why the impact of the shaking of the carriage affected them.

"I am so sorry Tanya." Virtya stood up from his seat and sat beside Tanya, he said he was sorry but his expression didn't show that, as he was smiling as if he enjoyed what he had done.

Still smiling, Virtya patted Tanya's cladding at where the contents of the chillum had scattered.

"This is the reason why I want to manufacture vehicles. They are reliable and more comfortable." Virtya rubbed away almost all the dirt from her cladding.

Turning on her chest, Virtya saw a little ash stuck at where her breast's outline could be seen.

Tanya saw where Virtya was looking at and said,

"You don't have to do that, I can do it for myself." and before Virtya could complain, Tanya had already cleaned her cladding from dirt. However, even if every dirt had been rubbed off, they had left a patch of dirt that could not be removed no matter how many times Tanya tried to rub it off.

"I will get a new cladding for you. I am sorry for ruining this one, it was my mistake." Virtya threw the chillum out of the window and turned to Tanya, he helped her to try to remove the patches of dirt by rubbing a part of her thigh where some dirt splashed over.

"You don't have to be sorry, I will definitely get a new suit." Tanya said indifferently before she turned to look out of the window.

Virtya silently viewed Tanya's back as she was looking at the passing scenery through the window, up to now, Virtya was still rubbing her thigh, he cleared his throat and asked in a slow voice.

"You haven't answered my question Tanya. Do you really believe that I can make this carriage to move without the aid of the beasts of burden or the labourers?"