《Road to the Crown》


 -2 On the time for writing the chapter and required research

    When I started it a few days ago, I thought that with all the knowledge I acquired with how geeky I''m about Polish and global history of the middle and late medieval period, writing this novel would be an easy task. But the reality quickly struck me down.


    How fast can the horseman travel? What is the endurance of the horse then? How does it influence the speed of an army and a small group? What is the speed of a typical carriage?


    From one question to another, even a simple task of deciding how many days it would take to travel from point a to point b, turned into long background research that I had to do in order to keep this novel as real as I want it to be (outside of the system part obviously)


    While the system in the first place is just a plot tool that allows me to ignore some of the more technical aspects of the novel - like explaining how the trade worked back then, and trust me, it is a nightmare to learn about, not to speak about making it interesting enough to warrant putting it into the story. What''s more, I''m not an engineer, hence the amount of work I would have to input just in order to explain the way in which a single mechanism of let''s say fermentation barrel would work... WOuld require not only continuous googling the correct words in my native language and then translating it to English, before trying to make the sentence look nice and be actually comprehensible to a normal reader but a lot more work I''m too tired to explain.


    One of the other aspects that I want to mention is the complicated structure of the past times and lack of sources.


    As Tarnow is my hometown where I spent my childhood years in, I hoped it would be easy for me to write about it... Only to learn that three most important streets of the entire city (to this day) were actually created barely 200 years after the events of this story, with the first MAP of the city being dated around the same time. In other words, outside of my fragmented knowledge of the city I learned occasionally, there is a huge field for the uncertainty that I have to work hard to fill in a proper way, instead of just saying it was like that and that, only to force myself into the corner later.

 -1 Organisation! Updated for premium, explanations for everything here!

    Okay, guys, it''s time to bit the pill and organise all the stuff for the incoming premium. So to get this over with, let''s begin:


    You can earn fast passes by doing daily missions like voting (preferably, on this novel \u003c3) voting with energy stone and simply checking in upon visiting the site for the first time in the day.


    WHY PREMIUM:


    WHY PRIVILEGE AND HOW IT WILL WORK?


    - But how it will work, you might ask?


    But what will happen to the priv in the future?


    - First thing first, I WILL NEVER CHANGE THE COST OF THE FIRST TIER!


    - AND NOW, FOR ALL THOSE WHO DON''T KNOW HOW PRIVILEGE WORKS


    But how does unlocking works?


    UPDATE SCHEDULE AND MASS RELEASES


    As for the future mass releases, I won''t claim anything nor promise you guys some empty words. Keeping up the release for two novels is already taxing, and doing mass releases takes an additional toll on me. If I will be able to do one, I will, but nothing more than that.


    (Sorry for the length of the post, I''m kinda tired while writing it!)


    Reviews:


    As much I''m happy with every review that I will get on this novel, there are two kinds that I will delete on sight:


    - Defamatory, Insulting, Provocative - if you don''t like the novel and feel like you wasted the time reading it, then as much as it saddens me, it''s your fault for not dropping it sooner. If you like the story but don''t like the development at some point (especially if you are caught up) then remember that all in all, it is MY story. I will do my best to write it to the maximum of my storytelling and plotting ability, but that''s all I can guarantee.


    Just to make things clear, those are the types of reviews I WON''T delete (plus all the other, normal ones):


    - Negative reviews - if they do not apply to one of the above, feel free to express your opinion on this novel. You think my rate of update is bad? (but be real please, I''m not a machine) Feel free to 1star it. You think that my characters are bland and one-dimensional? Feel free to write about it and stare it as you like. Honest reviews help me improve my writing and are kind of checkpoint on the way of becoming a better author.


    IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER!!!


    This novel may consist of things that might come off as racist, nationalist or antisemitic. Let me explain all of them in advance:


    - Antisemitism - In the setting of the story based on real history, Jews were the biggest autonomous nationality within the Commonwealth border. Not only did they create a specific culture around themselves and matters connected to them, but there were also a lot of natural tensions between them and the others, just like now right-winged people don''t really like left-winged people and have troubles holding back on their words. Medieval times were much simpler and more straightforward in those matters, and this is something I want to include as well, as to not whitewash the history of the country.


    - Nationalist - This word is actually wrong here because, in the times where the story is initially set, there was no such thing as nations. Most people identified themselves with their immediate surroundings (I''m a Krakowian, I''m Warsawian, I''m lesserfecelian) with only the Nobility identifying itself with either the country or its parts (Lithuania, Prussia, Crown, at some point even Rhuthernia, but that aspect was more religious than areal). The last remaining group were the citizens on the most eastern and southern borders, because those two regions experienced a lot of constant conflicts, developing a sense of fellowship among the people and hatred towards the enemies that were equalised to plunderers and invaders. As such, there will be conflicts based on those problems, but just like with the above - they are just a tool to keep the setting consistent and real.


    - Racism - In here, it actually plays a lot smaller role than one could expect, because this region of the world wasn''t really affected by the colonial influence and all the devils that it gave birth to. While there might be some occasional points about this matter later into the story, I will try to keep them minimal and humoristic. (And sorry, with how much I plan to ridicule every nation of the commonwealth and its neighbours, if I were to go easy on any particular race, it would come as insulting rather than respectful. This story is not going to be easy on anyone)


    With all that said, I really hope this story, this day when I started it and this contest that pushed me to finally do it will mark the day where another long, and eventful adventure will begin as for me, as for everyone reading this story!

 155 Lazing on the boa

    5th May 1574


    "I have to admit, it feels nice to take some proper rest once in a while."


    Lying down on a comfy bed that I made with half of the blankets available on the ship I pulled Elia a bit closer in an attempt to find a tad more comfortable position.


    "Isn''t it? I just hope everyone will be okay both in the development area and in our own landsˇ­"


    Hearing those words, I couldn''t help but tense up. As soon as we boarded Governor''s riverboat, I somehow managed to detach myself from the problem of leaving those important places without proper supervision. After all, there was no point in worrying over something I had no influence over.


    If everything would go according to the schedule, the trip to the Krakow would take between two and three days, with just as much required to deal with the royal summons and one day less for the return trip.


    In the worst-case scenario, without any additional hiccups like the King making us wait for a few days or the bad weather making it too dangerous to travel through the rivers, the entire journey would last eight days at most, while in the best-case scenario, it could be limited to just four days.


    Either way, despite leaving my managers with enough blueprints for both the construction areas and the machines for the carpentry plant to keep them busy for two weeks straight, we should be able to go back to the development area before they would run out of the work!


    "Look at Tarnow. While I know that the complexity of brewing beer is far smaller than what we are doing at the mines, when we first started it, Matsu was completely foreign to this business. And look at it now, she is overseeing the entire thing and even doing her best to expand it with every last bit of her strength!"


    As I spoke about this, I realised that while I was trying to accomplish a stable source of materials for my own lands, the excitement from developing a land took over my mind and made me forget a rather important part.


    I was too important to waste my time on managing all the projects by myself!


    Just like with Matsu and the beer business, just like with the Innkeepers and the food business or just like with Vlad and the spiceˇ­ or nevermind. The thing was that all the businesses and inventions I introduced to this land had to be managed by someone else, to give me a free hand in continuing my journey of modernising the entire country.


    "But didn''t you say that they might be unable to do it just the way you wanted? Wouldn''t that waste a lot of the time you invested in making all those steam horses and setting up those factories?"


    Rubbing her head slightly against my chest, Elia said with a low voice, as if trying to mask something in it. Yet her words and the way she spoke about this topic was enough to prove that she was still feeling guilty for not staying behind to take care of those projects of mine.


    While it was faulty, it was still the best way I could come up with to make her stop blaming herself for following her emotions. After all, we were a damned married couple, so if I allowed my dear wife to bother with such stupid things, I would be a failure of a husband!


    "Okay then, let''s not talk about the past, but look towards the future. What do you want to get from this trip to the capital? Seeing how reluctant you were to leave the mines behind, I guess you were either forced or bribed to go to the capitalˇ­"


    Seeing that the topic finally changed from the one that put Elia in a bad mood, I took a moment to think my answer through, before suddenly rolling on the bed and putting her on top of my chest rather than allowing her to rest her head on my shoulder.


    While our excentric wish to laze around on the open board of the boat was at first met with quite a lot of surprise from the sailors, given how long they had to look at us doing nothing but talking there while enjoying the comfortable weather of the early afternoon, they didn''t pay us any mind anymore.


    "I can''t promise you that we will manage to get anything out of it, but from the simple fact that we were summoned to the capital, I can assume that the rumours about our growth reached the Zboros family. I just hope that if we spill enough compliments on them, we will get to receive some of the crown lands and maybe an investment in the road project?"


    Even if the governor were sure that we could get something out of this time that we had to waste to travel back and forth on the Vistula, I wasn''t so sure about it. If Zboros family wanted to pull the two of us into their faction, then no matter what, I would have to refuse them! After all, most of their influence came from the fact they were backing the King, and with his escape, anyone attached to their power would face the same backlash that they did!

 156 As the time goes by

    7th May 1574


    In the end, the weather allowed us to speed up through the calm waters of the Vistula river right to the Sandomir and all the way downstream to the capital. As there wasn''t anything for us to do during the journey outside of occasional talks with Jan about the approach we would assume while talking with either king of one of his advisors, we spent the majority of our free time, making up for the time we were separated.


    Yet with how this uncommon place right at the front of the boat''s deck turned out to be so comfortable, placed right in the view of most of the sailors, we were forced to keep our interactions family-friendly!


    But despite this what others would most likely consider a limitation, just being able to speak to my beloved one and learn more and more about her, how she perceived things, what was her outlook at the politics, economy, social matters or even what she thought the role of the woman was in the family, allowed me to get a more wholesome understanding on what sorts of mentality was hidden behind her slowly growing hair.


    Yes, when we first met, she kept her head barely covered with her hair, as if it was an attempt both to cut herself away from her step-family who tried to sold her to Bart like some product and a practical measure for someone spending most of his time travelling. Rather than wasting a lot of time and effort to take care of her own hair, she simply preferred to cut it down!


    As time went by, starting from the moment she realised that her future in one way or another would be guaranteed by me, at first in form of a deal that would put her as an important asset in my group and later on as my lover, she allowed her head to do its job without tempering its natural instincts.


    With that, even though the time that passed was still relatively short ranging only about one and a half month, rather than covering the bottom of her ear, her hair started to reach for her shoulders!


    "Didn''t you play with them enough?"


    As we cuddled under a surprisingly thin blanket, I continued to move her hair around my fingers, wrapping it up only to let it straighten itself back as it fell off my hand.


    "I''m sorry, you were already cute when your hair was short, but as it grows longer, I can''t help but feel like all the chances for me to accurately describe your beauty are slipping out of my hands, leaving me with no vocabulary capable of expressing your grace."


    "Dear, seriously, they won''t grow faster if you play with them!"


    Despite my words clearly flattering her, she still protested lightly but from her delicate smile, I could tell that she didn''t really mind me all that much.


    "How about here, then?"


    Moving my hands a little lower, I sank my fingers in the delicate skin on her shoulders. With an arhythmic tempo of pressing them down, I started massaging her upper back, just in a playful attempt to keep her mind occupied.


    Just like I realised it before, the reality of travelling varied greatly between what one would read in a novel and what one had to experience himself. Even when I had Elia beside me to keep me busy, after some time the topic that I could randomly talk about with her dried up, with the flames of our discussion only sparking up when either one of us came up with something interesting.


    After all, there was no point in discussing the terrain that was passing by our boat as we scaled the tiny waves of the river.


    ''Look, this tree is slightly smaller than the one I pointed at before.''


    ''Yeah, maybe because it lacks the sun or the soil is less fertile?''


    Exchanges like that could be done once for fun, or even twice to poke the fun at the first attempt, yet in the long run, bringing them up over and over again would only make the both of us feel the boredom even stronger.


    That''s why rather than forcing either of us to keep the empty talk going, I preferred to at least offer Elia some sort of ''safe'' pleasure in terms of breaking the taboo of keeping intimate matters to one''s bedroom while using it as an anchor for both the small talk and learning even more details about her.


    "You really don''t needˇ­ Or you know what, keep it up if you don''t mind."


    At first, attempting to dissuade me from my current fun, as my fingers finally found a spot that managed to make her body waver slightly, her tone changed as so did the message she whispered to me.


    "Do you like it?"


    With this sweet point right beneath her shoulder blade as a base, I moved my fingers around her back, allowing her soft breathing to caress my neck as every single, small twitch of her body made Elia rub herself on me, giving the pleasure right back to me.


    "I love it."


    Just like that, hours passed as we enjoyed each other company. With how the meeting with the King was a one, big unknown, there was no point in trying to prepare for it. Since we were summoned to the capital, all we could do now was to make the most of our short vacations before throwing ourselves back into the chaotic landscape of the development process!

 157 "Real" story behind the inventions

    7th May 1574


    "Remember, do not mention anything that we developed yet. It''s better for them to think that we just found a new recipe for better mortar and we want to use it to earn something from making a cheap road. If they were to learn how much trouble it is to get its production, they might be willing to invest more, but I''m worried about the cost of their potential interest."


    After finally docking in the river ports in the capital, we could move from the wobbly deck on the even ground for the first time ever since we left Sandomir. Due to the official nature of our visit, rather than wearing comfortable clothes, I had to borrow a nice kontus directly from governor''s wardrobe, since all my fancy ones were all the way back in Tarnow.


    "I get it, I get it. But don''t you think that it would be better to make the most of this situation by showing off? Everyone will sooner or later learn about your development so wouldn''t it be easier to just get official crown recognition for your efforts so that no jealous noble would raid it for fun?"


    As I continued bickering with Governor with Elia surprisingly walking by my side either not daring or simply not willing to join the discussion, I couldn''t help but realise that the area we were moving through right now, was a place that was weirdly familiar to me.


    If not for some of the landmarks allowing me to more or less precisely realise where I was, I wouldn''t be able to realise that what was now nothing but a huge market area that grew insanely popular due to both the proximity of this super important river and thanks to the fact that it was the direct extension of one of the main trading routes connecting the eastern world with the west of Europe.


    In fact, in just a few centuries, this place would be completely gone, replaced by high-rise housing buildings, inside which, I would spend quite a while! Obviously, with a low-paying job I had back in my university times, I could only afford to rent a small studio, but it was thanks to its location on the eleventh floor that I was capable of recognising said landmarks and triangulating my current position!


    "To be frank, if we let them how big this thing became, I''m worried that instead of investing in it in order to sate its relentless hunger for resources and money, they would simply judge its size and amount of workers and tax it accordingly. After all, we can''t expect them to instantly understand the worth behind allowing this kind of projects to grow on themselves."


    As we moved through the busy streets, I finally had my time to enjoy the cultural shock brought by the transmigration in time. The last time I was in the capital, I was simply too overwhelmed by the simple fact that I fucking moved to the past to actually care about the feeling of rediscovering the past of the city I spent quite a long time in with my own eyes and hands.


    And there was quite a lot to discover!


    Due to the fact that we arrived in the city in the late afternoon, there was no point rushing to the castle anymore. With Jan''s servants rushing through the city to find comfortable lodging for our night stay, we could spend the rest of the day roaming the city to our heart content!


    "What happened to you? From what I heard, you never was so interested in touring various places like you are right now. Heck, this question could be extended to how do you have all those ideas in mind! Like, I remember what you told me about a chance encounter with some man while you were returning from the Inflants(*)ˇ­"


    "It wasn''t a man."


    Cutting the governor mid-sentence, I decided it was a good moment to feed him yet another story of mine. But this time, rather than coming with something on the spot, I had a perfect excuse already prepared.


    "You see, my lord, whenever someone asks me about the source of all my inspirations, I tend to explain how I met this strange man, who did it all by himself already but lacked the resources to put it into any real use. But to be honest, while this story touches the truth, its as far from it as it could be without losing this tiny bit of touch with what really happened."


    After this introductory bit, I took a few breaths, before looking to the side at Elia.


    "Dear, sorry I never brought that up, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn''t really change anything, and I simply forgot about it. As for the crux of the mattersˇ­"


    Once again, calming myself down with a few breaths, I resolved myself to telling this story. While I knew that the stereotypes crafted in the later ages by the people who couldn''t stand the fact that reaching the level of middle ages culture took humanity over three hundred years of humanism for it to reach the boiling point where people simply forced the return of at least a part of the older traditions, were the only thing that was stopping me from just explaining what I had in mind, but fighting against something that was drilled in one''s mind through the entire flawed education system was not as easy as I expected it to be.


    "I never saw any kind of steam horse with my own eyes. I only heard about the concept behind it from the mouth of a witch(!*!)[1]."


    [1] Since footnoes have characters limit, the in short words:


    This word refers to wiedz?ca from polish, meaning - a woman who knows.


    Not persecuted, common and accepted in the country, mostly referring to herbalists, people capable of reading the nature to predict weather and so on.

 158 Preparing for the royal summons

    7th May 1574


    "Just like in that modified story I told you before, I met her as I was on my way back from the Inflants to my own lands. Since there was no reason for me to hurry back as I used that opportunity to laze a bit, I had the chance to talk with her quite a lot."


    As we moved through the streets, it was slowly getting harder to speak in a normal voice to not let it sink in the sea of shouts that all of the traders, merchants and customers were throwing around.


    "It was then when she told me that by observing nature closely and focusing on the details that I would otherwise ignore, I can learn how to tame it and make it do my bidding. Obviously, while she most likely meant the herbs that she was dealing with, after seeing how close she had to examine some of the plants she was growing before confirming that they were ripe for picking, I realised that rather than looking at the things too big for me to wrap my head around with, I would be better off putting my attention to the stuff that I could manage myself."


    This story wasn''t aimed at explaining the source of my knowledge or inspiration alone but was also to mean to set the foundation for the time where I could produce electricity, entering absolutely new era of urbanisation and industrialization.


    With how simple the concept behind the steam was, it could serve as a good starting point for the development, yet I could already see that in the near future, transferring its energy through a set of ropes would lead to more than just a few problems.


    "But how did you came from the herbalism to the steam power then? While I get the concept, I don''t really see the connection between the two."


    This time it was Elia who finally spoked out, asking one of the crucial questions that I hoped would appear. Even if I could deal with this topic without mentioning this transition, explaining it would give me the chance to tell them enough details to make them sure about the credibility of my story.


    "To be frank, it couldn''t be simpler. Back then, after wasting hours of her time to pick the right ratios for different kinds of herbs, she put them all in a complicated machine that she proceeded to heat up. Later on, I learned that this strange set of glasses and pipes was nothing else but a distilling station. Do I need to add how her idea allowed me to find the recipe for our popular beer?"


    Stopping for a moment with this open question, I used the momentary pause to sort my thoughts up before picking up the topic where I left it.


    As I finished my sentence, I peeked at my companions, wanting to gauge what sorts of reactions my story would produce in them. Thankfully, rather than wearing a look of disbelief or doubt, they looked like if my story opened the inner eye in their mind that they had shut for their entire life.


    "From then, it was just mundane work. Drawing a blueprint, testing it out on a small scale and scrapping it all up only to make a new one over and over again. During my tests, I managed to learn how does the gas act when in a closed system or that water vapour, in fact, takes more space than the liquid water itself. While it sounds quite shameful, I learned the potential power hiding behind the pressurised vapour when one of my experiments exploded right in front of my face! I was quite lucky to come out of that even unscathed!"


    While I could continue talking about all the exploits I came up with in order to rationalise my way to discovering the power of steam, our legs finally carried us to the place that one of Jan''s servants pointed out as the viable housing, forcing me to retract my words and focus on more day-to-day tasks.


    "I hope that we won''t have to wait long tomorrow."


    Even if this sudden change of topic could startle anyone, with how vital keeping the details of my invention from the ears of someone who could make use of them was, continuing the talk inside the spacious, high-class Inn was simply too dangerous. Talking while walking was always one of the best ways to avoid eavesdropping, intentional or not, and I could guess that both of my companions were smart enough to understand the reason for the sudden change.


    "Since they summoned us, it would be in a bad tone to keep us waiting. As for me, I can''t help but wonder whether we will meet with the King directly, or if this entire thing is not just Zboros family ploy to pull us to their faction."


    Catching up the reasons for my change, Governor picked up the topic in an instant, allowing us to safely step up inside the building without any strange stop in front of the doors that could attract the attention of literally anyone nearby.


    "And if that will be the case then what are your plans, my lord? I don''t think it would be wise to completely refuse their potential offer after all this time we wasted coming hereˇ­"


    In truth, just the fact that I could finally catch up with Elia properly and spend some quality time with her was enough of remuneration for the time I spent on the boat for me, but my status of a nobility forced me to demand either the honour of meeting directly with the King or receiving some more reasonable benefits if it turned out this french traitor-to-be never bothered his head with inviting us.


    "It all depends on what they will have to offer. After all, all potential benefits will have to come at a price, unlessˇ­"


    Stopping for a moment and forcing the two of us and the servant guiding us towards our rooms to halt our steps as well, Jan rested his chin on top of his palm.


    "Unless you will be able to sell them the idea of investing in the road properly. While the Vistula is more than enough for the small trade to happen along with all its subsidiaries, it''s our national shame that we lack any other form of roads across the entire country. So, to put it shortly, if you want to refuse their attempts at pulling us to their faction without insulting them, this road is our only hope!"


    Picking up the pace as soon as Jan started talking, it didn''t take long for all of us to reach the doors leading us to our respective housing for the night.


    "I will do my best!"

 159 Meeting part 1

    8th May 1574


    "This bastardˇ­"


    While my anger was so huge it was seeping out from my body and affecting everyone around, I still had to keep my words as silent as I could if I was unable to hold them back. After all, calling your King a bastard could be taken as high treason!


    "Calm down. He would end up looking silly if he didn''t make us wait for even a few moments."


    Even if I could understand the reasoning behind Jan''s words, wasting my time in those uncomfortable clothes while waiting to be allowed inside the chamber was still an annoying pain in the ass.


    But that was just one of the quirks of this time. Just like people from my new timeline wouldn''t understand how the world worked just a few hundred years later, it was hard for me to comprehend what was so important in making your guests wait after you summoned them yourself!


    "Well, he is a King so he can do whatever he wants as long as he follows the protocols."


    While I was clearly the angry one and governor took the role of the element of calmness, Elia was the wild card of our group, for now just sitting on the side and trying to make this situation not influence her in the way it did me, but from the small wrinkles appearing on her forehead, I could tell that it wouldn''t take long before she would join my faction.


    "I just hopeˇ­"


    "You may enter the chamber now."


    Just as I wanted to point out that if this meeting would end up being without the King''s presence, then any chances to coming into an agreement would be lost, the steward of the royal palace stepped out from within the chamber and invited us in.


    At first, my emotions calmed down a moment, with the prospect of potentially solving the financing problem for my projects, only for them to push me even closer to the tipping point when I saw that inside the room, only a single person was sitting!


    "Welcome to the capital, sirs. I hope your journey was easy and comfortable."


    Not even bothering to stand up as he greeted us, the middle-aged man behind the desk already showed what kind of approach he would have towards us while keeping an ironic smile on his face!


    "What is the meaning of this."


    With my rage reaching the new height, my face turned cold, retracting all the signs of anger. Yet from the way that Jan looked at me, I could tell that he saw what was coming.


    "Excuse me?"


    Baffled by my reaction, the noble in front of me was clearly unable to make sense of what I meant by my words. But it was too late for him or governor to salvage the situation.


    While there was a factor of respect given to all sorts of official positions in the country, only a selected few of them warranted the additional formalities. What this man wearing the crest of Zboros family on his kontus did, was just a simple abuse of his newly found power!


    But something like that wouldn''t be able to tilt me out of my calm. I was simply investing myself in my act aimed to make everyone know that neither did I or the governor ever liked the Zboros family, saving us from the backlashes that they and all their supporters would face in just about a month!


    "Mike, I know he is at fault, but don''t overstep your line! Now thenˇ­"


    After scolding me just like I hoped he would, Jan turned to the noble with a stern look on his own face, indicating that while he stopped me from erupting, he was happy to uphold the points I brought.


    "Dear Peter (real, historical figure). I know that you don''t like the fact that in order to get your new titles, you had to give up the province of Sandomir in my favour, but that doesn''t give you the right to treat us like that. I will except a hefty remuneration for all three of us for the fact that you brought us here with royal summons, yet failing to let us meet with his majesty! Don''t forget that your position as the elder(*) of the Capital doesn''t give you the right to abuse your power!"


    With Governor starting the debate on such an aggressive note, I instantly turned to his intentions, adding my few cents.


    "Sir brother, unless you summoned us to the capital in order to announce the bestowing of some honorary title or willing to grant us some lands in recognitions of the safekeeping of the province, I can''t really understand what''s the point of this meeting is!"


    Only by putting the pressure on this man right away, we could get something positive out of this meeting. Putting a strain on our relationship was a must, considering how I didn''t want to be associated with them, but I had to find a way to make the most use of the fact that they were currently the most influential family in the entire commonwealth!


    "Does this piece of paper strikes a tune in your memories?"


    Instead of replying, Peter pulled a small parchment out of his desk, raising it high into the air before slamming it on top of his desk.


    "You claimed that I failed to follow the protocols, yet here it is, your own ruling about moving the ownership of the Ropian town form the infamed and banished Bart under the Mike''s of Tarnow rule. Did you forget that those kinds of verdicts need his majesty approval?"

 160 Meeting part 2

    8th May 1574


    "This town lies within the province that I''m the governor off. As you ruled over it previously, you should know that getting crown''s approval is just an annoying formality, left after the ancient times!"


    In an instant, Jan took over the entire discussion sending hate-filled looks towards Peter. Since I had no idea what they were talking about as the details of governing the province wasn''t something that I could learn from history books or games I played, I could only sit and watch as they argued amongst each other.


    "But it''s still a requirement! Now, are you going to play tough, or should I revoke all the decisions made in this document?"


    Hearing those words, the atmosphere in the room suddenly turned tense. If Bart''s name got cleaned of infamy and his banishment revoked, that would basically mean war! And not one between him and my like it happened before, but between me and the entire Zboros family!


    "Sir Peter, I don''t think you want to make me go for the extra length of assuring that this document will remain legit. Bart, whose name is written in this document, lost over a hundred elite cavalry while trying to kidnap my wife and kill me and my people. I would like to remind everyone gathered that while I gave up the weapons that proved capable of giving me this victory, I have more means than necessary to make quite a lot more of them."


    While my words were clearly threatening, I made sure to form them in a way that would make it impossible for anyone to accuse me of making any actual threats. Thanks to this, while the message was passed, I should be safe from any possible repercussions of using such an aggressive tone towards the commonwealth official.


    "Miracle weapon? Now you are making me curious. Especially with how are you going to use them against the representative of the commonwealth!"


    Sadly, Peter''s words proved that it wasn''t that easy to force him into obedience. But I would never be able to save my face if a modern man like me couldn''t overcome such a puny obstacle!


    "Use them against our dear commonwealth representative? Sir brother, accusing someone of treason and banditry fitting the name of the man you are willing to spare is more than enough for me to give you a field right now!"


    While I started on a high horse by mentioning my duel, rather than firing myself up even more and insisting on it, I simply smiled and continued.


    "But I will let it pass, taking it as a poorly used means of warning me. Yet, I can''t help but think about what would happen in a certain noble family were to get their hands on such an effective weaponˇ­ After all, when I heard what happened at the royal tournament right after our king''s coronation, I couldn''t help but sympathise with their cause!"


    Only when a commoner knight decided to accept the challenge did the duel started, leading to a disgraceful defeat of the Samuel. In a fit of rage after losing to a commoner, small fighting ensued, leading to the injury of the noble that attempted to mediate the conflict, who would die only ten years later from the wound he received from Samuel''s hand.


    While this matter was simply too small to be remembered by me with how fragmented my knowledge about the entire period was, while I was back in Tarnow, preparing to deal with Bart, I received the news about the entire event.


    "Okay, okay. Let''s drop this matter. I won''t meddle in this topic, but there is still another matter to discuss. And while it might make you even angrier, it is the main reason as to why you were summoned to the palace. I heard that you started brewing some luxury beer?"


    Seeing that Peter wanted to stop the conflict from escalating and discuss the matter that sooner or later would be put to the royal attention, I decided it would be the best to calm myself down and use this opportunity to strike a deal while hiring some people to spread the rumours about our earlier clash.


    "Yes, since I found a recipe allowing me to produce a quality drink, I''m investing most of the money I have into expanding its production. But why does it require royal attention? As a landed noble I do have the right to brew and distribute my own alcohol, don''t I?"


    Outside of jews that managed most of the taverns in the entire country, a limited amount of citizens and a great majority of the nobles had the right to brew alcoholic drinks. That''s why while I knew that capital would try to find some way to tax it, I already prepared a few ways to avoid wasting my money on the lavish life of the king!


    "It came to my attention that rather than selling those beers in your own lands, you are putting quite a lot of effort into spreading them all around the country. And as you might know, the crown has the right to tax such endeavours. That''s why, from now on, you will have to pay thirty parts out of a hundred for every barrel that will be sold outside of your lands!"


    Hearing those words, I had some troubles stopping myself from breathing out in relief. Using such an ordinary way in an attempt to force me to pay to the crown? There was no way this poor guy would succeed!


    "I''m sorry, but I think you have one thing wrong. So far, I never sold a single barrel in a place other than Tarnow!"

 161 Poisoned?

    8th May 1574


    "Just like I said, the only way to get this beer ever since I started producing it, is directly from the breweries managed by my econom, Matsu. If even a single barrel appeared outside of my lands, then you will have to deal with the merchants spreading it, rather than with me."


    Shrugging my arms with a smug smile on my face, I looked at Peter, waiting for his come back. According to my brewing rights, I could produce as much beer or any other alcohol I wanted, as long as I kept it to my laws. As for selling it outside, since I wasn''t the one responsible for it, he couldn''t tax me even a single silver on it!


    "Oh? Then I''m worried we will have a problem. Ah, to make things straight, I found that beer quite awesome, to the point where I always try to have one barrel nearbyˇ­"


    With a reach of his hand, Peter brought a small, wooden barrel on top of the table, along with three cups. After knocking the stopper out of the container, he allowed the golden liquid to flow down to each of the cups, before pushing them in our direction and reaching for his own cup only to bring it closer to his mouth and take a generous sip.


    "... but the King just can''t have your beer moving through the entire country without any tax on it. I hope you will understand where I''m coming from."


    I couldn''t hear better news! Taking over one of the cup and passing it to Elia, I repeated the same thing with the second one and Governor, only to take the last one for myself and raise it to my mouth in the same manner that Peter did.


    But to my surprise, this was nothing but a poor excuse for my beer!


    Almost spitting out the drink on the floor, I thought I could mask this hiccup, only to see Elia openly twist her face in disgust. Raising my eyes towards the man behind the desk, I noticed that he was keenly observing our reactions as if he really wanted the three of us to drink what he poured us!


    At this point, I also realised that rather than drinking from the same barrel that he poured the drinks for us, he only drank from the cup that was already standing on the side!


    "YOU!"


    Instantly spitting the content back to the cup, with a swift swing of both of my hands I pushed the mugs away from the lips of my two companions, but it was too late!


    Due to how I initially wanted to mask my reaction, Elia already forced herself to swallow a few gulps! While it was good that Governor has yet to poison himself with this bastard drink if anything were to happen to my wifeˇ­


    "WHAT THE HELL IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"


    Instantly shouting from the bottom of my lungs, I openly rested my hand on the handle of my sabre, with my mind filled with the images of my beloved wife twitching in pain on the floor as the toxins would decompose her body from the inside.


    "Sir, is this EXACTLY the same drink you always drink?"


    While I had my doubts whether my reaction was proper, I still had to make sure that Peter wasn''t simply stalling for the time in order to get the poison to work!


    But hearing my question, a light of enlightenment shone in his eyes, he instantly grabbed the entire barrel, raised it above his mouth and allowed the drink to flow down to his mouth, drinking it right in front of my eyes.


    "Yes, that''s the drink I''m getting from a merchant importing it from your lands."


    Seeing that it was just a misunderstanding caused by something that I simply failed to foresee, I lifted my hand from the sabre and lowered my head to the royal advisor.


    "I''m sorry for suspecting you, but as this is not the beer I''m producing but just some kind of cheated and watered-down version, added with how this entire meeting started and how you Sir, have a separate cup prepared in advance, I came to the wrong conclusions. Once again, I do formally apologise."


    Keeping my head lowered, I could feel a hot flowing to my cheek, allowing everyone in the room to admire an embarrassed look on my face.


    "Wait, did you say this beer is cheated?!"


    Suddenly realising the meaning behind my words, Peter flared up to the point where he stood up himself, staring at me as if I just announced that I killed the satan and saved everyone sinning from the eternal punishment.


    "Yes, while this is just a guess, I would say only about a third of its content came from my breweries, with the rest filled half-to-half with water and some cheap beer that one can find at the outskirts of any town."


    As I clarified the matter, the look on Peter''s face was truly incredible. With his anger steeming from being cheated by said merchant and the curiosity coming most likely from his urge to try the original itself, it proved to be really challenging to not start giggling at how incredible expression he made!


    "But while this situation is quiteˇ­ messy, it serves as a good reminder for me. As soon as I will get back to my lands, I will make sure that all the barrels sold will bear the seal of my lands so that no one will be able to fake the content!"


    While I said something about the seal, I didn''t mean the one that any noble would use to mark their letters and orders, but something akin to a small rope that had to be cut in order to open the barrel and that was impossible to be replaced afterwards.


    "But for now, let''s return for the topic of taxes for a moment. I think I have the way for both parties to be satisfied, that could additionally increase its popularity and bring a new source of taxes and traders directly to the country!"

 162 Trade deal

    8th May 1574


    "I''m all ears."


    Even if the deal that I was going to propose to Peter wouldn''t affect his coffers directly, from how profitable it might turn out for the country as a whole, he could at least rack some favours with the king and get off my case in return.


    "The idea is fairly simple. I will keep selling my beer in my lands just like I used to, while the crown won''t meddle with this affair within the countryˇ­ But you will encourage the traders to sell it outside our borders with custom tax added on top of it! With how cheaply I''m selling the barrels, even tripling its costs wouldn''t be a problem. That''s the first benefit for you. As for the other, do I really need to spell out what would happen when people outside of our borders learn that they can get this beer for half the price that our traders will offer in their countries?"


    For me, the most important part about the entire business was to sell as much as I could and produce more with each passing day while keeping my ability to sell everything. And after several years spent in the marketing department, I perfectly knew what would, for example, German or Austrian merchants do if they were to learn that rather than spending about ten golden ducats for a barrel as I assumed that would be the price my beer would reach in their lands, they would much prefer to just go on a short trip to Tarnow, stock up there, pay the due customs and make the profits themselves!


    And what would this influx of traders mean for my lands?


    From all the wares that they would bring to the Tarnow, the prices for most of the products would plummet due to the supply greater than ever. After all, no one liked to move around with a sack of gold if they could take their wares and just sell them when reaching the place they wanted to reach!


    "This really seems like a good ideaˇ­ But are you sure your beer can gain that much traction in their lands? It''s not like those westerners can appreciate the quality of a good drink!"


    Rather than listening to what Peter tried to imply, I simply allowed him to speak for a moment, just to prevent making this entire discussion look like it was orchestrated by me from the beginning to the end.


    "But after giving out so many potential profits that you can go flaunt to our king, sir brother, I need you to do something for me in return."


    When one looked at the flow of this entire conversation, then it would start with an unreasonable demand by Peter, followed by my refusal and a deal offer that would exceed any of his initial intentions. Given this fact, it would be unthinkable for me to let the country profits so much off my back without securing some of my interests!


    "Speak up, I will see later if I can fulfil your demands."


    "I want you to lift most of the customs for the wares entering the Hungarian border on the White River. Additionally, I want to have full control over moving the wares downstream, so that no merchant will use this opportunity to evade the customs and sell his wares elsewhere. And before you will ask why, I just want to tunnel them all to my lands, so that they can profit from a huge increase in all sorts of wares."


    Rather than keeping this sort of information, what was my reason for insisting on this tradeoff, I came completely clean, instantly explaining it all. If I were to keep it to myself, rather than increasing my chance at making this trade, Peter could very likely start suspecting that I was trying to do something funny, from cheating on the taxes or customs all the way to trying to remove the king himself!


    And thinking about it, with how the next King of Commonwealth would come from the Hungary, this kind of suspicion would be really grounded in reality!


    "I think that''s doable. Anything else?"


    Most likely noticing that I was still on the edge, Peter kindly gave me the chance to continue speaking.


    "Yes. With what I was busying myself for the last few days, I found a way to build roads relatively cheaply. But since this method is not yet tested, I would like to set a road between the three cities under my jurisdictionˇ­ But to do that, I will require an immense investment from the Crown. Considering how our entire country lacks any proper roads, I think if I could slash the normal price by half, then both the King and most of the nobles would love the idea to test this new method out!"


    This was the most important part of the entire negotiation. If I could get the financing to build the road from Tarnow through Pilzno all the way to Ropian, all three of those cities would effectively become a single, huge metropolis with the introduction of the train system that I already had in mind, finally turning the commonwealth into the first, real powerhouse in terms of both the economic capability and the technology prowess!


    "A new roadˇ­ While I would love to see something like this happening, with how our dearest king is more interested in foreign whores rather than managing this countryˇ­ Obviously, I never said that gentleman, but we will need some serious convincing to get him to agree to such a big investment!"

 163 Other end of the offer

    8th May 1574


    After moving out of the royal palace of Wawel, where not only did the King spend his days but also where the burial chambers for all the legendary kings of the country were located, we could finally get out and go for a walk.


    "I still can''t believe it! To think that you dared to molest the handle of your sabre in the presence of King''s advisor and go away with it scot-free!"


    As we walked through the streets of the capital, I couldn''t help but blush while hearing the words of Jan. In fact, if it was for any other situation, doing so could cost me my head if Peter was keen of keeping his pride even for the sake of huge backlash from the Noble community, and there wouldn''t be anything I could do about it!


    "Get off his head. How would you react if it was you thinking that he was attempting to poison us? It would be the first occurrence when someone was aiming for our lives!"


    One of the main profits of the situation was that despite being otherwise rather silent and polite, Elia suddenly found back her energy and was ready to fight off any bad words directed at me for the situation that occurred or any other reason while basically pushing my entire arm so hard to her body as if she wanted to merge with me at once.


    Thinking about this now, I had to admit that while I respected Jan as a person and politician, not to speak about how thankful I was for all the help he offered in my projects when the push came to shove, the only person I could think about was Elia.


    It was the potential danger to her life that made me so bold in presence of royal representative, and I knew deep within my soul that if my misguided worried were to turn out to be true at that moment, I would have no qualms in cutting him down for as long as it would take for him to fess up where was the antidote!


    "Don''t worry, don''t worry, beautiful. I''m not going to blame nor steal your dear husband, so you don''t need to choke his arm so hard! What will you do if his blood flow will be blocked?"


    Instead of taking Elia''s reprimand to his heart, Jan only laughed even louder, to the point that people passing by us as we walked on the street started looking at us as if we were in a dire need of meeting with local enforcement squad just to make sure no satanic heresy would soil those lands.


    "Guys, calm down. Rather than bringing some shameful and recent memories, how about you tell me what you think about the deal in the first place."


    While I considered my offer to be a great deal for all the sides included, especially with how I could use this opportunity to befriend the future King of Commonwealth who despite never learning the Polish language was considered one of the best rules this poor country ever had in its entire history and definitely the best-elected king out of all that drove the commonwealth into its dire situation.


    Even before receiving any answer from my companions, I could see a constant stream of steam-powered ships coursing through the white river from the Hungarian border all the way to Tarnow, where one of the biggest markets would be created, only to follow even further along the Vistula all the way to the city of Gdansk! (Danzig)


    "It went surprisingly well. I think you somehow managed to convince him that building a road connecting all our lands could be considered a national project aimed at increasing the wealth and pride of every noble in the country!"


    With Elia still driving on the energy, she got when she realised how far I was ready to go in order to protect her from any form of harm, she was sure to compliment me in the best way she would find plausible, and while it was a lovely feeling to get a cute, young woman like her fawning over me like that with the obvious prospects how would the day end between the two of us from the deep hunger in her eyes, this time it was Governor''s response that I wanted to hear.


    "Honestly, this time I will have to agree with your wife. You managed to put forth the benefits for the entire country that he could flaunt to the king. If I were to be precise, the way in which you outlined all the reasons why you wanted to do this road and the other projects was a brilliant move. By focusing him on those aspects of the deal, you didn''t give Peter any chance to look deeper into the matterˇ­ butˇ­"


    Hearing the hesitation in Governor''s voice, I quickly connected the dots and finished for him.


    "But we don''t know if he won''t realise those other points that I kept hidden when thinking about this entire matter. After all, getting any King to abolish custom on even the smallest part of the border? If not controlled properly, that would lead to a disaster!"


    Just like I did with Peter, I lead the talks in the direction I wanted it to follow since there was still one point that I wasn''t so sure about but had to verify with the people living in this age. After all, what was rational in my mindset, wouldn''t necessarily look like that in theirs!


    "But to fight that, I proposed this transit station. By pushing all of this trade to the Tarnow, we can make a rule that all trade happening there is free from customs, but everyone profiting there has to pay a tax on their profit instead!"

 164 Try to catch three birds at once, and you will be left hungry!

    11th May 1574


    "I managed to convince our benevolent King. While you will receive the funding for the new road, you will have to accept royal magistrate to oversee its construction. After all, for such a huge project like this, we can''t just have you taking care of it alone!"


    Finally, after two entire days of waiting, we were summoned back to the royal palace, where Peter explained what did he manage to achieve in the time he had since we last saw each other.


    "As for the customs and taxesˇ­ I found another merchant that traded with your beer and had the King have a taste. As long as you provide a stable supply for the royal warehouse in form of a tax with one out of ten barrels supplying the royal warehouse, you will receive enough land at the border and the custom relief to establish this trading route you mentionedˇ­ But just like before, there will be a crown official overseeing the collection of the taxes both on the beer and all the trade that will go through your city."


    To be quite frank, I didn''t expect that the terms that the King would offer would be so great! Not only I would have a free hand in profiting off the transportation that I would implement, but also receive enough money to create the famed tower of gold, where I could swim in the golden coins just like a certain duck that was pretty well-known in the entire world of both businessmen and kids!


    But to be more realistic, while I would have to pay quite a lot in the form of additional taxes, the returns of the investments would be far more than just worth the effort. From the transportation on the river starts, I could already see crowds of merchants willing to use the lack of customs on the border, all given the choice.


    Either go travel by a normal ship and face the dangers on the way or use the cheap option that would shorten the travel time by a factor of at least five, while protected by the most modern army in the world!


    As long as I forced everyone to pay just a single gold coin for using my future steam-powered boats to reach Tarnow, all the money for all the new taxes would be completely covered by this small and simple business alone!


    "So, where can we expect the first batch of gold to cover the costs of the materials we need?"


    When asking this question, I already had plenty of scams that happened in every single democratic government across the world. Since I controlled the entire production of all the materials that I would be using to set this road, by claiming to cover half the costs from my own sack, I could just double the price and receive just as much money as I would ever want!


    But that also required me to ditch everything that was going near the mines, and throw myself into developing both the basic oil extraction and refinement, but also to create the proper blueprint for a simple steamboat that would be capable of carrying huge amounts of materials!


    "After talking with the designed magistrate, he wants to examine the materials you will use for the road first. Only when he will be satisfied, the gold will flow to your source and the creation of the road could be started."


    Hearing those words, I almost jumped in joy. Considering how officials liked to travel slowly and in luxury, it would take him at least a few days to reach the mining area, then another few days to go back to Tarnow, giving me at least an entire week to set the minimal production of oil and most importantly - an asphalt!


    "Okay then. Since the production of most of the products is in the full swing already, I will need him to travel to this placeˇ­"


    Since I hoped for this outcome, I came prepared. Pulling out a small map sketched on a small piece of paper from the inner pocket of my contus, I spread it out on Peter''s desk.


    "Here. This is where the product of the miracle mortar is set up. But since this mortar is only one of the parts required for creating the road, as soon as he will confirm its capability, I will need him to goˇ­"


    At this moment, I hesitated. Trying to introduce oil and its products could be a leap too big even for me! With how I had beer, road, wood and all the other businesses and project on my head, I wasn''t really sure whether I could handle yet another big mess!


    "... To the building site. I will be working on the way to bring such an immense amount of resources from home."


    After this slight hesitation, I decided that if I were to chase all three birds at once, I would be simply left hungry for the day. Even if it meant scarring my lands with something that I considered outdated technology, using cement along with sand and stone rubble to pave the road would already by a great technological jump for not only the country but the entire world at once!


    "Okay then. I will go and inform him right now. I hope the next time we will meetˇ­. Or wait, I forgot!"


    Suddenly facepalming himself, Peter brought down his hand from his forehead and pulled open a drawer in his desk only to pull a curled up paper from it that bore the royal crest.


    "This is the document confirming the bestowment of the land you asked for in the hands of your family. I''m showing it to you already, because I want you to believe my words, but sadlyˇ­ Only when you sign the document proving that you voluntarily agreed to set the tax on your beer, will I be able to give it to you!"

 165 Steam turbine

    15th May 1574


    "We will need to stack them on top of each other!"


    While others might assume that helping at the construction site for the Wood plant was stupid with how not only the Royal magistrate was already on his way to inspect the production of cement powder and the concrete itself, but it was something that I simply had to do.


    This project was simply too important for all the other ideas of mine to develop!


    Starting from the most obvious thing, all the housing and building in the mining areas had to be made partially from wood. From the planks for the roofs of the many houses that were under construction right now, through turning the scrapped branch into fertilizer or using the shavings as insulation for the building walls all the way to all the parts that would be required to make the ships that I was so keen on producing.


    With how I wanted to transport quite a lot of weight all the way from the mining area to the Tarnow in order to even start the road project, I had no other choice than to focus on building those steamships that I came up with in my mind. But rather than designing the river shipyard that would allow me to produce them, I had to make sure that the carpentry plant would be operating properly first!


    "Sir, once again, what is the purpose of this? Don''t we need just a single conveyor line to move the logs and planks around?"


    If not for my hasty return as soon as all the documents were signed and the deal confirmed, this place would be already preparing to start its producing, even if only at a limited scale, proving that the lack of my presence would be far more important than I hoped when I was leaving.


    "If we only focused on getting the hard, wood products, that would be more than enough. But since we have quite a lot of use for this dust and scrap wood, going for an extra mile to collect it is only reasonable, isn''t it?"


    To be frank, the dust collection was one of the most expensive parts in the entire factory. Wherever the wood would be cut, outside of placing another conveyor belt below it to catch the parts that would be cut away, both conveyors would use sieve type of line, capable of supporting the big pieces but allowing the scrap parts to fall through it on the special, angled tube, that would push it to a special line where it would be sorted through a set of special, vibrating sieves and stored in special warehouses.


    "But wouldn''t it be enough to just have some men go around this place with brooms? Why waste a crapton of metal just to make those parts? Ah, I mean no disrespect sir, but seeing how this place gobbles up more money than all the other projects combined, I''m worried that no matter how much we produce, getting back the cost invested will be simply impossible!"


    That was one of the positives for letting all those people work by themselves, without my management. While I was still here, they all knew when they should start working, when they should take a break or when the workload required them to work even harder. But as soon as I had to take a trip to the capital, some of them allowed their ambition to take the place of their reason, spending all of the time they could working in order to make sure everything in this wondrous place would go as planned, while some others used this chance to start slacking to a point, where some of the other managers had to develop yet another level of coordinating everyone to make sure their workers would work properly!


    "You don''t need to worry about it. Since we have more than enough power and iron to do those things, it''s better to think about them in advance. Right now, nothing is working in this place yet, so adding any improvements does not require stalling the production and might save us quite a lot of manpower later. Anyway, that will be all from me for today, as I need to check on a few other places. Good luck, and remember to have a proper sleep later on."


    While the fact that some of my underlings were working too hard was an obvious problem, the same could be said about me.


    After getting more than enough time to enjoy my private time with Elia as during the return trip, outside for the times when we had a meal on the board of the ship, we would spend all the boring hours locked inside our chamber, I felt as if the energy wanted to escape through every single piece of my body.


    With the carpentry manager sending me off to the doors by himself, I instantly moved to the plant next-doors, where a new batch of workers sent directly from Sandomir along with some more craftsmen were working on the shipyard.


    Yet rather than spending a long time here, I only made sure that the construction was going as planned, before moving to the core of this new project of mine.


    Steam turbine.


    Only when I started working on it did I realise how simple its design was when compared to a steam horse. Just by creating a long tube with the steam intake directed horizontally at the set of angled fans mounted on top of a power rod, with the steam outflow beneath them, I could make the fans force the power rod to spin, turning the heat into a usable form of energy!


    The only problem was the size of this equipment, as with only the casting method available for me in terms of creating any form of metal shape I was simply unable to provide a casing big enough to contain enough turbines to propel a heavy ship!


    That''s why, rather than trying to forcefully connect an insane number of parts that would be later connected by the molten metal which would not only make this process really long but would result with a quite fragile casing, I decided that going for a set of smaller steam turbines would do the job!

 166 Alternatives

    16th May 1574


    "We really need some cranesˇ­"


    Standing atop the elevated platform used to overlook the construction of the boat, I oversaw the mounting on the great axis that would be used to power the boat. With how it was below the deck line yet above the submersion one, rather than mounting it right at the top of the ship, I along with the rest of the constructors that calculated all the details decided that leaving the upper deck of the boat just for storing the materials would be a far better idea.


    "Cranes?"


    Leaning over a simplistic railing beside me, Elia asked with a curiosity written all over her face. Considering how only the major city of Gda¨˝sk (will stop using the name but its Danzing) used this kind of machinery to load the sea-faring ships, it wasn??t a surprise that she lacked the understanding of the world.


    "Basically, we build a tall tower, from which two arms extend allowing us to pull either a chain or a strong rope between the ends of the arms. This way rather than moving the stuff up and down by hand, we could use the cranes to do it for us. Also, this would be yet another way to use the power of steam horsesˇ­"


    Despite the production of the new type of steam engine, the turbine one, I still decided that we would continue to produce the mark two ones at the half of usual speed. If I dared to redirect all my resources into ship making, as soon as the already existing plants would grow, their demands for energy would rise above what the current powerplant could produce!


    Even now the speed at which the steam engines were consuming the firewood caused be quite a headache and forced me to look for other ways of providing them with fuel. That was also one of the reasons why I was so keen at investing more and more ore into the carpentry plant since as soon as it would start producing the logs, we could make use of the scraps to make the fuel on the spot!


    And no, I didn''t mean the normal wood that would be consumed by all the other projects in a single instant, delaying the time required to achieve self-sufficiency. What I wanted to produce from the scraps, was a pellet wood!


    As long as I could come up with a simple design for a hydraulic press that would force those scraps through a tiny hole at its bottom part, the condensed granulate would be great at sustaining the fires under the steam engines of all kinds!


    "I see. But don''t you think you are trying too hard to make use of the steam horses? Since we can get any amount of gold from the crown that we want, why not get more people to hasten up the production of the ships while focusing your attention elsewhere? To be quite honest, seeing how this place changed when we were away, not to speak how you basically built it from a scratch before I came here, I can''t help but wonder how would our cities look if you focused your attention there!"


    "It''s not like I can help it. If we want the cement mix, we need the stone quarry. If we want it to operate, we need to have quite a few steam horses that are powering the crushing jaws and all the belts that move the crushed rock around. And lastly, if we want to make any use of either of those, we need those ships. It''s not that I want to do everything here, but every time I solve one problem that requires my attention, another one appears."


    As I spoke about it, even looking at the workers finishing mounting the axis on the ship which indicated that in about a few more hours, the first naval unit of mine would move from the dry dock to its proper destination on water couldn''t lift my mood.


    I could only imagine how much Tarnow would develop if there were both the iron mines and limestone reserves there! Yet this wasn''t some sort of fantasy novel where the transmigrating hero would get the perfect land to develop from scratch, ample source of all the resources required to boost both economy and military and all topped up with weak enemies possessing huge population all around.


    For some reason, rather than lucking out like those happy heroes from the novels I like to read, I had to tackle down all my problems one by one, figuring out how to get by in the harsh reality presented by the real world.


    "Then do you think we will manage to finish everything before the magistrate comes? After all, without the crown''s funding, we will have to start selling the engines far faster than we plannedˇ­"


    That was yet another reason why I decided against focusing on the easier to create, turbine engines and kept producing the mark two ones. If anything went wrong and we would be deprived of funding in this crucial time, I knew for sure that some of the nobles would be interested in buying one off me, even if only for the sake of cutting it apart to learn how it was made!


    "You know that I would like to avoid doing so. The longer we keep the secret of its simplicity to ourselves, the longer it will take others to join the race we inadvertently started. That''s why I want to make sure we will be able to receive a stable supply of all the materials for building the road by the time this damned Magistrate will come!"

 167 Magistrate

    18th May 1574


    "So this is the fabled site where the beer that turned the capital on its head is produced!''


    Just the first sentence that the Magistrate spouted as soon as his feet touched the makeshift riverport managed to convince me that dealing with him will be either insanely simple or a damned pain in the butt.


    "No, sir. The beer of the Tarnowian land is produced exclusively in Tarnow. What you can see here, is the site that produces the new material we are going to use to build the road along with the peripheral projects required to keep it running."


    Instantly correcting the man as I offered him my hand, I smiled and added.


    "Obviously, we have some of the barrels stored here just in case of a need like that. Outside of that, I would like to offer you, sir brother, a nice ride to Tarnow later on, as to let you inspect how are we going to move the insane amount of resources to the road construction site."


    As all the projects in the former mine area were moving at full speed, in the last two days not only we managed to finish the first and second steam paddler, but the entire carpentry plant was in its last stages of construction along with the basic shipyard right beside!


    This was the only reason why I was so keen at inviting this representative on the crown for a trip to Tarnow. Not only would that allow me to flaunt a new kind of vessel in his eyes, but also prove that I was capable of doing everything that I promised in exchange for the required financing!


    "Ah, that''s a pity! I really wanted to have a taste of a freshly brewed sample!"


    Seeing how this guy was only interested in the beer, I was quite disappointed. It seemed like rather than convincing him to the potential benefits of investing Crown''s money into my projects, I would have to simply bribe him with a few barrels to make sure we would receive any founding!


    But while that might sound easy, if I were to negotiate with a real official who took his job seriously, then by making him notice the potential worth behind all my inventions and their applications, rather than receiving the expected amount, I could hope for even more gold than we would initially request!


    "Don''t worry, sir. I will give you a tour through our great breweries myself, but as for the roadˇ­"


    While this man''s reaction to my words forced me to accept the fact that I would be unable to promote the development of the country through the rumours that he would spread, I still had to have him inspect the production of concrete to make him realise how intricate task it was in order to not make him refuse the price of the cement in the first place.


    "Yeah, I know, I know. The road stuff. You really need to relax a bit, sir brother. It''s not like we will enter the state of civil war tomorrow! How about we have a drink first?"


    I guess that''s how the greatest military power in Europe was capable of defeating itself during the trip to squash one of the cossacks bunts. Thinking about this, I really wish I could know how to make disulfiram, otherwise known as Esperalˇ­ With its effects stopping the diffusion of alcohol in one''s body, all the effects of the hangover would be not only enhanced, but they would also come in a few minutes from the moment of drinking alcohol rather than only when the next day would arrive!


    Regretfully, even if I had such drug on hands, I still wouldn''t be able to use it. Not only no one in the noble brotherhood would allow having such a thing implanted in his body, but also that would prevent the medics from using the very basic way of disinfecting the wounds with spirit!


    "I would still prefer if we start drinking only after we get on the boat. I''m sorry sir, but this matter is too important for both my family and the entire country at once to let the sweet taste of alcohol push us away from doing our best to fulfil this wish!"


    No matter what, if I wanted to get a good price for my cement in order to siphon the money from the royal treasure, I had to make him see the production of this improved mortar no matter what! And when we would board the steam paddler, then I could tell him the tales of how insane this ship would be when used on the White River down south in my next project, while making him drink more and more in order to nail this information down his head!


    "Ehˇ­ What a spoil funˇ­ Okay then, bring me to this miraculous mortar that you spoke about in the report I have."


    With a clearly annoyed expression on his face, the magistrate pushed his hand forward, showing me his open palm as if ordering me to lead the way. Gnashing my teeth against each other to make sure I wouldn''t erupt in anger when seeing someone as lacking as him on the official position, I only nodded slightly before moving forward.


    If by holding my emotions I could secure the funding for my projects, then I was ready to toughen through this ordeal. After all, sooner or later, this fucktard would be gone, replaced by a nice pile of gold coins that I could use far more effectively than literally anyone else in the world!

 168 First stage finished

    18th May 1574


    "Did he finally go to sleep?"


    Looking up at my wife, I didn''t even bother hiding a content smirk from my face. While putting this idiot to sleep took half of the entire barrel of my beer, it was still worth the price as I could finally check whether everything in the carpentry plant was working.


    "Yeah. I wonder how we will fare when going to Tarnow."


    Even if the journey on the steam paddler would be way shorter than one on the boat powered by nothing but oars, it would still take us about a single day from the moment we would board the ship all the way to reaching the Pilznian river port on the Vistulian river, one of the Vistula subsidiaries that directly connected the city to the extensive network of this water highway of the country.


    "Let''s stop thinking about him. How did it go at the cement factory?"


    Since rather than producing concrete right away which required not only sand but also quite a bit of crushed rocks, the entire plant originally aimed to make it turned to just cement production. With the addition of a single belt and switch, whenever the intake for the set of now four furnaces working around the clock was stopped due to the filling of the furnaces, rather than stalling the production stone aggregate, everything was dumped at a newly designated area, allowing the local production of the concrete for all the local projects that kept on expanding.


    "Rather nicely. While I don''t want to state things for sure when speaking about someone as dumb as this magistrate, he seemed to be fairly impressed."


    In fact, calling him impressed was quite an understatement. Seeing on his own eyes how huge iron claws were mercilessly crushing the rocks thrown into their processing chamber while powered by a set of eight mark two steam horses at once could baffle anyone daring to get aquatinted with the steam technology through the machines present in mines.


    While I could give him a trip through the wood plant first in order to let him get used to the sight of various stuff moving seemingly by itself, it would be counterproductive in terms of making a huge impression.


    "Okay then, let''s stop speaking about him. How do you feel about the carpentry finally opening up?"


    With my thoughts derailed by Elia''s suggestion, I followed her request and ditched this annoying man from my mind. As we were slowly walking towards still busy plant beside the river, I couldn''t help but feel excited at the prospect of the greatest project of mine finally completing.


    Yet rather than reaching its full production capability, the current stage that was finally finished would only allow doubling the input of the first plant, now fully turned into firewood for the steam engines. It was how efficient it was in terms of using all parts of the logs that it consumed that made it a stepping stone in my mind.


    While I said that, due to how great insane amounts of cement were produced ever since the first smelter started working, there was simply no way to make use of it all in Tarnow, especially with how the production rate of my paddlers was still in its infancy. That''s way, not only most of the expansion was done through pouring the wet concrete between two thick, wooden walls, the grand project of building the entire city that would house all of the workers of this place finally started moving forward!


    Even though the progress was rather laughable as only the future town centre was nearing its finish with some of the carpenters moving there to continue building the administration building they promised to deliver, it was still a step in the right direction, especially with how the political situation of the country would soon force me to think about the means to protect this place form raiders.


    "Okay then, it''s time for a great moment!"


    As we neared the opening frame where at some point in the future, thick wooden doors would be mounted, we could finally see a huge crowd of workers who for the last few weeks were sweating buckets day by day in order to finish this place.


    Yet there was no sign of exhaustion or desperation on their face. From what I heard from the manager before, the last two days were fully directed at testing every machine one by one, to make sure that when launched all at once, everything would work properly. That''s why despite how I could already put this place in use a while ago, only this late afternoon the celebration of the opening of the plant would finally take place.


    "Sir, I would like to report the completion of the first stage of the task you have given to us!"


    With how everyone was clearly waiting for the two of us, this man took only a few steps forward, bowed deeply before pointing his arm at a huge lever, protruding from the ground almost entirely surrounded by scaffolding, indicating that it would be soon sealed off from the rest of the factory.


    "What is this place?"


    While creating the blueprint for this entire place, I never intended for such addition to appear, so it was given that I was quite surprised by this invention of the manager or one of his workers. And just as such, I couldn''t help but be curious what was its purpose!


    "Sir, we all remember how you reacted when this tragic accident happened. If only we had a way to stop everything at once, then maybe those two poor souls and those three that lost their limbs could be saved. That''s why, we added this leaver, that will be capable of stopping everything in the entire factory. And to give you the honours, my lord, we would like you to be the first one who will set it on!"

 169 Unexpected change

    19th May 1574


    "What''s wrong, dear?"


    Standing at the rear end of the open, upper deck, I was leaning over the railway and gazing at the barely distinguishable trails left by the two paddlers on the sides of the ship, attempting to track them into the deep darkness of the pre-industrial type of night.


    "Nothing much, I just can''t help but wish we would just have more timeˇ­"


    With the silence of the night broken only by the silent yet periodical splashes of the water as the wooden paddles emerged from below the surface of the river and sprinkled everything with this cold liquid only to move to the top of the rotating circle and submerge themselves again a moment later in order to push against the river and bring us closer to our destination, I let my tongue act freely.


    "More time? Are we in a hurry?"


    Only when Elia spelt out to me what I just said, did I realise what kind of mistake I made. Startled by the sudden worry, I forced my mind to come up with the closest excuse I could make without sounding stupid.


    "Did you hear that the King of France is slowly dying?"


    If I were to attempt to come up with some kind of bullshit, Elia would be sure to realise that I was trying to hide something from her. While it was obvious that I couldn''t tell her the entire truthˇ­ or at least, not yet, if I could make her think that I was keen enough to foresee Henry''s escape, then I could make her understand why I was in such a hurry!


    "Well, everyone knows that. But as for when he will go back to the Lord, that entirely in God''s hands."


    Any given person from the modern times could interpret those words of Elia as yet another show of her religiousness, yet after all the time I spent in this world I understood that this was nothing but a figure of speech. And just like she said, no one knew when the current king of France, Henry''s older brother would die.


    Heck, even I only knew that it would happen somewhere around the end of the month, but for a specific date? If I knew the history to such details, then I wouldn''t call him a king, but just used his damned name which I had no idea what it was!


    "While I have no other choice but to agree with you on that, I''m just worried about what will happen when his soul will leave this world. Or rather, how would Henry reactˇ­"


    Considering how only the members of the royal lines from the other countries could take part in the elections of the Commonwealth, this kind of trouble would appear over and over again. There would be even a time where a King of Saxony, country way closer to Commonwealth, simply used it as a place to exploit for the profit of his own kingdom that he had absolute control at. If my memories were right, he even plotted to dismantle the country in order to carve a part of it for his own, heritable rule!


    "Just tell me what''s going on through your headˇ­"


    "With all honesty, if he will have the choice of ruling either Commonwealth or France, I''m not so sure if he will decide to stayˇ­ Heck, I''m not even sure if I want him to stay!"


    Only because we were alone I allowed myself to say those words. If this pesky magistrate were to hear me, then unless I could bribe him to shut the heck up, then I would be done for!


    "Welp, I can''t lie. I kinda share your sentiments."


    As if this was some kind of slapstick comedy, as soon as I thought about this annoying official, his voice sounded from behind my back.


    With Elia still in my arms, I couldn''t move rapidly, yet I still had to do it.


    Pulling my hands from her waist, I turned in place while placing my fingers on top of the handle of my sabre. In the instant I saw the man in front of me, I realised that something was wrong.


    He didn??t look like someone who just drank as much as I saw him drinking!


    "No need to be on the edge. And sorry for tricking you a bit, but for some reason, alcohol doesn''t seem to work on me at all."


    Spreading his arms and tilting his head with a smug look on his face, this man became the embodiment of the shrug emote that I was so fond of back in the days where I was nothing but a simple cog in a corporate machine.


    "What do you want?"


    Considering how he interrupted my talk with Elia right after I confessed my sentiments, even if only in order to prepare her for what was coming, it was fairly obvious that his timing had something to do with the content that I said. But rather than taking his words for a good sign that would indicate the lack of problem, I still held my hand on my sabre''s handle.


    After all, what if he said that only to make me think he meant it in order to manipulate me into betraying some more secrets that he could use to confine and accuse me later on?


    "Want? I just want this country to have a proper king rather than a damned rake that we have right now!"


    Only now did I allowed myself to calm down a bit. By insulting Henry like that, in the presence of two nobles at that, he basically put his head on the gallow if I were to spread this information!


    "Do you have enough reasons to trust me so that we could have a normal talk?"

 170 Debate about the future

    19th May 1574


    "So, what did you want to talk about?"


    While those few words that the magistrate used in order to convince me that he had good intentions were fairly dependable, it was way from being enough to fully convince me.


    "As I said, I don''t think that our current king will remain in his position for long. The problem that we, as the nobles, should put before us, is who will be a good fit to replace him?"


    Hearing this question, I couldn''t help but think about the incoming civil-war. In the original timeline, nobles would originally choose Max Habsburg for the king, but he would never bother to make any of the moves necessary to take the role, ultimately opening a window of opportunity for one of the greatest elected kings that commonwealth ever had, Stephan Batory, to use this opportunity and claim the throne for himself.


    The fact that I was already aiming to push my development in a way that could not only bring the benefits for me and me alone but also quite likely bring me closer to the lands already owned by the Bathory family was nothing but a clear declaration of what stance I would take later on!


    As Batory was considered the source of the greatest time that elective Commonwealth ever had, the history of his rule was something fairly close to my heart. That''s why I knew that as long as I would be able to support him financially to a satisfactory degree, all the disastrous in the long term decisions that he took, from allowing Brandenbugian prince of the Hohenzollern line to take over the regency over the mentally ill prince of the Royal Prussia or even caving in for the Gdanskian demands when they refused to accept him as the king leading to the war with Russia caused by the destabilisation of the countryˇ­


    All of those decisions were made in order to fulfil the promise he made while signing pacta conventa. To recover the lands lost to Russia! But such a great campaign required more money than he could procure in normal means, despite how great of a king he was, making him make those decisions for the sake of obtaining said money!


    "I don''t want to be as direct, but I''m worried that after the last election, the Habsburg house might want to take over the country. And if I were to be completely honest, I''m not that sure if I want a german emperor on the Commonwealth throne!"


    "While I''m won''t be happy to have him win the elections, I don''t really see any other possible candidate. Looking around, who else could be available? Russian Tsar? That sounds more like a joke on par with joining Commonwealth and Ottoman Empire with a personal union. To the west, only Maximilian is available. Maybe someone from Waza''s dynasty in Swedenˇ­ Outside of that, only picking one of the local princes seems to have any sense!"


    Seeing how frustrated this man turned while speaking those words, I was really keen to just speak about Stephanˇ­ But wouldn''t that be too early? Heck, what would be wrong if my loose suggestion turned out to be akin to prophesy?!


    "While it''s not as great figure as you might want, what about Stephan from the Transylvania? While he is a prince under the Ottoman rule if he would be elected as the king, wouldn''t that give us a great opportunity to calm down our southern border? Considering how he managed to become the prince with the Ottoman support, then as long as we could find a way to turn cossack attention more towards the east rather than the south, we could gain quite a bit!"


    In fact, with my deal with Michal of Cherrie family, I was quite sure that I could gain quite a huge influence over the cossacks. By giving them the reason to fight for the Commonwealth, not only a monetary one but also the prospect of creating an autonomous princedom on the southern Russia soil, that would not only mean a huge hit to the greatest Commonwealth rival, but also a chance to finally make a long peace with the Ottomans!


    After all, while western Europe would scorn the entirety of Poland for aligning our interests with the Islamic country, I couldn''t care less about this fact. Why bother with Habsburgs? They were the ones that rather swiftly after Polish Hussary saved the Vienna from the Turkish onslaught turned around and took part in a partitioning of the commonwealth. Why care about France? Why care about German princedoms? With how all those lands were enveloped in the flames of the great religious wars, Commonwealth tolerant approach to the religion was honestly far more in line with Ottoman semi-tolerance!


    "That punny prince? Isn''t he still in the middle of the civil war with the Habsburg backed Kasper? Let''s be honest, I don''t really see any chances for him to win his own struggle and remain the prince he is now!"


    Hearing an unfamiliar name, I had to do my best to not show the confusion on my face. While the history of Bathory was quite well known, I never reached the point of learning about the details of what he was doing before the election itself!

 171 Talks in the chamber

    19th May 1574


    "Punny prince or not, when I heard about the history behind him, I couldn''t help but be amazed. It''s not that easy to take over the country the way he did. In fact, I would much rather have a competent ruler already experienced by the hardships than someone used to living in luxury and everything going his wayˇ­"


    At this moment, I couldn''t help but feel an insane need to pull out a cigarette, light it up and continue while smokingˇ­ Yet getting my hands on tobacco was something that could happen only in my dreams. Even if I were to send someone for the long and perilous journey across the entire continent to hook up with some of the sailors returning from the Americas in hopes that one of them would have some in his possession, the chances of such expedition succeeding were smaller than me becoming a damned king in the coming election!


    "I can''t refute that, but I don''t really think he will have any chances at doing so. But for now, let''s stop this topic. I want to talk about those projects of yours. With how I had to play a drunkard before, I didn''t really get the chance to ask for explanations before. Mind if we change to some moreˇ­ comfortable location?"


    It was only given that now as we established that we kind of shared the interest at least in the political sense, there was no point in standing at the front of the ship where not only the waves but also the sound of the engine going made it quite harder to talk properly.


    "Good idea. How about in our chamber?"


    Thanks to the atmosphere clearing out a bit, I finally dropped the handle of my sabre and pulled Elia with me, guiding our guest towards our chamber.


    Since the ship was mainly used to transport the cement powder neatly packed in simple jute sacks, most of its deck space was occupied by the huge load of the building materials required by the road project, yet I made sure that while temporary, it still had two small sheds build on top of it.


    Inside the one in which I lead our guests, there was barely any furniture. Outside of the spacious, comfortable bed - the one thing I wouldn''t compromise on - only a simple desk and a pair of stools were located.


    "Please, have a sit."


    Showing him one of the stools, I made sure Elia could comfortably sit down on our bed while taking the other stool for myself.


    "Also, I think this is the point when we should formally introduce ourselves. As you might already know, I''m Mike of Tarnow."


    Despite the fact that normally introductions should be made while standing, I limited myself to reaching forward with my hand over the table that stood between us.


    "Nataniel Zamoyski, it''s a pleasure to meet you."


    Only when I heard the last name of the magistrate did I realise what kind of jackpot I just hit with this meeting!


    "Going back to what you wanted to talk about. What do you want to know about my investments?"


    With no cigarette, the one thing I could do was to actually reach under the bed and bring a drinking set that regretfully had only two mugs. In order to deal with the situation, I took the barrel and poured the beer to the two of them before passing it to Elia nad Nataniel before angling the entire barrel over my mouth and taking a huge sip.


    "Obviously, I''m not going to ask you how did you figure out all the stuff that is happening there. There is no point in learning where do you source your knowledge, since its already working. But what I want to know, how much do you think you can earn from it?"


    Nataniel didn''t waste his time. Right off the bat, he went to one of the most important questions that anyone else would ask. Yet this wasn''t the question that I hoped to hear from him!


    "Earn? And why do you think I''m doing everything to get every last gold coin from the royal treasury? All my profits from trading the beer, all the support I receive from Jan Bone and all the income that the carpentry plant will start making soon, will be tunnelled back into my projects! The only thing I hope will be profitable is the water road between the Hungarian border and Tarnow. Just on the customs alone, I can make some good profit, not to speak about the development of the lands around the market that will be established at the riversideˇ­ But most of all, did you ever thought about the reason why despite how most of those projects are still growing, I''m already making the boats?"


    Since we were speaking about the income-related matters, there was no point in attempting to hide how I was going to profit of the logistics between the border and the huge market that I was going to establish beside Tarnow.


    "To move the wares from that mining areaˇ­ Wait, don''t tell meˇ­"


    "Yes."


    Seeing that Nataniel stopped speaking when the realisation struck him. Just from this fact alone I could judge that using him as not only the magistrate but also most likely Zamoyski family envoy tasked with looking for potential allies was a good choice.


    "While the design is still flawed and needs to be worked on, I''m going to use those boats to establish a proper connection between the border and Tarnow, and offer people the ability to use them to move their wares for just a slight fee!"

 172 Example for the Nataniel

    20th May 1574


    "This is where I want the market to be built. Considering how the distance from the city is relatively short, it won''t be that hard to manage it, and maybe in the future, those two places could connect."


    When I first thought about creating a road, it was supposed to connect Tarnow to Pilzno and later extend to Ropian, the town I took over from Bart and had yet to visit in either of my lives, current or past one in the modern times. Yet with the changes to the plans and ongoing expansion of my projects, the potential profits from the market were simply too great to not take the first spot on my priority list!


    "I can''t say, this seems to be quite a reasonable choice. The question is, how big are you going to make it? To be frank, from what I understood, if you attempt to make it a proper, bricked or concrete area, then building the road itself will have to be pushed for later. After all, while those ships are great and all, it still takes some time for them to travel all this distance, not to speak about the need to build the outpost at the border as well!"


    Standing in the middle of what was now farm fields sprawling on both sides of the river, I could already see how the entire area would turn into a bustling trade market, with the incoming wares all stocked on the one side of the river, while the outgoing import traded on the other side.


    While the fact that some of the people currently living here would have to be relocated to another place could potentially be troublesome, it was a step that had to be taken. After all, I couldn''t let the habits of few stand in the way of the progress of many!


    "It''s all about time. It will take time to build the border outpost. It will take time to promote the new ruling about customs and it will take time for the merchants to learn about it and gather. All this time can be used to increase the number of the boats that will swim between the future market and the outpost, and every ship that will come out of the production line in the Mining Town will carry as much of the cement or wooden products as its capable of lifting."


    All in all, I couldn''t help but smile when all my projects were finally reaching the point where they could influence my own lands in a realistic way. But while I could be happy at the notion itself, just thinking about it wouldn''t push any of the matters forward at all!


    "Anyway, we need to go to Tarnow first. I need to have a talk with my econom to make her do the proper arrangements. But first, I think there is still one thing that we need to show you. Thankfully, we have enough manpower to do it. Men, gather up!"


    "While for now, we are doing everything by hand, keep in mind that as soon as I will find some time, I will try to come up with a machine that could allow us to speed up the most time-consuming part of the process. Anyway, at first, we dig down about a meter deep."


    With just a simple gesture, the workers dropped everything they were currently carrying onto the small stockpile and grabbed the few shovels that were available before stabbing them brutally in the earth.


    While the task could seem like something that could take a while, digging up a cube one meter long, wide and high took them only a few minutes. In fact, evening out the sides of this strange trench took them longer than digging it out itself!


    "Now that we have a proper trench, we start with huge rocks. Men, fill three-quarters of the hole with the big filler!"


    Rather than using normal terms like huge rocks, gravel or sand when referring to those objects, I forced everyone to use specific terms like big, medium and small filler. Even though it didn''t have that much meaning in itself, I couldn''t exclude the option that someone would either force me to sell or simply steal the cement of mine. That''s why, by using the specific terms for simple things, I could confuse my potential rivals into thinking that those common items were in fact something else entirely!


    "Sir, yes sir!"


    Those huge rocks that I hauled on the ship all the way from the Mining Town were nothing else but elements that were leftover on the belt in my Cement plant when I ordered a routine checkup on all the machines to control whether they were all working properly! Just like all the other elements that we bring for the sake of making the example, they were nothing more but a scrap from this plant!


    "As soon, as three-quarters of the trench are filled with big filler, we will be adding wet medium filler. It will serve the purpose of preventing the cement mass from reaching that deep. After all, when the water will sink through the earth and reach that part of the road, if it were to turn into ice during winter, if there won''t be enough free space for it to spread, the entire road would simply break apart!"


    This was one element of laying the road that I was sure about. Unless I could completely isolate the entire thing from the influence of water, I had to account for its unstoppable power! Just like I managed to shackle it in my steam engines, mother nature would be sure to pay me back for using her forces if I wasn''t careful!"


    "Now, the remaining space will be filled with a thin layer of cement plaster, small filler, cement plaster and so on, all the way to the point where we will use small concrete bricks to make up the surface of the road. This will allow us to make sure it will be as even as possible while making it sturdy enough by filling the gaps with the cement mass."


    By the time I finished explaining as we observed how the workers diligently poured the gravel from the bags brought from the ships, one of the sailors brough a few simple chairs from the ship while another one supplied us with the very last barrel of my beer and a set of cups. Considering how reaching Tarnow would take us less than an hour on the horseback, there was no point in trying to hoard this drink any longer.


    "Now, all that''s left for us is to wait."


    No matter how fast those workers could work, we were still limited by the time the cement required to properly dry up. Even though making such thin layers like the one the workers laid out would hasten the process, it would still take about half an hour for each of the layers to properly dry up!

 173 Accidental rudeness smu

    20th May 1574


    "It was sure a rough day."


    As we finally were back in the Tarnowian castle, while there was still a lot of matters that required our attention, I decided it was better to take proper rest. With Elia cuddled in my arms and whispering to my ear, I couldn''t help but cut myself some slack.


    "At least everything went as planned."


    After wasting about three hours back at the White River shore, the road finally reached its finished stage. Or rather, one meter long and one-meter wide fragment of what would in the future be a road was completed, allowing Nataniel to see how much it was worth for himself.


    From how sturdy it was, through the fact that it was based on nothing else but a better type of mortar that was already rather commonly used across the entire continent, the most important fact about it was how easy it was to make it!


    Just by showing him this little bit, I managed to get his approval and send him back to the Krakow with one of my own horses in order to secure the funds, while going back to our own matters myself.


    "How long do you think it will take before the road and the market will be finished?"


    Rising her body a bit, Elia rested her chin on her hands, showcasing the upper part of her upper curves. Even though we were long past the point where just a single notion of intimacy would spark a fire of emotion in our soul, seeing how her two playful nipples scraped the skin on my own chest was enough to wake the inner monster within my soul from its slumber.


    "As long as we can secure enough manpowerˇ­ The road should be finished within a single month. After all, we can get most of the materials from the stockpile created by the local quarry that we set up even before going to the mining town. With how only the cement has to be hauled all the way from there, as long as we create something to do the digging for us, then everything should go rather quickly."


    Unable to resist the temptation, I moved my hands up, stretching my forefinger up and trailing it up Elia''s sides to the point where both of them conquered the peak of those two, alluring mountains.


    "Heyˇ­ Whatˇ­"


    With just the feeling of her soft, hot skin enough to arouse my senses, rather than letting her finish, I pushed my head upwards and closed her lips with my mouth. Due to the fact that on our way here from the mining town, our shed shared the thin, wooden wall with our guests, I didn''t dare to have my fun with my wife. Considering how we were now separated from anyone else in the world by the thick, stone walls, it was time for me to make sure that if she wasn''t pregnant before, she would soon be!


    "Do you have anything againstˇ­"


    "I guess we are on the same lineˇ­"


    Lightly grabbing Elia''s waist, I sank my fingers into her soft skin before turning the two of us around, claiming the upper spot on the bed. Somehow with just this light kiss of ours being enough for her to get in the mood, her legs instantly moved to the sides, allowing me the access to her most important place.


    "Not so fast, dear. I didn''t have my fill of tormenting you yet!"


    Leaning over her ear and whispering those words right to her brain, I could feel Elia''s entire body shrugging while pinned under me. With my hands now freely roaming through her body, I decided that my position was good enough, instantly moving on gobbling her earlobe.


    "Mikeˇ­ Pleaseˇ­"


    Just a few moments later, Elia''s breath turned haggard, as if she was unable to catch a proper one. Despite how we have yet to start the proper fun, her nails were already scrapping my back, while her legs already locked behind my hips, pulling me closer towards her body with evergrowing strength.


    Hearing her sweet, tiny voice was the straw that broke the camel''s back. While just feeling her up like that was already great fun for me, I couldn''t bear teasing her anymore.


    Reaching towards my own crotch, I set my penis on the right course, rubbing it against her opening a bit in order to spread her juices all over my head. Yet even after I moved to the perfect position, I didn''t let her thighs to push me inside.


    "Dearˇ­ While it''s true that I want a child, I don''t want you to plague yourself over it. Do you get it?"


    Ever since the topic of her possible pregnancy came up, I could often catch her with an absent look on her face, ever so slightly twisted in the anguish of uncertainty as she caressed her own belly.


    And just like I told her, while I was fully prepared for becoming a full family with her, I didn???t want Elia to lose her shiny, energetic character by troubling herself over and over her capability to bear my kid!


    "What?!"


    With her expression suddenly changing when my words reached her ears, I could see how the formerly dreamy look in her eyes got replaced with one filled with determination.


    Clap!


    To my surprise, what I took for the maximum strength of her legs, turned out to be nothing more than just playful teasing aking to the one I subjected her to. As she suddenly turned serious, I had no way of resisting her pressure, instantly pushing the entirety of my manhood inside her hungry hole.


    "Listen up, sir Mike!"


    Despite already connecting with me on the deepest possible level, her face remained indifferent to the pleasure that both of us had to feel just from the insertion alone.


    "I didn''t become your wife just to give you a kid, or to connect our lands alone!"


    Just as she pulled me towards her before, her hands now forced my body away, only for the muscles of her legs to tighten once again, pulling me right back into her embrace.


    "While I have to agree that I want to have a child with youˇ­"


    Suddenly, her resolute expression broke apart, and the tears appeared in the corner of her eyes. Dumbfounded by her changing humour I could only wait to hear what she had to say to me.


    "Iˇ­ I just want to have our kid. It''s not like I feel like I''m failing your expectations or anythingˇ­ Do you really think I would be so shallow?"


    Only when she said her part, I realised that with my words, rather than trying to fix something, I only made the situation worse. Yet as a man, rather than breaking in tears and losing my mind over this situation, I had to press forward with my chest pushed up!


    "I''m sorry dear."


    Push.


    "I didn''t meanˇ­"


    "AH!"


    With her moan accenting that my sudden movements felt good for her too, I grabbed her by her waist and pushed my hips forward even stronger.


    "... to be rude."


    Push.


    "I just wantˇ­"


    Finale.


    "... you to be happeeeaah!"

 174 Setting up the Auditorium

    25th May 1574


    "Overall, we managed to free only about one hundred and twenty people from nearby villages. We could hire more, but the proposed pay wasn''t enough to convince them."


    Sitting in front of what was supposed to be a dining table, I was looking through the sea of various reports, resumes and estimates that Matsu prepared. Even though doing something like a resume was definitely a first for her, the dire lack of capable administrators that could manage all my projects while I would be busy setting new ones forced me to get her to ask around her friends and acquaintances.


    "This one, Pawlo, might not be a noble but his family used to work at the vast fields to the south, allowing him to get a rather good reputation among the cossacks. While he is known from drinking a lot, I think he will suit for the role of the local cantor manager."


    While the entire idea to invest in the southern steppes was based on nothing but a short talk with Michal Cherrie, I didn''t dare to omit it while preparing the list of the seats to be filled. Even though there was no way for me to realise this project anytime soon with how there was less than even a month before the troubling times would start, yet it could be a good way for me to obtain even stronger backing that would hopefully prevent any of the local instability affecting my projects!


    "Good, if you don''t have any other candidates, then bring him in. Speaking of which, how is the construction of the auditorium going?"


    Since there was no way for me to flaunt my knowledge in an official schooling system, all I could do was to create a place where I would give a crash-course of the ideas that my entire industrialisation was based, turning those manager candidates into capable workers able to further my ideas even without my presence.


    "It''s almost finished. By the time we will gather the candidates, it should be completed and furnished as specified in your orders, sir."


    While Matsu replied to my question, she still passed me another paper, with yet another set of short information detailing the current achievements of the person described on it.


    "Carpenter? We already have one managing the plant back at mining town, what''s the use for another one?"


    Seeing the profession that was written on the paper, I was quite puzzled. While I included the request to gather as many experienced craftsmen as possible, I thought that Matsu would focus more on the people capable of turning the raw resources provided by my investments into cashable products!


    Hearing Matsu''s words, I couldn''t help but realise that she was, in fact, right! Due to how hard it was for me to procure more craftsmen to abandon their workshops and guilds for the sake of working for such a minor noble like me, I would love to expand the management of all my projects! Yet to think that even when it came to expanding the amount of administration that would work for my sake I was still blinded by my previous assumptionsˇ­


    "You are right, that won''t do well neither in short nor the long run. But since you brought this topic, then let me take care of it. From now on, your line of work will change completely. Find someone capable of replacing you when it comes to managing the simple stuff, and hire even more people to manage the breweries. From now on, you are only going to make sure it all works properly while using the spare time on teaching the tricks of your trade to the people we will hire. As for your wage and costsˇ­"


    Since this was still a vital part of any agreement made between a worker and the employer, I decided to stay silent for a moment, both for the sake of raising the tension and sorting out the idea that appeared in my head.


    But rather than picking up where I stopped and explaining it, I took one of the resumes, picked the nearby quill and written a set of numbers on the empty side of the paper.


    "Rather than giving you the wage, let''s put it this way. Out of all the profits that the beer will be making in the future, seventy percent is to be invested back into expanding its production until we will reach a point where the market will be saturated. Twenty percent will be used to pay the ground workers, tasked with building, constructing or moving the stuff around. All that will remain, will be left to your own discretion, to split it between all your managers and yourself. What do you think about this?"


    Considering the fact that with all the expansion that already happened to the initial single brewery, right now, the average weekly income from trading the beer was bottlenecked only by the capability of the merchants to transport away everything that was produced at once. Just a single look at the reports was enough for me to realise that despite all the growth, we have yet to reach the half of how much carriages could move daily through the shitty roads that connected Tarnow to the rest of the world.


    Speaking of the profits, only when I returned to the castle did I realise that from the initial nearly thirty gold coins of pure income already turned to a bit more than six hundred golden coins per week!


    Or rather, if not for the fluctuating price of the grain and other ingredients and the workers demanding the increase of their wage, that would be my current net profit, currently amounting to a measly four hundred red goldens a week, or nearly twenty thousand ducats a year!


    Even though with the current state of the roads allowing us to increase the production only to twice its current state, as soon as the market would be finished and the traders would start flowing there from all directions, this upper cap on the income would be gone completely!


    "My lordˇ­"


    To calculate how much Matsu and her managers would earn one simply had to take the current weekly income and divide it by ten. That meant that I just gave her two thousand gold coins per year to divide as she wanted between herself and only five more people!


    When compared to about two hundred golden coins that cream of the top of polish cavalry that would be praised as the best cavalry to ever exist in the world, to the measly two hundred golden coins a year that hussars could make, one could understand what kind of news it was for a commoner like Matsu who didn''t have even a single drop of noble blood in her body!


    "As for the people you brought upˇ­ Those who I put on the right will be set to form the first group, those in the centre will make the second one and those on the left will make the third. Each of the groups will receive two sets of seven meetings with you so that you can nail down the secrets of successful management to their heads. After then, they will each have one set of seven meetings with me, when I will add my part. Later on, they will move for a month to the mining town so that the craftsmen that I already worked with for an extended period of time, will be able to teach them the practical side of the teachings I will pass to them."


    As I spoke, I hovered my hand over each of the piles of papers, indicating which one I had in mind to make sure Matsu wouldn''t make a mistake later on. While minor, those groups outside of receiving the general teaching from my econom would also be schooled on separate aspects of corporate life, so just for the sake of organising the entire process, I wanted to avoid any mistakes.


    "What about those who you didn''t pick, my lord?"


    Glancing at the remaining pile with only five people who surprisingly were closer to the top of the capability and experience than the bottom of the list.


    "Thoseˇ­ I will teach them entirely myself. Summon them for two weeks later!"

 175 First batch

    30th May 1574


    "You might want to know, why I forced all of you to go through the construction site on the White River. But the answer to this question is also the answer to all the others that you might pose about the crux of your presence here."


    After dividing all the people that I wanted to employ into four groups, I left the first three of them that would be educated to serve as various kinds of low and high-rank managers, either helping out under the experienced craftsmen at the Mining Town or taking the full control over the projects that were simply too far from my seat of power to control them personally.


    As for the five of the rather excelled young men who Matsu recommended the most, rather than departing from Tarnow as soon as the few hours that I would use to teach them the basic aspects of managing my project would pass, they would spend the entire month with me, listening to my lecture for two hours daily, solving the mathematical and economical problems for another two hours only to move under Matsu''s disciplined eye for the second round of the teaching.


    With how deeply religious the Commonwealth was, even the huge degree of tolerance present in the country wouldn''t change my fate if I dared to open a proper school and teach knowledge surpassing what was commonly accepted by everyone. While there were various schools created by the different kinds of protestants that could operate without a problem, what I had to teach all of the chosen candidates was a knowledge simply too devious and practical to be spread to a greater public.


    Yet as my position in the commonwealth would grow, it would be only a matter of time when the mindset of those hesitant to accept my inventions would be forcefully changed, as all aspects of their life would be influenced by the onslaught of my products!


    "I wanted you lot to see the construction of the greatest market in the entire country. Greatest not because the current area that is under construction make it the biggest one. It couldn''t be called greatest by how far the trade routes flowing through it could read, nor by its current influence over the entire trade situation in the country. It is the greatest market in the entire country because it will be the focal point for all the inventions that will revolutionalise our lives to spread!"


    After scanning the small group sitting in the front row of the auditorium, that any modern person would only dare to call an oversized school class, I moved to the special wardrobe that held a variety of simple maps that outlined all sorts of information about both the land around the Tarnow-Pilzno-Ropian area, Mining Town and the simple sketch of the steppe land that I hoped to use for the creation of the trade outpost.


    "The first guy who will understand the reason behind you to see it will be rewarded with a red-golden."


    And just by placing myself in the place of the people currently waiting for me to find the right map, I couldn''t help but tense from excitement. While they came here only because a noble summoned them with the offer of work, they would receive no wages for the time they would be learning whatsoever.


    Only by answering the hard questions like the one I just asked would make them capable of earning any moneyˇ­ But at the same time, doing it just once was equal to earning more than two weeks worth of their wage at their previous jobs!


    "Is it because its what we will need to take care off?"


    The first voice of reason sadly turned out to be a failure. The people who would manage my projects belonged to the other groups. If I wanted some simple supervisors or managers, I wouldn''t pick such a talented bunch as them.


    "You did it because you wanted to see how the future will be built, and how this process differs from the methods used previously."


    Suddenly, a smart answer broke through the silence of the room, even managing to stop my hands from moving over the maps and turn my head back to the group.


    "Go on."


    Rather than ignoring the first attempt of the other guy, I encouraged the speaker to continue. While the point he brought was close to the correct answer, he had to nail it right on the point to be rewarded.


    "Ughmˇ­ Seeing how the first answer was ignored, then your intention, my lord, wasn''t to get us to manage this place. But how else could our experience be of use for you, sir? When this question appeared in my head, I couldn''t help but think about the difference between how we saw the road being built in just a fraction of the time that the people that I once had the chance to manage took to build something of far worse quality. Connecting those two facts, I dare to say that rather than looking at the effect and seeking to replicate it, you wantˇ­ you want us to understand the underlying reason behind the effect in the first place, sir!"


    Seeing that I completely moved away from the wardrobe and focused all my attention on him, the young man continued speaking more and more confident with every word he said.


    "Ding dong, you just earned yourself a ducat. Good job!"


    Reaching to my poach, I pulled out one of the thick coins and threw it towards the seat occupied by the witty guy.


    "Listen up guys. I don''t want you to waste your talent in managing my projects. This can be done by simpler and even, dumber people. Just like your colleague said, I want you to understand why rather than how. Why something works, not how to make it to work. And that''s because I don''t want you to - as I said a moment ago - manage my projects, but teach others how to do so later on!"

 176 Daring Neighbour

    2nd June 1574


    "So it already happened, huhˇ­"


    Standing at the edge of the construction site for the market, I spoke to myself using the fact that for the first time since we went back to Tarnow, Elia wasn''t there with me. Apparently, she took a personal interest in how one of the projects that I already managed to forget about, food distribution to the serfs, was going. And while she inspected the quality of the food that was delivered to those who were diligently growing it out of the vast farmlands in my lands, my thoughts were roaming around the matters regarding the highest level of national politics.


    If my memory served me right, the older brother of Henry, the current king of France was already dead, and only three weeks or so remained before one of the greatest risks and opportunities for my growth in this place would arise.


    That''s why, rather than keeping all the materials that came from the mining town to hasten the construction of the local market, every third boat or so was directed to swim all the way down to the border, along with small groups of workers that would settle turn that outpost of mine into the single point of the border that would be free of the customs!


    "Sir, the riverbank is finished already. Should we focus on the cranes or the foundations?"


    Considering the fact that the construction was ongoing here for over a week already, it still took those workers quite long to establish the proper bank. But it could be explained by a rather tough location to build!


    While I had no way to check whether I was right, the place where the market was currently built would in the future house one of the greatest chemical industries in the entire country, amply named after both the city and the element they used a lot, Azote Chemicals Tarnow. Yet I wasn''t going to let this uncertain future stand on the way of my progress!


    "The foundations will be enough. After all, the main port will be further to the north."


    The fact that I wasn''t a man from this era was the reason why such a huge amount of resources were wasted. As it turned out when I came back and talked with the local craftsmen, the river that I remembered flowing so close, was in fact a White River. But it was far too small to serve as the main transit point, and it never reached as far south as the current border!


    Yet in the grand scale of things, the fact that it was the closest water road to the Tarnow still required me to use it. That''s why, despite how it would be only a transit port and local warehousing area for the wares moved from the Tarnow, I still had to invest quite a lot of resources to make a proper river port here!


    But the real thing, where most of the ships was already stopping led just a single kilometre further north than the place where White river joined with the proper Vistula subsidiary, Dunaj River.


    That was rather a major problem to my plans, as I was unable to stop anyone passing through the river if they were to move through the western bank! While that wouldn''t change anything for those travelling on my steam paddlers, as long as even a single merchant came with his own boat and realised this chance, I would have no means to stop him from trading his wares literally anywhere in the western part of the country!


    Yet all my attempts to negotiate with the noble owning the land that I was interested in sadly failed. For some stupid reason, he thought that all the construction that I was doing there was doomed to fail, and demanded me to hand him the pension worth triple the amount that the land I wanted was bringing!


    "Sir, there is a messenger from the northern construction site awning your summons!"


    As I was thinking over the problematic matter that was placed on my shoulders, one of the workers brought here all the way from the mining town brought the news for me.


    "Lead me to him."


    With how most of the projects in the mining town were already operating in their full swing, I siphoned almost everyone who used to work on digging up the foundations on the city and brought them to the local constructions sites. As such, outside of the few locals that I managed to poach from the farms, I had quite a huge group of people who already learned how to work with me, not scared of approaching me when necessary.


    "Sir, I brought the news from that dumb noble!"


    The moment I stepped inside one of the only finished buildings in the White River port, the administration centre located right at the northern end of the entire site, one of the apprentices of the craftsmen from the Sandomir that continued to move from the city in response to the summons of their masters, places a small note on the table.


    Taking up the piece of paper, I unveiled it. Reading through a few words in front of my eyes, I couldn''t help but gnash my fist.


    Even after I offered him what he initialy wanted, three times of the income from the lands that I wanted to buy for the rest of his life along with a down payment of damned hundred gold coins, he still refused and dared to raise the price even higher!


    At this point, I couldn''t help but wish for the chaotic period of the interregnum to start already, so that I could deal with him in the old, Polish way!

 177 Moving forward

    10th June 1574


    "And that''s what you will be responsible for. Remember, we don''t really care about the profit for now. All we need to do is make everyone addicted to our beer, and then make the local merchants seek it in Tarnow. That''s why, if even a single one of you will be caught selling the beer at more than double its price, not only you will be put to hard physical work for as long as it will take you to repay everything that you earned, but you will never be allowed to work under me again in your life. Is that clear?"


    With the first batch of the future managers already taking part in the second to last set of lessons, rather than teaching them the tricks that the corporate life taught me about the economy, I preferred to keep nailing the short set of rules that they would have to follow when doing their jobs.


    This particular group would be the ones that would leave the cradle of my lands and reach either for the furthest parts of the country in order to establish outposts there or even go beyond the Commonwealth borders with the task of promoting the wares that I would be selling.


    While the beer alone would soon net more profit than necessary to put me on the same table as some of the most powerful families in the entire country, I wasn''t as shortsighted to limit myself to just a single source of income. After all, it was only a matter of time for some crafty nobles or brewmasters to try their hands at improving their own recipes, putting my potential profits at risk!


    "For the Hebre, Peter and Olio, I want you to go get the sixth case from the shelf and solve the problems there. The rest of you do the seventh. Dismissed!"


    With the entire class of the fifteen men rising up from their seats and approaching the shelf only to reach for the paper folders with various formulas and study cases detailed for their homework, I could leave my cathedra as well.


    After exiting the teaching class, rather than going directly to the castle to rest in Elia''s soothing arms, I moved to a small study located at the very corner of the entire building. While my castle chambers were far more fitting in terms of space and comfort for housing all the reports on all the ongoing works, when the amount of the papers that I started receiving on the daily basis increased to its current amount, I decided to move it all to this small study anyway.


    In the end, if I were to bring them to my chambers, it would be akin to bringing my work to my home, something that I despised back on the earth. Thanks to forcing myself to do my job in this uncomfortable place, I could at least condition my mind into focusing on the work-related matters while in the study, allowing me to rest more efficiently back in my chambers!


    "The first line of the carpentry is working around the clock. The entire current output is directed to the docks. Requesting more workers to finish the second line and start cash production."


    "Construction of the east bank inbound port is finished. We are currently laying down the foundation for the outbound part. Estimated date of finishing the logistic structure, 15th June."


    Looking through the reports, I couldn''t help but scoff at how everyone was at first flaunting their achievements only to bury me down with the request for more and more resources.


    Despite setting up the carpentry and even seeing with my own eyes as the first logs moved up the conveyor line only to end up being split by several sets of fast-spinning blades, its output was barely enough to cover the needs of the river''s shipyard, not to speak about all the other ongoing projects of mine that required all sorts of wooden part in order to decrease the usage of the cement that was directed mostly towards building the road.


    As for the road project, if not for the fact that connecting the road required to destroy the already existing one, it would be long finished. Yet with how using explosives to make the work easier could upset the balance of the city walls, I was forced to watch daily how countless labourers were wasting their efforts in picking the old road apart!


    But all of this couldn''t be outshined by the fact that not only the foundation digging of the mining town was nearing its finish. With just a few more days, despite how I continued to poach workers from the digging site whenever I wanted to develop a new project, this big hole in the ground could finally be filled with cement mix, laying down the proper foundation for the entire damned town!


    From what I could deduce from the reports of the other managers, all the housing that was previously put in the townsite, was already moved towards the finished areas, with some of the workers already doing their best to finish the very first neighbourhood that I designed myself!


    "I can''t wait to see the richesˇ­"


    While I wasn''t as shallow as to greed for money just for the sake of having it, it went without a question that ever a single project of mine was a greater undertaking in the financial terms that most of the projects that other nobles would ever bother with taking care off. Yet despite moving about as much money on a weekly basis as most of the major noble families that have yet to reach the purpure could see in the entire year, I had yet to develop any form of court!


    When other nobles with as much fiscal potential as me surrounded themselves with courtiers, servants and private armies, the number of the maids and butlers that took care of the castle remained exactly the same as it was ever since I transmigrated!


    To be completely honest, just by looking at the weekly expense of those servants, I was seriously considering removing at least half of them from my household! Even if paying nearly half a golden coin daily for the service of a professional cook or a bit less for a proper maid wasn''t something that I could notice when I moved around hundreds and even thousands of golden coins between my projects at a time, when all the costs of keeping such huge personnel of almost fifty people only for the sake of keeping the castle cleanˇ­


    But as I thought about it, I realised that no matter how much I would produce, unless I could find someone to buy it off from me, all kinds of luxury or practical items would lose all its meaningˇ­ Unless...

 178 Reviving the economy disaster

    10th June 1574


    With the new idea popping up in my head, I swung all the papers occupying most of the space on my desk directly to the floor, before picking up a clean sheet of paper and wetting my quill in the small bottle of the imported ink.


    Even though I was quite happy with using charcoal and wooden boards to write whenever I was projecting something, as my influence and power grew I was forced to eradicate this convenient but not so classy habit of mine. With how I was now basically a dean of the world''s first economy academy, even if its name sounded more like a theatre than a university, Matsu forced me to waste several red goldens on a hefty package of ink and hardened quills.


    Line after line, I moved my writing tool on the paper, creating the most devious scheme that this world would ever see. The scheme that ultimately caused the grief and death of more people than any other man''s invention did in the entire history.


    Paper money.


    While obviously, as just a noble, I was unable to produce any form of coins as this was a privilege of the king and king alone, considering how many factors came into building an industrial power, I had many other means at hand!


    Firstly, even if currently I was the only one capable of producing steam horses in the entire world, it would be stupid of me to believe I and the people that I enlighted were the only ones who would see through the potential of the raw, mechanical power of this invention.


    Yet while that was the case, others simply lacked the means that I so painstakingly put together to create any form of an efficient steam engine for themselves! And if that was the case, then why not try selling it away?


    The problem that the industrialisation on any scale would bring, was the increased output of productsˇ­ But in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn''t change the economical situation of the country, or the continent unless it would be adopted on a far greater scale!


    Even if I could dry all the riches of all the nobles in the country and half of the nobles in the neighbouring states, sooner or later, either someone would turn too envious of my wealth for his own good and start a war that would stall my production, or the ultimate end of all monopoly would come to be, sapping the limit of what I could sell!


    But if I were to introduce the industrialization to everyone interested in it, then by controlling the production rate and quality of the products sold to anyone willing to pay for it, I could not only make sure that others would bind their own wealth to my prosperity but also let them earn their own share of wealth stemming from industrialization!


    After all, one could only be as rich, as the accumulated wealth of the people around him amounted to! What was the point of possessing all the gold in the entire world, if no one could sell anything of value for it?


    Pushing my hand to draw two different forms on the paper I was scribbling on, I added several details before moving up from the chair and sprinkling some fine dust on the paper to help the ink dry out.


    Future market. In my modern timeline, it meant nothing else but making a deal with a supplier that at a certain date, he would provide you with a specified product at the set price. Originally intended to secure the chains of the supply for all sorts of businesses, it quickly became nothing else but a great tool for traders to speculate. But for me, just the idea of connecting the present and the future held an immense meaning!


    Trust papers. By signing a deal with someone, I would promise them than in three, six, nine or twelve months from the date of signing, I would deliver them a completed and perfectly fine steam engine while receiving the money from them right away. Obviously, the shorter the waiting period, the greater the price would be, but the real intention behind this wasn''t to earn money at all!


    By setting the price of the steam horses high enough, and multiplying it by the cost of waiting, only major houses would be capable of getting their hands on such paper. That would mean, it would be in their own interest to make sure that my projects would keep operating, as usual, otherwise the papers they would get would lose all their value in case of my projects failing!


    But I couldn''t limit myself to just this type of bonds. The idea behind the papers was about letting others grow in power rather than binding them to my cause!


    That''s why outside of those who wanted a steam engine for themselves, I would offer a far more affordable optionˇ­ To rent one of the steam horses!


    While that would mean that they would have to pay the constant renting cost of my products, I could force them to supply me with a specified number of workers to make up for the lessening of my own manpower!


    And to be completely fair, for most of the nobles, serfs were nothing but a means to live in luxury. If I could get fifty workers and enough gold to pay for their keep for the price of a single steam engineˇ­ I would take that deal at any time!


    Yet as I was thinking about how to make this tradeoff, I realised that I still lacked the most essential element for my ploy. Something that would connect the moving of the manpower, trust deals and renting deals all together to my industry!


    It seemed like I had no other choice than to create my own currency!

 179 Creating a positive disaster

    11th June 1574


    "What do you mean, it''s impossible?!"


    Forced to realise that I didn''t really have any real court for myself, I was trying to slowly build it with the people I trusted the most, yet just the first meeting of what I hoped to remodel from a simple advisory council into a proper court instantly turned into a disaster.


    "If we use paper to make those acts, what will stop anyone from making them by themselves? While minting the coin is against the law, if we could somehow use our production means to create something no one else would be capable of reproducing, it could work way better. The other way to go about it is to start from the bottom."


    Hearing Matsu''s arguments, I couldn''t help but agree with them silently, yet the fact that my idea shattered the second it was put against the reality of the current times still made me quite angry and disappointed.


    "What do you mean, from the bottom? If we find out a way to create something that is hard to counterfeit and use it to pay our workers instead of using the gold to do soˇ­ That might work!"


    Suddenly changing my opinion in the middle of my own sentence, I was about to sink in my own thoughts like usual, yet the sudden slam of the table stopped me from doing so.


    "Are you out of your mind? If we suddenly cut their income and turn it into some kind of new currency, they will simply stop working!"


    Looking at the guy that spoke up, I only managed to hold myself back from scoffing at him due to the fact that he was one of the most effective managers in the entire mining town. Even if he failed to understand the concept behind this new currency and the ways that we could use to implement it, he was still one of my most valuable managers!


    "It''s actually pretty simple. We won''t force this change, we will simply offer it to the workers. They will be able to choose whether they want to be paid with the usual gold or withˇ­ Hmmˇ­ merit papers? Yeah, I think that this name is fitting."


    Figuring out the details of such important matter on the spot might not be the best idea, but when it came to naming stuff, it didn''t really hold that much meaning. No matter what kind of name we would use for this new currency, its worth would still remain the same!


    "But what reasons would those workers have for ever picking to earn merits rather than gold? It''s not like they could use merits anywhere else than in our own shops that we don''t even have plans for yet!"


    Hearing the words of the manager, I couldn''t help but start doubting his worth as a manager. Even if he was efficient with moving the manpower around, could he still maintain his current level of ability if he failed to see the obvious profits of our current situation? Or was he just posing those questions for the sake of everyone else in the room that was too worried about their position or simply too shy to ask away?


    Waiting for a few moments to let the words that I just spoke sink in everyone''s mind, I looked around to confirm that they finally started thinking about it in the way I currently wanted them. Because in reality, outside of the fact that I knew that as the development of the mining area would grow a city would sooner or later appear there anyway, I never had any intentions of using it as leverage to introduce a new kind of money!


    "Listen up. The houses and in fact, all the buildings that we are constructing in the foundation of the city, are way more advanced than any other housing available anywhere in the country. From the easy access to the water, both cold and warm one, through the internal sewerage that will save its future citizens from having their streets flood with faecesˇ­ Everything about this city is aimed to be an improvement. What if we just claim that the houses that will be built there could be bought with the merit papers alone?"


    Once again letting everyone to digest this proposition, I waited for a moment before picking the lead once again.


    "That can serve as a good start. As we will get more resources at hands, we can construct trading areas in there, supplied with all sorts of wares that will be brought to the grand marketplace that we are constructing right now. This will allow us to turn this concrete plaster that we have right now, into the most prosperous and well-supplied city in the entire country, not to speak about all kinds of shops that we could sell the wares that we will produce at relatively low prices!"


    The more examples of possible benefits behind possessing those merits papers I gave, the more excited I was turning myself. In the economy, money is nothing else than a promise. We promise each other that we will consider this piece of worthless paper to have a certain, given value. But without the authority of the crown to back those claims or the stockpile of gold to give it any real meaning, we could go the dollar way!


    Instead of using the gold or silver to guarantee the value of the paper money, we could simply use the immense production capabilities of the industrialised areas to back our claims for those papers to have any worth!


    "I think this is a good ideaˇ­ But you do realise that it will only take a few days before more intelligent merchants will start buying off those papers? If they will be given a chance to settle in a newly created city, one with such insane prospects for growth, all sorts of people are going to go at each other throats even for a hint of a chance to obtain a single merit paper of yours!"


    While I was already excited by introducing the first type of trust-based money to this world that didn''t really need to have any real value behind it, hearing Matsu''s words made me realise something of an even greater potential that could turn into either the backbone of the commonwealth economy or its greatest disaster. Yet as it was nothing else than a tool that I had way more experience in dealing with than anyone else in this world, I would be stupid to not introduce it as well!


    "That''s something simple to fix. We will introduce the rule that only our exchange houses are allowed to be the sole middleman in all trade aimed to exchange gold for those papers!"

 180 Good news and bad prophecy

    13th June 1574


    For the first time since we departed from the mining town to accompany Nataniel on his way to inspect our investments, we could finally find enough time to return there. As the calm waves of the Vistula rivers were smashed into smithereens by the constant pushes of the two rotating paddlewheels on the sides of the boat, we were blasting forward like no other ship on this river ever did.


    "Mikeˇ­ This time, I''m almost sure. I missed my time of the monthˇ­"


    If not for the fact that after the unpleasant experience when the sheds on top of the steam paddler had walls way to thin for the two of us to enjoy each other company to the fullest, we would be incapable of talking about this kind of topics.


    Yet I wasn''t someone who let the teachings of the past simply go by. Despite how dire the situation resource-wise was with all the construction projects going on all at once, I still managed to poach some of the wood just for the sake of turning what used to be a simple shed into proper travelling housing. After all, if all the efforts I put in turning my dying household into the leading industrialization power of the world couldn''t shoulder the loss of such a small amount of building materials and manpower, then everything that I did would prove to be simply useless!


    "Woahˇ­ those are some big news!"


    Focusing my attention back on my dear wife, I made sure to grab the cup she was reaching for and swing it outside of her reach.


    "If you are really in the blessed state, then youˇ­ we will have to put a stop to our usual drinking routine. Can you trust me on this bit?"


    While I still had some lingering thoughts about sending some convoy to travel through the entire continent in order to find some tobacco, the moment I heard Elia claiming that she is most likely pregnant, all those thoughts simply turned into nothing more than a mist in my mind.


    If I was willing to stop drinking alcohol, the one nice thing that I could treat as a luxury in this world, then wasting my money on getting another addictive drug that had way worse effects on the people around me would be insane!


    "Ughˇ­ What are we supposed to drink then? Plain water? Boiled water?"


    Contrary to my expectations, rather than arguing with me on the point on pushing the alcohol out of our diet, Elia simply accepted my request and moved on just like that!


    "As soon as we will get to the mining town, I will send someone to bring all sorts of fruits that are available. I will make sure you won''t lack anything to drink! Hopefully, I could get my hands on some mint as wellˇ­"


    Pulling Elia in my arms, I hugged her tightly while slightly swinging my body to the sides, as if I wanted to lull her to sleep with those moves. In reality though, I was trying my very best to figure the current situation out in my head.


    Yet there was a lot of preparing that I had to do first!


    From establishing the basic merit papers, through creating a hydraulic press capable of creating iron bonds that would be used later as the TRUST and RENT offers to the nobles, all the way to inviting representatives of the powerful families to the mining town so that I could present them the capability of the steam horse and make them bind their power to my stability through investmentˇ­


    Even in such dire times that would come soon, I was ready to do everything it would take to keep developing both my lands and my country! After all, before I could expand beyond commonwealth borders, I still had to make sure that I would wring everything that this place has to offer first!


    "Do you think I will make a good mother?"


    Suddenly breaking my line of thoughts, Elia poked my side seeing that just words weren''t enough to completely remove my mind from the clouds it was travelling through.


    "What makes you doubt that? Rather than being one of those sheltered ladies of the influential families, you went through all sorts of troubles in your lives, giving you way more real-life experience than other ladies have. I think you will make the best mother in the entire world!"


    Reaching up with my hand, I pulled Elia''s chin towards me and graced her lips with a light kiss, only aimed at reinforcing my words. In the end, just having her accompany me on all my projects, having her by my side when we defeated Peterˇ­ Just the things that she experienced when she was by my side were more than enough to turn most of the fragile damsels into hardened and realistic noblewomen, not to speak about all the stuff that she had to go through before we first met.


    "Thanksˇ­ Honestly, back when the first thoughts of having a kid appeared in my headˇ­ I could only think about having one with you, having our love come to fruition. I couldn''t think about anything else but how happy I was to tie my fate with someone I truly respect and likeˇ­ But now, when this dream of mine might turn into reality, I just can''t shake off this feeling that something will go terribly wrong!"


    With her eyes suddenly turning wet, it didn''t take a long time before she hid her face in my chest and started sobbing. Unable to do anything but patting her head as I allowed her tears to sink in my clothes, I could only hope that her words wouldn''t end up turning into a fateful prophecy!

 181 Foundation for the merit paper.

    15th June 1574


    "I''m going to come clean before you guys and you, my lord."


    Taking a deep breath, the carpentry plant manager whose name I recently learned to be Frank, cleaned his attire from the non-existent dust before picking up his sentence.


    "I never dreamed that those houses would be so luxurious!"


    Hearing those words, I couldn''t help but smile. While something as simple as toilet bowl would have to wait normally about two hundred years to be invented, the basic plumbing system for severs already existed. There was even one anecdote I remembered about Henry, that he was pleasantly surprised that contrary to French palaces, on the royal castle of Wawel, there were designated spots for one''s basic needs!


    Yet it came without saying that maybe outside the richest magnates in the country, this house that was nearing its finish was the very first, commonly accessible property with a fully-fledged toilet!


    But that wasn''t all. Thanks to the fact that the water could be brought to the entire city with ease thanks to the several atmospheric steam horses constantly pumping it from the river, as soon as the heating station would be finished, all the houses in this pioneering neighbourhood would get access to both cold and hot water as well!


    "That''s the intention. To be completely honest, I don''t think any of our workers will get to buy this house anytime soon. Outside of the managers and the first batch of supervisors, I think most of these houses will be just a bait for the merchants to raise the worth of the merit papers!"


    Even though I was already moving the resources around and limiting how much concrete and wood would be flowing upstream the Vistula river, it would still take a while for any shop to be opened. While creating the building itself wasn''t any problem, the question was, what could we sell?


    The Carpentry plant was already moving at its full efficiency only to provide for the ongoing projects of mine. Even though the works on the second cutting and assembly line were ongoing, by the time it would be finished, not only would the local transit port on the White river be done already, but the chances were that the major trading port on the Dunaj River would reach its conclusion as well!


    That''s why, rather than finding a way to produce something unique to my industrial investments, I decided that finalizing the project of the city was a far better idea. Not only would that give a real, tangible backing for all the merit papers, but it would be a great place to locate the first stock market, where merchants would kill each other just for a chance of obtaining a single merit paper!


    Just like in any other country of that time, for the city to be recognised as an urban area, the King himself had to decide what set of laws out of the possible ones would work in it before allowing said place to even be named or considered a city. This was one of the reasons why despite several nobles capable of building one city a year, this process never reached the scale of any of the colonial nations or even western countries!


    "For the workers, they won''t protests. I aim to create two big markets in the city. One, where our products will be sold for the merit papers, and the second one where all sorts of common wares will be traded with the normal coins. The general idea is to not rob the workers out of their merit papers, but allow them to sell it to the merchants through our stock market in order to obtain way more gold than we would otherwise be able to pay them!"


    Moving the various sets of papers on the desk, I took my time looking for an ordinary-looking piece of paper, different from the others only with how dense the writing on it was.


    "As for the location rightsˇ­ We won''t ask for them. It doesn''t matter whether this place will be considered a city or not. As it will be entirely my own, private land and buildings, I can set any laws in it as I want. That''s why, even if someone buys the house, the land on which the house is built, will still belong to the city council!"


    Bringing everyone''s attention to the piece of paper that I brought, I traced my finger through the set of rules that I came up with while travelling to this place.


    "Additionally, I think I have all the reasons to believe, that it will be the King himself who will come with the proposition to turn this place into an official city. After all, I can''t imagine any ruler willing to just let such a juicy piece of possible taxation pass unattended!"


    Even though allowing the country to officially acknowledge this place as the city would mean quite a draconic taxes for someone who didn''t have to pay a dime so far, this was a fair trade-off for providing security and keeping the good relations with both the distant nobles and the local ones. If I were to willingly allow the king to paint a huge target on this place, then all my efforts to keep it safe and growing would be in nought!


    "As for the other part of the marketˇ­"


    Since the topic of the town itself was already exhausted, I decided that there was no point wasting any more time debating over it. What we could do ourselves was already decided, and it was entirely up to the Henry whether he would bother to visit this place or even send anyone to inspect it, when his mind was most likely fully occupied with making the choice between staying in Commonwealth or running away to France!


    "I think I know how we can deal with the problem of distributing the TRUST and RENT papers. Rather than giving them out in form of some kind of deal that could be forged, we will just keep the record ourselves while giving the potential buyers just a simple slip that will contain all the data necessary for them to pick their products up. As long as they show up with the slip, recite a specific number and give us their name, we will be able to check if the slip matches the records in our books and finalise the transaction. All that''s left for us to do right nowˇ­"


    Taking a short break to catch a breath, I looked past the hole in the wall that would soon be turned into a window.


    "Is to invite potential buyers!"

 182 Bessmer furnace

    17th June 1574


    "Make sure the plating is welded perfectly! We can''t have even the smallest openings!"


    With the drastically increased output of the iron mines after the introduction of not only more efficient shift system but also all sorts of steam-powered utensils from the automated mine carts all the way to the stationary augers moved on the same kind of tracks as the carts, the need to increase the smelting capability of my mining town appeared.


    During my absence, seven new blast furnaces were built, but considering the fact that sooner or later, cast iron would become too fragile for my needs, I decided to once again throw myself into the euphory of innovation.


    At first, the new blast furnaces that were luckily placed all near each other were put out of the work. Even though this would cause the stall in the process of turning cheap ore into usable iron, if I wanted to make this entire process more efficient, now was the perfect time to do so.


    Yet rather than completely revamping the current smelting scheme, I simply introduced a new method of increasing its efficiency that I found during my spare time of sorting through the system options.


    In short words, by blocking the exhaust gases from the blast furnace from escaping, they were funnelled into a pipe that would lead them to the set of three buildings. Said buildings were circular on their base, with most of their inner part filled to the brim with bricks. By pushing the already hot air through those bricks to the final exhaust where it was ultimately released into the atmosphere, those stoves were capable of heating the air that was forced to follow circular path from the bottom entry all the way to the upper opening, all the while taking the heat from the hot core.


    Only when the air reached high enough temperature would it be released inside the steam intakes for the new blast furnaces, changing just a single think of their design. Rather than supplying the air directly from the empty space around, the blast furnaces were fed preheated air, allowing the entire mechanism to use only about a half of the fuel that it required before!


    But that wasn''t the end of my inventions!


    Due to the fact that sooner or later I would have to start producing steel, using the fact that I was already improving the design of my furnaces, I directed quite a lot of manpower from managing the new furnaces into creating the one, ultimate tool that would finally allow me to produce steel in industrial amounts.


    Bessemer furnace.


    The other useful blueprint that I found after hours upon hours of scanning through the system capabilities. While complicated when one first took a look at it, it turned out to be one of the simplest mechanisms that I could ever bother myself with creating!


    For the furnace itself at leastˇ­


    Yet what would be the hardest part for any of the future constructors that would later figure out this design, was already solved by my industrial foundation.


    Due to how there was just a single opening in the entire furnace, it had to point upwards while the smelting process was ongoing, yet angle towards the earth when it was the time to extract the finished product from its belly. Considering how heavy this several meters long and thick bowl was, if not for my ability to poach an entire steam engine just for the sake of turning it around when required, I would have to create a complicated set of pulleys and rotors to make simple workers capable of turning this monstrosity around!


    But just when I was about to celebrate how easy it was to create this steel making machine, I realised that it wasn''t all that simple.


    In short words, this Bessmer furnace worked by filling the furnace with a hot iron, then blasting it from the bottom with the preheated air. This was another reason why I decided to introduce the air stoves a the same time as I started working on this new, steel making contraption.


    By blowing hot air through the molten iron, it would purify it from most of the dirt and allow the workers to reduce the amount of carbon in the mix, turning originally weak iron into one of the most important products of the industrial world - steel!


    But it also came at a huge cost.


    While providing hot blast for the smelters was as simple as it could get, doing so for the Bessemer furnace required me to sacrifice five damned engines just to make the flow of air powerful enough to stop the molten iron from blocking the blowing tubes!


    Yet as soon as those problems and cost were taken care off, all that was left for me was to watch and observe how the workers connected the metal plating together, added a small line of molten iron to make sure it was welded together, only to repeat this process over and over again. Only where those simple iron plates finally started to take the form of a half of the desired bowl, did another batch of the former serfs got to lining it up with the limestone bricks and connecting everything together with just a bit of the cement mix.


    "With this, we will finally be able to start producing some weaponsˇ­"


    Even if I could easily reproduce reaper guns with my current production ability, it wouldn''t change the fact that in reality, there was rather a single-use weapon due to how quickly the barrels were losing their shape due to overheating. Only when the proper rifling would be introduced along with the steel to make more resilient parts for those guns would I be able to think about fortifying my entire investment!

 183 Last hours

    19th June 1574


    "So this is the dayˇ­"


    Standing in front of a table, I once again allowed my thoughts to fly with the clouds in the sky rather than focusing on the matter at hand.


    "Excuse me?"


    With how the local managers were already used to my dreamy character, they quickly learned when they were supposed to interrupt my train of thoughts to stop me from distancing myself from the world, and where those thoughts of mine could be productive.


    And today, they had to constantly keep a watch on me, because the topic that we were discussing was of utmost importance.


    "Ah, my bad. For some reason, I feel like something terrible is about to happen today. But let''s go back to the topic. We can either go with the salvo weapons, repetitive weapons or big weapons. Regretfully, all of them will require us to find a new means of producing the gunpowder, and as long as all the sulfur supply is monopolised by the crown, we won''t be able to achieve this point. How does our stockpile look like?"


    Turning my head to the side, I looked at the Matsu, who finally got time to come to this place for the first time. While she still has her duties as the general manager of the breweries in Tarnow, thanks to my generous split of income towards her and her underlings, she decided that it was due time to let her managers take care of that place themselves, as she went along with all her students to the mining town to oversee their practical training.


    "So far, we have five times the usual storage for all the cities and the castle. I''m worried that unless we will announce the construction of the city and a fortified keep to secure the perimeter, obtaining any more might cause quite an unrest."


    Giving out the requested number as soon as I asked for it, Matsu once again proved how capable of an econom she was back then, once again reinforcing me in the decision to make her the very first Ceo in the entire world.


    "A perimeter, hmmˇ­ As long as we will finish our current projects, or at least reach the point where the cement mix won''t be all that necessary, we might do one just for the sake of it. Like, we might use building a small fort beside the town as buffer time to promote the usability of the mix, pulling merchants to trade it just as they trade with our beer. After all, the production plants can''t stop working!"


    While I was worried about this aspect when I first thought about producing a luxury, cashable item like furniture, I couldn''t have guessed that it would be the concrete that would pose this problem!


    "But even if we will build a keep, we need a way to defend it. Since you came up with a way to shoot fast, maybe you have some ideas to shoot far?"


    Sensing that my thoughts once again derailed from the original topic of this discussion being the necessity of arming up all the investment areas to guard them both against the bandits and greedy nobles.


    "Hmmˇ­ That could be done, but I''m not sure if I can create the machineˇ­ Or wait, we don''t really need a machine for that. How is our steel output looking?"


    The easiest way to improve the range of a weapon didn''t lie in increasing the gunpowder amount behind the bullet itself, but by improving accuracy. And the simplest way to do so was by rifling the barrel of a weapon!


    Yet while this process while fairly simple, was overwhelming at the same time. When one would look down a properly rifled barrel, then nothing but a feeling of awe and desperation would be evoked in his soul. To this day I could remember the time when I saw someone posting a picture of a strange barrel on the forum with the hopes that someone would answer just what the heck is this, only for a random soul on the internet to point out that due to the precise barreling, size and shape of the item, it was nothing else but a damned tank''s rifle!


    The impression that the pictures that this random soul posted to prove his theory made on me back then, were the reason why I was quite hesitant to attempt the rifling myself.


    Yet after thinking about it for just a short while, all I had to do, was cast a long, steel tube and as many drilling blades as it would take to luck out with making one from the highest grade of the steel that the Bessmer furnace of mine could produce.


    Then, by mounting the drill on top of a long, wooden pole, that would be in exchange mounted on a special rail, the steam engine would push it forward while slowly rotating it around its own axis and forcing it through the entire length of the long tube. With that done, the barrel would be cut into fitting sizes and used in making all sorts of guns!


    But just like when I first wanted to create a better gun that what people had in these times, I realised that even with rifled barrels, I would still have to come out with a way to increase the speed at which my troops could shoot!


    It seemed that unless I found some alchemist capable of finding the proper formula of creating the initiating fire charge for the fused ammunition, I would have to find a way to go away with using the manual fire again!


    And with how the king''s escape was about to happen in just a few hours from now on, I was slowly running out of time to prepare!

 184 Begining of the chaotic period

    20th June 1574


    Compared to the first blast furnaces, the process of pouring down molten steel from the Bessemer one was way more rapid. Rather than waiting for the metal to flow out from the furnace chamber by itself, workers would observe the colour of the flame above the single opening of the burning chamber.


    As soon as the right moment came, one of the workers pushed the rod, connecting the already operating steam engine to the set of pulleys and gears, slowly angling the massive furnace on its axis towards the ground.


    The moment the liquid metal stored inside the chamber reached the opening of the barrel, it started flowing through a particular set of cast iron half-pipes, slowly filling out the forms prepared in advance.


    One by one, the limestone packages were starting to steam the remaining water off from their structure, indicating that the process of settling already begun.


    But rather than enjoying the fact that the first elements of the modern firearms were produced, I couldn''t help but look to the west with worry.


    According to my knowledge, unless actions did change the details of the historical events, our great king Henryˇ­


    Was already past Polish borders!


    Since my memories about the precise timings of the facts surrounding this blasphemy were quite fuzzy, I could only wonder whether the local noble that used to be one of the king''s advisors already caught up to him or if he was still chasing after his damned liege.


    "Sir, the bores are finished. The blacksmith asked us to pass the news that at least three of them are good enough to be used!"


    Just this piece of information was alone to improve my mood in any other situation. Yet, with how my time to peacefully prepare for the chaos to come was over, I couldn''t find even a single shred of happiness in me.


    The soon-to-be interregnum period would leave Commonwealth in a reasonably organised state when compared to the kingless times in any other country.


    Regretfully, starting with the debate whether to wait for Henry to return, through blaming the Senate for not pressing him to follow with his promise of reforming the law in the country to the fully-fledged, factional civil war that erupted when two different candidates were chosen for the royal seat, the events that would soon occur would still lead to quite a lot of chaos!


    "Good. As soon as the barrels are cold enough, go and make them as sharp as possible, before tempering them a bit. Speaking of the bores, how are the pipes?"


    Since what was formerly used as the barrel of the gun was just a simple pipe, with the moment that I decided to start using rifled ones, the word pipe was instantly set for its purely industrial use. While it wasn''t anything all that important now, I knew what kind of mess could it cause if such details were ignored for later.


    Well, it wasn''t a surprise. For most of the people in this era, while steel wasn''t all that uncommon, it was still a priced commodity used mostly in top tier armours and weapons around the world.


    "Okay, then. Are boring machines prepared?"


    While in theory, one could grind down the inner side of the pipe by hand, it required not only an immense amount of time but also could easily lead to the deformation of the endproduct, easily defeating the purpose of improving the weapon''s accuracy.


    That''s why, despite still waiting for the grinding blades to be finished, all the other parts of the machine that would do the work were prepared and ready to start working. All that was left for them was to have someone mount the blade at the end of their extendable arms and put the pipes in special holds!


    Yet for now, the scale of the possible production was laughable at the very least. With the entire four steam engines responsible for turning the bore around its axis and one additional steam horse tasked with forcing them deeper inside the pipes, if everything went as planned, their output would reach four rifled barrels per hour at most!


    Just a single look at the number of barrels that were currently cast by only a single use of the Bessemer furnace, I knew that as soon as the process would be confirmed to work correctly, the number of boring machines would have to increase at least ten-fold!


    But seeing how everyone was doing their job properly, I decided that there was no point for me to stay in the smelting area. Sooner or later, the news about the success or failure of the rifling of the barrels would reach my ears. By observing the process with my own eyes, I was simply wasting my own time!


    Yet rather than moving to do something productiveˇ­ I realised that there wasn''t that much that I could do at this point!


    While the beauty of industrialisation lied in the fact that a single man had absolutely no meaning in the grand scale of things, with how all the projects of mine were operating in full swing, it wasn''t very sensible for me to plan anything ahead!


    Just the roads and mining town alone were enough to sap the cement production for the next few decades. As long as I would convince the nobles to invest their resources and manpower into improving the internal logistic of the country, this business would only grow bigger and bigger to the point where building a castle would be as cheap as building a damned home!


    As for the carpentry plant, its uses were far greater than that of the concrete factory, even if it was far less valuable. From the furniture, through ships all the way to carriages, everything that one could desire could be produced here. Yet both of those enterprises were easily outshined by the area that I just left.


    Rows of smelters, all perfectly connected to the warehouse at the entrance of the mine, where countless workers continued to pack the ore from the stockpile on top of the belt. At this point, if not for the fact that the wooden pellet production in the carpentry was already in its full swing, nearly half of my current manpower would have to busy themselves with supplying the wood to the furnaces. From there, the charcoal moved to blast furnaces and stoves, all the way with selling the slag remaining after the use of blast furnace to the nearby villages as a potent fertiliser.


    Moving through the makeshift road created by countless pairs of legs walking through this precise piece of land, I reached the outskirts of the future city. Even with how it was only nearing the finish of the very first neighbourhood, someone was smart enough to put the first iron tracks and connect the location of the future gate with the central plaza of the working area.


    Seeing this unexpected change, I noted in my mind to find the one responsible for this and make sure he would not only receive an ample reward for coming up with a great idea. And obviously, just as much scorn for wasting resources without my permission, before putting him back to Tarnow to make sure he would get this first bit of proper education that I prepared.


    Overall, everything was going smoothly. The production only kept increasing as workers got used to their tasks and started looking for ways to improve their effectiveness while decreasing the amount of effort they had to put. In just about a week, the grand market on the Dunaj river would also reach its finish stage, where all that would be left would be to put the furniture inside the buildings. The outpost at the border was long finished, and from the messages I received, more and more merchants were amassing in the area, awaiting the grand opening of the new, lucrative trade route.


    Yet despite how everything seemed to grow precisely as planned, despite how I even considered the period of interregnum as more of an opportunity rather than the risk, I still couldn''t help but look in the skies while fighting off the anxiety present in my head.


    The time for me to finally show off the potential behind industrialisation finally came. With the new weapons, enough money to buy all the gunpowder I would ever want and more than enough people willing to sell their families for even a shred of a chance to work for me, as long as I would be careful, nothing could stop me from reaching for not only the purple robes but maybe even a seat of a king in the near future. If no significant changes would happen, even damned world domination would be possible!


    But it didn''t change the fact, that with the coming period of chaos, all of my plans could shatter like a piece of elaborate glass falling from the table to the hard stones of the floor!

 1 Ceremony

    "I hereby name you a King of Poland, Grand Prince of Lithuania, Prince of the Prussia, Livonia, Mazowia..."


    Hearing a long and boring list of the various titles bestowed upon the new head of the state, I couldn''t help but wonder what kind of feeling it would be... To sit on the throne while feeling the gazes of the crowd on your back as the highest priest of the state lays the crown on your head... Instead, I was forced to watch the show of this fucking bastard who was going to run away in a matter of months!


    Henry Valois, infamous King of Poland with the shortest real reign in the history of the entire country, better known as the Henry the third, the last of his household to rule France.


    The ongoing event was this close to making me forget that my situation was actually quite peculiar.


    Because either this new game had some insane and age-breaking solutions to all the problems with the VR that plagued the industry since its conception, or it somehow managed to achieve what was already cliche enough to earn a name for itself - transmigration. After all, so far, the only moment where I could think about the game... Was when I was straining my eyes to look at the very corner of my field of view!


    But how the heck did this even happened?


    Thrilled by the release of the completely new title from the company that established itself as the leader of grand strategy simulators through the years, I made sure to stock on all sorts of snacks and food, to make sure no hunger nor thirst would stop me from enjoying myself with the fresh copy I just got from the online store.


    By the time my quick scavenging run towards the closest grocery finally could be concluded as I reached the steps leading to my apartment... By the time all I could think about was finally launching this age-changing, market-shattering, jaw-dropping and long-downloading game... By the time I was about to reach the floor I was living on... I tripped.


    Stop laughing right fucking now! I wonder if you could maintain stability while running on the stairs! Okay, let''s add your heart pumping more adrenaline into your veins than an average sportsman could ever receive without the use of forbidden drugs during his last game in his career!


    But that tripping was what started this entire madness.


    Living rather fulfilled life, working a proper job and, for the most part, taking care of my body needs I managed to fall on my knee in order to regain my stability. And everything would be all right, if not for the fact that when I raised my head in hopes of seeing the doors of my apartment... I saw this entire coronation ceremony!


    By the time I somehow managed to organise my thoughts, I, at last, noticed the flashing screen that was painfully close to how the game window was teased to look like. With no other sensible way of understanding the situation I suddenly found myself in, I decided to just observe the events just as the coronation ceremony concluded. Or a small part of it at least.


    "Rise, Henry of the house Valois!"


    With the bishops approaching the soon-to-be-King with holy oils, he proceeded to smear it on Henry''s shoulders, chest, back and forehead. The moment it was done, the Royal swordsman made his way over while carrying the ancient sword said to be wielded by the very first king that ever ruled the country.


    Recalling the bits of ceremonial knowledge I once learned, I realised that the whole process was nowhere near the true end. As everyone here was only about to enter the painfully long period of traditional moves and actions, I decided to use this time to make any sense of my situation.


    With how limited the historical resources about this age were, even if one of the legendary figures of the period were to be kneeling right beside me, I wouldn''t be any wiser. The only thing I could learn by looking around started at how men wearing a cap inside the church was already considered faux pas and ended at the realisation that crimson clothes have yet to become as popular as they would be with the rise of magnates.


    Kneeling down and unable to spot any clues about my current situation, I could only focus on the flashing window hidden in the corner on my view... Only to learn that the moment I thought about it, it moved right in front of my eyes!


    I only needed a few seconds to recognise how to move around the menu, quickly recognising familiar names, buttons and walls of text. Years of wasting my time away on playing the previous iterations of the game didn''t go to waste after all! Even the ledger option was still there, albeit limited only to the neighbouring countries in the nation map mode and nearby provinces in the local map.


    Before the new King managed to make a sign of the cross in the air with the traditional three swings of the treasured sword, I already learned that I was apparently a lord of a small town of Tarnow, with the entire area and villages surrounding it.


    At least this bit was nice. Being a part of the landed nobility in one of the most important provinces of the country, that is. Thinking about the prospects of my privately owned land, I couldn''t help but turn greedy. Located right in the middle of a major road that connected the current capital of the country - Krakow - with one of the five major hubs that would be later called a heart of the country in the far-off future - Lwow.


    Just this fact alone would guarantee insane wealth, as long as I would be able to bank on it properly!


    But the state of the country wasn''t as great as I would like it to be.


    Within the next two years, this state would be struck by the escape of the king -sic!-, interregnum, a rebellion of the most important trade hub in the north, war with the powerful Muscovy or rather a newly established tsardom of Russia...


    I read too many novels about being transmigrated to another world, life or timeline to even bother trying to get back to my normal life. Wasting my time as the spectator of the coronation ceremony, if I were to act out of the line, I would be swiftly ostracised and all prospects for the future would be gone.


    And to be fair, if I were to choose between making a place for myself as a damned noble during the golden century of my country or working nine to five, five days a week and pretending I''m not wasting my life away...


    Even if given the choice, I would not decide to return!


    Fuck cars! I can enjoy riding the horses without appearing as a freak to others! Fuck the internet! I won''t have to endure trolls that think they can say anything to anyone! Fuck the democracy, where I''m nothing more than a minuscule gear in the system for others to exploit!


    It''s time to start this new life as a fucking noble!


    But first, I need to stop myself from sleeping through the rest of this lengthy and pointless ceremony!

 2 End of the ceremony

    The time all those people spent on those pointless ceremonies was the one downside to my current situation I could think off. After making the traditional sign of the cross in the air with the ceremonial sword, Henry accepted the crown itself, other sigils of a ruler like the golden apple and silver sceptre and only then the proper mass would begin.


    Banking on the fact that the homily would be spoken in Polish instead of Latin like the rest of the religious ceremony, I raised my head and moved the window to match my sight. Even being the landed noble, didn''t mean that I was supposed to know this Italian language!


    While it was a trend among the nobility, as someone coming from a rather small city that the Tarnow was, I could either pretend to be one of those stupid nobles that cared only for their appearances and fame or act in a way that would allow me to score some brownie points with local magnates.


    After all, while the myth of all the nobles being equal was as strong in the current times as it would be right before the downfall of this once great country, the reality of the times was quite different.


    Using the time when the priest revelled in his oratory abilities and wasted more and more time of the country local elites, I managed to check out the treasury and overall state of the economy of my lands.


    And it was even worse than I expected!


    I knew that this area was never considered rich, but come on! Four red goldens per week? FROM THE ENTIRE PROVINCE?


    While this was a pure profit from the province, and by the end of the tax year the treasury would receive as much as it did through the year, it still meant that in general, I could only use four red golden per week for my own needs!


    The only good side to this was the fact that my ancestors were apparently hoarders, saving exactly three hundred and fifty-three polish ducats in the treasury, with all forms of currencies accounted, and about as much with various jewellery and art.


    Though calculating how much a single red golden or in other terms - polish ducat was worth would be useless, since all the prices would wary as well. Just to get the general idea of the state of the treasury, I used the projected worth of gold and some of the prices I remembered from the times I was actually researching the topic.


    Going by the rough estimates, a single red golden was worth about three hundred dollars and was more than enough for a commoner to live for even three months! And that included often visits in the taverns and even occasional meat! Thinking along these lines, four ducats for a week would seem like a lot, but for someone with my intentions, it was less than even my cheapest plan would take!


    This had to change.


    Raising my head, I looked around the cathedral. All those people made their fortunes mostly from the several resource nodes like rich reserves of salt beside Krakow, but the great majority of them banked on the fertile lands to export insane amounts of wheat and other cereals to the west.


    This topic was a point of pain for every patriot who learned about the history of my nation. With their confidence of being the granary of Europe, most of the nobles were happy with selling the fruits of the labour of their serfs, while paying exorbitant sums for the products of the western craftsmen!


    Just on the value of the gems alone, from the price of rough stone mined in the north, through the costs of faceting in one of the Holy Roman Empire princedoms and with added costs of transportation and unholy fees that all the parties applied, a single red golden worth of gem that could be sold in the west for roughly four ducats, local nobles would be willing to pay even as much a thirty golden coins!


    Just thinking about this made my blood boil in my veins, but with the homily ending, the continuous process of standing up, sitting down, singing psalms and kneeling down begun, forcing me to stop this train of thoughts and following the example of everyone else.


    Exactly like with every other aspect of life, even the holy mass ceremony greatly differed from what I knew. It was actually a strange experience for me to take part in the ceremony mostly in Latin, where everyone was visibly contemplating every single moment of celebrum, instead of just waiting for everything to end so they could go home and enjoy the last moments of the freedom before the new working week would begin.


    After the interesting part of the mass finally concluded, the bishop leading the ceremony approached the King, and after all those unnecessary formalities, he finally placed the crown on top of his head.


    "Rise, and hold these lands from now on!"


    After reciting the sacred formula, the priest finally reached the last point of the coronation. From now on, Henry would be the first, elected ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. But I was the only one to know, that in barely four months, his older brother would die, vacating the French throne and putting an end for the short period of Henry''s history as the head of the proud commonwealth.

 3 Inspecting the system

    After the entire official ceremony, or rather its religious part, was over, all the nobles from the cathedral and the immense crowd from the town''s square right beside it formed up. With the Great Marchal leading the whole procession with the Crown''s banner raised high in the air - as compared to the procession that leads to the cathedral when it was kept low as a sign that the King-Elect had yet to officially start his duties.


    While most of the nobles took the opportunity to use this great excuse to free themselves from the workload of counting the money and hurrying up their serfs, this procession was the last part where common folk actually bothered to take part in. For a single reason.


    Right after the Great Marchal, a group of royal treasurers marched with their servants carrying huge chests filled with coins. Every so often, one of them would grab a handful of money and throw it at the crowd, making them praise the wise and generous king in the short moments between fighting between each other to grab just one more coin before others would take this opportunity from them.


    This entire walk of pride lasted until the royal palace, located only a few stais (roughly 1 kilometer/0.6mile, the distance horse could run before resting step) away from the town''s centre. Spawning on top of the greatest hill in the entire area of the mostly flatland lesser Poland, it was surrounded by a set of thick walls, separated every thirty meters by a sizeable tower.


    After crossing the drawbridge that wasn''t raised since the great turmoil almost two centuries ago, the entire procession passed through the majestic gate. While most of the nobles and rich citizens of the capital continued inside the castle grounds where the grand feast would take place, I followed the example of the commoners and lesser merchants and stepped aside.


    There was no reason to waste the time on the feast if I could stock on the supplies that would give me any chance of improving the economy of my land! Additionally, from the detailed map of the area, I learned that my own fellowship was left in the suburbian tower along with the empty carriage. Thinking about this situation, I could only assume I used it to bring the royal gifts and taxes to the capital, but in the end, it was good I had a way to carry a greater amount of goods that what could be fitted to the saddles.


    Finally separated from the crowd, I could spend some time discovering the usabilities of the system. Regretfully, no matter how much I looked for such an option, there was no way to receive voice notifications that would bring this system a bit closer to a human companion, limiting me to the various flags appearing under the top bar listing the most critical resources and information about my own realm.


    And it was the best finding I could ever hope for!


    Starting with the personal status window akin to those I knew from the few RPG games I played with not only my basic statistics like vitality, agility or endurance but also a variety of other statuses ranging from the complete list of titles I held and ending at proficiency in all the skills that a noble could ever need.


    At the same time, the bitterness coming from lack of the overall level that I could use as the gauge of the general strength of me or others was killed by the next window that I opened from this handy toolbar.


    So far, no matter how thankful I was for the chance of living the life I always dreamed off, I had to admit that outside of vast knowledge about the future events and some general information that only a powerful spy network could gatherˇ­ I was actually powerless!


    Yes, my ideas could bring prosperity to my realm, but all of them required some unimaginable expanses of time to start working! I knew that about fifty stais east from the Tarnow, about halfway towards the major city of Lwow, there were several modest deposits of oil. Sounds like a jackpot, doesn''t it?


    But for my current self and the people living under my rule, it was worth as much as all the gold that continental Americas could hold. In theory, I could organise great expedition aimed at uncovering and importing said gold, but in reality, I would have to gain the permission from either Portugal or Spanish royalty to explore those areas, find brave navigators that would dare to sail to those places, fight my way through the natives towards the hinterlands of Americasˇ­


    The list of challenges I would''ve to overcome to boost my economy with this foreign gold was almost as long as one filled with requirements to even start extracting the oil, not to speak about a way to make real use of it!


    That''s why, when I saw the word "crafting" on the toolbar, my heart jumped in joy. And when I actually saw its content, I thought that my jaw would fall as low as the bar of my excitement burst towards the skies!


    With my current budget, creating any real industry that could serve as the backbone for the growth of my land, was simply impossible. Buying chickens, growing the size numbers of cows, breeding the horsesˇ­ Without a specialistic knowledge in any of the fields that I would love to improve, I was limited to following the example of every other noble around me!


    Not even my vast knowledge about future events would be of any real use!


    The closest war in the area that I could influence would happen about two years from now, with the city of Gdansk, later known as the Danzig, rebelling against the rule of the new King, that would replace Henry after one and a half year of interregnum following Henry''s escape from the country. Later on, the Muscovy would use the turmoil within the commonwealth to launch a powerful attack, aimed at conquering Latvia for the sake of gaining access to the Baltic portsˇ­ But what if I somehow informed the future King about this menace, without getting killed or forced into a monastery for heresy?


    Would the Muscovy still dare to attack without the opportune chance to do so? After all, the Polish Crown was an actual behemoth in this day and age, and only constant warfare, rebellions and bad rulers not to speak about the degradation of the nobility or the diminishing of the royal power over the next two hundred years would bring the country to the point where it was unable to stand against its neighbours!


    In fact, most of the historians agreed that even when compared to the tragedy of the second world war, the series of events starting with the great Cossack rebellion to the southern-east nearly seventy years from now and ending at the Swedish invasion so tragic that it ended up being nicknamed a deluge were actually far worse in the countrywide effects!


    Can you imagine that? A war that swallowed millions of people destroyed innumerable cities and ended up with over fifty years of communist occupation, was still considered less harmful than what was about to happen in the next one hundred years!


    But thinking about all of that was pointless right now. Armed with the knowledge of my system newly found capabilities, I looked towards the north, where a small trade city of Kleparz (Klepash for you, normal people unable to spell Polish words :D) was located.


    With its fitting location at the northern gate of Krakow where the main road leads countless travellers and merchants to the Crown''s hinterlands, it was one of the biggest trading hubs of the entire province.


    That was where my journey to greatness would begin!

 4 Taste of the medieval beer

    *Small note about scales:


    Dozen - 12


    Stack - 60


    Kor - From Polish Korzec, about 120 litres (For dry matter)


    Las - 30 Kors about 3600 litres (For dry matter)


    Barrel - about 160 litres (of liquid)


    Garn - from garniec - about 4 litres (liquid)


    Quater - forth of Garn, about 1 litre (liquid)


    Lut - about 12g


    Gryw - from Grzywna - about 0.2kg


    Stone - 32 funts - about 13kg


    Centar - 5 stones - 1600 funts - about 65 kg


    "Al, Elemo, gather the servants. We are moving out!"


    Bursting into the tavern where my company was staying, I shouted right as soon as I entered the place. With my status of major landed noble - even if I was no one when compared to real magnates - I could come inside, cut half of the guests in half with my trusty sabre and end up jailed for two weeks in the town''s stronghold, and came out clean just by paying an honest fine. Even with that in mind, the jovial atmosphere inside this Jewish inn.


    *major disclaimer, In XVI century Poland, most of the taverns were operated by Jews, as they had major tax discounts on serving alcohol and were know to be the major group when it came to services and trade. This is by no means meant to be insulting or abusive, just true to history. Also, referring to Jewish folk per ''jew'' was as common as calling all commoners a serf and nobles a Sir/Mister. Only Town''s citizens didn''t have the natural form of referring to as a group*


    "Per order, Sir!" *Sir - when referring to someone higher in the hierarchy, Mister, when referring to fellow noble*


    Before I even managed to finish my words, two young, burly men jumped out of the long bench, almost causing the entire table to flip. Only a deep breath I took at the sight of this saved me from lashing out at them right away.


    "Take the carriage and bring it to the Kleparz gates. Leave the militia to guard it and look for me inside. We will be bringing some cargo back."


    Not daring to risk my composture by watching their reaction to my words, I was about to bolt from the inn as fast as I came inside when a sudden idea forced me to halt my steps.


    "Jew, quarter!" (about 1 litre)


    Turning to the master of the place, I placed my voice with a tone more curious than haughty. In reality, I couldn''t help but marvel at the almost magical atmosphere of this place. There was something else in the taverns passed from father to son through generations, decorated with a delicate, Jewish sense of style - as far as poor commoners like the owners could afford to do. This place oozed with comfiness!


    "Yes, sir!"


    "Sit with me for a moment."


    As if asking everyone to enter a contest of gazes with the price being the hand of the most beautiful maiden in the entire Crown, I invited the Jew to the table. Even looking at him made me feel nostalgic about the reality that this country lost with the attack of the homicidal ideology from the west in the times to come.


    Visibly battling his own thoughts, torn between insulting the noble by sitting at his table and daring to refuse his direct request, the innkeeper had to turn his mind into calculating the losses that my inevitable wrath would incur as he powerlessly sat his thin bottom at the bench on the other side of the table that I was sitting.


    Raising the mug to my lips, I first took a sniff, trying to gauge the ingredients used to create this drink. Regretfully, while my body was that of a typical noble of the age, my senses were still governed by my transmigrated mind! I expected this whiff to throw me off, making the whole idea of tasting obsolete, bur surprisingly enough, the smell alone wasn''t that bad!


    Taking the first, small sip, I was surprised how weak this drink actually was!


    Used to the heavy stouts like Guinesser, this drink tasted more like a fruity wine for kids, with just a hint of true beer taste! But that was something I had to expect. With no knowledge about water treatment, only the alcoholic drinks were considered safe in this time and age. That''s why even in ancient Rome, the wine was often cheaper than drinkable water!


    "Tell me, do you think this is a good beer?"


    After taking a sizeable gulp from the mug, I finally placed the container on the table and turned my head to the terrifying jew. Maybe because of how energetic and jovial most of the nobles were, the calm manner in which I asked this question must have made this poor guy reconsider his choice of following in his father''s footsteps when he picked up the family business after him!


    "Sirˇ­ That''s the best beer that our inn hasˇ­ I''m sure we can''t compare to royal booze or western wines, but even nobles claim its one of the best ale''s they have tasted in the entire area!"


    At first, the Jew''s voice was breaking, but the more he spoke about the product he was serving, the more his composture improved as if praising the drink was the duty of all innkeepers, no matter what would be the price for doing so!


    With how light the drink was, I took a deep breath before angling the mug once again and chugging all its content right to my stomach in one go! While my mind might be used to the more alcohol heavy drinks, the same logic didn''t apply to my bodyˇ­ But what kind of Polish noble was going to do business sober?


    Reaching to the pouch strapped to my belt, I picked a single, silver grosz from it and dropped it on the table as I stood up.


    "Keep the change."


    After giving this middle-aged man a scare, I decided I could at least be a bit generous. A quarter of beer would be worth a bit less than a single grosz fifty years later, when both silver and gold gained a lot of value, meaning that right now, I overpaid several times. But on the other side, while I didn''t lose enough to grieve over it, this poor man gained a nice profit just like that!


    "Sir, the horses and the carriage are ready!"


    Forced to get to this place on foot, I couldn''t help but get a little excited at the thought of riding a true, polish horse of the old breed. One could write several books about the love that my nation, especially at this age, directed to this particular animal, and this topic still wouldn''t be exhausted!


    Sadly, after the fall of the medieval type of cavalry and the growing usage of modernised firearms, along with the partition of Poland, the true breed of Polish horses disappeared into the history, just like many other beautiful aspects of the true national spirit.


    Even if I didn''t know how the heck did I traversed such a vast distance on the road of time, in the opposite direction that I would normally be supposed to at that - but I was sure about one thing. With my knowledge, modern way of thinking and most and foremost, the system, I would do my very best to change the course of history!

 5 Bond with the horse

    The moment where I finally got to jump on my horse had a magical feeling to it. As soon as I reached the stables where the lower servants were running around while trying to not break their spines as they bowed on the run in my direction, I knew which horse was waiting for me.


    Taking a small cube of sugar from the open poach hanged on the side of the wall way out of the reach of horses greedy mouth, I moved towards the box located around the middle point of this small shack. Slowly taking one step after the other, I approached this majestic creature, watching as it turned its big head towards me, and looked me right into the eyes.


    Reaching with my hand forward, palm upwards and the cube of sugar right on top, I observed as this calm animal took a quick sniff while closing its nostrils towards the delicacy, before catching it with its huge lips and allowing me to pet its long mouth. Feeling the soft hair wrapped around the relatively hard part of its head, I slowly moved my hand up, going as far as the top of its head, before retracting it even slower.


    Even if there was a bond between this noble and this horse before, I was almost certain that this intelligent creature recognised that I was someone new. Even with that, it still graced me with its trust, lightly raising its head in response to my rub!


    I could just stay here and continue to gaze into this beast deep eyes, but the constant clanging of the servants running around to prepare everything for our trip promptly knocked me out of my daze, allowing me to reach for the bridle with one hand while raising the knob that locked the gate to the box with the other one.


    Despite being the reason for everyone''s fast tempo, I took my time leading my partner outside, while inspecting whether its fur wasn''t tainted with any sort of dirt. As we stepped to the field away from the stable, I took yet another moment to check whether its horseshoes were nicely fitted and without any flaws, before moving back to its head.


    "Hello, Helga."


    Since there was a history to this horse that reached the times far before my transmigration, I had no choice but accept this ugly name. But after a second thought, I had to admit it was quite fitting. While for now this beast of a horse remained calm and polite, I could tell from a single look at it that its true fate was to push everyone aside as she would charge against the enemy lines!


    Once again taking a moment to kinda synchronise myself with her, I took a few deep breaths while resting my forehead on hers. When I felt the moment was right, I rubbed her behind her sizeable ears for a short while, before moving back to her side. With a sudden impulse to my body, instead of using the stirrups my outer, right leg shoot to the back, only to make a full swing forward. With my body allowing the momentum to carry it, I jumped on my left leg, swiftly setting myself comfortably in the saddle.


    Noticing my acrobatics, Al and Elemo laughed at the same time. While their faces alone were enough to notice a stark difference in their characters, the sympathetic approach of theirs wasn''t hindered by the extraverts of Al nor by introverts of Elemo. Brought to my service years ago, or to be exact, three years, seven months and twenty-six days ago as the system described, they belonged to the poorer part of the nobility. With neither of them holding the title of the firstborn, they could only look for their fate in the army or in the services of those better endowed than them.


    "Stop the laughs and set off! Everyone is long busy feasting at the castle. If we don''t hurry up, we will be forced to stay the night in the city!"


    While the threat wasn''t that harsh, the city taverns were surprisingly expensive when one realised that the level of the services they offered was even below that of the roadside resting places!


    There was an additional point of the journey we would have to soon make back to Tarn¨®w. With the estimated speed with a light carriage, I believed we could cover the distance of about ninety stais (90km, 56miles) in max three days. With the horses alone, we could bolt forward and finish in just two days worth of slightly forced horse march, but this wasn''t the modern times when one could just go on the road and go from point a to point b without worrying about anything but accidents. In this time, leaving the carriage with only militia and no mounted cover, was akin to sacrificing it to the bandits!


    "By the way, what do you think about our new king?"


    As we slowly started moving on the road, I couldn''t help but compare our current momentum to the swiftness that public communication offered. By the time we would arrive at Kleparz, I could go to the furthermost part of the modern city and backˇ­ Twice by the tram, or just cover the distance from one side of the modern city centre to the other.


    "Don''t get me started on it. All I want is a quick war with Muscovites under the new King, some quick loot at the border villages, soldier''s pay after everything, and I would be able to buy myself a small ranch at the wilds plains to the east!"


    Hearing this, I couldn''t help but shake my head. There would be no major conflicts for the next two years. While for me it was the opportunity to build a proper powerbase in my lands and prepare for what was about to come, poor younglings like Al would rather go to war and risk their life just to speed up the annoying reality of saving up as a sidekick to more powerful noble.


    But there was some good points about his idea. Ever since the conflict between the Crown and Lithuania arouse about the realisation of the real union between those two countries so far bound only by the personal union, there was no way to miss the rise of the pioneering spirit all over the country. Countless expanses of fertile landˇ­ Almost to being completely barren of peopleˇ­


    It was that that would set the foundations for the future conflict, that would shake the entire country and start the domino effect that turned Commonwealth from world''s power, into a puppet state-controlled and later annexed by its neighbours.


    "Drop the spare talk and hurry up! We only have two hours before closing the gates!"

 6 Acquiring resources

    Travelling through the road that encompassed the city suburbs that spread out away from the town''s walls was safe enough for me to bolt forward while leaving my subordinates and seven lower servants to take care of the carriage. Thinking about this, I couldn''t help but scoff at the previous owner of my body, or the program that controlled it till this day, who bothered to bring so many people!


    While it was understandable to bring at least this much of armed escort on three days long journey with various treasures prepared as the coronation gifts for the crown, the need to carry four of them on the carriage with only my direct companions and three remaining militia both capable of riding it and trained enough to warrant me sponsoring them the horses.


    After all, despite or maybe because of how Poles loved their horses, the prices of those animals was as steep as it could get. While in France or the Holy Roman Empire, a good cavalry horse could be bought by the measly equivalent of a hundred polish ducats, a proper hussar mount saw its prices often reaching fifteen times this amount!


    Taking the Helga as an example, while she was raised in my own, private stables, the system evaluated her worth to be three hundred red goldens, with the max tradeable price of four hundred. Even if other horses that I brough on this travel were of the far worse breed, their worth still oscillated around a hundred or so gold ducats, putting quite a strain on my finances.


    But in the end, if one wanted to rear his own private herd, it was impossible to limit oneself to just one! With five animals being the absolute minimum, Tarnowian (adverb from Tarnow) stables amounted to twenty-four specimen at this point, all five horses that were with me included.


    Those thoughts accompanied me as I enjoyed the fresh air of the late winter hitting my face. While others would pull their hoods closer in order to shield themselves from the uncomfortable stings caused by the low temperature, I couldn''t help but be thankful for this reminder that this world was indeed real.


    Contrary to the capital guarded by the thick city walls, Kleparz consisted of only a handful of homes, with most of its entire size compromising of small shops and enormous plaza in the middle, that was the real core of this location. Every Saturday, this now empty place turned insanely messy, with all the wheat merchants swarming the place for weekly wheat trade day. This constant event was the reason why this place was called the land trade port of the entire lesser-Poland province!


    Following the tradition, the moment where the hardened earth gave the place for the stone road of the city, I hopped down from the horse and continued forward by leading it by its bridle. Just a few moments later, I arrived at my destination and knocked on the doors to one of the nicer buildings in the entire place.


    "Who the hell is knocking at this time?!"


    With the sun closing to the line of the horizon, most of the life in this small city already ceased, allowing all the merchants and other citizens to enjoy their family life and other duties like accounting, that didn''t require their presence right in their shops.


    Hence, it was no wonder that intruding at someone''s place in this hour would cause such a response!


    Before I even managed to reply, the doors to the building opened up, allowing me to see the butler of the house.


    "How can I help you, sir?"


    Just the fact that this household could afford a butler showed how well their business was going. Most of the guild members, be it craftsmen or merchants preferred to use their many apprentices in order to deal with menial tasks that nobles employed servants to take care off.


    "I''m sorry for intruding at such a late hour. I came here in order to buy some kinds of wheat from your master. Could you inform him of my request?"


    Despite the huge difference in class between a noble like me and the simple merchant - even if well off - like the guy I was visiting, I decided to keep a polite attitude. Even if the times where the nobles started their rise to the power and caused the entire commonwealth to have underdeveloped town culture in the process, it was still too early for me to act out of the line.


    Especially, with my retinue still on the way here!


    "Please, give me a moment sir, I will inform the master of your arrival."


    Gracing me with a deep blow, the butler closed the doors. Just the sight of the sabre hanging from my side was enough to confirm my status as the nobility, while the expensive robes I was wearing could be used to gauge my wealth, but it was still up to the master of the house to decide whether he would bother dealing with me or not.


    Just a short moment later, the doors opened once again, with a huge middle-aged man standing behind them.


    "Welcome to my household, sir. How could I be of your service?"


    Right after speaking, the man turned to the side, with his free hand extending towards the interior of the room, in a common gesture of inviting someone it.


    "Ah, I''m sorry for bothering you, but I would like to buy wheat, barley and hop. Three kors each, and one kor of apples, if you still have some. I think five red goldens should be a fitting price. Preferably, I would like the wheat to be in barrels. Do you think you could do me this small favour?"


    With how all those products would be used in a small project of testing the system capabilities, I didn''t mind offering a price a bit higher than what the system suggested when I played around its different options. Even though there was a button for the instant trade, with how I was new to using it, I wanted to do the things in a proper way before I could close myself in my castle and let go of all my worries, testing this system capabilities to their maximum!


    "Ah, sure thing, but I don''t see any carriage that Sir could use to bring those wares away. Looking at how Sir arrived at the relatively late hour, should I assume that the carriage is on its way?"


    Being a successful merchant in this day and age required one to not only have a proper start through the guild and preferably business to take over in the first place, the harsh reality of the primitive market and almost constant warfare of this period filtered out anyone who was too stupid to wield his position.


    As such, the acute guess of the merchant didn''t surprise me at all!


    "Yes, my companions should arrive shortly. As the time is late and the lovely smell suggest that I forced you away from the supper, just a trusty apprentice would be enough to guide and distribute the wares to us, don''t you think?"


    Reaching to my pouch, I pulled five, thick golden ducats and passed them to the merchant while trying to kill the pain in my heart. Here goes a week of my household incomeˇ­


    "Yes, I will delegate someone right away. Mark! Come here!"


    Calling out towards the insides of the house, there was some rumbling coming from the inner chambers before a young man about seventeen of age appeared beside his master.


    "You will guide this sir when his carriage will arrive, and pass them three kors of the best wheat, barley and hop that we have, and one kor of the remaining apples. Don''t make them wait!"


    Just like that, this small deal was done. While losing five ducats caused a small pain in my heart, when I thought about the possible returns of this investment, my soul swiftly calmed down.


    Roadside tavern ale? Beer? Oh boy, I got the feeling that with the help of my system, the massive lands of the commonwealth would soon be swept by the completely new grade of alcoholic drinks! As soon as I would get back to my castle, the plan to make a new brewery that would turn famous worldwide in just a matter of a few months would begin!

 7 Mama, just killed a man

    "Roads under heaven, roads under the sun, we are riding forward, where the joy and gale"


    "We are riding forward, under a starry sky, roads under heaven, leading us through life."


    "We will ride through the lands, all the way past seven seas,


    In the world of our dreams, we will face the women whims!"


    "We will reach somewhere soon,


    Just in time for honeymoon"


    "It''s not really that far,


    Where the pretty maidens are."


    As Al continued to sing the popular travellers song, I pretended to not have the urge to unsheathe my sabre and cut his throat. While the song itself was rather nice when accompanied by strings or at least performed in a nice voice, years of drinking and sniffing the snuff, made Al''s voice as hoarse as the voice of army drill sergeant, who was shouting for so long at the recruits to actually forget how to speak in a normal manner.


    Looking around from the vantage point of my saddle, I could see Elemo riding far in the back, and two of the mounted militias about a quarter of a mile forward as compared to the carriage, making the middle point of our small caravan.


    After finishing the trade with the merchant back in the Kleparz, we loaded up all the wares on the small carriage and set off. With only slightly more than ten kilometres(6-7miles) to the east, laid one of the most important places in the entire commonwealth - Wieliczka salt mine.


    With over two thousand miners in the Wielczka''s mine alone, the city that grew around it was considered the pearl in the crown of Poland, along with all the side businesses that sprouted around this profitable resource and the second mine in the town of Bochnia.


    As one the busiest area in the entire lesser-Poland, the chances of bandits trying their luck on this particular part of the road were minimal, especially with how well-armed our convoy was compared to the low value of the goods that we were carrying. But as this was my first day in this world, I wasn''t going to take any risks!


    And it soon paid off!


    By the time the walls of the capital disappeared from our sight and with the suburbs of the Wieliczka yet to appear, I heard a shout from behind. Taking a leisurely look back, I saw Elemo galloping forward, with his pistol raised high in the air as he waved it in hopes of raising my attention.


    Instantly raising in the stirrups, I gazed into the darkness of the early night, trying to see what made this introverted guy react so energetically.


    And just like that, by the time my man covered half of the distance that separated him from our group, I could make up several mounted figures swiftly closing in on us!


    "Pour the powder on the pan!"


    While Elemo''s shout didn''t escape the attention of the Al and the remaining militia beside me, it was my shout that alerted the foreguard about coming trouble. With the relatively vast distance that separated them from the main group, they could only act as the reinforcements, since the enemies would catch up with us a few moments before they could reach our position.


    "Your fire, Sir!"


    With one of the three militias that rode on the carriage along with the goods and two unarmed servants lighting the fire with the flint and passing it to the mounted troops in order for us to light the match of our pistols. Compared to the stationary units who long-barreled muskets on them, we had to limit ourselves to those handy pistols. After all, after the shots would be fired, it would all come down to the usual sabre and pike thing!


    It was a pity they still couldn''t remember that I actually carried a wheellock gun, that didn''t require the use of smouldering fuse to fire it!


    "Remember to clear the hole!"


    As the seconds ticked, Elemo arrived at our group and hid behind the carriage just like the rest of us. There was no time to gain the momentum for the charge, and it would be highly stupid to just allow the enemies to use their speed against us.


    Just like the cossacks who would use this form of tactic on a much greater scale in the coming years of constant rebellions against commonwealth and anyone who dared to try to put some laws in the place they were living, or even the husytian religious rebels that were the creators of the idea of using the carriages from their own supply chain as the mobile fortress, we decided to use our own advantages, instead of letting the enemies create their own.


    "Fire!"


    By the time it became obvious that the attackers weren''t actually a group of uncareful youths that hurrier for a few cups of drinks before the last piwiarnia (beer-serving place) would get closed for the night from their own firearms going off and enlighting the entire area,


    As per my order, all four matchlock hand arms and three muskets fired, following the shot of my wheellock pistol. What would be a wall of fire in the latter ages, today only managed to reap the lives of barely three people, instantly knocked out of their horses as the immense strength of the bullet carved big holes in their bodies.


    Sadly, our side didn''t remain free from casualties either, with one of the militia killed on the spot by a bullet penetrating his head and throwing most of his brain on top of the wares on the carriage from the hole on the backside of his skull, while one of the servants was hit with a stray bullet to the side.


    "Jump out!"


    With the wave of those pesky modern weapons gone, it was time to get to the proper work in a traditional way! Feeling the adrenaline being pumped into my bloodstream, my right hand found the handle of my trusty piece of sabre just as Helga raised on its hindlegs and kicked herself forward!


    That was the difference between an expensive horse and your average one! Before my subordinates who each had a good horse for himself even managed to push their horses into the run, I was already swimming through the air, holding myself in place with reins and allowing the momentum to carry my armed hand to the back.


    "KIlL!"


    In just a few moments, I arrived beside the aggressors. Pulling my arm forward, I didn''t bother with any complicated arts of fencing, just bringing down the doom on the neck of the nearest opponent.


    Thankfully, with three opponents dead before the fight started, only five remained!


    While I initially used the gap between the horse of the deceased bandit and my first target, since the other party had to come to a full stop before the carriage, next enemy managed to approach me from the left.


    With left being my vulnerable side on which it would be immensely harder to finely operate my sabre, I finished the first attack, allowing the blood to splatter all over me from the cut reaching halfway through the neck of the stupid bandit who dared to attack a noble, and using the momentum of the move to swing it on the other side of my torso.


    I didn''t go for any vitals. Just by blocking the incoming hit of an old sword, I knocked it upward and allowed Helga''s momentum to carry me forward.


    Before the other party managed to regain control over his weapon, the space I made by dashing forward got filled by Elemo''s horse, as this introverted young guy simply slashed his blade against the unguarded torso of the enemy.


    By the time I, Elemo and Al appeared behind the enemy line and started to turn, headcount from the barrage and initial counterattack amounted to six bandits, with three falling prey to the guns, one to my sabre, one to the combined efforts of me and Elemo and yet another one that was singlehandedly taken care off by Al, who continued to mutter his tune under his nose!


    While any sane man would run if his initial group of eight would turn into just two remaining standing, that wasn''t the decision an amateur could take in the heat of the battle right away, especially when he was busy fighting off against the pikes that the militia on the carriage used to keep the bandits in place!


    Before even the mounted troops from the forward guard reached the battlefield, the fight was already over.


    "Tend to the wounded."


    As the heat of the battle died off, and the adrenaline that blocked everything but the killing intent in my mind starter to wear off, I realised that I just took two human lives. One directly and the other one I just took a part offˇ­ But I just fucking killed someone!


    Be it because of the influence of the system, or even the fact that I might still consider this world as nothing more than a game, the rebound from this transgression was far lesser than I expected it to be. Maybe it was the noble blood that coursed through my modern veins before the transmigration that made me immune to this kind of silly feelings?


    After all, those people wanted to kill us!


    No quarter given, they shoot before we could even ask any questions!


    If I didn''t defend myself, then so be it. But it wasn''t only my life at the stake!


    If I acted like the modern leftist idealists would like me to act and just offered everything I had while baring myself naked for those probably poor people, not only I would betray the trust of my subordinates and militias that they put in me as their leader, I would lose my chance to change the course of the history of my country!


    "Give me something to drink."


    Jumping down from my horse, I moved to the carriage while watching the militia go around collecting the bodies into one place, while my companions went after the horses of the attackers.


    With the servant that used the small amount of booze that all noble would carry around to disinfect the side wound of the other serf that accompanied me before covering the wound with an honest dose of bandages smeared with the traditional ointment made out of a freshly chewed piece of bread and some spider''s web mixed together, all I had to do was reach out to get my hands on the drink.


    Not showing any signs of a bad reaction to the killing, be it mental or physical, I wanted to take a sip only for the sake of calming down my screaming morality.


    Just like in this song of one of the greatest musicians of the modern timesˇ­


    ''Mama, just killed a man.''

 8 Meeting on the road

    "Okay lads, line up."


    After stripping the corpses of their arms and all valuables, those guys from the forward guard who didn''t get to contribute anything to the fight tore were tasked with decapitating the bandits and wrapping the bloody packages into the clothes of those who dared to attack us. With just a few minutes of digging the ground with whatever my people could find around, we created a small hole beside the road, before ditching the corpses away.


    While it pained me to do so, I had to accept the reality of the times. Instead of taking the corpse of the poor militiaman with us in order to let his family bury him his remains near his home, we had to settle with preparing a proper grave and decorating it with a simple cross made out of the branches taken from the nearby trees.


    "Spill out. Who did something that I should know about?"


    Looking at all my men formerly standing in the line in front of me, I couldn''t help but let my eyes wander unconsciously towards Al. Both servants and the militia could be disregarded. None of them was capable of offending someone powerful enough to send a band of bandits after us, leaving only Elemo and Al. And honestly speakingˇ­ The introverted guy didn''t look like someone eager to put his hand between the door and the doorstep!


    Taking a deep sigh, I bluntly looked Al''s in the eyes.


    "Who did you seduce when we were in Krakow?"


    Honestly, I couldn''t care less about the bed adventures of my men, as long as they didn''t brough the hammer of revenge on top of me! Even if they were poor, those two were still nobles! If they couldn''t take care of their own problems causing the entire group to suffer because of their silly mistakes, I would have no other way than relieving either of them from my service!


    "Sirˇ­ It was just a daughter of a small merchantˇ­ He couldn''t possibly afford to rent a single henchman, not to speak about the entire group! And I don''t want to brag, but she seemed to like the night we spent togetherˇ­"


    Blushing like a young man he was, Al seemed to be rather uncomfortable speaking about this matter. It surprised me since most of the literature I enjoyed about the period stated that nobility of this time was rather open about this side of life!


    "Ehˇ­ Any ideas what could prompt those fuckers to attack us then?"


    With the direct proximity of the two big towns right outside of the eyesight, there was no way it was a random group that wanted to risk their life both by fighting and alerting the guards for some measly loot!


    Either someone targeted me directly, one of my direct subordinates or we were just unlucky enough to stumble upon a group of suicidal folks!


    "Okay, guys. Let''s move out. We won''t get anything from waiting around hereˇ­"


    What the hell is wrong with this timing?! Is it just me, or will my transmigration and possession of the system lead to all the possible cliche developments as if I was the main character of some kind of trashy novel?


    "Prepare yourself."


    With the sun already below the line of the horizon, the only light available for us was coming from the half-moon, brighter stars and several torches that we lit as we worked around the battlefield. Shining like a diamond illuminated by a powerful flashlight amongst the sea of darkness, the newcomers had to know about us, way sooner than we heard them!


    With this simple order, even those whose ears weren''t as keen as mine understood the gravitas of the situation. With how strange this attack was, the real deal was about to come out now.


    "Lower your weapons, please. We do not seek harm."


    Lacking any source of direct light that would allow the horse to see the road, the newcomers had to limit themselves to the slowest horse''s gait, steppe. That''s why whoever was coming in, had more than enough time to take stock of the situation after assessing the details visible in the light of our torches.


    "Then get down from your horses, raise your hands high into the air and step into the light of torch one by one. As you can see, our humour got already soured, so I can''t guarantee my men fingers won''t slip on the triggers!"


    Once again using the carriage as the barrier that could shield us from the gunfire of the potential opponent and block their charge, I didn''t even attempt to hide my men lying behind the cover of the barrels filled with the wheat with their muskets cocked and ready to fire.


    I didn''t need to worry about the ambush from behind. In the silence of the night, we would easily hear the steps and I still delegated one of the militia to lay flat on the ground around a hundred meters behind us just to be sure. A single shout of his, and the people in front of us would get massacred before any footmen from behind could do shit about it, and there was simply no way to lead the cavalry offroad around us without a proper source of light!


    That would be just the quickest way to make your horse break its legs, rendering it useless!


    "Come on, noble knight! I''m sure you won''t force the young mistress of the Pekta house to step down on the bloodied ground?"


    Coming out of the shadow thrown by our torches, another mounted person showed up from behind the leader of the group. Surprisingly enough, after throwing her hood to the back, she pushed her face forward enough to let us recognise the delicate facial features of a young woman!


    This night was turning more and more interesting with every minute!

 9 Gutsy girl

    "Forgive me, young miss, but I''m a superstitious man. Meeting a beautiful woman right after being assaulted by a band of brigands seems like a bad omen for the future, doesn''t it?"


    In fact, this statement couldn''t be further from the truth. How could someone born in the damned twenty-first century by superstitious as per late medieval standards? If I were to say those words in Western Europe, the lady in front of me would most likely start fearing if I wouldn''t put her on the stake, but with the holy status of nobility in the commonwealth and the uncommon freedom of faith in the country, my words held quite a different meaning in our culture, as opposed to the rest of the continent.


    "It''s a duty for nobles to protect the damsels! Should I put your name into suspicion if you refuse to recognise our knightly origin?''


    Just like in the rest of the feudal monarchies, Poland and the rest of its federation state was currently in the process of transition from the field nobles to the court nobles. With the origin of the status still being important if not to say, an integral part of the nobles spirituality, the law of three words still was in power.


    To put it bluntly, without a proper system to organise the people and continuous dilution of the blood in both the major and smaller households, it was impossible to keep a track of every single noble out there. While western Europe managed to best the Commonwealth in this field by allowing only the landed nobles to keep the hereditary status of their titles, in this wild east of the continent, as long as you weren''t born as a bastard child of a noble, you would live in the upper part of the social circle.


    As the number of knights grew uncontrollably, there was a need to implement a system to control the process. And just like that, with the exception of people who inherited land from their parents or were gifted a piece of it from the King, as long as even a single noble put your nobility into doubt, you would enter a complicated and annoying process of clearing your name, where it was your own responsibility to prove yourself, instead of the accuser to prove you were usurping the title!


    On the other hand, as long as one was crafty enough, just by finding three ''trusty'' nobles that would vouch for said person nobilityˇ­ One could become noble, even if the entire process was just a ruse!


    "Put my name into suspicion? I would like to see you try! Men, shoot that commoner!"


    "STOP!"


    Before my subordinates could even take move their muzzles towards the haughty warrior at the front, the young woman that stayed by his side until now, suddenly kicked the sides of her horse, forcing it to jump forward and put her at the line of the fire.


    "I''m sorry for my retainer. It wasn''t his intention to spark the conflict with honourable sir."


    "I won''t ask you to give up your weapons, but I don''t want even a single firearm aimed at my people. Lower your weapons and come out to the light, and I will order my people to stand down."


    Once again, this female managed to surprise me. At first, she raised her hands to show that they were empty before she actually jumped down from her horse and approached the carriage, before climbing on top of it and standing up while ignoring the peasant militias rudely staring at the small part of her leg that got exposed through the tear in her dress!


    Seeing how fearless she was, I couldn''t help but chuckle, before lowering my pistol. As if by the touch of a magical wand, the rest of my subordinates quickly followed suit just as two more people from the girl''s company got off their horses and approached the carriage as well.


    "Looking at the actions of your people and the state that you are in, my lady, I assume that those bandits that dared to bare their fangs against us, actually wanted to do harm to your party, am I right?"


    While this was only a wild guess, when taking into the account the timing of both of those events and the improbability of the bandits appearing in this place just like that, I felt forced to make this conjunction. After all, while there was a lot of complicated laws and traditions in this day and age, people tend to beˇ­ simpler?


    "You are right, sir, and I would like to offer my deepest apologies for involving your company in the family strife of mine. At the same time, considering the strength of your convoy, could my small group impose on you and ask for an escort until the salt city of Wieliczka? We don''t know whether there are more groups like the one you oh-so-bravely defeated, lurking around in hopes of laying their dirty hands on me and my companions. Even if it''s a rude request as I can''t really repay for this favour, not only travelling in a bigger group would make all of us safer, but I can promise you, sir, that as soon as I will get back to my land, I will prepare a fitting reward for your service!"


    While I adored the guts of this young female to outright attempt to force me into a corner with just her words alone, when I compared the current state of her tattered robes and dirtied hands to her flowery and classy words, I succumbed to this perfect example of gap-moe and let out a small chuckle.


    "I don''t mind really. Helping each other while on the road is the duty of every traveller. Speaking of which, your retainer mentioned your family name that is strangely familiar to my ears. Would you mind introducing yourself and your retinue properly this time, my lady?"


    Just as she wanted to force me into helping her by putting me on the spot, where refusing would cost me actually more than agreeing, I didn''t miss the opportunity to force her into revealing her real worth! As long as she belonged to some major or even average household, just by helping her on the road, I could gain enough funds to sponsor some of my development ideas for the near future!


    "Those two men are Robert Ulema and Gordon Jenne. They served my household ever since I was a small child. As for me, I am Elia Pekta, of the Pekta crest, landed on the lands of Pilzno city for my deceased father war deeds. I''m pleased to make your acquaintance, sirˇ­?"


    "Mike of Tarnow, from the house of Terrna of the starry moon crest, landed of the city of Tarnow, lord of the province and the surrounding villages."


    Before I could respond myself, Al stepped forward and introduced me with my full, formal title. I guess the wits of the girl irked him a bit, pushing him to slap her face with the difference in our statuses.


    Oh boy, when would the rollercoaster of those plot-twists end?

 10 Deal

    As soon as Al finished introducing my full name, the girl''s cheeks covered in blush as she realised what sort of mistake did she make. But it all was nothing when compared by the force of the faceslap to the cheek of her haughty companion!


    Claiming to put my nobility into doubt, only to learn that not only he had no right of doing so, but my administrative title as the governor of the entire province was also actually higher than his own employer who only owed a single city!


    While I had to admit that a quick scan on the map that I performed upon hearing a proper name of the location showed up that in this day and age, this city that in the future only has the similarity of its name to the brand of a popular beer going for it, was actually quite an impressive trade hub of the area!


    Located right on top of the existing trade route from the Capital to the ruthenian eastern provinces, it was actually way richer that Tarnow, even if in the future it would have less than five percent of its population!


    "There is no need to stand on the ceremony. After all, all nobles are equal. But its quite surprising how I got to meet a neighbour just like that."


    With only twenty kilometres separating our towns, the rural region around Pilzno actually bordered my own lands! Even if her family only owned the city - after all, most of the land in that area belonged directly to the crown - that still made us more or less, a pair of neighbours!


    "If that''s the caseˇ­ Or nevermind. I couldn''t possibly impose on you as much as to ask you to let us accompany you all the way to the Tarnowˇ­"


    At first, Eila''s cheeks turned red from agitation, but almost immediately after her expression turned sour and troubled. She had to realise that after admitting that it was her trouble that hit us by accident, asking for even more of our help would be unbecoming!


    "As to whether or not that request should be made, solely depends on your side, my lady. I heard a lot of positive rumours about your city after allˇ­"


    There was no denying her power. Even if it could be compared to a local powerhouse like me who could rally the troops and tax the immense amount of crops produced by the entire province, her strength lay simply elsewhere!


    With how I was going to introduce a system-made beer as the new backbone for the completely revamped economy of my own city, before spreading its influence outwards, as long as I managed to strike a good deal with her, the plans that I calculated to take years at a minimum, could be all implemented even before the escape of the King!


    "My lord, it''s not very catholic to take advantage of a damsel in need, isn''t it?"


    "My lady, from your own words, I can safely assume that giving you a hand with such a task, would put the safety of my own people in great jeopardy. After all, the coronation feast should still be going at the Wawel castle, so travelling under the banner is out of the picture. And that puts us on the spot. I can either parade with my banner raised, most likely bringing the wrath of the King for acting rebellious, give you a hand and expect a turmoil to come my way during the remaining few days of the travel or just escort you to the city, where I will be able to rest easy knowing that a fellow traveller is safe. I''m not greedy, I just need to have something to gain in order to risk!"


    There was no such thing as a free meal in this world. If I were some sort of magnanimous magnate or even a lesser-state governor, I could help this girl out of sheer kindness of my heart, but looking how we were attacked by a unit of mounted bandits, someone was investing great sums to make sure Elia wouldn''t return home anytime soon!


    In reality, helping her out right here would force me into this internal family conflict of hers, putting me at odds with the other side. Without even knowing what faction supported her enemies? No, I had to put my cards in the open and secure my own gains before even considering whether I would help her! Many of fellow nobles fallen from the grace because of the results of chasing after a skirt. I wasn''t going to join their infamous ranks!


    "What kind of promises do you want from me then? Tribute? Carriage filled with gold? Land? Marriage?"


    After hearing my words, the blush of excitement disappeared from the girl''s face, replaced by a serious expression. Her eyes were now looking directly into mine, as she jumped out from the carriage and stood straight in front of me. Only at this moment did I realise how petite she was!


    Speaking of which, if not for the fact that a marriage was actually a powerful political tool that I wanted to use to its full potential at some point in the future, looking at her rather cute face surrounded by the storm of perfectly brown hair, I might seriously consider her last proposal. I was already twenty-five years old both in my original world and in this one, meaning I was in the ripe age for marriage, with my advisors eager to force a descendant from me.


    Looking at Elia, I couldn''t say it was free from its imperfections. Several moles scattered over her face, modest chest or the slim figure itself, put her far away from the image of the perfect woman in my head, but at the same time, it was what made her slightly adorable!


    "Trading rights, and tax exception for ten years plus a land withing the walls for a single business I will set up in your city."


    Shaking my head lightly to brush aside those thoughts that she forced on me with her earlier suggestions, I got to the point. As long as I could use the trading influence of her city to promote my wares outwards, even going as far as to create a chain of breweries, just a single investment like that could very well double if not triple the weekly income of my family!


    My answer had to surprise Elia, making her squint her eyes at me as if looking for some sort of loophole in my proposition. By making such a deal with her, I was basically saying I was willing to stay on her side in the internal conflict she was currently in, at least for the sake of securing my own benefits. What might be problematic for her to swallow though, would be the lack of losses on her side!


    New business? Trading rights? Exemption from the trade? Those were the trading cards any city could use in order to pull more valuable people like craftsmen or merchants in! It was as if I asked the swimming pool owner for a glass of water!


    "Are you sure that''s all you want from me?"


    The flickering light of the torch made the whole situation as serious, as suggestive. Looking at me with her upturned eyes, while fidgeting from excitement despite how hard she was trying to hide itˇ­ If someone didn''t hear what we were talking about, he could say with all certainty that either one of us was asking the other one on a date!


    "Yeah, trading rights in the city of Plizno, small plot of empty land inside it, and tax exemption for the period of ten years. In return, I will not only guarantee you a safe passage to your hometown but also make sure toˇ­ mediate in your family conflict. Even if your lands are already outside the borders of lesser-Poland, as the greatest direct neighbour of the province, I don''t think I will have any problems with inviting a local governor for a cup of wine and persuading him to stay out of the matter."


    Even though I didn''t know what this conflict was all about, I was sure that with my standing and a generousˇ­ giftˇ­ the governor of the neighbouring province would accede to my request!


    "Okay then. I don''t have any paper on me, so let''s do it in the old way. Deal?"


    Extending her hand as she stood firmly on the ground, she reminded me of some kind of idol coaxed into agreeing to work for some shady company. Raising my own hand, I grabbed her delicate fingers and shook her arm.


    But instead of enjoying the feeling of her soft and warm skin, I felt a strange feeling inside me. As if the history was made in this very moment.


    Well, it''s not like a small deal like that could change the direction of the entire world, doesn''t it?


    Shrugging at how ridiculous that thought would be, I let go of Elia''s hand while trying to ignore suggestive Al''s whistles.

 11 Drinking at the tavern

    "That will be ducat and forty groshes"


    After covering the remaining distance that separated our newly expanded group, the first thing I did after reaching the gates and bribing the gate guardian to let us in, was to go to the local stronghold and pass them the heads of the bandits.


    While only two of them had a price for their lives, it still allowed me to reimburse the costs of the bribe, leaving an entire ducat for the family of the deceased from my group. Even if most of the nobles would be considered kind if they went out of their way to inform the family about their loss, I couldn''t help but apply my own, future morals on this rotten reality.


    Despite a late hour, the town was still pretty much alive. The constant mining of the salt made the entire regions of this huge settlement operate on stable shifts, with the central plaza of the city constantly housing multiple guests that spent their hard-earned money on various luxuries like beer, wine or even meat.


    Since the distance from the castle to the Inn that my group picked to stay the night was rather close, I already left Helga with the other horses in the rented boxes of the stables beside our temporary housing. What other nobles would treat as an annoying walk on foot, I considered a chance to revel in the medievalistic feel of the city.


    Given the chance to see it just a few years before its downfall would start caused by the worsening of the overall situation in the commonwealth, I slowly walked on the stones making up the central plaza. Everywhere around I could see lit torches, not only lighting up their immediate areas, but also creating as marvellous as a dramatic dance of the shadows on the ground.


    After I got my share of those brick buildings and people dressed like in some sort of reconstruction event, I forced myself to go back to the inn. What should be a place where a tired traveller would take a rest to regain his energy before the adventures of the next day, was a location that was bound to bring me trouble.


    "Look who has come! Don''t be shy, come in!"


    At the very moment, I opened the doors to the cosy building that the guardian happy with the bribe recommended to us, a barrage of sounds attacked my ears, with the already annoying voice of Al. From a single look at the table he and my other companions were sitting at, I could tell that his cup wasn''t filled with wine nor beer.


    "Calm the hell down. Do you really think that this is the right time for booze?"


    Sitting down beside my men, I could only smile with relief when the remaining militia and the servants didn''t show any hints of anxiety after the death of one of their friend. It seemed that I was the only one really caring about this fact in the open.


    "It''s always the right time for booze! Come on, Mike, don''t spoil the fun, drink with us! Even the young lady is enjoying herself!"


    Taking one of the knives that were lying haphazardly on the long table, I cut an honest dose of some bird in herbs, before placing it on top of a big loaf of the breed and biting in. As the warm juices flooded my mouth, filling it with the taste that one could endlessly look for in the modern world shop only to fail miserably.


    Only after swallowing the big piece that I bit off my makeshift sandwich and flushing my throat with an honest gulp of beer - praise the innkeeper or the waitress that were attentive enough to bring a mug for me as soon as they saw me enter the premises - the meaning of the last part of Al''s sentence hit my mind.


    And while Eila looked like she was still far from starting to sign drunkard ballads while dancing half-naked on top of the table, her flushed cheeks and a strange glint in her eyes proved Al''s words true. Her half-empty cup of transparent liquid did so as well.


    "My lady, don''t you think that drinking right now, when we will have to be on our guard for the next few days isn''t the best idea?"


    While I could accept my people drinking, after all, it was their lives at the stake as well and they were old enough to get used to this sort of treatment already, I didn''t want this trio that joined our company to be just useless baggage! Even after making the deal with this girl, I openly hoped that her men would even if not follow the orders, then at least play along if any situation arises!


    "You don''t need to worry my lord, my head is tougher than any of your men would dare to believe! Also, I beg your pardon, but since we are already accomplices in the crime, I think it would be fit for us to call each other by the name!"


    After we managed to come to an agreement, her previous confidence disappeared, replacing the lively and confident girl with a shy and composed one. Now, after she had a bit of booze, the alcohol either gave her the courage to overcome her shyness when her resolve couldn''t do it anymore, or she started to slowly open up to me under the influence of this magical, transparent liquid.


    "I can only agree with your second statement, my lady. Mike."


    Passing my empty hand over the table, I expected her to say her name in exchange and shake it off as the official form of turning into a more direct way of referring each other, but to my slight surprise, Eila actually stood up, leaned over the table while showing just a little bit of her cleavage to me, and by blocking my arm with hers, she actually forced me to follow her actions!


    With our arms crossed at the height of the elbow, her raised hand instantly got busy with the glass that she passed with her other arm as she looked at me meaningfully. Swept by her initiative, I couldn''t help but accept a small glass from the thoughtful Elemo, and raise it to my mouth.


    "Mike."


    "Elia."


    Saying our names, we both downed the entire container. As we were leaned towards each other, I was unable to ignore the warmth coming from her body along with her delicate fragrance. Despite being on the road for half of the day, she didn''t stink of sweat but instead spread a thin aura of relaxation.


    As the supposedly strong liquid flowed down my throat, I couldn''t help but compare it to the vodka from modern times. Not only it warmed the body and tasted way better, I actually didn''t even require anything to drink up after the long shot! Those pros most likely came with the fact that the alcohol content wasn''t nearly as high as in the perfectly distilled wares of the future, but I could already tell how easy it would be to lose control while drinking this sort of booze!


    "Thinking about it, you never explained what is the trouble that is plaguing you. Mind doing it right now? The sooner I will know, the more time I will have to figure out a way to solve it."


    Even though I already had an idea about what was really going on, it wasn''t like the struggles of a small nobility were recorded in the annals of national history. While there were only so many possibilities out there, I honestly doubted that she would be able to surprise me with anything.


    "It''s not really something that I would like to share in the openˇ­"


    With Eila''s face turning sour at the mention of her troubles, she put away the cup and fixed her shirt. From the way she started slightly fidgeting, I could tell it wasn''t something she was comfortable with speaking about.


    "Okay then. Inviting you to my chamber would be improper, so how about the carriage? I don''t think anyone could be as steeled as to bother waiting in ambush there."


    That was something I came up with already. With all the blood cleared right after the fight and the cargo moved to the storage house of the inn, the stables seemed like a stinky but safe place to have a serious talk.


    "So the carriage it is."


    Standing up once again, Eila took the bottle of booze with her, as she made her way to the doors of the main hall, leading to the outside.


    "Are you going?"

 12 Night talk

    "It all started when my father remarried."


    Sitting on top of a small pile of hay that I brought from the stable, we actually had to cover ourselves with an additional layer of the clothes in order to fight the cold. While the booze could warm us up and the shack where the carriage was held could only shield us from elements like wind or potentially rain since no one was dumb enough to put a fireplace in an unguarded, wooden building filled with wooden vehicles, so we had to take care to keep the warmth from escaping ourselves.


    "I was eight at that time, so getting a two years older brother was actually a happy event. Instead of being constantly nagged at for playing with the commoners'' kids as our family rarely left the city for the countryside with how busy it could get at times, I finally had a companion to play aroundˇ­"


    Taking a sip directly from the bottle, she passed it back to me, while inhaling rapidly. On this cold night, for people unaccustomed to the heavier form of alcohol that their future generations would use to waste themselves, even this tasty liquor could hit with the strength of a hammer.


    "At first, everything was all right, but with my father departure for the better world in the very last battle of the recent war with Muscovy. Despite his great achievements, that time was unfortunate enough, for his dearest friend and coowner of the city died without a descendant. Originally, they planned for me to marry his child so that my kid would inherit the entirety of the city, but in this new situation, I was the last person left with the blood and hereditary title that my grandfather earned. And with everyone grew up, that situation started to irk my brother."


    At this point, I took a sip from the bottle myself. While some might point out that in theory, I shared an indirect kiss with her, in reality, alcohol even in this concentration would kill all the bacteria or disinfect the saliva of the previous user, making it only a mental enjoyment for people so lonely to start looking at such silly aspects.


    As the warm feeling spread throughout my chest, I couldn''t help but exhale in content. While the drink wasn''t as strong as I would like a proper vodka to be, after an entire cup and a few more sips, I had to admit that my thinking was turning slow and fuzzy.


    "The real problems started when my mother-in-law attempted to marry me off. Thanks to the timely intervention of my loyal servant who begged the province governor to extend his protection over me, as I was the rightful heir for the city, both my brother and mother had to pretend that everything was back to how it used to while waiting for my coming of age when the protection from the governor would wear offˇ­"


    "... I ran away. With six knights to my side, four of which were poor nobles, I went from place to place, from city to city, looking for someone who would support my cause. But the further I went north or west, the less interesting this small city on the border between lesser-poland and red Ruthenia would be, while eastern powers could covet it and at best, offer their help in exchange for marriage and full inheritance rights to the cityˇ­"


    I could see this situation very clearly. Most of the nobles were only focused on expanding the amount of arable lands they possessed, and the number of serfs working on their fields. With the unique system of serfdom where almost entirety of the folk lived on their lord''s land and was allowed to grow their own food on it, in exchange for the harvest taxes and working a set amount of days on their lord''s private fields, as the form of rent. For now, this system was still fair, since free-men could pick if they wanted to settle in a certain piece of land or not, but with the future reforms that bound the people to their land, this most numerous class of people would be effectively eliminated from public life, leaving only the nobility and rich at the wheel of the power.


    While the folk still had the opportunity to rise from their low status by working hard, paying their overlord the full price of their land, using the benefits to work even more fields and constantly expanding their business to the point where their former overlord would notice them and use as the overseers of his other workers, there wasn''t really many other ways a commoner could use to change his fate.


    Content with this system, with only a few bright exceptions, most of the nobles preferred to live a comfortable life based on the income from their land, using the money from the profitable wheat trade to pay for any luxury they would like. Outside of owning the city and siphoning its profits to their own coffins, they couldn''t really see the value of such an important trading port on one of the most important roads in the entire damned commonwealth!


    "That''s why your deal made me so happy. Instead of trying to take advantage of meˇ­ You are the first person who actually extended their hand to me!"


    Maybe because of the influence of alcohol or maybe because living on the run put an enormous weight on her shoulders, when she finally got the chance to share this burden with someone else, Eila completely broke apart. With her words interrupted by her sobbing, tears started flowing down her face.


    With the strings of my hear pulled so strongly, I raised my arm with the bottle as if I wanted to let her have a drink, but when she reached out for it, I actually grabbed her wrist and pulled her into my embrace.


    "Calm down, everything will be all rightˇ­"


    Even before she reached the legal age for marriage, she already had to escape her own home and wander around the land to seek backers for her cause. I wonder how many women from my times could find the strength to do the same!


    Seeing such a strong girl breaking down in tears kind of forced my hand here, but to my surprise, when my arms coated around her shaking body, she didn''t resist my touch. As I patted her back while running my other hand through her hair in order to calm her down, I could feel her sobbing slowly subsidising.


    Taking a sip myself first, I relaxed my grip on her arms, allowing her to take the booze over.


    "Are you tryingˇ­ sobˇ­ to drink me silly andˇ­ sobˇ­ take me by force?"


    What a smart girl! Most of the future generations of females would simply enjoy the drink without a care in the world for what would happen later, but taking into account that we only knew each other for a few hours, Elia was actually still wary of me!


    "You are in no state for me to be able to enjoy even if I had such plants. Just drink up and go to sleep."


    Maybe calmed down by my statement or resolving herself to toughen through whatever was going to happen, I could feel her modest bust rub against my chest as she took a few, sizeable gulps.


    Already in a drunk state, this horse dosage of alcohol that I could recognise from the fact that after drinking she actually threw the empty bottle aside, made her instantly relax. Cuddling deeper in my embrace, she rested her head on my shoulder. With how we were together now, I actually grabbed the coat that fell down when I pulled her into my hug and used it to cover both of us.


    "To finish the storyˇ­"


    After taking her sweet time to calm down and stop her sobbing, Eila returned picked up her story where she left it before.


    "During my travels, I learned that the governor gave my mother-in-law the right to govern the city in my absence. That''s why I wanted to reach his place and ask for protection because without it, or without someone else to back my claim, I would be just killed off when the first opportunity would ariseˇ­"


    Thinking about this while enjoying the warmth that we shared while covered by the coat, I realised that the solution to this problem was actually far simpler than I initially believed it would be! Instead of raising my serfs and causing immense damage to the fieldwork only threaten the other party into obedience, or using vast amounts of gold and what was even more important - time, on moving the governor to give the adequate ruling, I could simply pretend to marry with her!


    "Listenˇ­ I think I have the solution for your problems, but I don''t want to discuss it in our current state, so just let''s get back to the inn, get to our beds and get a good night of sleep. Tomorrow morning, I will give you the good news."


    After saying those words, I attempted to move up, but with the combined strength of dizziness and Elia pulling me down, I was forced to sit back in place.


    "Are you really going to leave a damsel in distress once again?"


    At first, she started with an accusing tone, but after realising what kind of meaning those words held, she actually lowered her head why snuggling up to me and continued.


    "Don''t leave me alone, just yet. Please."

 13 Solution

    As soon as I woke up, I realised that something was wrong. Outside of the obvious effects of sleeping in a damned carriage instead of a proper bed like back pain and sore muscles, the fact that I could feel a soft warmth on my chest was definitely extraordinary, not to speak about soft breath that continuously moved the hair of my beard!


    Reluctantly opening my eyes, I saw the sight I was worried I could see.


    Under the influence of the drinks from the yesterday and her request, we actually ended up sleeping together!


    Not in a way your dirty mind would explain those words!


    With her small face cuddled into my shoulder, Elia was still soundly sleeping, unaware of how bothersome her presence in my arms would be. Looking at her calm expression as if she managed to relax for the first time in ages made me unable to break this eerie moment of hers.


    With the coat still keeping the both of us as warm as two cuddled people could be under a thick bear fur, I could only let the reins of my imagination go free, with her soft body pressing against mine through a thin layer of our inner clothes. While I hated to admit it, it was the first time when any girl would cuddle like that with me, so I just decided to enjoy the moment while waiting for the storm to ensue.


    "Whaˇ­ what the hell?!"


    About ten to fifteen minutes after I regained my consciousness, Elia started moving around as if looking for a better position to continue her sleep, before finally opening her eyes. At first confused, she quickly turned wrathful as if the notion of spending the night in my arms was so repulsive that her body couldn''t handle it!


    Let''s just take it for a natural reaction of a woman who was constantly on edge since a long time ago, instead of me being ugly. Twenty-five years of solitude in the modern world were enough to make me sort of a loner, I didn''t know if I could take a hit of a young girl being dejected by me!


    "Calm down, it''s not like anything serious happened."


    Like, seriouslyˇ­ It was my ego that just received a fatal hit! I can understand your reaction, but tone it down a bit, would ya?


    "Wha?! Nothing happened?! Do you want to say that sleeping with me counts as nothing?!"


    Oh goshˇ­ Maybe that''s a reason I was alone both in my modern life and so far in my current transmigrated one. How the heck did she came to such conclusion? I just wanted to calm her down and now I''m guilty of not acknowledging her charms?


    "I''m not gonna lie. I really have no idea what to say if you put this matter in this perspective. Should I take it as you blaming me for not making a move on you and urging me to fix this mistake?"


    "N-no, it''s not like thatˇ­"


    Most likely imagining the scenario I forced on her, Elia''s face covered in blush, as she pushed her body as far against the opposite wall of the carriage as she could. It seemed that I won this attack, but at what cost?


    "Come on now, let''s drop this. We were both drunk and we should be happy neither of us actually went too far. But thinking about this, I promised to tell you what sort of plan I have for solving your problem. While I can tell you it now, I hope you won''t mind the poor timing of it."


    With the coat thrown to the side by Elia''s previous movements, nothing was blocking me so I used the chance to jump off the carriage and start stretching my limbs. No matter how nice it felt to have a young girl sleep snuggled on top of one''s chest, my old, already twenty-five years body had its own needs. Unless I was willing to suffer through the rebound of this night later in the day, I had to stretch!


    "Just hit me with it. I promise I won''t hold it against you."


    Surprisingly, those words actually managed to reassure me. While this late medieval times had many faults, there was one thing that later generations would miss about this period.


    People used to keep their word.


    Like always, this rule didn''t apply to everyone and every situation, but with how serious the people were about their honour and loyalty and with little to none form of guaranteeing one''s status, unless someone was willing to be ostracised by literally everyone around him, giving someone your word, meant wonders.


    "Since the main trouble lies with you lacking any backer and the governor most likely going to force you into a marriage in order to stabilise the situation, why don''t we claim that we are engaged, so that we could take care of your family and deprive them of means of hurting your business, before declaring our premature divorce?"


    While this solution has its own flaws, starting from the potential scar on my reputation when it would come for later marital affairs, and at the scorn of the governor who could feel cheated ending. Thinking about it, we could even keep the ruse for a while to ensure both ends of the deal, before either officially breaking up or actually falling for each other.


    Maybe because I was alone in my entire life, the perspective of getting engaged, even if only for the sake of appearances and politic gains, made me quite excited. While my position was higher than hers, the city of her father was actually more wealthy and developed than mine, even if the history would put it way higher on the pedestal due to certain events that Pilzno disregarded and Tarnow banked upon to rise into prominence.


    "If we were to put it like thatˇ­"


    At first, her face clouded in thoughts, only for her complexion to suddenly improve after just a few moments. With a quick jump, she descended from the carriage without even bothering to grab the expensive coat that we were sleeping under, before latching onto my arm with a smug smile.


    "... then shouldn''t we start setting the stage right away?"

 14 Reaching the Tarnow

    "Welcome to the Tarnow."


    After departing from Wieliczka, the next city that was incorporated in the royal slat company was Bochnia. Located a bit less than thirty stais (about 25km/17m) away, we had to travel for most of the day before reaching the city walls.


    With the great fire devouring it whole along with an immense amount of salt deposits, the city was only a shadow of its former glory, having only ten years to rebuild after this catastrophe. Only the amount of money that royalty continued to invest in this crucial business to the crown prevent the total eclipse and collapse of the city, saving it from losing its city-rights.


    I used to visit this place back when I was a kid in the modern world since one of the more popular swimming parks were located there, but obviously, that site wasn''t even included in the borders of the town in the current point of the time. With how little remained of the old town and how both I and my men had to frequent through this place while going to the Krakow, so instead of getting all excited about the chance of surveying the site that had the chance of leaving its name in the annals of the history, I used that time to enhance the image of how well I was getting along with Elia.


    And to be honest, that task wasn''t really that hard!


    The better I got to know her, the more my opinion of her improved. As someone with an actual academic background - albeit connected to the field that would become relevant only after humanity would invest a fucking nuke bomb, or strictly speaking, create computers capable of more operations per minute than hand calculator I could buy for some spare change in the first shop on the street - I couldn''t help but be surprised how keen her observations about the world were and how much information she was capable of deriving from it.


    Starting with the math, a subject that was considered useless outside of the basic calculus required to not be cheated on, on the market, she actually learned the advanced form of multiplications, going as far as to understand powers and roots of the numbers!


    While it doesn''t sound as much with this level of knowledge being covered in the early years of the high school in the future when one realised that it actually meant that she managed to learn the stuff that only people with seven continuous years of focusing fully on learning would have the chance to know, made calling her capable, quite an understatement!


    After leaving the Bochnia city, we actually had the chance to let our horses rest a bit, because the next and the last pitstop on our journey to my hometown, was a small city of Brzesko(Bsheshko, don''t worry, it most likely won''t appear until way later), that I only knew about because one of my middle-school classmates used to live there.


    If not for him being historical reconstruction freak, making him THE MAN who actually opened my eyes at how complicated and different from popular belief a period of medieval times was with a simple fact that there was a gambeson going under a proper knight''s armour. This simple discovery started my journey of uncovering the secrets of one of the longest period in the European history, that due to some conflicting viewpoints of the later ages, was pushed aside as worthless time with lack of any progress.


    As if humanity could remain stale for over a thousand years, and make a big leap out of nowhere in just a single, fewty years! The growth of knowledge was a geometrical one, but it only really kickstarted with the start of the information era, not the renaissance as most of the people believed!


    After spending the night in this city of my childhood friend origin, we could finally enter our final stretch. And that''s when this one day of relative rest came in handy, with the need to cover over thirty-five stais! (30km/18m) that separated us from the centre of my power and the city I was born in. Or rather, the place where the former (future) military hospital that experienced my birth would be builtˇ­ was more than ten stais further to the east, way past the outskirts and the farmland area of the town!


    "I don''t want to be rude or somethingˇ­ but this city doesn''t look as great as I imagined it to beˇ­"


    With Elia hugged to my arm, I had to hold myself from a shrug. Who she was to say this when someone who experienced this city being over one-hundred thousands of souls big had to see its state with barely five thousand onboard?


    "Outside of being on top of this popular trade route, there isn''t really much going for it yet. But that''s something I wish to change soon."


    With how long we spent riding beside the carriage filled with various materials that I would use to prepare my beverage, there was no way I could hide my plan from this smart girl. Instead of that, I lied to her about the first batch of beer already waiting for the testing, and those resources being directed for the creation of the second batch.


    I knew it was quite risky to produce such bold statements when I had no idea what the effects of my system crafting tool would be, but just like with how I made her agree to act as my fiancee, it was better to hold the initiative and fail rather than hold oneself back and never achieve anything in the first place!


    "I still can''t really understand how do you plan for such a simple thing as a beer to change the entire economical landscape of your lands, and my city through the trade deal we agreed on. Even if it will be better than the one served by the jews or city brewers, won''t it just become another luxury product? While that gives the potential of earning quite a few ducats a week in a prolonged perspective, but I don''t really think it will impact the world in such a grand way as you described it!"


    From what I could see on the map and in my memories, my life as a transmigrator from the future wasn''t going to be easy. With no direct access to either coal or iron right in my lands, I had to start all my plans with actually getting rich enough to import an immense amount of those resources.


    Everyone knew how important a steam engine was for humanity''s progress. This was the evolutionary stage that was insanely hard to jump over, but with the current state of my access to the resources, my best bet would be to get enough raw ores to just skim through the necessary steps and develop oil-based production and extraction, since not only I had more than abundant reservoirs right on my land, it was actually far easier to extract, process and use than propane that was the absolutely most important natural resource of the entire areaˇ­ but only in the far-off future!


    "Let us rest at the castle tonight. We can go for a walk around the city tomorrow."


    As we reached the crossroads where we had to pick whether to go for the small, dual castle on the nearby hills or for the actual fortified city on the plain. Even though I had a small palace inside the city itself, it was rather a small mansion than a proper noble''s place of living.


    "As for your question, dear, everyone has to start with something. With no resources to exploit in the area nor influential family backing up my efforts to grow and enrich this place, I simply found a thing that can help be exert pressure on the slackers, punish the tax cheaters and coax the productive people into my service. And you got one thing wrong, the beer I have created is aimed to be freely distributed amongst the folk, not as a high-class product, but as a commodity for everyone!"

 15 The castle and the envoy part 1

    Only after seeing the city walls and recognising some of the landmarks around them, I was finally able to imagine where we would be if that were a modern version of the city instead of its current, primitive form.


    While I already got a taste of it back in the Krakow, with how its entire magnificent self was limited to the area that would be fully used for services and shops just five hundred years later. The problem lied in fact, that even though this capital city would grow way more than my hometown, after some point, one couldn''t really understand the scale of big cities.


    There was only so much one would travel in their daily life, limiting their perception of even the greatest cities to the area they were living in, area they were working in and the area they used to spend their free time in. For most people, the rest of the city could very well not exist!


    Compared to this, a relatively small town like Tarn¨®w, where one could easily reach both of its borders within a span of just a few hours long walk, seeing it shrank to just the strict town centre, made me painfully realise how underdeveloped this age was.


    Riding on the smaller road that connected the main road from the west to the east with a smaller one that leads to the castle, I gazed at the vast farming fields, that extended all the way to the place that would many years later, become my very first home.


    "Why the long face? Aren''t you happy you are finally back home?"


    Most likely, the nostalgia in my heart broke through my mental barrier and showed up on my expression, alerting Elia. Just like I thought a moment before, this girl was not only intelligent but had the talent for acute observation. At this point, I couldn''t help but wonder where the line between being special and being annoying laid.


    "We inherited this city from the great household of Tarnowski, once held by one of the great generals, and yet, while it''s prosperous in the eyes of others, I can''t help but hope that one day, all the farmlands, all the bushes and the forests, would turn into a place where a bustling life would go about. I wonder if we will ever reach the point when we won''t have to surround our cities with walls, and just let them sprawl all the way to the distanceˇ­"


    While I said that, I was painfully aware that even if I had the ability to snap my fingers and expand the town to its future size and population if the corresponding technology and way of thinking didn''t follow suit, it would only end up as a disaster.


    The greater the city, the greater the challenges of keeping it sanitised, of supplying food for itˇ­ With barely two thousand citizens, there were no complicated logistical tasks, with all the wealthier merchants simply living in their mansions outside and only using the city due to its fortunate location.


    There was no point trying to teach people to boil the water before drinking it. Even if one could force the nobles and middle class to do so with a set of fines, detainments and additional taxes, when it came to the real source of potential diseases, it was the folk that mattered.


    Only by developing a beer good enough for them to enjoy and as cheap as the one served in any of the taverns around, I could prevent people from dying from all sorts of bacterias living in the unsanitised water.


    "You know, I never got to travel the continent like more fortunate nobles, so I never had the chance to see those magnificent cities of the west, but I can tell how hard it is to manage them just from the things I experienced before running away from Pilzno. Do you really think its worth to strive for such thing? Wouldn''t it better to just make more cities evenly spread around the country?"


    That was actually a good question, but showing the lack of understanding akin to someone who enjoyed the benefits of the already existing town, instead of someone ready to go through all the trouble of setting one-up himself.


    Starting with the most important and hardest thing, the location right from the king. Even if most of the rulers loved to support this kind of inner sourced development, when it came to the cities, if there was any worth in setting one in a certain place, the chances were, someone already did so before. With the exception of depopulated wild steppes to the south and east, most of the crown lands were filled with small towns all around!


    "I can''t say it a bad idea, but unless I would be willing to sell out my rights to this place for some empty and deserted lands of the red Ruthenia, I don''t really have a way to do so, do I?"


    Shaking my head, I noticed that we finally passed the merging point with the road that connected the city directly with the castle. While leaving behind this small, fortified town surrounded by the bricked wall, we still had to cover around two stais (1.6km, 1mile) separating us from the Saint Martin hill, where my castle was located.


    Looking at it from afar, I couldn''t help but feel emotional.


    The only thing that remained from it in modern times, were just a bunch of big rocks and destroyed anti-air site created during the second world war thanks to its strategic location. To be able to experience the glorious Tarnowian castle with my own eyes, was a wonderful experience for me.


    Consisting of two parts, the castle was made out of the high castle, where my household living quarters were located along with only a few other amenities, and the lower castle, which served as not only the second line of the defences in case of an attack but also as the main living area.


    "To be honestˇ­ This castle is really impressive."


    As we climbed the light slope of the hill from the only side it was actually traversable, Elia exclaimed with adoration written all over her face. For a city to have a castle just beside it, was not only a sign of its wealth but also of its status. While most of the images that survived to the future only showed the prime look of this place with a small, circular stronghold on one hill, and wooden fort beside it, years of hard work of the great general Tarnowski who owned this place all the way until his death about ten years ago, turned it into something to marvel at.


    "Not only it looks great, but it''s actually pretty comfortable to live in."


    Trying to hold the conversation to the point where it wouldn''t be suspicious how silent I was about my own damned house, I threw some vague words before returning to adore it myself.


    After reaching the highest point of the road, the stone arsenal on one side with shooting windows all over the place and an enormous earth embankment funnelled us into a narrow road, leading us all the way to the primary gate of the castle.


    Made out of stone and raising at the impressive fifteen meters high above the ground, that was still distanced from the street by an additional five meters of a high-angled slope. The only real way to enter the premises was to use the drawbridge.


    "My lord!"


    As I approached the gate, the uniformly dressed guards were already separated into two pairs, with one blocking the entrance to the drawbridge and the other one ready to raise it by cutting a line holding the counterweight in place. As soon as the forward guards recognised me, they instantly moved to the side, signalling to their friends deeper in the building to calm down.


    In this day and age, a group of twelve people wasn''t considered a big threat, but if something there were multiple accounts of some brave brigands raiding the castles in this way, making the guard''s carefulness quite warranted.


    After passing through the first gatehouse, we entered a small, open courtyard, surrounded from two sides by the inner part of the castle walls and the remaining two consisting of a backside of the royal mayor house, decorated with a nice set of firing windows at the third, highest floor. Passing through the inner gate embedded in the side of the mayor''s house, we finally could step down from our horses.


    "While it''s not much, this is the lower castle. We will leave our horses here."


    With a huge open space, extending for over one hundred meters away from the direction of the inner gate, the lower castle was full of commonly used buildings. From a big stable at its very end, through the line of buildings and a small stable for the mayor''s own use, the entire area was bustling with activity even before my group arrived!


    "The lord came back!"


    "Welcome home!


    "Welcome back, sir!"


    As soon as I went through the inner gate while leading Helga by her reins, an insane amount of voices instantly surrounded me from all sides. Starting with simple servants expressing their happiness at my sight, through as respectable as old royal mayor greeting me with a slight bow of his head, all the way to the cheerful Matsu, the main econom of the town reporting for duty.


    Thinking about this, without the system instantly putting the names and positions of those people above their heads, I would be as ignorant about not only their functions but also their names, as a total stranger would be. I didn''t inherit any memories from this body and had to weather all the events with my lacking knowledge about the period.


    "How was the city during my absence?"


    Letting go of the reins as one of the stable boys jumped forward to take this duty off my hands, I was forced to ignore my guests to listen to the report of a girl marked by the system as my most important helper in managing the city.


    "Most of the matters went as the usual. Two serfs got injured due to the predators'' attack, old Tom died of age and our pastures increased by two calves."


    That was actually both some good and bad news. While it was a pity my people were wounded and even one of them died, especially since - let''s call her simply a manager - Matsu called him by his name instead of keeping it vague, but having two calves? That was enough to feed an entire family of serfs!


    "Okay then, stop avoiding my eyes and just tell me the bad news."


    With the system providing me with what looked like her resume, I could quickly fill the gaps in my knowledge about interpersonal relations with my subordinates. And looking at her achievements and history, I couldn''t help but feel impressed!


    Not only - just like the darker tone of her skin indicated - was she half-foreigner, with her father were once a widely known and respected merchant who came here from the depths of the Asian lands, way beyond the reach of the Muscovy or even Ottoman empire, he actually managed to make a name for himself by exploiting his knowledge in the crown itself!


    Thanks to the previous owner of this place foresight, said foreigner got an offer too good to refuse and settled down in the city, with the lord of this place employing his talents to boost the local economy.


    Even after his death, already few years after the respected general passed away, his daughter actually picked up his place, and continued to serve for my household, proving to be as usefull as capable more times than the system would bother to recount, as the system stated itself.


    But there was one thing that made me guess the incoming hit to my good humour. She was by no means a nervous person!


    "An Envoy from Pilzno came here with the request for you Sir, to give up your attempts to take the hand of the sister of the city lord. Forgive me my insolence, but looking at your new companions, I assume he will have a hard time persuading you Sir regarding this matter."

 16 The castle and the envoy part 2

    "And how did you came to such realisation?"


    While it was obvious that I brought the problematic person with me since it wasn''t common for a noble to escort a random damsel to his lands without any greater intention behind such visit! But that didn''t change the fact I was quite curious what kind of route Matsu''s thoughts took to arrive at this conclusion.


    "My lordˇ­ Your carriage carries signs of blood on it, and outside of losing someone on the travel that should be free from any casualties, I don''t see Vigo anywhere in your group. With just this, I could assume that some kind of accident happened, maybe some bandits or crash on the road, but with the addition of the young lady, two more soldiers I do not recognise and the envoy arriving to discuss such matterˇ­ I wouldn''t be able to carry out my duties if I was unable to connect the dots! Thinking about thisˇ­ Are you going to vie for her inheritance rights, sir?"


    Ah, it was nice to talk with someone intelligent! While I couldn''t deny any of Elia''s wits, her wisdom was far more practical than the analytical and cold way of Matsu''s thinking! Just by listening to her explanations I felt like an idiot for asking this question in the first place as if only an idiot couldn''t come up with such an answer!


    "It''s scary how on the point you are. On the side note, does being so intelligent, hurt at times?"


    With just a small smirk for the reaction, Matsu bowed her head lightly and was about to leave, when Elia trodded forward.


    "Would you be so kind as to tell me how this envoy looked like?"


    That was something I didn''t pay any attention to. With how everyone from Pilzno outside for Elia and her retainers was completely foreign to me, I simply forgot that she could know that person, giving me a way to prepare for the meeting in advance!


    "Ah, he is a high blonde, in his middle twenties. He announced himself as Markus, but I honestly doubt that''s his real name. And before I forget, I told the servants to guide him to the guest rooms in the northern wing of the palace. Should I push a handyman to notify him about your arrival?"


    Just as capable as she always was - at least, according to the system-produced resume. While I knew how important this meeting could be, there was no point for me to rush things. Making him wait could serve as an additional reminder of what his place was in the middle of my damned castle!


    "Yeah, tell him I will call for him when I will have any intention of meeting him. Additionally, could you prepare a list of taverns in our lands? It would help me immensely."


    While there was no reason for me to be so polite due to difference in our status, maybe because of my modern upbringing or maybe because I believed that commoner like her was actually far more valuable as retainer as Aˇ­ a drunkard and skirt-chaser, warranting my way of approaching her.


    "I will get right to it, sir"


    Seeing her moving to the mayor house where the common archives were kept, I called for some handymen and ordered them to bring a single barrel of every ware I bought all the way in Krakow into my personal quarters, before leading a now smaller group to yet another gate.


    While the lower castle was rather open and actually connected to the pasture located on the elevated garden serving as the private stock of the lord, it was actually the high castle where all the important decisions were made, and where the actual palace was.


    Reaching the gate with only two of my standard companions and Elia with her retainers, we went on top of a long bridge, connecting both parts of the castle over a deep ditch. With how angled it was, despite both parts of the stronghold built around the same height, the bridge actually entered a small gate, on the second floor of the gatehouse. If not for this ingenious bit of architectural creativity, separating the castle into two parts would be useless, as one could simply scale the ramparts and get on the bridge!


    Only when I took my first step on the wooden bridge, I realised how beautiful the scenery view was. Compared to the few times when I visited the ruins of this place back in the modern times, instead of a city sprawling all the way to the horizon, I could gaze at the endless lines of fields, filled with different colours, indicating how commoners varied their crops.


    Or at least, that''s what I saw with the eyes of my imagination.


    With the little ice age in its full swing, not even the sunny weather of today was capable of improving how dull and grey the entire area looked like. According to my rough estimates, it would still take about a month or two for the first crops to start sprouting and changing this average view into something filled with the beauty.


    After crossing the bridge and going down the stairs of the gatehouse, my group entered a big, paved courtyard, with an enormous main tower protruding from its centrepoint.


    With all of the buildings serving both as the outer walls of the high castle, outside of the well beside the keep, every single structure was pressed against the outer rim of the area. Right as we came out of the tower, all the buildings on our left and right were used as shops, kitchens and other necessary amenities for everyone living in the castle, with the palace separated in two wings, encompassing the outer part of the rim in the shape of half-circle.


    While we could enter the living quarters through the main gate, with how I wanted to avoid meeting the envoy, for now, I decided to use the outer towers with staircases, that allowed us to bypass the main building and enter the southern wing of the palace instead of going through the main hall.


    Dismissing my companions with the order to lead Elia''s retainers to their temporary quarters, I led now strangely mute girl towards my own chambers. Following the navigation of my system, I quickly reached the big, intricately decorated doors, before pushing them open.


    Compared to the outside view that even the bright sun that graced us today couldn''t colour, this room, despite its walls being made mostly with stone, still gave off warmth, cosy feeling. With a double, kingsized bed taking nearly a third of the space in the room, the remaining part was nicely exposed to the sunrays of the setting sun, causing the cabinet and several, deep chairs to look even more expensive than they in fact were.


    "Now, I think you should understand why I wanted to talk with you in private."


    With how Elia asked about the appearance of the envoy and turned silent ever since I could tell that this person was most likely some kind of big-shot of her family. While I doubted it was her brother himself, a respected steward or even maybe someone who wanted to mend the rift in the family and bring both parties together would make the girl''s reaction fitting.


    "Yeah, I think I knowˇ­"


    With her fur coat falling instantly to the ground, Elia instantly shrugged due to the cold. While I couldn''t blame the servants for not knowing about my arrival, seeing her in this poor state made me want to curse them for not starting the fire in a big fireplace at the outer corner of the room.


    But her actions didn''t stop there. With her hands slightly trembling, she reached for the buttons on top of her chest and undid them before I even managed to force any kind of reaction out of my suddenly tightened throat.


    While I liked where this was going, this wasn''t my intention at all! With only a few days spent together, I came to like this intelligent girl, but maybe because of my modern yet prudent standards, I didn''t think this was the right time to do the thing that Elia''s actions indicated she had in mind, nor did we even know each other for long enough to warrant such forwardness!


    By the time her modest cleavage got exposed through the gap in her skirt, she already reached with her hands upward, not only pushing her breast up and making them even more alluring but attempting to push the straps of her skirt out of her shoulders!


    "Stop!"


    Despite being from modern times, and despite how she was willing to expose herself and most likely go all the way with me right now on her own accord, the uneasiness on her face and slight tremble to every move she made, was far more than I could handle.


    I would never let this kind of nice relationships I was slowly building with her to be destroyed only because of this kind of misconception! With how she was at her lowest right now, if I were to take advantage of her dependence on me, as soon as the deal would be done, there would be no way for us to come back to the fun times where we joked around and talked about various topics while travelling!


    With her body suddenly freezing in place upon hearing my stern shout, she tilted her head like some sort of cat, unable to comprehend what I had on mind.


    "I wanted you to explain who the fuck this envoy is for you and why did Matsu mentioning his appearance made you silent like that! I think I already said I won''t take advantage of you!"

 17 The castle and the envoy part 3

    With Elia face-covering in a blush, she swiftly pulled her skirt up on her shoulders and covered her cleavage with her hands. Being the good gentleman - or rather noble - I was, I tactfully turned my eyes away, giving her the chance to fix the buttons of her shirt.


    "He is most likely my brother or a friend of his, a haughty noble owning the town of Ropian. (IRL Ropczyce) While my brother is the main reason for my troubles, he is rather a calm man, even if he likes to revel in his schemes, but if it''s Peterˇ­ Then the situation will take the turn for worse."


    As if her previous mishap still clouded her mind, the girl spoke in riddles, instead of giving me concrete information that I could base my approach on. While learning about the names of my potential discussion adversaries, I actually wanted to get some clues about their character and aims!


    Even after checking out my system, I only learned that this guy was the owner of the city of Ropian, a major trading hub despite being a relatively small city. With its location even better than that of a Tarnow or Pilzno, it was the next stop on the main tract that connected the capital city of Krakow with the rich and big city of Resovia.


    Speaking of that famous route, either by chance or by the ruling of the previous kings, the entire road connecting the capital of Crown with the major city of Lwow, serving as the secondary capital of red Ruthenia was separated into five parts, with Tarnow, Resovia and Premysl serving as the major checkpoints, each separated by two other big towns that lacked this last push that could allow them to rival with those important places.


    And just like Brzesko was the last real stop on the route from Krakow to Tarnow, so did Ropian stood as the last station before one could cover the route from Tarnow to Resovia.


    There was something really wrong with this setup. While I understood that the law that made all the nobles equal in its face was one thing and the real way of socialising and doing politics was another thing, how come all the people I was meeting just so happened to own one city after another?


    At this rate, before long, I would be introduced to the mayor of Sandomir, who also served the role of the governor of the entire province of Sandomir, encompassing all the three cities within its borders!


    "Can you tell me something more about that Peter guy? It''s not like I know personally are the nobles from the province!"


    As such, even though the name of this other guy was familiar to the system, the only information I had on him was what Matsu told me already back at the lower castle and the fact he owned this city!


    "If it''s Peterˇ­ I think I have all the reasons to think that he likes me. Even before I escaped, he already made his advances clear, even going as far as asking for my hand. Back then, when I refused to promise myself to him, he took it rather nicely, but with the passing of the years, if his passion didn''t change, I''m worried he might still want to kidnap me to the wild steppes of rus (common name for Ruthenia), get some priest to marry me to him and seal the marriage with force!"


    Oh fuck. Now I understand why just the mention of the envoy appearance pushed her off balance! A fight with the Pilzno alone would be rather easy, as Tarnow was still way more influential than it, putting me on a higher spot if I were to vie for Elia''s hand, but if both her family and the noble from another important, trading city were to be placed on the other arm of the scale, even with governor''s mediation, I couldn''t be certain about the outcome!


    In this world, I was the only one who knew about the fact, that our newly appointed King would escape to France in just a few months. Everyone else was on their toes, doing their very best to make the best impression on the new monarch in order to potentially rack some favours. Sandomir''s governor was bound to be the same!


    I could already tell how would he react to a conflict brewing in the south of his province, the part closest to the capital, right after the coronation ceremony!


    "That really is bad news, but it''s not something we can change just by standing here and debating. Do you wish to accompany me during my talk with him?"


    Turning around on the spot, I approached the big closet in the corner of the room and started looking through the robes stored inside. From the expensive zupans made from all sorts of the materials, through the coats with the fur on the inside for the colder days all the way to the light tunicsˇ­ I really had the clothes to choose from!


    (Zupan - kind of male, long, tight skirt, with long sleeves, worn by all classes, with the material and colour of the cloth changing between them. Red, violet and blue were reserved for the nobles, yellow worn mostly by the citizens, black by the jews while grey and white by the commoners)


    After taking out a few pieces in the prevailing tone of crimson that betrayed the aspiration of my household to reach the highest level of nobility, albeit unformal, in the commonwealth, I placed them on the bed before looking back at Elia.


    "I want to be there as well. I hope you didn''t want me to drop the meeting that might decide my fate!"


    Slightly pouting as if I insulted her just by asking the question, she approached the doors, taking the hint of me taking the clothes out. With a slight nod of her head, she went out of the room and closed the doors behind her.


    With my privacy now restored, I took of simple pants and a long shirt that accompanied me on the journey and washed my face in the bail of water beside the closet. As soon as I reached the point where I couldn''t get any cleaner without taking an actual bath, I pulled the crimson zupan through my head on my body and added my trusty belt to the combination.


    The next part consisted of covering my back with blue contus, before gathering the cloth around my waist and taking my time while binding the contus belt, the most recognisable and annoying part of the outfit. With this damned piece of cloth being over three meters long, I had to wrap it a few times around my waist before finally being able to settle it properly!


    (contus - loose, long skirt without sleeves, only worn by the nobility)


    With my real belt hidden under the contus one, I had to lose the strings that kept my sabre to it, so that it hung freely around my side, instead of being tightly bound to it and allowing a fast and sure draw. If not for the fact that I was indoors and for what I knew, I wasn''t going outside any time soon, I decided against wearing my fancy cap.


    After my change of look from an average traveller to a proper, high noble, I went outside the room only to met with Elia, waiting patiently for me while resting her back against the wall. While I would love to offer her a spare change of clothes, contrary to modern times, if a woman dared to wear male clothes, not only would she end up being mocked to no end, in some cases her reputation could be ruined for life, with various pesky rumours going around the entire country and creating some sort of legendary figure to laugh at the parties!


    "That''s one impressive look. Is your clan wearing crimson from your dad to your granddad?"


    Referring to an old saying, based on the fact that using crimson clothes not only indicated one''s status, but also was a privilege given and revoked by the king, meaning that not only one''s household had its roots firmly set in the history, but also never dared to betray the monarch! Even in modern times, there were still the legends about one household whose ancestor betrayed the King and actually attempted to assassinate him, only for the next seven whole generations be subjected to harsh life and only after amassing valorous deeds would they recover the right to wear this beautiful colour!


    "Thanks. Let''s hope it will make as big of an impression on the envoy as it did on you. Maybe it would make the talks easierˇ­"


    There was no denying that the incoming meeting could very well decide the future of not only Elia but mine as well. If it came to a clash, this originally small conflict that I didn''t really consider as a serious hindrance to my plans, would lead to the clash encompassing entire south of the Sandomir Province, giving me the chance to potentially become an officially recognised magnate just in time to sit at the table with other princes as an equal!


    As I was changing my clothes, I made sure to scan the various options of the system and learned about the only thing other than beer that I could produce right away in order to give my land a proper, developmental boost.


    Concrete.


    With the new king rising to power after signing various articles that nobility forced on him, I would have no troubles coaxing the crown into financing a project focused on improving the state of the roads in the province. While commonwealth was a great country, its lack of proper infrastructure was already widely known, only to turn legendary in the history books of modern times!


    As long as I would be able to settle the production site properly, get the founding and infuse it into developing this branch of primary industryˇ­ My lands would utter in the era of welfare while putting the entire market of the enormous commonwealth at my feet!


    Just as I was about to dive deep into the world of dreams and ambitions while pushing the thought that I had yet to test the system in any way to the back of my mind, Elia moved away from the wall, looking at me with a pondering expression on her face.


    It seemed I took too long enjoying my own thoughts!


    "Let''s go! The time isn''t waiting for anyone. The sooner we will start this meeting, the sooner we will get over with it!"

 18 The castle and the envoy part 4

    *I really need to learn about the layout of this placeˇ­*


    Thinking to myself as I once again followed the faint markings appearing right on my real sight, as if the system created an overlay on the reality in order to help me reach the place I wanted.


    But that problem was just the tip of the real iceberg, being the entire capability of the system! Reading as many novels as I did in my life, I knew that either the origin of the system or the reason why I was transported to this era, would remain ambiguous for the greatest part of my adventures here if the architect of this scheme even bothered to consider the option of ever allowing me to learn about it, so instead of striving to understand what actually happened for me to be here, I decided to just go with the flow and use any mean at my disposal to achieve the things I always dreamed off when imagining this kind of situation.


    If I will be able to learn about the origin story behind my appearance here just by stumbling into it while dealing with other matters, then that''s great! But if not, then so be it, I won''t bother my mind with something I have no power to change.


    Thankfully, the general way in which the palace was built was insanely easy, if not to say, too simple. With a single corridor leading through the entire wing of the palace allowing one to use any of the doors to enter a chamber of his choosing. Since we went inside through the side tower, we initially missed the chance to adore the main hall, but with how it connected both wings and both levels in a huge open space, as soon as we reached the end of our corridor, we stepped into said area riddled with stairs, chairs and all sorts of art displayed on the walls.


    With the second level corridor of the southern wing connecting to the other wing of the palace, we could either use the stairs to descend to the lower level, or step through a sizeable yet delicate-looking set of doors adorned with glass mosaic depicting the founder of this castle greatness, who literally picked it up as simple stronghold with a single tower and wooden palisade making out what was today a lower castle, and turned it into the magnificent piece of architecture that it was today.


    Heavy Crown Hetman, Jan Tarnowski, from the banner leliwa. (Titles explained later)


    It was hard to find a more important yet less known figure in the entire history of the Commonwealth. As his indirect descendant from the branch family that allegedly won the struggle for the city, but lost the majority of his other titles and lands, I couldn''t help but look up to him, both in my current personality and as a normal young man in the future times.


    But that was only a small part of his deeds, a part that didn''t even begin to touch how he modernised the entire military doctrine of the country and influenced the politics of this behemoth of a state!


    The more I thought about this history, the more information system was provided to me in form of various history windows, detailing the parts that were either forgotten by the history or the ones I simply didn''t remember myself! With each word I read and each puzzle I pieced together into the bigger picture, the worse and harder my actual situation turned out to be!


    Fight for the Pilzno city? Potential conflict with Ropian city? Wasn''t it just a struggle to unify the lands that all formerly belonged to this guy?


    My train of thoughts got interrupted by our arrival at the main dining hall. Being just a normal noble, all sorts of meetings would take place during the meals, instead of inviting political allies and adversaries to something akin to a throne room, allowed only to the real princes of the state.


    Pushing the massive doors open, I entered a huge room, with an enormous, long table, fitted with the chairs all around it. With how the meeting and my arrival itself were bound to happen, a multitude of servants was already running around the place, bringing dishes, wine and beer to the table in order to prepare a small-sized feast for their lord and his guests.


    Taking the main seat, I made sure to get Elia to sit on my right, just in order to indicate her position in my court to the guest that was bound to arrive soon.


    "Nervous?"


    Taking a small piece of some kind of meat I never saw before and didn''t dare to look up to it through the system, I stuffed it in my mouth after asking. With the servants already filling our cups with a Moldavian, imported wine, I couldn''t help but feel excited for what was about to happen soon.


    "Just a bit."


    Beating me up by a few seconds, Elia raised her cup and took a small sip of the crimson liquid, barely even wetting her lips with it. Only thanks to how close she was sitting to me, I could see a small tremble of her hand in this simple movement.


    "Don''t worry, it''s not likeˇ­"


    Before I managed to finish my sentence, a knocking on the doors broke my train of thoughts once again, with my household chamberlain stepping inside the room.


    "Sir Peter Hellan, of the Leliva crest!"


    Most of the people from the future would think that announcing someone''s arrival was only an event at the balls or in the royal chambers, but in reality, it was a tradition whenever a guest appeared in any landed noble''s place. With how big the noble population of the commonwealth was, it was impossible for any noble to remember all of his ''brothers'' making the position of the chamberlain all the more important to avoid social mishaps.


    Right after those words reached my ears, a young man in the middle of twenties stepped inside the room. Dressed in modest and more practical than a classy outfit, just with the bouncy step he gave of the vibes of a seasoned warrior, despite his young age.


    "Welcome to my castle. I''m sorry for being unable to greet you upon your arrival, but being in the middle of my travels, as soon as I got the chance to change into fitting clothes and refresh myself a bit, I couldn''t help but want to meet you. Here, have a seat!"


    Despite my nice and cultured approach, in fact, my words were filled with poison. From the fact how I pointed him to a far-away spot at the table indicating how I didn''t consider him my equal after denying him the spot at the other end of the table, or even someone close to my status by denying him the chair right to my left.


    It wasn''t that I wanted to escalate the conflict between us right from the start, but with the system pushing more and more windows filled with information about this guy in my face, I couldn''t help but realise how inescapable and deep that conflict would really be.


    "No need to stand on the ceremony!"


    Copying my kind attitude, the young guys lowered his head just a tiny bit to indicate the respect towards me as the host, before taking the seat at the opposite end of the table, denying my previous invitation and putting himself at odds with me right away.


    "I hope I''m not imposing on your hospitality, sir brother!"


    EXPLANATIONS:


    Heavy Crown Hetman, Jan Tarnowski, from the banner leliwa


    Hetman - General.


    Crown Hetman - General in the service directly under the crown, instead of serving as the Hetman for the Rthuthernian part of the commonwealth (under princess or in general, as lower rank general)


    Heavy Hetman - a poor translation that gives only a small part of vibes of the real name, General that commanded mercenary troops.


    Leliwa banner - You need to google it out since I won''t take it upon myself to describe it, with how complicated it is. Leliwa family was one of the magnate houses that were fragmented and disappeared from the political table after the death of the Jan Tarnowski, the last great statesman from this line.


    Sir brother - The way a noble of the same status (all nobles were equal, but you referred to someone with additional titles or lands with respect, like, ceo of small restaurant would refer to ceo of Microsoft) All in all, All nobles could refer to other nobles (outside of the prince class, that belonged to the ancient households acknowledged by the crown) would refer to each other as sir brother.

 19 Faux Pas

    "To think that my lands could produce such great honeyˇ­"


    Taking a sip of the other cup that the servants thoughtfully prepared, I couldn''t help but feel amazed. Maybe because of fully natural ingredients or maybe just how popular drink it was in the current place and time, but the liquor I was currently tasting was far better than anything I ever had the chance to try back in the future!


    At first, its mellow and sweet taste overwhelming my tasting buds as it seemed to dissolve on top of my tongue. Letting this stream of past, liquid candy flow down my throat, it caressed its walls lightly, as if the innate properties of the honey remained in the liquor and formed a protective barrier on my throat. And only when it finally reached my stomach, did it kick me with its might!


    Or I would say, if not for the fact that compared to pure vodka or even booze prevalent in the entire commonwealth, it was a relatively light drink! While uncomparable to the watery beer or tasty yet weak wine, I guessed it was about fifteen or more volts. But while my head remained clear even after I took a big sip, the pleasant warmth spreading through my entire body accompanied by the aftertaste of the various local herbs used to spice the drink made me contemplate the option of setting up my own brewery for the honey!


    But that had to wait.


    I didn''t even get to test how good would the beer created with the help of my system be, not to speak about creating a stable production of it. With how drinkable honey was considered a luxurious item even though most of the wealthy landowners would attempt to create their own, I could never be able to use it as the leverage on the economy!


    "Our ancestor really went out of his way to establish those hivesˇ­ And I hope you will forgive me taking the honours of the first toast, but I think that the memory of the great hetman Tarnowski deserves to raise our cups first!"


    While it pained my heart to share this awesome liquor with who was most likely to turn into my sworn enemy, I still got the servants to fill his cup with it. For now, we had to maintain the pretence of our brotherly or rather - class unity, since there wasn''t even a single drop of blood that we shared.


    Raising my cup in the response of Peter''s words, I held it in the air for a few seconds before lowering it straight to my mouth and gulping it all down. While it was a waste to just pour such intricate drink in one go like it was common booze, some traditions of noble life had to be maintained, no matter if you drank with your dearest friends or most hated enemy!


    "Ah, being able to maintain his memory and spread his legacyˇ­ There is no greater dream of mine. But let''s talk business. I can''t help but think that you wouldn''t come all this way only to have a drink with me, would you, sir brother?"


    If we went by the historical route, this split would be only increased by the alliance of my ancestor with one of the ruthernian princes, who would soon join the ranks of new crimson nobles, whose wealth would soon outshine not only what my ancestor built, but also the wealth of entire nations on the western part of the continent!


    I didn''t know how far just my transmigration alone changed the fate of the Tarnowski''s legacy, but at least this dear city that would bear witness to my birth measly five hundred years later wasn''t ransacked barely a few years after the great hetman''s death!


    "Sure thing, time is precious for everyone, especially with how we need to show how usefull we are to our new king!"


    Even though he couldn''t know this, his remark that was most likely aimed to be neutral input, actually stung me right where it hurt. That was the difference between him and me. I couldn''t afford to lose even a single day of amassing power and growing the foundation that would allow me to rebuild the Tarnowski''s legacy, while he could bide his time in whatever schemes he would attempt to implement!


    Watching him reach for the small sack he brough with him and pulling a sealed letter from it I instantly realised what form of approach he was going to take in terms of the real battle that was just about to begin. But as long as I was right with my premonition, he would fail miserably!


    "Sir Mike, here is the letter of promise, in which the family of Elia, the girl sitting right beside you, gave her hand to me in marriage. As such, I came here to fetch her, and demote all the rumours about whatever shady relation there is between the two of you. I hope you won''t stand opposed to the ways of love, sir brother."


    With a smirk on his face appearing as soon as he said those words, just as he himself knew how false and ridiculous they were, Peter slammed the rolled parchment on the table, as if he was a judge slamming the hammer of justice in order to settle the verdict.


    "Forgive me, sir brother, but it seems that my memory is hazy after enjoying this royal-level liquor of mine."


    Playing with the cup over the table, in order to draw my now clear opponent''s attention to it, I jovially moved it to the side, only to have it filled to the brim by one of the servants. If that guy thought he knew shit about the meaning of subtle gestures and nonverbal statements, he was about to be in for a surprise!


    "Dear, forgive me my rudeness, but this insane drinkˇ­" I drank a mouthful of the dark-golden liquid, held it for a while in my mouth while flushing it around as to leave as much taste as I could, before finally swallowing it and enjoying the aftereffects once again. "... is making my mind dizzy. Would you mind reminding us exactly, how old are you now?"


    It wasn''t the thing of modern times to consider asking for a woman''s age a faux pas. Just like a handshake evolved from the gesture of showing one''s unarmed hands, females were sensitive about the age because it was bound not only to their allure, but also their reproductive capabilities. And in the age where lack of a direct descendant - just like in Tarnowski''s case - could lead to the fragmentation of the house''s power and its fall from the grace, lineage was far more important than in the modern times!


    "Dear, even while drunk, you should remember that my coming of age ceremony took placeˇ­ Ops, my mistakeˇ­ Should take place, exactly three years and four months ago!"


    With the standards of the current day and age where everyone was considered an adult after experiencing sixteen springs in their life, or even with the future reality where the age of adulthood was pushed two years further, she would be still considered a fully-fledged adult with the capability of taking the decisions on her own!


    "Ah, just like I thought! Forgive me the question, I will pledge once again."


    Ever-so-slightly bowing my head toward''s Elia, I used my cup to lightly strike her, as if in the declaration of victory.


    "Sir brother, I remember that protection of our benevolent governor ran out exactly at the moment of Elia''s coming of age, meaning that since that time, she was the only one aside from the God, to decide the ways of her soul and her body. With that said, what''s your purpose of flaunting this useless piece of paper in my and my fiancee''s faces?

 20 Is his face itchy or something?

    The moment this guy took out this piece of paper, there was no longer a need for me to keep the pretence of being nice. With how we publicly acted like a couple already, even if Peter was too stupid to learn about the message about our alleged engagement, just by trying to steal my potential girlfriend, he couldn''t hope to just leave scot-free!''


    "I don''t care about her being or not under the governor protection. Just like you said, sir brother, she is no longer under his care, meaning that her family word is the one thing that should matter! And since they promised her to me, should I take your attempts at winning her fancy as a personal attack on my dignity?"


    This guy really didn''t know where to give up! But well, the fun was only starting, so it would be hard to expect him to just give away his chance at stealing the Pilzno from her just like that. With Ropian and Pilzno under him at the same time, he would be able to undermine the effort of my great ancestors of establishing Tarnow as the main trade hub for the area, and not only steal the profits from the tariffs that made up most of my family income, but also turn into the powerhouse of the region!


    "I don''t care about your dignity, nor your face or anything else. All I care for is my fianceeˇ­ And you better stop caressing the handle of your sabre. Did you forget that you are here as my guest? Don''t make me lose my own face by spilling the blood of guest after treating him to a feast!"


    Even though attacking one''s guest after offering him food and drinks - a tradition that evolved from offering one''s bread and salt in an act of hospitality - if he were to do as much as show even a hint of clear disrespect towards me, killing him and then forcefully claiming his possessions as reparations would be all within my rights!


    While it was regretful that I could scan him to check his status and compare it with mine so that I could gauge whether my innate abilities would allow me to best him at a duel, being the host gave me the right to refuse his challenge and simply swarm him with my companions and militia in he was to attempt making as much as single move on me!


    "I didn''t come here to pick up a fight, just to pick up my fiancee. I still hope that sir brother won''t make it any more troublesome than it has to be. After all, since her family already promised her to me, even if you were to take her by force, without their blessing you won''t get anywhere!"


    Regretfully, despite my clear provocation, this guy somehow managed to keep his calm and even respond with a smile to my bait. Despite how little of value did this letter potentially presented, he still acted as if could change the outcome of this meeting!


    But what would be the point of just refusing him outright? I had to make it clear that I wouldn''t give Elia up, and use this mediation falling apart as casus beli to accuse her step-family of trying to poach her lands from her.


    "Since you are soo keen on using the promise that''s supposed to be in this letter, break it seal and allow one of my servants to read it so that we can know that you are not trying to lie your way in the first place!"


    No matter whether this letter of the promise was legit or not, my request only aimed to flare him up. In both cases, he was bound to refuse to hand it over, as that would mean losing his only leverage in the discussion if I were to snatch the letter from his hands through the help of my servants.


    "Give it to your people? In your dreamsˇ­ sir brother!"


    Just like I expected, his refusal to my request came right away. But little did he know, that by doing so, he stepped right into my trap! Actually, I wasn''t even bothered by the potential content of that letter, as I was only going to use to make the incoming rebuttal sting even more than it would if I were to just chase him away right away!


    "Are you going to base all of your claims on a piece of paper that you do not dare to even unveil? If you are worried about my people snatching it away, you can always just open it and read it aloud while letting them confirm whether your words truly adhere to the words of the letter."


    Just like in swordfight, one could use brute strength to force his way, but more advanced level included all sorts of tricks and tactics. While it was possible to overwhelm someone''s skill with a raw strength while swinging the swords against each other, in the sophisticated society of Commonwealth''s nobility, right trap formulated with words could decide the outcome of real wars!


    With the ancestors of this body from over one hundred years ago, where they managed to convince the pope to side with the Crown instead of Teutonic order after nearly two years of debate and reclaim the lands stolen by the crusaders - at least, on paper, before the combined might of Poland, Lithuania, Rhuthernia and Tatars brough down the flower of European knights that flocked into the ranks of Teutons who defied the papal decision and enforced the ruling of the holy sea! (Holy sea refers to the papal throne, and means the head of the curia of the catholic church - the pope as the figure, not as a specific person)


    "Well, I think that''s a fair way to settle this."


    Seeing how I was forced to back from my first proposition and offer one closer to Peter''s ideal, I could see him breaking the wax seal on top of the roller paper while unskilfully trying to hide his smirk.


    What a simple personˇ­ It almost feels wrong to do him like that!


    Snatching the paper from his hands never was my intention! No matter what was written in there, unless I would be willing to respect it, it held as much meaning as French King ordering the Ming''s Emperor to acknowledge monkeys as the new kind of cats!


    Not like current France or anyone except for a selected, adventurous few and some merchant in the European continent knew about the existence of this former Chinese government!


    By proposing a solution that this guy would never agree to and then making concessions, I made him do exactly what I wanted. Gain hope that I would actually respect the content of the letter, and slap his own face by reading it out loud!


    "We, the head of the Pekta houseˇ­"


    Starting off with the introduction, Peter almost made me choke on my liquor. Only thanks to the swift pat on my back from Elia I managed to recover before succumbing to the death from suffocation.


    Addressing themselves in plural form? That was the privilege of the King and other Kings alone! Not even the princess from the ancient households dared to do this in this day and age! If anyone wanting to rack favours from the new King were to learn about this fact, the entire family would be swiftly lead to ruin!


    "... to share the ethernal bond of marriage between the son of Ropian land and the daughter of the Plizno cityˇ­"


    After clearing my throat and actually bothering to listen to the remaining content dictated by Peter out loud, I couldn''t help but let the greed get to my mind. If I could get my hands on this letter, finishing her step-family off would be just a walk in the park! Just by delivering it to the governor with my pledge to remove them from the city they were unlawfully occupying in the name of my fake fiance, I could force literally anyone who would dare to stand against this flow of events into obedience, just by flaunting the governor''s name!


    But as much as I wanted to just get my servants to snatch it from his hands, just like him caressing the handle of his sabre, stealing the sealed letter from the hands of other noble and a guest of the house at that, could potentially lead to insanely dire ostracism that would put a stop to almost all my plans for the future!


    Unless I would find a way for him to give up this letter willingly in my hands, I had to refrain from taking any action!


    "Signed, Melea Pekta."


    While most of the nobles preferred to use their full titular form while signing important documents, I could see where that crafty woman was coming from. WIth how she was married into the blood, her claims to the riches of her departed husband were incredibly weak, considering how pure-blooded descendant of his was still alive and kicking!


    "So, in other words, no matter what kind of relationship you think you have, this girl is my fiancee, and if you dare to keep her from my company any longer, I will consider it as a direct insult to my face!"


    Oh boy! That was the second time this poor fellow mentioned something about insulting and his face. Was this just a coincidence, or his silly attempt to add the weight to his words seeing how he was just a mere guest in my home who actually dared to make demands without proper support of an army besieging my town and castle or even the support of someone actually more powerful than me!


    Taking a look at the girl sitting on my side, I couldn''t help but smile as I responded.


    "It seems I don''t have any other choice then!"


    As soon as I said those words, Elia''s hands trembled, with her face instantly turning towards me, as she looked at me with her beautiful, blue eyes open as wide as the gates of Malbor after it was sold to Crown by the mercenaries hired and unpaid by the Teutonic Order.


    "Since there is no way to gain her family approval for our marriage as they already promised her to youˇ­"


    Sending a small smile right to Elia''s face in order to calm her down, I stopped mid-sentence just to take a small sip of my liquid honey to wet my throat, or rather - to build some tension for more dramatic effect.


    "... I will have to give up any claims to all the lands owned directly by the family of her step-mother. While it pains my heart to surrender this entire, big village housing whole sixteen families that de-jure and de-facto belongs to my sweetheart''s step-mom, along with the dowry that I will inevitably miss without their approval, I think the fact that as soon as our engagement will be turned into a fully-fledged marriage under the hands of a friend of mine, bishop of Krakowian Cathedral, uniting Tarnow and Pilzno under our shared rule will help to calm my pained heart!"

 21 Finally gone

    As I spoke my lengthy statement, I could watch with delighted as Peter''s face turned from victorious, to a confused one all the way to one filled with wrath. While there were some great figures both in the past and in the times that have yet to come, most of the noble brotherhood wasn''t known as capable of complicated political manoeuvres. Seeing how the realisation that I was playing him since the very beginning started to take root in his soul, guiding his hand towards the handle of his sabre, I only glanced at my own weapon, safely attached to my inner belt.


    Still smiling, I hid my right hand under the table, just to be ready to react in the case Peter would lose his coolheadedness and decided to settle this matter here and now, without even asking me for a pardon.


    As the atmosphere in the room turned tense with the guy unable to formulate any answer, I was ready to draw my weapon at any time, with some of my servants reaching to the backside of the room in order to grab anything that could serve as a tool of protecting themselves, when sudden laughter grabbed everyone''s attention.


    "You got me here, I admit! For a second, I really thought you would consider giving me up only because of the letter of that whore!"


    Showcasing her somehow pearlish white teeth in between her wide-open lips, as she gasped for the air, only to throw it away with yet another burst of unrestrained happiness. Repeating the process of desperately fighting to not suffocate only to squeeze her lungs dry of the air the very next moment, she even had to cover her open mouth with her hand in order to not salivate the entire table and me at the same time!


    With the tension dissolved by her sudden outburst, I decided against springing up into a fight and raised my cup instead.


    "To be honest with you, I really don''t understand your motive here. How do you expect her to accept any of your advances after she escaped the death from the hands of the bandits you or your allies recruited only thanks to my timely intervention? Do you think she would leap right into bear''s jaws right after miraculously escaping from the bite?"


    Taking a sip, I carefully watched the changes on Peter''s face, but it seemed that he let my words enter through his one ear, only to let them out through the other, still busy digesting what Elia said a moment before.


    Suddenly slamming his hands on the table, he looked sternly at the still giggling girl, with a look in his eyes akin to that of a father unable to understand how did his little and cute daughter turned into a pregnant tomboy after he left her alone for a single moment.


    "Whore?! How dare you call your mother like that!"


    This time, it was his turn to throw a fit, almost instantly souring Elia''s face when she returned to her sensed and realised that this annoying young man was still here, bothering the both of us.


    Ah, so this guy was an idiot! No wonder Elia was so negative towards him, despite how he was clearly infatuated with her. But still, with the insane wealth that Ropian was most likely bringing from the trade, even when in the shadow of Tarnow''s influence, would still be more than enough for crowds of young commoner maidens to invite him on the haystack for some interclass mingling! How come he was still acting like a damned horny virgin when it came to Elia?


    "And who the fuck do you think you are? My fiance teaching me those words? Dick, pussy, arsehole, I picked them all up when I was running away from this whore! And why are you getting angry for me calling her that? Isn''t a whore someone who sells her body in order to obtain benefits? Why do you even think my dear stepmother and stepbrother are wishing for me to die a dog''s death?!"


    Suddenly flaring up, all the laughter that just a moment ago Elia used to calm the atmosphere down disappeared, replaced by her pure wrath. With her fists clenched on the edge of the table, I could bet that if not for a lack of a weapon, she would jump towards Peter and start hacking him down!


    Since her cup was now empty and no servant would dare to approach her when she was in such a state, I placed my own cup with over half of its height still filled with the liquid.


    "Drink and calm down, he isn''t worth your anger, dear."


    Sending Elia a meaningful look, I continued to stare her in the eyes for as long as it took for her to cave in under my pressure and gulp down the content of the cup in one go. Just as she was taking the moment to wait for the effect of the drink to spread through her body so that she could pick the argument once again, one of the servants called by a single gesture of mine were already replacing her cup.


    "I won''t let you fight him. If you don''t want to get wasted in such a wasteful way, you better calm down."


    Seeing her face melting down when she realised what kind of ploy I created on the spot, I turned my face back to the Peter.


    "As for you, I think it''s the right time for you to leave. While I wouldn''t mind if you were to leave this letter of promotion as well so that I could get another proof while striving to bring the hammer of justice on her demonic family."


    Unless that guy would be ready to willingly give me the letter, I had no way to place my hands on it. With his status as the envoy, killing him here would bring the wrath of the Governor on me, especially since it would be most likely the first murder of a noble in the entire country since the coronation!


    And since I had to let him go freely, if I dared to steal his letter marked with a proper seal, I would be instantly ostracised even by the people most likely willing to become my allies. At this point, I wasn''t even sure if showing this letter of the promise wasn''t just a bait aimed to throw me off the balance and put me at a political disadvantage!


    "The hell are you even speaking about?! Not only you made her think that her family is making attempts at her life, brought her on a primitive road, and now you want me to give up the letter of promise? Dream on!"


    Most likely seeing that he wasn''t welcomed here anymore, and accomplishing anything was already not an option, Peter finally stood up from his seat and went outside. Even while still sitting at my chair, I could hear one of my servants going out of his way to guide him outside of the castle.


    "The nuisance is finally gone. I hope you didn''t make you drink more than you could handleˇ­"

 22 First glass

    "I need you to get to the innkeepers from the city and roadside taverns in the area. Invite them to my palace tomorrow, at noon they should be free for long enough."


    As I carried Elia away to her chambers that my servants prepared right beside my own, I continued to give orders to the head butler of the castle while trying to ignore Elia''s curious hands roaming all over my body.


    While the honey liquor wasn''t as strong as real booze, with how easy it was going down one''s throat, it wasn''t an achievement to get wasted on it! With the addition of shutting her mouth with the continuous outpour of the liquor in my silly attempt to calm her down in front of the envoy, I had only myself to blame now.


    "Coomeee on! Shu-w mea urs skiin!"


    Taking the responsibility of making her drunk silly, I could only ignore her sleazy manner of speech and pretend to not feel anything when her hands started sneaking in under my upper clothes.


    But it was truly wondering how fast her head gave up. Just a moment ago, she still looked to be lightly smoked, only for the alcohol to suddenly hit her like a hammer, making her lose all her restraints. If not for my swift reaction, she would just undress and fall asleep on top of the dining table!


    "Okay, okay, we are almost here. Just bear with it for a little longer."


    Carrying her on my arms, I was unable to stop her silly advances on my chest, nor her playing with her fingers around my face, as if she turned to some kind of kid, driven to explore the entire world with just his sense of touch alone.


    "It will be done, my lord. Is there anything else you want me to prepare?"


    Only now finding the opportunity to butt in between my words and Elia''s silly attempts to undress me, the head butler managed to slip a few of his words into my attention. While I tried to ignore this small aspect of life in this period, his ability to walk beside me in this not-so-wide corridor while half-bent in a bow was something to be proud of!


    "Hmmˇ­ A bath will do. Make sure to bring some fresh firewood to my room. I don''t want to get cold after cleaning myself. After all, we are in the middle of the winter!"


    Just as I finished my sentence, the doors leading to the chamber right beside mine finally appeared, instantly pushed open by the head butler. Coming inside, I could see it had the exact same layout as the master chamber, just without additional doors hidden behind the bed that would otherwise lead to a study and private library. With the bed already done, I just placed Elia on it, before snapping my fingers at the housemaids and pointing them at the drunk girl.


    "Don''t let her do herself any harm. It would be for the best if you could put her to sleep."


    While it wasn''t something I should be really bothered with, I honestly doubted that even watching her change would be able to spark any real reaction in me. After years of diligent training under the masters from all around the world and direct lectures from thumb-sensei and his four senior disciples, how could a simple girl that spend last three years of her life on the run even hope to arouse me?


    Finally freed from my self-imposed duty of showering Elia in care in front of all the castle servants, I could get to my own chamber and wait for the workers to bring a new bail of fresh water from the well. Living on the second floor of the palace added a bit of hurdle for the servants tasked with carrying the water bucket by bucketˇ­ but that was why there were called servants in the first place!


    Reaching for the study hidden behind my bed, I realised with content that a single barrel of each kind of wheat I bought back in Krakow was already waiting for me there, along with a big gourd of water and local beer. With how much I drank already, I wasn''t going to try to get wasted even more, but simply wanted to have a comparison between what I was about to make and the existing products!


    It was finally time to test the capabilities of my system!


    Opening up the crafting window I spotted long ago, I made sure that the doors to the study were closed tightly and locked, before selecting the brewing submenu.


    Starting with a long list, describing all sorts of drinks, both those that were commonly made in current times and those popularised in the future ages. While there was some allure to brewing brandy in a damned Commonwealth, with almost complete lack of wine and culture of drinking it, there was simply no point in pushing forward in this direction!


    With what kind of materials I prepared, I could only go down one route. Selecting ''beer'' from the long list of names, a new window appeared right in front of my eyes, split into two-three areas.


    At the very top, another list of names could be scrolled with just a single intention to do so, showcasing all sorts of names of the beer kinds, from stouts, through lagers all the way to porters. After clicking a random name from the list with my mind, the remaining two parts of the windows lit up, with a shortlist of required ingredients and ''craft'' button right below it, and a clusterfuck of information and strange words on the right side.


    Just a single look at the most complicated part of the screen made my head dizzy. Even though I wasn''t really that drunk, when I saw sentences like "wood type for barreling", "Sweetness of the wort", "sheltering time", with most of them being too complicated for me to even read through them, I praised the creator of this system for his ingenious invention of a flashing button that allowed me to switch between advanced crafting mode to a simplified one!


    Looking at it and wishing to click on the button made the entire screen flash once again, only to be replaced by something that I was finally able to understand. What was even more important, was down-to-the ground infographics that explained the steps required to actually start crafting anything!


    Following the instruction, I picked the type, the quality and the alcoholic content of the required beer, while ignoring all the optional, additional options like richness, aftertaste and bonus tastes.


    As soon as I moved my sight over to the "craft'' button, the window seemed to copy itself, before the original window blanked out and turned into a gust of a strange, dense mist. While it was all new to me, I grabbed a handful of wheat, one of the glasses that I poached from the dining hall and later filled with fresh water from the bail, and finished it up with a pinch of hemp, only for the ''brew'' button that replaced ''craft'' one to flash in greed, instead of its previous, greyish colour.


    With the excitement taking over my mind, I accepted the process and watched as the mist started rotating, blocking my sight completely from what was happening inside it. A short moment later, its movement stopped as it retracted, leaving a levitating glass filled with golden liquid to the brim.


    Staring at this strange sight, I reached forward with my hand, only to feel a strong pull on my arm as soon as my fingers locked on the handle of the mug. As if everything was over now, the mist completely disappeared, and the crafting windows hid back to the corner of my view, with my sight completely blocked by the mug and a flashing information window.


    "Completed the first brew!"


    "Host obtained Brewmaster level 1 title!"


    "Unlocking development tree!"


    "Unlocking bonus options!"


    "Unlocking parameters meshing!"


    "Unlocking progress subsystem!"


    If not for the fact that I was something of a gamer myself, I could see how easy it would be to someone unacquainted with the RPG games to be overwhelmed by the amount of information showing in this window. Instead of trying to panically digest all those sentences and make any sense out of them, I brought the cup of my first system-made beer closer to my lips and took the very first sip.


    Aahhhhh!


    THAT WAS IT!


    That was the beer I remembered from modern times!


    Maybe because creating it solely from the wheat and just a pinch of hemp was kind of a bad idea, its taste was closer to those cheap ones one could buy for a few coins in most of the local shops,


    But it was still at least a few classes better than the ones served by the local taverns I visited so far!


    With my interest piqued, I put the glass away on the table and pulled out yet another one before running out of my study to the room proper to fill it with the water that my servants continued to pour into the bail.


    After returning to my study, this time I took my time in selecting the recipe. Going as far as to play around with the additional options, I ended up with a typical lager, based on barley, with an addition of the apple aftertaste and sour spicing of hemp. Repeating the exact same steps with the bout of mist appearing, throwing all the resources required by the recipe - which allowed me to learn that by throwing more barley that I was supposed to, the additional grains simply fell down to the floor - the mist once again started its shenanigans, before leaving me with yet another mug filled to the brim with aromatic liquid.


    With all the attention I gave while creating this brew, I couldn''t help but be a little nervous before drinking it. Raising the cup to my lips, I stopped it just a few centimetres below my nose, giving myself some time to inhale its aroma. Wetting my lips at first to judge the texture, as soon as the first droplet sneaked inside, I couldn''t stop myself from raising the cup higher, and drinking a whole mouthful of it!


    It was insane!


    I don''t think I ever had a beer this good even in my previous life in modern times!


    Not only I could clearly feel the seven percent voltage behind the liquid, but it also seemed to caress my taste buds with its light texture, before filling them with a rich sweetness of an apple and washing it off with a bout of sourness of the hemp. While I had to admit that local beers were capable of keeping the fruity taste of its ingredients, there was no way to even begin to compare my insane brew with the silly craft of the local taverns!

 23 Important questions

    While I was all excited about the prospects of bringing prosperity to the beer trade in my lands and using it as a stepping stone to kickstarting my economical reforms in the area, I still managed to calm myself down and wait for the bail to be filled with water.


    My testing of the system was so far limited to really small amounts of the brew, so I had to check whether it applicancies could be used in greater amounts. In the end, there was no way for me to personally spend the rest of my days brewing the beer for commoners and nobles alike! Even if that could become the backbone and source of fame and wealth of the town, if I wanted to change the history of this poor country, I had to think big!


    After the time of patiently waiting was finally over with the servant pouring the last bucket of the water and bowing as he excused himself from the room, I made sure to close the doors and lock them three whole times, before bringing out the barrels of grains from my study into the proper part of the chamber, where I had enough room to actually manage the production.


    As I was waiting for the servants to finish, I actually bothered to look through the right part of the window, that detailed how to set up automated production of the drink of my choosing. Starting with the necessary tools that I had to craft myself, through the industrial amounts of specific wares that one had to input in a specific order to the right machines, all the way to the right temperature and time of boiling the primary wort and sheltering the finished product in specific kind of barrels for a set amount of time in a strict environment.


    With how complicated the entire thing looked like, I had the moment of doubt. Even crafting the metal boiler where the big amounts of wort could be prepared was a mammoth task, not to speak about all the other specific steps!


    Thankfully, after playing around the options for long enough, I learned that the more common types of beer, especially when I didn''t set their quality to its highest option, could be made with relative ease, as the only common hard part in all of the industrial recipes were limited to just the boiler and type of barrels used for storing the finished brew. And surprise surprise - I didn''t even need to look for the crafting recipes of those machines through the entire system, as the moment I focused on this task, it instantly hyperlinked me to it!


    The level of difficulty of accomplishing my task just turned from rather hard to a relatively easy mode!


    "Let''s do it then!''


    Hyping myself up with this single sentence, I made sure to pour the previously made beer through the window and refilled both of the glasses with the water. During my wait, I found in total eight different recipes that didn''t require some insane amount of preparations and intricate work, out of which only four could be called to be native drinks to this part of the world.


    Making a single glass of beer for each of those four types, I tasted it one by one, only to finally pick two of the candidates. Wheat-based drink, with just enough hemp to keep it sour, relatively light with only five percent of the total volume being the actual alcohol, and just a tiny bit of fruity flavour coming from the apple cider mixed into the drink, and the other one being a mixed type, with barley and wheat mixed in seven to two proportions, a hefty amount of hemp spicing and high alcoholic content of exactly one part in every ten of them being the actual drug.


    With the choice already made, I used the two empty barrels I prepared in advance and created the mix in right proportions in each of them, before activating the crafting mist and increasing the volume of the output for as long as it took for the recipe cost to break through the current amount of products inside each of the barrels. With four of them filled to about half-height, I still had enough room to slowly pour all the water necessary for the production of the actual liquid, before watching the open barrels be enveloped by mist, only to turn from a container filled with a strange, cereal soup, into a proper keg, filled to its brim with the proper drink!


    After scooping up a few gulps worth of the beer from each of them and confirming that despite greater amount made, the quality fo the product didn''t change at all, I finally brought the lids for the barrels and forced them on top, before slamming my fist a few to make sure it was properly secured.


    Sitting down on the bed and looking at the four kegs of beer I made, I felt a strange sense of accomplishment. In all the novels I read that dealt with the situation I was currently in, the main character would start their journey by conquering entire lands with their advanced knowledge, implement age breaking technology like steam engines or complex medicines to gain supreme standingˇ­ Yet only now, when I happened to be in a similar spot, I realised how tough it was to live life in the past.


    From the completely different mindset of the people when compared to what I was used from modern times, through the complexity of even the simplest inventions, the best I could do despite possessing this system, was to start with a damned beer! Even though I know how the computers work, higher mathematics had no secrets from me, and I knew about the existence of viruses or bacterias, not to speak about the idea how the world really worked through the theory of atomsˇ­ I didn''t know how to use it to my advantage!


    Starting with even the simplest matters, a small invention like an umbrella. Useful, funny and quirky, it could become a famous trend amongst the rich to carry one in order to protect oneself from the rain, from the sun or even just for the sake of a fashionable look. But then comes the question - how to make one? How to create the spring mechanism for the handle? What kind of fabric should be used that could withstand the humidity?


    All the inventions that mankind came up with, were based on their prior knowledge. Starting from the further point didn''t mean that I was able to create anything from the earlier stages, but indicated that I lacked the solid foundations required to do it in the first place!


    With my thoughts carrying me to this unpleasant realisation, I laid down on the bed, turning my attention from this nervewracking reality to the future actions I had to take.


    Meeting with the innkeepers was the pivotal point for my plans for using the system as the backbone of my future endeavours. If they confirmed my guess that the beer I just made was of superior quality when compared with their own products, I could invest my household savings in materials required to create the machines, that would allow me the constant production of this light and popular liquor. With that done, flooding the market with it while keeping the prices low would start generating some income for my family while giving me the leverage over the innkeepers to make them work in a way I would order them toˇ­ But it was only the first step out of many that I had to make almost simultaneously!


    Even if everything related to this first business of mine would go smoothly, how I was supposed to deal with the matter of Elia and her city? If I could force her family into exile, how I was supposed to use this opportunity to expand my influence? What kind of revolutionary product I could introduce to this world in order to gain an edge over everyone else?


    I only had five months to figure out the answers to those and many other questions, making it hard for me to even fall asleep. Just thinking about Pilzno, turned my attention towards the matter of my alleged marriage with Elia, posing yet another question right in the middle of my thoughts.


    After everything would be dealt with, Pilzno included in my sphere of influence and this damned Peter pacified and his city either conquered or overshadowedˇ­ What I was supposed to do with that girl? The marriage could only be pushed for so long, forcing me to either break up with her at some point or actually go with the flow and take her as my wife.


    But was I ready for such a drastic step?

 24 Elias offer

    Just like both the ancient, current and future sages would say, sleep is a remedy for the most problems related to the man''s soul. After a good night of rest in a surprisingly comfortable bed, all the worries from the last day were gone, with new challenges of the current day already taking all my attention.


    With my butler scheduled to come to fetch me when the time would be ripe to get to the meeting I set up yesterday with the innkeepers from my area, I had nothing better to do than just stay in my bed and think about the future.


    And it wasn''t as bright as I initially thought it would be. From common problems that I never realised how dire they were before actually experiencing them on my own skin like lack of a proper plumbing system including bathrooms and washrooms or lack of proper education, all the way to burning problems like a weak military I had access to and overall powerless state of my lands against any invasion from moreˇ­ adventurous noble.


    Sure, I had an almost impregnable castle that could protect me and my most loyal retainers, and the city that was the backbone of the power of my household just finished renovating its walls under the guidance of my great ancestorˇ­ But that was basically everything.


    Without a mobile, even if the small, army, I was unable to project my own influence outside of the borders of my privately owned land. Even if I would be capable of creating an insanely popular product like the beer I hoped to infuse in all shops around my own area, as long as other nobles decided to ban it, no matter how much merchants would like to buy it and trade with it, I would be forced to abandon the idea!


    Before I even realised, my thoughts got interrupted by the knock on the doors leading to my chamber, before someone pushed them open, letting themselves in.


    "It''s time, my lord."


    Just as I expected, it was the butler coming to alert me of the time. If I wanted for the shop owners to actually take me seriously, I couldn''t allow myself to be late for the meeting I scheduled myself!


    Dragging myself from a surprisingly comfortable bed, I pointed at the barrels standing on the floor of the chamber.


    "Fetch some servants to bring those barrels down. I will get someone to organise the carriage, as I need them for the meeting."


    With how I didn''t bother to change my clothes before going to sleep, I only patted the cloth a few times before I got satisfied with the results and stepped through the doors with the intention of rushing to deal with the matters at hand, only to be stopped right beside my doors.


    "Good morning, my lord."


    Resting her back against the wall of the corridor, Elia greeted me with a slight bow while trying to hide her mischievous smile. From the way she attempted to lower her head in order to hide the curvature on her lips, I could guess what was her aim in waiting for me.


    Instantly straightening her back, Elia no longer hid her smile as she sprung her arms forward and hanged herself on my neck, bringing her body closer to mine in a light hug.


    "How thoughtful of you, my lord!"


    After gracing me with this slight amount of skinship, she distanced herself from me for a far enough to let me actually through the corridor. With no time to waste, I just shook my head before grabbing her hand and walking towards the staircase.


    "What''s so interesting in meeting with some jews? It''s not like you didn''t attend this kind of meetings back when you were still living in Pilzno."


    I was the only one who knows the implications that this meeting could bring. If not for simple curiosity, I couldn''t really wrap my head around her intention of accompanying me. From what I remembered from the history classes, this sort of meetings would either be boring or as long as pointless with how merchants and overall middle class considered the nobility the leechers living off their profits! Especially with how generous my lord ancestor was towards them - something almost unimaginable for anyone else from the nobles slowly turning into a proper, thoughtless aristocracy.


    "Calling for this meeting was the first thing you did after freeing ourselves from that annoying envoy. You don''t need to be a genius to see how much of importance did you attach to it, my lord!"


    Did I mention how smart she was? Once again, she managed to derive information from the stuff I didn''t pay any attention to! But there wasn''t actually any problem with bringing her along for the meeting. If we wanted to appear as a proper couple, if my retainers were to see her sticking to my side at all times, especially with how young our relationship was, the rumours about how close we actually were, could turn into an usefull tool in my struggle against her family!


    "Well, you got me there! I want to offer them the chance to partake in the new model of trading beer in my lands. I just need some of them to see the potential profits of my plan, to actually go forward with it. While it would be for the best for all of them to be as enthusiastic about it as I am, with how it will limit their freedom a bit, I don''t think it will go as easily as I would want it to."


    No matter the times, changes were abhorred by the majority of the people. If I wanted a tool to project my power in the trade and get real profits from it, while taking some freedom away from them, I had to make sure to offer them something equal in value in exchange. With that said, I could already tell who would be for and who would be against the idea.


    If I were to just sell the beer at the high price it deserved, no one would bat an eye, nor would anything change in the long term. If I really wanted to bring a change to my lands, I had to sell the beer for the similar price to what was offered already, while limiting any potential profit-making into the better quality drinks that I would export along the way.


    "If that''s the case, how about letting me convince them? Considering the trading rights you asked me about during our first meeting, I think I can assume that this beer matter was something you already considered back then? Flaunting the potential profits from trading it to the east could work as a nice charm!"

 25 Negotiations part 1

    "Welcome everyone, and thanks for sparing your precious time for this meeting. I will make sure it will be worth your while."


    Sitting at the head of the table with seventeen other people of various ages and appearances gathered, I opened the meeting with the standard greeting. The timing for this event was picked by me with the intention to hit at the less busy times in their shops and taverns. From the looks of things, not everyone bothered to participate, but at least I managed to gather the majority of the group that interested me.


    "To not waste your time, let me introduce you to something that I believe, will shake the foundations of your jobs."


    Just a single gesture towards the servants hidden behind a piece of cloth separating the dining hall of my palace and the kitchen was enough for them to roll two barrels of my beer inside. After bringing them close to the table, they helped each other to put them vertically before taking out a knife and opening the lid I closed those barrels with last night.


    While normal barrels would have the tap slammed into its side before anyone could pour the content directly into the mug, but with how those barriers were used to transport wheat and barley in the first place, I believed I couldn''t afford these shenanigans. While I still had one more barrel for each kind of the beer, destroying one right at the beginning of the meeting would put me on the spot.


    "Before you will have a drink with me, I want to ask you all a question. What is the average price for a garn (about 4litres) of beer that you are selling? And I don''t mean this high-class one you keep for the sake of some rowdy nobles swarming the place and threatening to kill you if they won''t be served a proper drink without realising that I would be the first one to kill them if they were to act on their wordsˇ­"


    Those people didn''t know me almost at all. With only a few years passing since the death of their previous overlord, and with quite a big chunk of that time being wasted on the silly northern war with Muscovy and Sweden, the previous owner of this body didn''t get to really get to know them.


    That''s why I attempted this small trick, aimed at winning them over to my side, even if only by a tiny bit. If I wanted any form of business to be made, they had to trust me in the first place! Additionally, with all the reforms my great ancestor implemented and insanely lax taxation coupled with numerous efforts to carve more and more privileges for the entire middle class of Tarnow from the crown''s hand, I had to give them something in return even before asking for something they owned!


    "More or less, it would be 1 grosh (silver). While the prices can fluctuate a bit higher and lower, that''s about the fair price."


    "Go on."


    Raising my hand and showing him my open palm, I accepted his mute request. For someone to take initiative while speaking with their lordˇ­ He was either dumb, suicidal or actually cared for the future of his business! How many times did people lose their jobs and life-savings only because some noble though that he would completely change the world with some stupid ideas? How many died because some people thought it was okay to make everyone''s paycheck equal?


    I wasn''t going to make the same mistake. Even if I could bank on my system to bring some good changes to both my lands and the entire country in the long term, before enacting any reforms, it would be for the best to ask for the advice of people who already worked their bottoms off in this particular field of business!


    "My lord, allow me to start with the assumption. Just from the sheer aroma of the drinks that were prepared by the lord''s servants I can tell its immense worth. If this meeting were to be just about selling small quantities of it, I think that not only your highness wouldn''t bother to attend it personally, it would be most likely done just by a single offer forwarded to one of us."


    Sweeping his hand around the table, the man pointed at all his colleagues sitting calmly with tense expressions. It wasn''t common for the noble to call for a meeting with commoners that wasn''t working directly under him, even if they possessed the status of citizens of his city. With the evergrowing position of nobility in the country, all the cities and their inhabitants felt pressured to fight against the trend, doing their very best to never give any of their rights to the nobles, as not only it would set up precedence, but most likely, said right would never be returned!


    "And since the quantity of this beer that needs to be sold is greater than what a single person from here could handle, then I can only assume that Lord has the intention of selling it in all of our inns and taverns. Am I right, my lord?"


    There was no denying that this guy was really smart. Not only did he manage to dissect my plan just from the way I set up this meeting, but I could also see how he was gravitating towards the conclusion that would make it impossible for me to push my intention forward at all!


    "You are completely and absolutely right, to the point where I have the feeling of calling for a priest to make sure are not a saint given to us by the almighty Lord in the heavens!"


    With no sign from me to stop, the servants already started distributing two mugs of beer for each person at the table, obviously starting from with my place. Using the situation to enhance the weight of my words with a gesture, I raised the cup with the worse kind of beer that was placed in front of me and raised it high into the sky.


    "Just like you said, I do not wish to play around with small quantities, nor do I want to force you guys to distribute it for me for free. But since the idea I came up with is too grand, I can only speak about it after you answer two more questions of mine. So starting with the beer on your right, let''s have a drink! Cheers!"


    According to the social law of the current times, as I was the most important person in the entire room unless I would take at least a sip, no one else would be allowed to do so. While it pained me to pay attention to such small and unimportant details, if I were to show lack of understanding towards the current culture and beliefs, people would quickly start getting suspicious about my reasons for doing so!


    Lowering the mug to the level of my lips, I took a single gulp, while casting a short glance at Elia sitting right beside me. Despite how much she wanted to come with me since the meeting has only begun and I didn''t show any of my actual cards, she remained silent, only following my lead and enjoying her cup of beer.


    "First question."


    Slamming the half-empty mug on the table, I made sure that everyone''s attention would be focused back at me.


    "Since you already started talking before, let me ask you directly. How would you value this beer if you were to buy it, and how much could you sell it for?"

 26 Negotiations part 2

    "Two and a half silver when buying, three silvers when selling for a single garn (about 4 litres)"


    After taking his time to at first smell the content of his cup lightly wet his lips with it and only then taking a hearty gulp of my beer, the innkeeper I was talking with replied to my question. Just like I thought, the professional had good enough knowledge about the market to see the value of such a great liquid, that only the best royal liquors could compare in terms of taste, not to speak about the fact that there was simply no beer with such high alcoholic content in the entire country at this time!


    "Okay then, now let''s try the other one and tell me your opinion about it. Just like before, the estimated price for selling and buying."


    This time, I pointed at the other cup, with the clear but lighter beer that I was so proud off. Despite it being way harder to produce with the additional requirement for brewing the cider in the first place, it wasn''t at the level where it would make any real difference for my plans.


    While I was quite sure about the quality of my products, I couldn''t help but feel anxious when the man raised the other mug to his lips. But even before he could express his own opinion, just the changes on his face told me more than his words could ever do.


    With his eyes opening wide as he continued to inhale the lightly fruity aroma of the drink, with his facial muscles relaxing as he took just a small sip, even the fact that he didn''t dare to just take a big gulp for the sake of tastingˇ­ It all proved that I assumed the worth of the other barrel correctly.


    "My lordˇ­ This drink is insane!"


    Unable to hold back his excitement, the man even forgot to answer my question, finally losing the composture he held so strongly to during the meeting so far. Seeing my encouraging gesture and pleased smile, he took another sip, this time somehow managing to keep it in his mouth instead of swallowing it right away.


    After flushing it around his jaws, checking how it would react after being kept in the mouth for a long while and finally letting it flow down his throat, the innkeeper finally put his cup back on the table.


    "My lordˇ­ I never had such a good drink! Six silvers per garn, and I will never sell even a single barrel to anyone else!"


    Hearing his words, I felt the corners of my lips involuntarily raise upwards, as I almost burst out with laughter. The reactions of everyone else at the table, Elia included were at least similar, if not to say identical!


    "Okay then, let me break the reality to you guys. I never intended to force you to distribute this beer. What I came here to offer, is the first kind of beer for a single silver per garn, while the other one for two silvers per garn. (about 4 litres) But as you might suspect, this offer is too good to be true."


    "As you guys might''ve guessed, nothing good comes free. While I can offer you those prices at which you would buy the drinksˇ­ There will also be the upper price, at which you will be forced to sell. In short words, you can make half silver per garn on the worse kind, and a single silver on the better one. Meaning, you can sell them for one and a half, and three silvers respectively."


    Limiting the upper price was something completely new at this time. While there were occurrences where the crown or the nobles decided on the price for certain important products like breed, wheat or later on vodka when the country would already be in the state of collapse, doing so for the beer was never seen before!


    "Okay, okay. Before you will all pout and leave this place in a hurry, I need to add two more things. First, the price of buying the beer might lower with time, as we will perfect the method of brewing it. And the other thing I wanted to tell, is who this cute maiden on my side is. Elia, would you be so kind?"


    Since I promised her to let her play an important role during those negotiations, I could either wait for her to butt in at any given moment or just give her a slight push to use her point at the most suited time.


    "Hello everyone. I''m Elia Pekta, the lawful owner of the city of Pilzno. Also, I''m this industrious and handsome man''s fiancee. It''s nice to meet you all."


    Contrary to my expectations, she didn''t say a single word more but sat back down on her chair with a smut smile plastered on her face instead. While I initially felt puzzled by her action, when I saw the changes happening on the faces of everyone around the table, I realised that they might be from times I considered ancient, but that didn''t mean they were fucking stupid!


    The times where one could freely trade around the entire country or even around the entire continent with the founding of the Schengen Area, were vastly different from the reality of the current era. Right now, if I were to lose my status of a noble, if I were to travel to Bochnia with the intention of trading, I would have to not only pay additional taxes set up by the lord of the town but as that town still had the right of staple, all merchants travelling through were forced to set the wares they were transporting for a sale, forced to pay yet another tax from selling, once again, set by the local lord!


    In this regard, connecting two neighbouring towns with a marriage of its owners, or even the way in which that topic was brough up to this meeting had an obvious meaning!


    Soon enough, all the tax limitations that chipped away at the profits from selling the wares in other cities would soon be gone!


    "Speaking of whichˇ­ I forgot to mention one rule."


    Once again, I stopped before explaining my points, making sure that everyone listening would start making its own assumptions what kind of limitations I would place on them after giving them such an incentive.


    "Those who decide to cooperate with me, won''t be able to open new shops without my consentˇ­ But the pricing limitation only works on my own lands! In other wordsˇ­ As long as you move this liquor to other citiesˇ­"


    Stopping mid-sentence, I gave my previous discussion partner a meaningful look.


    "... we will be able to sell it for as much as we want? Is that what you mean, my lord?!"

 27 Negotiations part 3

    The offer I gave to those people had both brights parts and downsides to it. The first thing that one could think about, was the lack of ability to set new taverns without my consent. But upon closer inspection, how many of them could actually afford to do so? While the prices of the land were far lower than in the future, it wasn''t that easy to obtain it from the nobles who were the sole landowners in the entire country with the exception of the crown.


    In reality, it was the set price that blocked them from making a real profit on the beer I offered to them. From what I remembered, with all the prices included and the cost of actually brewing a barrel, one could earn threefold the price of normal beer, making my proposition far less appealing than one might think at the first glance.


    "That''s exactly what I meant. While by saying - my lands - I already included Pilzno and all the other villages owned by my sweetheart. But before I speak about anything else from what I wanted to bring up today, you guys need to make up your mind."


    Standing up, I moved away from the chair and stood behind Elia, placing my hands on her shoulders.


    "If you want to cooperate with me and profit from all the policies that I will soon implement in this territory, you need to be quick-witted enough to keep up with my pace. If you don''t think this is a good deal, you are free to go and I won''t hold it against you in the future, let God be the witness of those words!"


    Compared to future times, swearing on God holds way greater weight than one might think. I basically told them that no matter what they will do from now on, be it joining or abandoning my idea, I wouldn''t meddle with them any longer!


    One by one, the people from around the table were standing upˇ­ and leaving.


    Without even speaking a word, out of everyone that attended this meeting in the first place, only five of them remained. While it pained my heart to see how many of them could see the endless benefits of my idea after the initial costs and hurdles would be done with, as I promised, I wasn''t going to make things hard for them. Basically, they just gave up their businesses to me!


    "Now, that we are in the smaller group, I want to tell you about several other plans I want to implement, starting with the problem of food."


    While Commonwealth was already considered a granary of Europe, with how many nobles considered the arable production as their main source of income, the hunger was an old friend to most of the commoners, no matter how much a noble wanted to care for them. Even my great ancestor didn''t manage to eradicate this problem from his lands, taking the hunger as the most natural thing in the world, as the ultimate tool separating those weak from the strong.


    "Before the production of the beer will truly start on a mass scale, I want you guys to take care of the problem of hunger. But while this sounds as asking for a miracle, it''s nowhere near as hard!"


    Gesturing at my servants once again, I grabbed the small sack that he brought with him. Taking out a single root of turnip, handful of pigweed, even smaller sack that gave off a sour smell and a single piece of meat, I spread it out on the table for everyone to see.


    All of those items outside of the meat were something that most of the people considered either a weed, wild plant or in other words, something completely worthless. Just by thinking about how much of insanely good flavour that would turn into one of the staple dishes in the future Polish cuisine, I couldn''t help but feel pain in my soul.


    "As you guys might see, outside of the meat, everything I brough with me is quite common. As for this smaller sack, it''s nothing else but sourdough that I poached from the Castle''s bakery. Can you guess what those products can be used for?"


    Just like in any other mansion or noble''s palace, there was a kitchen in it. Before even the meeting started, I already gave the recipe for this famous Polish dish, creamy sour soup to my servants, and considering how long they were had to prepare it, I was certain that I could call for it to be served to my guests at any given moment.


    "The turnip and pigweed I do recognise. I heard that in dire times, commoners can eat them to save themselves from hunger, but from what I heard, they have an awful taste, isn''t that right?"


    Instead of the men at the table, it was Elia who answered my question. With her eyes filled with curiosity, she continuously switched her gaze from my face and the products on the table, as if hoping to find any clue about what did I mean by bringing something that even commoners abhorred to eat.


    "The dish is already prepared in the kitchen. Bring it, on one leg!"


    Pushing the servant away, I turned my head back to the five men waiting for my explanation once again.


    "You don''t need to worry. I will be the first one to have a taste, as I can''t wait to enjoy this flavour once again."


    Instead of explaining everything right away, I simply waited for the servants to bring a big pot inside, and start pouring its content into small bowls before distributing them to everyone.


    Taking the initiative to calm everyone down, I grabbed a simple spoon from the table and submerged it into soup, scooping out several fragments of what looked like white potato before raising it to my mouth.


    As soon as it passed by the line of my lips, I felt the familiar yet way too sour taste of my beloved soup. While the turnip wasn''t as tasty as potato, if I wanted to make it exactly the same as the dinner my mother used to do once in a while, I would''ve to travel all the way to Spain or Portugal, buy the first potatoes that were only starting to flood the continent and patiently wait for a few years for the harvest to be big enough to allow actual use of the vegetable.


    "What is this?!"


    Initially, everyone - even including Elia - wasn''t so sure as to what to expect, but as soon as they got their first taste, their once reluctant spoons started moving all over as if they were scared I would take the bowls away from them.


    "This is one of the cheapest and tastiest soups, who can fill one''s belly for the entire day without a fail. I will pay for all the expenses brought by this, but I want you to gather those resources, namely, turnip, pigweed, meat and sourdough that you can get in any amounts from any bakery around the city. As soon as you will get the hang on making it properly, I will provide you with special carriages with a small kitchen mounted on top of them."


    While the vehicles I just mentioned only existed on the paper, for now, it wasn''t something hard to produce. Just by placing a metal or even stone slab on top of the carriage and using it as a base for a simple stove was way more than enough.


    "I want you to take those carriages to the fields, where most people will be able to reach you. For the first month, you will distribute the soup to everyone for free, while claiming that after the time of my sponsorship, everyone will be able to still get their fill for just five silvers a month. Considering that every carriage will be able to provide a proper meal for at least two hundred people and the cost of making this soup for a single person only amounts to about two silvers a monthˇ­ I think you can calculate your profits by yourselves!"

 28 Foundations for the retaking of Pilzno

    After all the guest left the palace with a huge list of stuff that I gave them to think about, I decided to stay behind and enjoy my soup for a little longer. While its quality was as mentioned before, way off the mark of what I was looking for, it didn''t pale in comparison to other dishes offered by the kitchen at any other given occasion.


    Thinking about the dishes, I couldn''t help but longe for the good, old, tomato soup. In theory, making it was one of the easiest task ones could come upon. Brew some stock from chicken and several vegetables for a few hours, add enough mashed tomatoes and here you have itˇ­. But the reality was often disappointing. The biggest hurdle to overcome was once again, the accessibility of the tomatoes. Just like with potatoes, the brown gold that would eradicate the hunger from the most of the countries around the world, in the current age, both of those great vegetables appeared only in the few gardens of the insanely wealthy royals or greatest nobles. It would take over hundred years for a single potato to be officially brough to this lands, with two more decades required for the appearance of the tomato.


    While I could send someone with a pouch filled with gold to visit noble''s mansion in order to obtain those golden plants for the sake of creating the greatest garden in commonwealthˇ­ or rather for the sake of allowing me to enforce the creation of wide plantation for them, but that sort of thing would not only take months to be realised but also had a low chance of success. Unless I would find some trader willing to bring them directly to me from the insanely far lands of the Iberia, I had to make do with what I had on hand.


    "I still don''t get it. Why would you let them profit out of this delicacy? Why did you even go as far as to spread it amongst the commoners instead of promoting it among fellow nobles? Wouldn''t that work better in the long run?"


    Just like she could catch on most of my ideas before I would finish explaining them, this was the time where she didn''t need to elaborate on the basis on her approach. As long as noble would enjoy something, the middle and lower class would seek to replicate it. Just like in the future, King Louis with some number to his name would promote tomatoes by putting together a huge amount of garden filled with them and strictly guarded day by day, only to suddenly lift the protection and allow everyone to steal them away for the sake of farming them on their own, doing so not only required time but also enough money to actively promote it among fellow nobles!


    "And what about taking back your city, then? I''m doing my best to push every possible thing I can into the care of others so that I will remain free to start more and more projects. Sure, I could use this soup to profit myself, but how much I could realistically make with it? Two red goldens per month? Three?"


    "Ah, that''s trueˇ­ Should I take it for granted that you are going to focus on recovering my lands then? Are you sure you are ready for such a risky mission? We might be both nobles, but the moment we step inside their own lands, my family will have no qualms for killing us!"


    What she said right now was true as well. Just like Peter couldn''t do anything about my position even if here were to bring a huge host with him, with all my power that I could siphon from the city, I could maybe create a force one hundred people strong. Adding the vast amount of resources required to feed them on the way, even greater after considering the fact that there was no way for me to spare the horses for everyone, and this small task turned into something insanely hard.


    Thinking about all of this, I couldn''t help but think about the other business I was thinking about setting up and actually monopolising for as long as possible. If not for the fact that I saw the entire production line that would make it possible to set it up, I would never ever consider doing something as complicated as that, but with how I had just the right amount of resources to at least kickstart the production, even if the output would be small and the product of relatively low quality, it would be far more than enough for my purposes.


    Yes, I was talking about a proper concrete.


    The technology required to make it was lost with the fall of the Roman empire, as the volcanic ash, the main ingredient used by this once great country to make their mortar was simply absent from the lands that picked up the light of the civilisation. Since there was only so much one could build without a proper mortar, it wasn''t long before people found alternatives, hugely based on limestone and gypsum alone.


    There was a lot of positives about this kind of mortar, but the durability wasn''t one of them. Additionally, the time required for it to actually bind two objects together was really long, making it unusable for my plan.


    But there were two reasons why I was actually interested in this sort of production. Starting with the resources, almost the entire region that my lands were located in, was rich in limestone and all the other types of rocks required to make a proper cement. And with the help of the system that somehow offered to create a machine turning those raw rocks into a quality product just for a steep initial price of two hundred kilograms (440pounds) of iron and the constant addition of the mechanical energy.


    Thinking about this, if I were to really go with my plan, the difference in binding time and the strength of said mortar after drying off would be the backbone of my plan to retake Pilzno from Eila''s family hands!

 29 Requirments for cemen

    There was a lot of differences between commonly used mortar of the current times and a proper, enriched cement. While just by looking at the fact that in the future, medieval palaces, castles and cathedrals were still standing as compared to the modern buildings requiring renovations every fifteen years or so, one might get the wrong idea that the mortar was, in the end, a better connecting material, but why would modern people with all the power of scientific research still invest heavily into creating a proper cement instead of sticking to the mortar their ancestors used?


    The answer was like always, in the details. While mortar could help the buildings stand for a long amount of time as it was more resilient against natural elements like winds or moisture, when it came to its practical use, it was the cement that holds the spotlight.


    Starting with the speed of bonding two materials together, while mortar required at least two days to turn stable while in a perfect environment one could just slap wet cement on any given surface, and in just a short amount of time, it could bind it several times stronger than even a fully dried mortar could!


    "Where are we going?"


    Since for now, I had no way to create the entire complicated production processing plant for the cement, I had to limit myself to creating some by myself. After leaving the palace and city altogether, I brough Elia on a small walk, while carrying just a single, cloth bag with me.


    "Just a small trip. I need to collect some rocks."


    Just like with the fantastical alchemy, one couldn''t create something from nothing. In order to brew my beers, I had to provide all the base materials, starting with wheat, through the apples and ending with a hop. With a single look at the list of resources required for the production of cement, I simply marked the spots on the map and followed the half-transparent arrows appearing slightly above the ground.


    After arriving at the designated ground, I did something that both all the nobles from current times and most of the historians from the future would want to kill me for. Brandishing my sabre and pretending to not notice the terrified expression on Elia''s faceˇ­ I slammed it into the ground! Originating from old, Hungarian smithies, my weapon was considered as the pinnacle of noble''s weaponry. Only after the fifty years, the King that would take the throne after the next King that would replace our current escapist ruler would introduce a new sort of sabres, finally taking the spot of the best weapon on the continent.


    Thinking about the sabres, I couldn''t help but remember all the silly discussions of the nerds who believed that Japanese katana was the best cutting weapon ever made. While one could try to argue with them on any given point, the easiest way to prove them wrong, was to point at the production process of those swords.


    But why did those smiths even bother with such a complicated and ineffective process?


    Simply because they not only had no access to the quality ores but also because they lacked the technology to create proper steel. As it was proven countless times, no amount of manufacturing can turn iron into the material more resilient than even simple steel!


    So while the Japanese Samurais flaunted their pricey and fragile weapons that had to be used in a very specific manner in order to not break apart in the hands of a warrior, Polish and Lithuanian nobles could simply swing their steel sabres to cut through their enemy head, skull, brain and half of the neck, without even putting enough strain on the blade to create a single nick!


    With that thought in mind, I decided that keeping my weapon in its best state wasn''t as important as securing something that could let me take over an entire city without shedding a single drop of blood!


    At least, not by myself.


    After excavating the dirt from the hole I just made with the side of my sabre, I finally reached the part where the soft earth gave way to the material I was looking for. While limestone was insanely popular in this specific region, to the point where it was actually hard to find any other types of rock in my lands, it was way too fragile to be used as the building material!


    With just a few violent hits with the blade of my beloved sabre, chips of the rock started falling apart, bursting out of the small cave I dug. While a simple shovel and pickaxe would prove to be far more effective in this kind of job, who could ever take me seriously in the future if I dared to carry commoner''s tools while on a leisurely stroll with my fiancee?


    "Did you really just want to get some of the limestones? Don''t you have tons of mortar just lying around?"


    With how it was both the base material required for the mortar and the cement, most of the cities had quite a huge stockpile of it for the case of urgent repairs. But while limestone was easy to obtain, it was simply too impractical to store, as there were still some steps one had to go through to create a proper mortar!


    "I don''t need mortar, I need the limestone alone."


    While there were still some more materials I had to obtain in order to create a proper cement, all of them could be poached from my own castle, at least, that was what my system told me when I looked for the deposits on the map.


    "Also, if everything will go as I plant it to go, we could depart to Pilzno tomorrow morning."


    My plan for retaking the city was based on three aspects that limited the society of this day and age.


    First, while religion was a huge part of their life, without popularisation of the science, everything that was even a bit out of place, would swiftly gain mystical meaning in the eyes of everyone. With how everyone was used to mortar, just by using cement in an efficient way and some background preparations, I could convince everyone that I''m capable of turning things into stone.


    Second, the hierarchy of the power, especially when it came to nobles governing the cities, was insanely fragile. As almost every king had to promise noble''s even more privileges to gain their cooperation, it was the cities and commoners that were burdened with what used to be noble''s duty.


    And lastly, people took the inheritance rights rather seriously in this day and age, as they believed that those who shared blood, had a high chance of sharing the same character! With how my ancestor was a great patron for the civilians and commoners, and Elia''s father following his footsteps as far as he could with his limited capabilities, just by announcing our marriage, we could shake the ground under Elia''s step-family legs!

 30 A little moment between the two of us

    Step by step, my silly relationship with Elia was turning into something even if not serious yet, then at least real. With how there was no hurry for us to get to the Pilzno, instead of riding in the uncomfortable saddle, we were simply relaxing at the back of the carriage, with two barrels of my beer used as the wall on which two bags of already prepared cement served as a pillow.


    "I really can''t believe you did thisˇ­"


    With her head resting on my arm, Elia snuggled a bit closer to me, making sure that no heat would escape from under the bear''s fur serving as a blanket. With the march only starting to roll out, the weather was still rather cold, only occasionally raising towards the positive degrees (above 30degrees F), making our way of travelling all the more comfortable especially when we could giggle at the faces of my retainers travelling properly as our guards.


    "It''s not like I really had any choice. We don''t have bricks just laying around!"


    Running my hands through her hair, I smiled at the memory. Just after we returned from our ''stroll'' I sent Elia to rest while taking a knife out of the kitchen and going on a rampage.


    Out of the most essential materials for creating the cement that we were resting our heads against now, was powdered brickˇ­ Or rather, powdered, burned clay. While I was not even close to being capable of explaining why did system require it to make this special blend of the cement with its ultra-quick binding and durability nice enough to prevent normal people without tools from shattering it.


    "I would love to see his face when he realised it was you!"


    Just when I was busy dissecting the wall of the bakery, which was one of the rare buildings actually made out of brick instead of stone and mortar, the very owner of the building came out, and most likely mistook me for some unruly page or servant, trying to annoying him for laughs. While everything ended up with me just losing a single red golden to shut his mouth about the incident, I had to admit that when he jumped at me with his baking shovel my heart genuinely stopped for a moment!


    "Fancy a drink?"


    With this one anecdote done, I reached out to the side of the cart and picked up a huge mug poached from the palace kitchen this time. I found myself unable to adapt to various everyday aspects of the noble life, looking for better alternatives whenever I had the chance. And just like drinking wine from an expensive, glass cup adorned with small gems all over, sharing a cup of beer with a lively girl seemed like a much greater idea for me, especially how we were travelling on the infamous Polish roads, known to be the greatest tool against invasion, as they existed only on the maps and in travellers imagination.


    With how it was only for my private use, this time we could enjoy the absolutely best possible craft that the system could offer. Not only it was way stronger than even the previous drinks, reaching the borderline between beer and liquor, but its taste was also actually closer to that of fruity meads (drinkable honey, didn''t know it had specific English name) rather than an ordinary hop drink.


    "Surely I do!"


    Raising herself just like I did, Elia rested her back against my chest, forcing my free hand to rest on her shoulder. Rubbing herself against me for a bit in order to find the most comfortable position, she rudely slammer her hair right into my nose before finally settling in.


    "What about you guys?"


    Even with how strong this drink was, nothing would happen to my retainers if they were to drink a cup or two. Thinking about this, with how cold it was and how I was the only one having a girl snuggling into me for the sake of keeping ourselves warm, a proper drink could actually do them some good, even if I perfectly knew it was just a placebo.


    "Sure do, sir!"


    As expected, Al was the first one to react, instantly hurrying his horse to level himself with the carriage. Passing him the cup I just poured, I had to stop myself from screaming in angst when I saw him pouring the entire content of his mug inside his mouth.


    What a lack of appreciation for how insane this drink was!


    "That''s a nice mead!"


    Passing the cup back to me, Al commented once again making me all tense up from the rage.


    "Calm down, dear. Don''t expect simpletons to recognise the value of this drink!"


    Holding the only other cup that we had on the carriage, Elia took a sip before raising the mug towards my lips and letting me take a drink as I was busy with refiling the other one. At least, both Elemo and Jan Bezerian - her main guard - took their time while drinking this delicacy, showing the minimal amount of respect that the class of this liquor required.


    Swallowing the mouthful of the drink, I couldn''t help but let myself drown in the pleasure it provided. As the warmth spread from my lungs to my entire body, my mind was already slowing down to a comfortable speed, creating some weird ideas in my head.


    Recalling the times when my life was filled with cramming for university exams and wild parties with my colleagues, I saw a single action in front of my eyes. While I didn''t have any cigarettes or hand, nor any of my retainers had anything that could resemble it, the beer could be a good replacement for it!


    Using my free, left arm, I grabbed Elia''s hands cupped around the mug, and prompted them upwards. I didn''t even need to direct it right to my mouth, as this small gesture alone was enough for her to bring the brim of the container right to my lips and tilt it just enough for its content to flow to my mouth, without risking that first bump on the road would result in this precious drink spilling on our blanket.


    With my mouth filled with the beverage, I waited for Elia to drop her hands only to grab her chin, and raise it a bit, angling her face towards my own. Looking right into her curious eyes, I lowered my head, still holding her head in this exact position. With my lips smashing against hers, I dragged her chin down a bit to open her mouth, before allowing the beer to flow right from my mouth into hers.


    While she initially flinched in surprise, Elia obediently accepted the drink, allowing it to flow down her throat. By the time she already swallowed all the beer, our lips remained connected, with my tongue invading insides of her mouth as if it turned into an inspector looking for any trace of illegal alcohol in the hideout of her tongue.


    After a thorough body search of the convicted, my tongue finally left her mouth, even forced to struggle about her own as if the inspected body wasn''t sure whether it wanted to remain in captivity.


    With our lips finally separating, I could once again look at her face, only to notice a strange light in her eyes. After a moment of tranquillity when we were just watching into each other''s eyes, Elia twitched and raised her body from my chest, With her leg looming over my hips, she sat on top of my lap raising the mug to her own mouth. For a moment, I could watch her throat move as she swallowed a mouthful of the beer, before putting the empty cup aside and lowering her head over mine.


    Without a single word spoken, the alcohol buzzing in my bloodstream made me unable to refuse such invitation, eagerly accepting the touch of her lips, as this time she took the initiative to pour the alcohol directly into my mouth, lips to lips.


    Once again entering a moment of pleasure as we immersed ourselves in the deep kiss, all I could think about was the warmth of her body, tightly pressed against mine. Placing my hands on her waist, I continued to enjoy the softness of her mouth, only for this insane feeling to stop just as my body started to react to it in a proper way.


    As Elia distanced herself a bit from me, we once again gazed into the depths of our souls through the window of our eyes, before bursting with hearty laughter right after. With her giggle continuing, Elia relaxed her body, hiding her face in the corner between my shoulder and my neck.


    Grabbing her body into a proper hug under the blanket, I couldn''t stop myself from both laughing lightly and smiling at the same time. This moment was something completely incomparable to all the wild events that were taking place during the college parties I took part in. Maybe because of how relatively light the whole action of ours was, or maybe because neither of us could ever enjoy the wild nature of the stuff that used to happen at the parties I mentioned, just sharing a moment like that filled both of our hearts - as far as I could tell from her reaction to it at least - with joy.


    "Ekhm!"


    Before our simple hug could develop into anything else, a sudden snort right beside us served as a wake-up call for the both of us. After all, we were in the middle of the crappy road, surrounded by over fifty riders from literally all sides! Thinking about this, if we were to be unlucky enough for a bump to appear on the road as we enjoyed ourselves, instead of a pleasant moment, we could end up with broken teeth!

 31 An incident in the Tavern

    "Drink! Drink! Drink!"


    Sitting at the table in a roadside Tavern, I slowly enjoyed my cheap meal while observing the drinking game taking part just beside me. With all of the commoner militia, we took with us setting a camp in the field, as there was only a limited space in stables for sergeants and it would be improper for them to live in the Inn chambers like nobles, out of the entire party of almost fifty men, only seven of us in total could enjoy the warmth inside the building.


    "Chug it down!"


    Looking to the side while stuffing my mouth with the meat of some kind of bird that I couldn''t recognise just from its taste, I couldn''t help but be amazed at what was happening right beside us.


    Holding an entire garn of beer, a man dressed in monk''s robes was angling it higher and higher, while pouring its content directly into his mouth. With the accompaniment of the crowd''s cheering, the man finished the entire container and dropped it energetically on the ground.


    "Ahahaha! Pay up, sirs brothers! Pay up!"


    Without any delay, a massive noble stepped up with his lips spreading as far up as his facial muscles would allow. Jiggling his massive belly barely held together by its contus and supported by way thicker belt that I have seen in my life so far!


    When someone was happy, someone was bound to be sad. With their faces twisted in a grimace of annoyance, quite a bit group of the nobles pulled out various coins from their pouches before passing them to the fat noble.


    At the same time, the doors to the Inn opened up. As I looked to the side to check whether it wasn''t one of my servants going to report that something - according to the murphy''s law - went terribly wrong. Hopefully, this time instead of a message that my people burned the stables for some reason, it was just another, unfamiliar noble.


    "Greetings, gentlemen!" (Check author''s notes)


    Throwing out the standard greeting for the nobles, he was about to approach the Inn counter, when his eyes fell on the Elia, sitting right on my right side.


    "If it isn''t a young lady Elia! How come are you here? Are you by any chance tired of all your travels and intent on returning back to your home?"


    While it was unlucky to met someone who knew my fiance, considering how we were only two villages away from the Pilzno, it wasn''t all that unlikely. With no idea who that person was, I could only throw a peek at the girl to see how she would react to this reunion.


    "Greetings, sir... uncle!"


    Not even bothering to rise from the bench, Elia only nodded her head, as if in acknowledgement of her ''uncle''s'' presence. While I didn''t know her all that well with how we spent only about two weeks together, I was still able to notice a hint of displeasure on her face and in the way she almost instantly raised her cup to take a sip of our beer.


    Hearing him go and just spew whatever he wanted, I simply turned around on the bench, while still holding the mug and continued to stare at him intently while sipping on the drink.


    "Who the hell are you, servant, to look at me like that?! Know your place, trash!"


    Before anyone would react, this guy reached for the side of his waist, where the handle of his sabre was. Already expecting this outcome with how hesitant Elia was to call him in such a familiar way, I simply stepped forward and grabbed his right wrist with my left arm, while smashing my mug on his bald head.


    Despite being made out of fried clay, one had to have a really hard skull to not waver after such greeting! Taking a few steps back, the man grabbed his now bleeding forehead while trying to gather his thoughts and shake off the dizziness from my attack.


    "My fiancee clearly doesn''t want to talk to you. Thanks for giving me a reason to smash that ugly face of yours!"


    Still standing, I rested both of my hands on my hips and gazed at the bloodied guy as if I had a hard time recognising him.


    "Yeah. Looking at you now, it seems that I even improved your looks! Now you are only ugly, instead of having that detestable commoner''s face of yours!"


    There was no greater insult to a noble than to be called a commoner. Even if I didn''t do it directly, that was still enough to fire the flames of rage in my opponent''s eyes. Once again trying to reach for his sabre, I simply nodded my head. Before Elia''s self-proclaimed uncle could launch an attack on me, both Al, Elemo and Elia''s moble servants risen from their chairs with their hands menacingly resting on the handles of their sabres.


    After all, it would be unbecoming of me to take care of this sort of trash myself, when I had the people ready to do it for me!


    "Pax, brothers! Pax!"


    Stepping forward, the fat noble I noticed before, moved right between my party and the angered noble, with his hands spread out as far as he was capable of spreading.


    "I know that this evening would be wasted without some bloodshed, but please, consider how others would feel about it! My dear cousin can''t really handle the sight of blood that well!"


    Moving one of his hands to the man who proved how resilient his head was before, the fat noble attempted to mediate the conflict away. And his words would actually make sense, if that ''cousin'' of his, didn''t have a wild look in his eyes with his right arm holding a small nadiak (nadziak/horseman''s pick, check author''s notes). Considering those two factors, it was hard for me to believe the words of the fat noble!


    "I don''t mind stopping here, just don''t let this no one bother me or my people."


    Weighting the situation in my mind, I still decided to back off. Considering Elemo''s attitude, he should have his pistol already cocked and ready to fire, so no harm could come my way even if I showed my back to that alleged Elia''s uncle.


    Just as I sat back down on the bench with the intention to bask in Elia''s thankful stare while continuing to enjoy the cuisine of the periodˇ­


    "Kill!"


    With how the situation was developing, the one shouting could be only the bald noble who tried to provoke me before. Not bothering to turn around, I saw Elemo raising -just as I guessed - his pistol over the table, so I pushed Elia''s aside a bit while bending my body in the opposite direction to give my man a clear line for taking a shot. But right as Elemo raised his pistol high enough, he didn''t pull the trigger!


    Thump.


    THUMP!


    Instead of the loud bang of the firearm and the feeling of small bits of gunpowder smouldering my face, those two strangely familiar yet unexpected sound.


    Turning my head around, I saw the body of the Elia''s ''uncle'' lying in a pool of blood forming around what used to be his bald head. With how the entire tavern turned silent and motionless, the monk-like guy swinging his nadiak on a thin metal chain around, blasting droplets of blood at everyone around, instantly gained my attention.


    "Did heˇ­?"


    Turning my head back my people who actually had the chance to see what happened, I didn''t even need to finish my question, as the answer was already written on their faces.


    "Ehˇ­ I warned himˇ­ Didn''t I?"


    Standing beside the corpse which hand was postmortem tightening around the handle of his half-exposed sabre, the fat noble shook his head.


    After this remark, the entire Tavern returned to its normal life. A bunch of servants instantly appeared and dragged the body away, with others wiping the floor out of the blood and bits of the brain that this monk''s sprayed on the entire floor with his accurate hit.


    In this age, death wasn''t something that nobles or even commoners wouldn''t be familiar with, so instead of raising a big commotion, some of the guests actually raised their cups in acknowledgement for the monk-like guy''s skill! After all, killing someone with just a single hit wasn''t that easy, even while using nadiak!

 32 They dont have i

    Raising from my seat, I took one of the empty mugs standing abandoned of the table, filled it with the beer we brough to the tavern to have something nice to drink instead of saving on the local liquors, and approached the monk-like guy.


    "Thanks for stepping in. While I didn''t see your attack, being able to get rid of this guy in a single moveˇ­ That was amazing!"


    Passing the mug with the beer directly to the monk''s hand, I continued smiling at him, yet I didn''t receive even a single sign that he even heard my words. Less for an actual response, he simply stared at me with his dead-drunk eyes, as if unable to recognise my figure as that of a human, making him wonder why does the wall talks to him.


    "Forgive him, sir brother. I got him out in the world after he was expelled from the inquisition boot camp in order to find him some other way in his life, but it seems the only thing he picked out from those damned monks was his love for wine!"


    Looking sternly at his cousin, still holding on to the mug I passed to him as if after the previous achievement with the entire garn of beer made him either unable to drink anything more, or unwilling to accept such small quantities.


    "His way of operating the nadiakˇ­ Did he learned it there?"


    While hearing the word ''inquisition'' would get any leftist or less educated person fired up, this was actually the topic that my history teacher in middle-school used to get me to love the history in the first place. That, and the fact that she was playing damned rock and metal song of the greatest bands to ever exist, right on the corridor during the breaks between the schooling periods!


    But speaking about the inquisition, the fact that the fat noble mentioned it would make anyone else instantly think that this nadiak skill was bound to be taught on the campˇ­ But it couldn''t be further from the truth! Even when speaking about legendary Spanish inquisition, during the entirety of its existence, spanning over four centuries, sources said that they executed at most, ten thousand people. Most of which, were executed only theoretically, with the portrait of the convict being burned on the stake instead of the real human.


    The historical facts turned even funnier when one looked at proper inquisition, who was blamed by certain people of killing over five million women in the mad rush of witchhuntˇ­ What those people didn''t realise, that this number would mean killing literally everyone in the English Kingdom of that time while following the futuristic ideology and forcing all the males to reconsider their gender! And even with that, there would be still huge groups of France and German princedoms missing in order to complete the headcount!


    Taking all those facts into account, I couldn''t help but wonder where did this guy picked up his skills with nadiak? After all, while Spanish inquisition already existed, it was nothing more than just a regional thing at this time!


    "Of course not!"


    As if my question struck a painful point on the fat noble''s pride, almost making him air-lock himself. After taking a moment to calm his heart down, he looked at his cousin with the pity and explained.


    "It was his bloodthirst and love to wine that made him lose the chance to become an honoured persecutor!"


    This word was one of the pillars of the future misunderstandings connected to the inquisition. While in modern age persecutor was tasked with proving one''s quilt, becoming one in the papal inquisition, meant using every tool at your disposal to prove that the convict wasn''t a heretic! The only remnants of this function remained in the highest tier of Catholic court in a position of ''devil persecutor'' who was tasked with proving that someone who was about to be acknowledged as a saint, did something that made him unable to obtain the title!


    "Ah, forgive me, my lack of manners. Mike from Tarnow, of the Leliwa crest."


    Since we already started talking and this monk-type of guy managed to pique my interest, it would be rude of me to not introduce myself.


    "Jan Onfary from Kleck, of the Blue Cross with star crest, and this is my cousin, Kalen, whose mother, my sister, gave her soul to the almighty Lord during his birth. As his father died heroically during a defence of our lands from the Muscovites raid, I took the duty of his upbringing."


    A history like many others. Living in the white Ruthernia, nowadays still called a greater Lithuania, was bound with as many hardships as living at the southern outskirts of the commonwealth under the constant threat of Tatar raids.


    But being a landowner like this guy, meant that he had some power to his side! Seeing him out in the field with up to only several companions, as I didn''t see any other big unit in the tavern outside of mine, meant that he either couldn''t afford or just didn''t want to bring them with him!


    "So, as you said before, you are looking for a way to force him into real-life after he returned from the monastery? How about making him serve under me?"


    While I couldn''t help but dream about owning a unit of legendary hussars, that wish was as far from realisation as being crowned as the King of the Commonwealth. If I were to sell everything that I currently own, I might be able to afford a small unit of ten to fifteen of hussars at most!


    In this situation, being able to get such a skilled fighter on my side, would not only boost my strength in the short term in my journey to take Pilzno over, but I could put him into use in all sorts of fields later on!


    "That would be awesome. I heard a lot about your ancestor, and even if only a small part of his genius remained in your blood, making him serve under you could at least allow him to see a bit of the normal, secular worldˇ­ It''s just that he doesn''t want to have anything to do with nobility or servitude! I even created a chance to him to serve as viceroy for panzer banner under the Ostros prince, yet he still refused!"


    Ostros princesˇ­ One of the major households in the eastern part of the Commonwealth, the ones that should own the Tarnow right now if not for my appearance. The ones that left their name engraved in the history of the entire country beside such a great figure like soon to be born, Jarema Cherrysy(wi?niowiecki, I won''t ask you to spell it)


    "I will serve under him."


    Out of nowhere, the monk-like guy spoke for the first time, after separating his lips from the edge of the mug. With his former, absent look in the eyes already gone, I could see a lively intelligence bursting through his pupils as if some kind of energy appeared in his soul.


    "What made you change your mind? It''s quite surprising since my capabilities are nowhere as great as what Ostros prince could offer you!"


    I couldn''t help but be surprised by his readiness to work under me. If I were to choose between owning the Tarnow and serving under Ostrosˇ­ I would still pick ruling the city, but that wouldn''t be an easy decision!


    "They didn''t have such great wine."


    As if it was the most obvious reason in the world, Kalen replied and raised the mug again, taking another sip without a care in the world for the stunned faces of everyone that was listening to the discussion I had with the Jan Onfary.

 33 Evening at the sleeping chamber

    "That wasˇ­ a strange situation, to say the least."


    With how many various nobles were in the tavern thanks to the proximity of the bustling trading town like Pilzno, there was simply no humanly chance to get two, separate chambers for me and Eila, forcing us to share both the room and the bed.


    Considering the fact that we were officially supposed to marry, there shouldn''t be anything wrong with this, but with the alcohol that prompted our previous forwardness diluted to the point where it no longer could affect our thinking, the situation between us turned tense.


    "I didn''t expect such a skilled andˇ­ quirky noble to travel so far just to for the sake of finding employment. Strange are the ways that Lord lead everyone through."


    With Kalen instantly poaching two garns worth of my beer, we were left with only a single unopened barrel, and barely as much as Kalen took for the two of us. While others might consider it quite a lot, after all, eight litres worth of relatively strong beer was way more than enough to turn even a drunkard in his beloved state of mind after what happened on the carriage, neither of us was ready to just drink our shyness away.


    "Okay, let''s stop it right now."


    Sitting almost at the opposite ends of the room, I rested on a chair beside a small table, while Elia occupied the bed, with her legs curled under the rest of her body, as she observed every single move of mine with wariness in her eyes.


    "If we continue to act like damned children, neither of us will catch any sleep. And let''s not forget, tomorrow is an important day!"


    Thankfully or sadly, depending on how I was thinking about it, Elia wasn''t either repulsive nor was she a one-in-a-century beauty. With howˇ­ normal she was, I was forced to look at her through the lens of what I learned about her since we first metˇ­ And it was pushing me strangely towards liking her! Maybe because she was entirely different from both the cold beauties and open sluts of the modern-day I hailed from, but there was this refreshing feeling to almost anything she would do or say, making me enjoy her company more and more with each passing day.


    "Yeah, you are right. It''s a rare chance to drink something so nice, so pour me some if you would be so kind."


    Hearing her request, I silently grabbed the mug from the table and submerged it in the small barrel that held all that was left from the normal barrel we opened almost the same moment we passed through the gates of my castle, back in Tarnow. Instead of passing her the drink right away, I only slightly leaned towards her, making it impossible for either of us to reach far enough to pass the cup, before raising my head and asking while looking her directly into the eyes with a dead-serious expression.


    "With a cup, or directly to your mouth?"


    Standing up, I passed the cup to her hand, still watching her face through the tears of joy brimming in my eyes.


    "I''m sorry, I''m sorry, I couldn''t help myself!"


    Ignoring her mute reproach, I moved back to the chair, grabbed the small barrel and was about to drink from it directly, before Elia''s gesture stopped me.


    With one of her hands raised in the common gesture of halting someone by showing them the palm of their extended hand, she downed the entire cup in one go, before moving up from the bed and approaching me. This time, instead of mounting me like a horse as she did back on the carriage, she simply sat sideways on my lap, reaching with the cup to the barrel.


    "Don''t look at me like that! Aren''t we supposed to get married?"


    Saying those words while looking at me with a complicated expression on her face as she passed the cup to my hand, Elia rested her side on my upper body and sighed.


    "You know that this isn''t as easy as you put it out to be."


    Taking a hearty sip from the mug, I lowered my hand and rested it on Elia''s thigs. Compared to how modern people would consider this as an already lewd act, it was something that happened completely naturally, as if her thigs were simply on the way for a completely natural movement of my body.


    "Don''t you like the idea though?"


    Turning her face away from the reach of my sight, she silently asked, while placing her hand on top of mine. Maybe because of all the events that happened to me, only now did I fully realise how close she was. Form the sweet smell of her body, mixed with a minuscule, acidic note of sweat, through the softness of her legs resting on top of mine, all the way to the nice curve of her upper body right in front of my eyesˇ­


    If something like our current situation were to happen in modern time, it would lead only to a single outcome, yet right now, I felt as if trying my chances with her would be sort of sacrilege to how she was finally opening to me.


    Yeah, we knew each other for a few days already, but outside of the usual bantering and exchanging either small talk or laughing together, we never really had the chance to just spend some time together, without really trying to keep up the appearances.


    "That question isn''t easy either, you know this."


    While I said it, I was most likely even more hurt by this sentence than she would if she started to develop some feelings for me during the time we knew each other. Looking at the things in the simplest way, marrying her for real would be a political waste. With the lineage of a great noble behind me, I could easily vie for the spot at the table with other major nobles, so settling down for someone like her, with only a single city to her wealth and power, would be akin to trading a house for a luxurious car.


    Even though the car might be valuable, it would lose its worth over a short amount of time, while the price of the house would continue to grow. Speaking in strictly political terms, marrying her would count as anything else than a loss!


    But even though my ambitions were great, this simple moment of slight skinship between the two of us was enough to remind me that I was still a human. Maybe it was the influence of the period and how historians would look at it in the future, but so far, I never actually thought what I wanted to do with my new life here.


    While it was true that I instantly jumped into various schemes aimed at growing my powerbase and raising my chances of coming out of interregnum stronger instead of weaker, I never bothered to think what I really wanted to achieve in the long term!


    Sure, power and wealth were great to have, but in the end, they were only a tool to achieve one''s needs, not the target in itself!


    "Is that a no, then?"


    Replying in a silent voice, so soft I wouldn''t even be sure if she really said it if not for the slight movement of her cheeks, Elia was about to retract her hand from mine, when I actually grabbed her waist with my free, right hand, and lightly hugged her closer to me.


    "It is, I don''t know. While I like you a lot, I just didn''t pay enough attention to this matter to say anything with certainty. I don''t want to give you a half-baked response after all."


    With her soft body softly pressing against my torso, I shook off her handˇ­ only to raise my cup and take a sip myself. Putting the mug away on the table, I grabbed her hand between my thumb and my palm and started playing with it lightly.


    "I don''t mind giving you even more reasons to consider it, right nowˇ­"


    Turning her face for the first time since she sat on my lap back to me, I could see how her eyes were still wet from the tears she had to usher at some point of our discussion, yet instead of sadness, her pupils were filled with determination instead.


    "Right now, is not the best moment. How about returning to this topic when we will chase away your step-family from your lands? You could show me around your bedroom then."


    Raising my left hand from her palm, I wiped the wetness from under Elia''s eyes, while gracing her with a soft, and genuine smile.


    At first, she grabbed my wrist and hugged her head to my hand, only for her calm expression to be replaced with a small, mischievous smile, as she grabbed the mug from the table and brough it to her lips.


    "How would you prefer your beer sir, from the cup? Or maybeˇ­"

 34 Missing part of the scheme

    Despite how crucial this day would be, I felt absolutely no pressure as we rode through the open gates of the city of Pilzno. Separating my entire group into two units, with Kalen and Jan following with the majority of my troops and carriage, and only me, Elia and my trusted retainers entering the city just like that.


    Common sense dictated that any major group had to be checked, and if the news of lord from Tarnow approaching with a huge group would reach the ears of Elia''s family, they would obviously prepare something to secure their position. But if the entire group posing as trade caravan were to be lead by a noble from far north, no one would bat an eye!


    The layout of the city was insanely similar to both Tarnow and Krakow, taking a shape of a water droplet, with its thicker part resting on the bank of the river, while its sharp end protruding into the open plain. With the trade route cutting right in the middle of the city, we entered from the west gate. A group of four nobles might not be common, but it definitely wasn''t something strange.


    "So, we are going to stay in the city Tavern orˇ­?"


    It was the very first sentence that Elia uttered after the events from the morning. Just like the last time, with our minds hazy from all the alcohol we drank, we continued the same sort of fun that we discovered on the carriage until every single drop of beer was goneˇ­ Only to enjoy ourselves some more later on! Thankfully, be it the drunkness or a shred of surviving common sense, I somehow managed to detach myself from her lips before it was too late.


    In the end, we cuddled each other to the sleep, both happy with the results of the evening. But it didn''t mean everything was all right in the morning!


    Just like she did when we first slept together on the carriage, Elia put herself on the guard once again, despite not even a single move made by me either through the last evening or the night!


    "Yeah. We need to leave our horses there, and then we will pay a visit to the lord of thisˇ­. To the current protector of the city. If everything will go as I want, we might even secure a meeting with the town''s mayor."


    Instead of trying to duke it out with Elia''s family straight away, it would be infinitely simpler to just visit the town''s mayor, explain the situation to him and after acquiring a paper background for our claim, we would simply chase away the occupants of the local palace.


    "Oh? I thought you would want to instantly burst into their quarters and demand justice for meˇ­ There goes my knight of a white horseˇ­"


    "Wait, I just realised something."


    Hopping off the horse, I passed the reins to Al before turning back to Eila.


    "Get the horses to the stable, and meet with me at the magistrate in about an hour."


    Without waiting for her response, I dashed away towards the market street, with colourful shops decorating its sides. To prevent the horses from dirtying the stones of the street, the tavern was located right beside the gate, with the trading street extending all the way to the other side of the city wall where the opposite gate was. Unless we were willing to just skim through the city and get to the other side, no matter if we were the nobles, it was forbidden to ride a horse on the streets.


    Looking around, I couldn''t help but notice the stark difference between my current reality and modern times. While in the future, shops would create an insane composition in their front to bait new customers into entering, craftsmen of this age never could complain about lack of work, allowing them to limit their shopfronts to just a simple sign indicating what kind of trade its owner cultivated.


    After passing through the smith with an obvious anvil on the sign hanging above the simple, bricked wall, inner-city tavern discernable just by the jovial voices startling everyone passing beside it even at such an early hour, and a few more shops that were differed only with the markings on the doors and image on their sign, I finally found the place I was looking for.


    Compared to the other shops where people were coming in and out without even a moment of hesitation, the doors leading to this particular one were closed. Knocking on them a few times, I waited for a moment only for a burly man to open the doors and look at me as if I raped his daughter and now came asking for dowry.


    "What?"


    Not bothering with any pleasantries even after seeing my clothes, the burly, bald man in front of me already reached for something hidden behind the planks of the iron reinforced doors just in case my answer wouldn''t please him.


    "I need an engagement ring."


    Apparently, this was one of the answers that didn''t activate this man''s trap card, with how his expression changed to an amicable one, with all the previously tense facial muscles suddenly relaxing as he graced me with as kind as a repulsive smile.


    "Dear customer, please, come in!"


    The moment I passed through his big body akin to the kind of people who thought that the strength alone would grant them victory on every battlefield, this small giant shut the doors behind me and secured them with a sizeable iron slab.


    Compared with s simple knob that most of the doors around the world use, this place was closer to a fortress than a simple shop! But considering how many expensive materials were lying around here, all those precautions were warranted.


    "Welcome to the Pilznian Goldsmithy, Royal Ring. How can I help you?"

 35 Intricate job

    "I came here with quite aˇ­ peculiar request."


    Like most of the craftsmen shop around this time and place, instead of coming in to buy something, potential customers were supposed to visit those places for the sake of ORDERING something to be made. Just from the fact that the owner of this place greeted me without even raising his eyes from the complicated machinery that I was unable to even name, spoke wonders about how busy this kind of people was.


    With all the guilds setting various rules, limitations, taxes and tests, becoming a master of the craft was an insanely hard achievement, making the fruits of their work all the more expensive and sought for. Compared to the modern times when one could produce thousands if not millions of the uniformly looking items after setting a proper factory, here, every piece of jewellery, most of the clothes and basically anything that wasn''t supposed to be discarded right after use, was made by craftsmen like him!


    "Hmm? My ears are all open."


    Still not raising his eyes from the complicated machinery consisting of lenses, plates, forks and even more parts that were too complicated for me to even figure out what I could compare them with, the goldsmith continued to operate with his tools, allowing me to see how intricate his craft was.


    "Iˇ­ I need an engagement ringˇ­"


    "I heard that already boy, get to the point."


    With a slight pause appearing in my sentence just from how stunning was the sight of this master working, I attempted to explain myself only to be interrupted by the old man in front of me. For the first time since I appeared in this world or timeline, I was genuinely at loss about what I was supposed to say!


    "Today."


    With how busy that elderly man was, if I failed to gain his attention fast, he would simply disregard my request. With that said, using a simple world that broke all the rules according to which craftsmen worked, seemed like a good idea.


    "Excuse me, what did you say?"


    Finally raising his head from the machinery he was using, goldsmith moved the grey hair that fell on his eyes before looking at me seriously.


    "I need a golden, engagement ring, not only for today but right away. If you have something you uses to flaunt your undeniable skills, I can settle for it as well."


    While all my points from before about how craftsmen were working on order instead of preparing stuff in advance, most of them still kept hold of their best creations, either with hopes of selling it for a greatly overrated price or just to leave some memorandum after they would pass on their craft to their apprentices.


    Despite how I could already imagine how light my money bag would become after saying those words, with how this entire city was on the line, I had no other choice than to treat it as an investment.


    "HIssˇ­ And who is the happy girl that warrants such dedication, if I may ask, my lord?"


    As if only now did this man notice my robes distinctive to my social class, he asked. Just those words alone were enough to make the future of my money purse even lighter.


    "I''m not sure if you know herˇ­ but is nameˇ­"


    Taking a short break here in order to built a bit of the tension, I looked at the goldsmith in hopes of gauging how stupid revealing that fact would be.


    "... Elia, familiar to you?"


    As if lightning struck this place! Or not really. While I hoped for some kind of great reaction, this old guy was way too old and experienced to get excited with something like this, but he still revealed a slight smile.


    "So this young lass is finally going to marryˇ­"


    Stroking his beard in the same shade of greyness as his hair, but somehow glistering in the dim light of candles inside the room as if years of working with gold-infused his facial hear with its minuscule particles, goldsmith''s sight alternated between his machine, someplace deeper into the shop and my face before he suddenly stood up with a vigour that I would never attribute to him.


    "I will do it. Wait here for a few moments."


    With the master of this place leaving, I was stuck with his bodyguard alone. Just two minutes later, I already learned that not only he wasn''t a local, but he also wasn''t a Commonwealth citizen in the first place! With my complete lack of ability to speak German, not to mention, ancient german at that, I could only assume that he was once a mercenary here, hired by the goldsmith after his troop got disbanded and forced to learn all the Polish words connected to the trade of this place, and some basic conversation.


    Sadly, with his vocabulary as limited as his drive for turning even bigger that I could see from how he constantly chomped on a slice of dried meat that this small giant was pulling from god-alone-knows-where, there was no way to strike even a basic small talk with him.


    At least, the craftsman journey didn''t last long, with him returning after barely a quarter of an hour, with something that I could only call a piece of art.


    "I still need to add some modifications for it to fit her fingers perfectly and all, so just wait here for a little longer. By the way, how tall she is right now?"


    This one question that I marked as a simple curiosity at first, turned out to a complete form of various requests that even I, with all my modern knowledge, found hard to connect to the craft. But despite my doubts, this old man ended up with a satisfied look on his face after wringing all sorts of information from me before sitting down in front of his mysterious machinery and placing the ring he brough in the middle of it.


    With how it already looked not like a simple ring, but a set of seven different pieces intervened with each other while keeping their slightly different shades. Even after trying to observe the actions of the old man with all my attention, I still missed what he was trying to do with this already insane ring.


    Nevertheless, after exactly fifteen minutes, goldsmith stood up from his chair and moved the ring to one of the simply adorned, small boxes that he simply pulled out of what looked like a closet.


    "It will be twenty red goldens. Normally, I would sell it for a much higher price, but you can consider it as a gift from me for the young lass."

 36 Small discord

    Walking through the streets of Pilzno never felt so easy, now that the serious weight got lifted from my belt. Since no place was free from poachers, I held the small box tightly in my fist as I walked towards the town''s magistrate.


    Without any surprise, both Elia and the rest of my people were already waiting at one of the benches set around the entire plaza, under the shade thrown by the sizeable, gothic-looking building.


    "It took you a while, what happened?"


    Stepping forward, Al asked only to be pushed back by Elia as she dashed towards me and hugged me tightly.


    "Don''t scare me like that!''


    Pretty dumbfounded, I had no idea what happened nor what should I say. Taking a stroll through the city was pretty normal activity, so how could it lead making Elia worry?


    "Yyyˇ­ What happened?"


    Unable to formulate any reasonable logical connection between what happened, what was happening and their reaction to my arrival, I could only repeat unconsciously Al''s question, while accepting Elia''s hug and embracing her on my own.


    "You told one hour, but we all thought you will take a few minutes at most! Do you know how worried I was that my family found you and discovered the truth?"


    Before it was my comprehension that received a fatal hit, now it was my pride. Instead of worrying about me, she was worried about her own profit, tightly bound to me at this moment! While out entire relationship was fake from the very beginning, those few moments that we shared so far continued to eat away at my consciousness, slowly turning my perception of this silly girl from asset to be used, into a potential partner.


    "It seems that you forgot about one thing."


    After taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly to calm myself down, I pushed this unpleasant feeling away from my mind, before moving my hands behind my back as I wanted to look like those Chinese scholars, seniors and elder uncles when they wanted to present their superiority over someone else. But while this sort of action that I read about multiple times in most of the eastern novels I found back in the future, my moves were simply aimed at opening the box I held without revealing its content and grabbing the ring directly with my left hand.


    "Forgot? Nah, I think everything is going as planned, except for some guy showing up way later than he should, isn''t it?"


    While I still pondered over this choice when approaching the magistrate, after Elia explained her worries, all the doubts disappeared from my mind. I guess I was simply stupid for expecting anything more from this relationship. Give and take, that''s what we agreed upon at first, and that''s the full extent of how far we would go.


    "How do you want to pose a pair of lovebirds without a ring?"


    Not even bothering to watch her reaction when she would see how insane this ring was, I turned around and approached the doors on the magistrate. Initially, my head was full of dark thoughts from revenge, through sadness and at the indifference ending, this quick rollercoaster of emotions helped me to clear my thoughts and push all the useless matters aside.


    Pushing the doors open, I looked back, only to see Elia starting at the ring on her finger with a blank expression on her face, while both Al, Elemo and her own companions just stood there as if frozen in place, not sure how to respond.


    "Are you going to waste the entire day there? My adventure already pushed us a bit off schedule, come on."


    Even though I had this strange feeling of silly revenge when breaking the moment for Elia, I managed to suffocate this feeling before its hints could appear on my face. We came here to do business, so we had to focus on it!


    With the doors already open, I simply walked in and marched through the short corridor before arriving at a long counter, with a small gate right beside it, blocking the entrance deeper into the building.


    "How can I help you, sir?"


    Sitting behind the expensive, dark wood table, was a local secretary of sorts, tasked with both registering all the visitors and leading them to the respective departments where their task would be fulfilled.


    "I came here to have a talk with the city mayor."


    As I said to my companions before, there was no point in wasting time on any small games now. Every minute we spent in this city increased the chances of someone accidentally spotting and recognising Elia or her men, creating a risk Elia''s family learning about us.


    Even though I doubted they could do anything real to hinder my plans at this point, it was always better to remain the element of surprise, be it at battles or during this kind of schemes that we were now trying to implement.


    "And who might you be, sir, to request the meeting directly with the mayor?"


    There was no way that this secretary or whatever this kind of position was called in the current age, would allow any random noble to just visit one of the busiest and most important changes in the entire city. With how a great majority of nobility in OCmmonwealth were as rich as your everyday commoner, just flaunting one''s title wasn''t enough to warrant the meeting!


    "Mike from Tarnow, of the crest Leliwa with the company."

 37 Pressuring the mayor Part 1

    "It''s a pleasure to meet you in person, I''m Vlad, mayor of this magistrate. Please, have a seat."


    The city could be privately owned by a noble like it was a case for Pilzno or even Tarnow, but all cities and towns like that were required to house a magistrate and royal mayor. Strictly according to the law, mayor of private cities wasn''t in charge of the city, but of the magistrate located within its borders, and tasked with maintaining the status quo between the citizens and nobility.


    At least, that''s how it was supposed to work in the first place, but like everywhere, with the passage of time, this function evolved from a royal servant to a quasi-governor, with whom the nobles owning the place had to maintain a good relationship. After all, while they held the power over the magistrate and could in theory request to the King to change the mayorˇ­ In most of the cases, the crown would investigate what caused the strife instead!


    "Likewise."


    Sitting down as per Mayor''s invitation, I noticed with content that despite out positions as a noble and royal servant were considered to be the same, Vlad still remained standing for the time it took all of us to take a rest on the comfy chairs stacked around the room. If this guy were to look like I expected him to, I would insist on him taking the seat first due to his respectable ageˇ­ But to my own surprise, this guy turned to be only a few years older than me!


    "Would you like to have some tea? Or maybe you would fancy a coffee?"


    Most likely in an attempt to flaunt his wealth, this guy actually proposed us a coffee! I didn''t miss it only because so far, I didn''t have the chance to realise how I longed for it! Being an everyday commodity in the future, in my current reality, it''s worth was akin to its weight in a damned gold!


    "If it''s not too much trouble, I would love to have a cup of coffee. With two spoons of honey and a tad of milk if you would be so kind."


    While for everyone gathered in the office, this kind of request would be akin to a heresyˇ­ The big kind one, when one instead of arguing about some minor detail would preach that God wasn''t a divine being and pope was nothing more than just another secular ruler!


    With how expensive every single bean of the coffee was, people tend to va[lue it to no end, often classifying the blend as first brewing, second brewing, even up to a seventh brewing, where the remaining pasta would struggle to even colour the water dark! Asking to dilute the coffee with milk, and hide its perfect, strong taste with honey?


    But what could I do? I never liked black coffee! While it was only a part of my childhood misconception, whenever I wanted to drink something, I wanted to do it fast to sate my thirst. With my parents drinking said black coffee only in the traditional way, I grew up to associate the blackness of the coffee with the annoying grounds mixed evenly into the drink!


    Shouting lightly while trying to cover the look of extreme annoyance on his face, Vlad even used the chance to move his head and cover his face with his hand in order to take that bothered-to-no-end expression out.


    On the other hand, the rest of my company didn''t bother to hide the disgust from their faces, most likely trying to bank on the fact that only Elia was sitting beside me, with our retainers taking the back seat in the room!


    "Anyway, what brings you here in our humble abode, sir Mike and lady Elia?"


    While everyone was still waiting for the drinks to be served, Vlad finally asked about our reason for being here while proving that he was at least competent enough to recognise his lawful lord.


    Instead of explaining myself or the point of our mission here, I simply reached to the side, grabbed Elia''s hand and raised it above the desk that the mayor was sitting behind, showing him the ring on her finger.


    "Oh, that''s a beautiful ring you have, young lady! Is that by anyˇ­ chanceˇ­."


    Midway through his sentence, Vlad connected the points and stood up energetically, as if with the intention of snatching the ring from Elia''s hand, only to redirect his face and look at me with a weird look on his face.


    "Yes, it is. I hope you understand what it means for this city."


    Since I agreed with Elia to let her keep the rights and ownership of the city, I couldn''t just plainly explain it to the mayor. He had to make his own assumptions, basing on what little information I was going to fed him, while still making the choice I needed him to make.


    "Yesˇ­ Yesˇ­ I understand I''m just worried about what it means for this place."


    In the end, the rightful heir of this city was now marrying a local powerhouse. How would the step-family that so far governed it be able to stay there? Right now, Vlad could either support Elia''s family for the sake of keeping things how they used to be, but he would risk not only me pushing my claims forward anyway but also a serious punishment from the crown, as an official who betrayed his duty. On the other hand, supporting my side of this incoming conflict would put the city he ruled at risk of unrest!


    No matter which way he turned, there was someone ready to fuck him up!


    "Excuse me!"


    Just as I was about to explain what sort of countermeasures I prepared for the sake of Elia''s family trying to stop me from taking over the city, Vlad''s secretary pushed the small side-doors with her butt, careful to not spill any drop from the multiple cups she was carrying on a silver platter.


    Diffusing the tension with her slightly clumsy behaviour, she didn''t care about the papers stacked on mayor''s desk, placing the platter right on top of them, before proceeding to pass the cups around the room.


    "Would you be so kind as to bring me some hot water?"

 38 Pressuring the mayor part 2

    As soon as I received the ceramic cup - a sign of the wealth of this magistrate - I asked the secretary for a favour. I was in this world for only about two, three weeks, for now, so my desire for a coffee wasn''t strong enough yet to make me lose my mind over it!


    "Sure, give me a moment, sir!"


    Waiting for her to finishing serving the drinks to everyone and leave the room, I observed the surroundings in search for something that could serve as a good example for one of the incentives I was going to offer to the mayor to sway him to our side.


    With the girl leaving and my eyes locking on a set of antique-looking polearms on the wall of the room, I stood up and approached the mayor''s desk.


    "I understand what is going on through your head right now. Let me explain the situation properly to you then."


    Taking a sip of the drink, I felt a pleasant warmth spreading through my entire body, only to be hit by the rush of the energy right after. Right, this body is not as used to caffeine as the one I possessed back in modern times, making its effects far greater than what I expected! With my mind clearing up in a single second, I lightly placed the cup on Vlad''s desk before turning to the polearms I saw a moment ago.


    "First thing first, I have a group of about fifty men ready to enforce our claims at any given moment. To be honest, if I don''t give them a signal in time, they will start making their way towards the heiress palace, in order to force her family into doing as told."


    Firing the first shot, I didn''t even bother looking at the mayor, approaching the wall instead and taking the polearms from the handles they were hanging from. Turning my head to the Elemo, I nodded, only for him to recover a small pouch from his belt.


    "Secondly, the most obvious thing. Elia is the true owner of this place, and if you decide to stand against her, I will make sure that the news of it will reach the ears not only of the Governor but the King himself."


    As one of the major nobles on the provincial scale, I could contact the governor as I wished. While he ruled the entire place, the hierarchical structure of the Commonwealth still made him equal to me in theory, and my patron in reality.


    "As for the third thingˇ­"


    Instead of explaining what I had in mind, I simply rested the polearms against the Governor''s table, picked my cup and took another sip, just in time for the secretary fo Vlad''s to return with a small cup of water.


    "You need to judge the benefits of it by yourself. And trust me, it has way more uses than you could ever come up with!"


    Placing now empty yet still dirty cup away, I grabbed the other lance and pushed its ending against the wet part of its sibling weapon. With only a small layer of the thick liquid in place to hold them together, I had to wait with both of them angled properly to make a straight line for a few minutes, while exhaling my breath right on top of it. Barely two minutes later, the construct was now stable enough for me to put it back on the table and place two stacks of the papers from Vlad''s desk on the dry part of the handle, to serve as a counterweight to the blades hanging down from the desk.


    "Keep them like that for about half an hour, then make your decision. We will wait for as long in front of the magistrate."


    With those words, I simply stood up and by pulling on Elia''s hand, making sure that she would leave as well. I had no idea what kind of ideas might come to her pretty head without my supervision, and with how she had no idea what this grey dust really was, I preferred it to stay this way for now.


    "Are you sure we should stay out in the open?"


    Opening her mouth for the first time since she received the ring, Elia inquired about quite a reckless part of my plan.


    "At this point, it doesn''t really matter. With or without Vlad''s help, we will take this place. Even if your family learns about our presence in the city, as long as we are officially registered in magistrate''s book of guests, they can''t do anything against us. What''s more, if they are too dumb to realise this, we still have my retinue, waiting for the first sign of trouble to pick up the arms and turn this place into hell."


    Right now, I wasn''t really bothered by her previous action. Turning this whole thing into a simple business matter, allowed me to detach myself emotionally from the matter, and have a better look at the things from a calmer point of view.


    There was no point hiding anymore. The worst thing that could happen, would be Elia''s family attempting to take her or my own life, giving me the casus beli necessary to turn this place from a prosperous trade city with a proper income of its own to just an outlet of wares from Tarnow, only increasing the overall income directed to my treasury. Either way, I would win, so why bother trying to win by a landslide?


    But with all that said, I still was quite sure that as long as Vlad had any bit of competence hidden behind his bald head, he wouldn''t refuse my offer, not when seeing what this modern and enriched cement of mine could do. While the most optimal time required for it to finishing binding would be two hours, it reached the first peak of its durability after just half of an hour, allowing me to use this four times smaller time frame to convince the mayor to its usability.


    Compared with currently used mortar, not only was it way stronger even after just half an hour, making it impossible to just crush it scoop the soft insides, it didn''t require two entire days to even start working properly, not to speak that even during its binding time, it was already resistant to most of the elements!


    Just as soon as the tower''s bell started ringing the full hours, and assistant came out of the magistrate building with a piece of paper held high in the air.


    "Message from the Mayor!"


    Shouting madly as if his life depended on it, the young boy ran towards me, before passing a piece of paper with mayor''s stamp on its bottom, before excusing himself and running back to the building.


    "And?"


    While she attempted to put a brave front, from how her hands were shaking, Elia was clearly nervous. After all, the content of this letter would decide whether she would take over the city in a rather peaceful matter, or through quite a lot of potential bloodshed.


    After reading through the content of the letter, the corners of my lips crawled upwards on my face, as I rolled the paper and put it behind my belt.


    "Mayor signed the transfer of the rights to the city on you."

 39 Meeting the mother

    The entire city had a layout of the droplet of water, with its sharp end pointing at the north, along the bank of the nearby river, while the thick side governed the marshes of the south. As the main road cut through the middle of the city, right after the line of taverns, stables and other necessary service buildings, it followed a short, wide path between two bulks of houses and shops, only to let the traveller step out to the town''s plaza.


    Spanning around fifty meters in each direction, it formed almost a perfect square, with the magistrate and church at its south and north end, and an orderly line of shops, and small mansions decorating the remaining outline of the plaza.


    With the letter from the mayor now in my hand, I didn''t bother to hide our presence, cutting right through the middle of this open space. Not only was this a form of a declaration to any possible watchful eyes if there were any, but also a hint for my own troops to join us in the parade.


    "This way."


    Taking the lead of our group, Elia moved to the front, guiding us through the open space towards one of the bigger buildings beside the plaza. Spanning over thirty meters from the front of the city, I couldn''t even tell how deep into the city it extended, yet it already turned obvious how stupidly large it was. Just by selling half of its size for the craftsmen use, one could boost the economy of this city by quite a bit!


    But taking the fact that this city was the sole fief of Elia''s family, it became obvious why even her father who most likely built this mansion in the first place, was soo eager to showcase his own importance with the size of his home. I guess, compensating for one''s insecurities was as common in the future as it was now.


    After reaching the doors, most of my men already joined out the triumphant march of sorts, and Elia simply pushed the doors open, as if entering her own home. Well, in fact, she did.


    "Who''s there?"


    Stepping inside right after her with my hand already placed on top of the handle of my sabre, I saw a servant lurking out of the corridor and entering the same hall we did after passing the doors.


    "Lady Elia..?"


    As if he was unable to believe what he saw, his face at first lighted up with clear happiness, only for his expression to turn sour and terrified when he realised the meaning behind her homecoming.


    "Hello, Neren. How was life going when I was away?"


    Instead of putting herself on the guard, Elia openly smiled, with her body moving as if she wanted to just drop the act, run towards the guy and give him a fullhearted hug. Thankfully, she regained her composure before she would lose the last bit of noble face she had in front of all my men, and nodded her head, greeting the old retainer of hers.


    "Oh, ever since young lady leftˇ­ In short, it was hard."


    "And those gentlemen are?"


    As if only now did he notice us, he was clearly torn between approaching Elia and keeping a safe distance from the rest of us. While I couldn''t blame him in this particular situation - after all, a group of around fifty men suddenly invaded the house he was serving for - but I couldn''t help but wonder, how did no one notice Elia''s ring before I would point it out to them!


    "Please, welcome my husband-to-be, Mike of the Tarnow, of the Leliwa Crest."


    Turning her entire body to the side, Elia pointed at me with an open palm, while gracing me with a cheerful smile. Maybe it was because she finally came back to her home, or maybe because of the joy of finally getting rid of those who attempted to claim their inheritance, but her entire body was oozing happiness at this moment.


    "What''s this commotion!"


    Suddenly, out of the main corridor cutting through the entire mansion and leading to both of its wings, a middle-aged woman stepped out. With her robes screaming nobility in everyone''s face, I could even recognise some of the materials they were made off. Not because I was any knowledgable in this particular field, but because velvet was one of those particular materials, that once insanely expensive, turned affordable to everyone with the power of industrialisation.


    Just a single look at her would bring one the image of the bad step-mother from the always-popular cinderella story, with her face already twisted with the wrinkles that brough the corners of her mouth down, and created a deep, constant frown on her forehead.


    "Welcome, Step-mother. I hope you have been well."


    With her voice oozing irony as her face twisted in hate, Elia gave a small curtsey that I would never suspect her to be capable of performing, before once again raising her hand towards me.


    "I would like you to meet Mike. As we already promised ourselves to each other, I think you ought to call him the lord of this place!"


    With a triumphant smile pushing away her previous hateful expression, Elia looked at me with a smile soo cheerful and grateful at the same time, that she almost managed to shake my determination to keep this mater non-personal.


    Almost.


    "Let me introduceˇ­"


    Just as I wanted to properly explain who I am and why she should pack her things up before my men would help her, she raised her hand as if she had the right to silence me before she cut right in the middle of my sentence.


    "I don''t care who this brute is, but if you don''t get the hell out of my house, I''m sure the town''s guards will help you!"

 40 Family feud part 1

    From the way this woman reacted, it became fairly obvious that either she already knew who I was and what was our intention of coming here, or if she lacked the crucial information required to make this conjunction, she simply saw Elia coming back with the assistance of enough guards to rid her of the mansion.


    Either way, she was put on the spot, and her reaction was just as silly as excusable.


    "By guards, you mean those governed by the mayor?"


    Instead of letting her rampage and do whatever she wanted, I decided to be kind and refrain from ordering my people to knock and bind her down. After all, no matter how she acted, my actions would only reflect my own character.


    "And who else? I''m the guardian of this city, and no brute will ever dare to invade my home! Naran, go call the guards! And you, sweetie, where do you thinkˇ­"


    Just like she butted in my part earlier, I simply picked the scroll from behind my belt and unrolled it in front of her eyes, completely ignoring whatever she was trying to achieve with her words.


    "You mean those guards that are serving directly under the mayor of the town that officially concluded your part as the guardian over my fiancee''s inheritance. Effective with the moment of signing."


    While I flashed the paper right before the woman''s eyes, I made sure to keep it just far enough to prevent her from snatching it away. Even if it wouldn''t change anything in the long run, I didn''t want to prolong it over the time necessary to finish this matter.


    "Fiancee? And how dare you claim my daughter just like that! Who even are you to think you can marry into such an ancient and powerful family like mine?!"


    With the guards'' card already forced out of her hand, this woman decided to attack me from the other side. In fact, if she were to prove that I was using Elia for the sake of obtaining wealth alone, even more so with the use of military strength, no court in the commonwealth would ever take my side!


    "I was going to introduce myself earlier. You only have your own rudeness to blame, but if you are that curious, then let me tell you who I am!"


    Pulling the paper, back from the front of her face, I made sure it was safely stored behind my belt, before gesturing at Elemo. If she wanted to contend in terms of majesty and power, then introducing myself would have a smaller effect than being announced by one''s retainer.


    "Meet Mike from Tarnow, of the ancient herb of Leliwa, the firstborn son of the great Hetman Tarnowski, Lord of the City of Tarnow, Protector of Saint Martin Castle, ruler of the Tarnowian district and governor of the Tarnowian area, titular heir to the southern Sandomir, deputy of the land senate of the Tarnowian lands, and first and foremost, crown deputy of the pancer banner!" (*)


    While no lightning struck this place nor the earthquake saved Elia''s mother from the situation, she still somehow managed to retain her attitude, ready to overshout anyone daring to refuse her claims.


    "I don''t care what kinds of titles do you possess! I already promised Elia to someone else soˇ­"


    At this point, I couldn''t take her nagging any longer. I already had my fill of entitled people thinking that if they shout loud enough, everything would go their way. Without even ordering my people toˇ­ calm her down, I stepped forward and sent a literal slap through her face.


    In many novels that I read, the institutionalised use of face-slapping required proper setup. Showcasing the other party bad intentions, hinting how much the good guy stood higher both in terms of moral grounds and his own power and one could go on and on with the lists of steps required to make the slap as juicy as possible, but despite not having even a single build-up to this moment, this feeling of cutting the crap before it would fill my ears to the brim was still liberating and exhilarating.


    "Now, that you have calmed down, let me explain to you the choices you have."


    Using the moment of silence where the woman grabbed her cheek as if unable to believe what had just happened, I made one step forward, grabbed her throat and pushed her against a nearby column, making her slam with her backs against it.


    "First, the ugly option."


    With my fingers tightening on the throat of the woman, I held back the disgust I felt for myself for a moment. Growing up with modern society, violence against women was something that was absolute taboo, yet in this world, with the instincts of this body, my muscles and mind just moved on its own.


    Thinking about it, this woman ordered several attempts at the life of her step-daughter, forfeiting her right to be treated gently. The fact that I didn''t outright kill her steemed only from the fact that there was no definite proof of her actions.


    Yet I still tightened the grip of my hand on her throat, while making sure she was still looking in my eyes.


    "You will pack your stuff, leave this place, and on your way, my men will ensure receive the same parting gift that you sent to Elia after she ran away in fear for her life."


    While this was the bad option, I made sure to relax my fingers from her throat to the point where she could finally catch a breath, yet still holding her tightly against the stone column.


    "And theˇ­ nice optionˇ­?"


    Finally realising that I didn''t come here to play the game by her rules but to inform her about the verdict of the real game that was played even without her participation, she asked about the other option. Just like I wanted.


    In the end, killing her would still equal to killing a noble, and I didn''t really want to visit the comfy chambers in the town''s dungeon. Even if two weeks of seclusion that I would be most likely sentenced to along with a hefty fine wouldn''t really hurt me in the short run, I couldn''t afford to lose that much time that could otherwise be spent on developing my lands in the long run!


    Additionally, no matter the feud between them, this woman was still someone that Elia''s family loved to the point of marrying, so killing her, even if she attempted at Elia''s life, after decisively cutting all her options to recover Pilzno for herself, would be nothing less than a brutal waste.


    "You canˇ­"


    As if today''s was a fiesta for everyone who liked to cut into someone else sentence, yet another voice resounded in the place, with a rather young man, barely a few years younger than me, stepped from the main corridor. Obviously cutting into my attempt to explain how could Elia''s family save their lives from my hands, he shouted "LEAVE MY MOTHER ALONE!" before brandishing his sabre and jumping at me.


    Regretfully for him, I didn''t bother raising my own steel, vouching to simply pull the pistol from behind my belt and aim it straight in the young man''s chest!

 41 Family feud part 2

    "Hello, brother Onar. It''s been a while."


    With my pistol pointing at the chest of the guy, despite his brandished sabre ready to strike me down, he didn''t dare to move. Unlike modern pistols, the one I held in my hand worked in a greatly different way.


    In the future, being shot wasn''t that big of a deal, as long as it wasn''t a lethal hit. With proper care, even unloading an entire magazine into one''s chest might not be enough to kill him, as long as the vitals weren''t hit.


    On the other hand, with my old type of pistol, if I were to unload my shot inside his chest, while the entry wound would be roughly the same, instead of leaving a small hole in his back, the bullet would flatten, and create a cone-like wound, ridding a few centimetres worth of diameter hole in the target''s back!


    "Helloˇ­ sister. Might telling me what the heck is going on here?"


    Under the pressure exerted by the barrel of my weapon, Onar stepped back and lowered his sabre. At this point, he was unable to do anything else.


    Without even waiting for my signal, my men rushed towards the guy, took his weapon and in a jiffy, forced him to kneel down with his hands bound behind his back. With my hand leaving Elia''s mother throat, she fell to her knees by herself, not even daring to raise her head.


    "They are yours."


    Instead of deciding the fate of those people, I put my pistol back to its holster on my belt and moved a few steps back. With how those people caused Elia a lot of suffering, it would only be fitting for her to be the one to decide what to do with them. Even if their behaviour was quite irking, I couldn''t hog all the fun for myself, could I?


    "Thank you, dear."


    Moving forward through the line of my men, Elia stared down at the two bound people in front of her feet with a strange smile on her face. At this moment, I couldn''t help but wonder, what was going on inside her head?


    After years of suffering, when she was forced to constantly escape from place to place while looking for a way to recover her inheritance, she finally reached the point where the people that send numerous murders her way, were finally in her power. To be honest, I was quite curious about how she would react.


    "You will go back to your own lands, and never ever put your feet again in this city. You are allowed to only take a single box of your own stuff from the mansion, and if you ever as much as to attempt to meddle with me, my life, my fiancee or anything related to either of those options, I will make sure that your remaining lands will be razed to the ground, while you will meet the fate that you so eagerly tried to force on me."


    "Will you swear on God and your soul that you agree to these terms?"


    Comming from modern times, this kind of promise didn''t hold any value to me, yet I could understand how sure Elia was that once swearing on their souls, they would never break it. But while breaking one''s words was considered a great transgression and would easily lead to them being ostracised in the social ring of the nobles, wouldn''t they fare better as despised nobles governing a city rather than a respected bunch living of a single village alone?


    "How can you subject your own mother to such terms? How dare you exile us from this city in the first place! It was your father that brough us here, and now you are going to go against his will?! And for what? For this bastard toˇ­"


    Before she managed to finish, I send another slap in her face''s way. Even if in the future this kind of insult held no meaning, calling me a bastard in the current times? Not only was it a great insult, but it also undermined my legitimacy! If I allowed this bitch to just spew whatever nonsense she wanted, what would become of my own integrity and self-respect?


    While I called my attack a slap, under the strength of damned soldiers hit, not only Elia''s mother''s face turned ninety degrees to the side, she even spewed blood on the stone slabs of the floor!


    "I recall Elia asking you a question. You can either swear on your soul, or I will make sure no promises will be necessary in the first place. You can trust me, I made sure no one would miss you in case that means would prove to be needed."


    Instead of allowing them to still try to win something out in their situation, I put the terms simply. Either they will swear, or I would kill them myself. While the second part of my sentence was a blatant bluff, as no murder on a noble could be ignored outside of agreed duel, there was no need for them to know about it!


    "I swear!"


    As if my hit brough back some sense to her brain, Elia''s mother spewed those words through her tightened teeth.


    "Swear what? That you will never brew wine from horse''s piss? Full-sentence! And you don''t want to annoy me any longer!"


    With how long this entire matter was taking, I simply took out my pistol once again and aimed it at her head. Even if I would be in for a rather harsh sentence for killing both of them, if I gave it any effort, I''m sure I could turn it into a period of a house arrest!


    "I will leave the city, never return here and for the rest of my life, I won''t meddle with any affairs concerning Elia, You sir, and any of your colleagues. I swear upon my soul and God!"


    Shifting the barrel of the gun from pointing it at the woman''s head, I moved it towards the Onar with an obvious meaning behind this gesture. Only after he repeated those words, did I put my weapon back and pointed at my men.


    "Make sure he has no weapons on himself. Four of you will go with either of them and help them pack a single box of the stuff they want to take with them. Make sure there will be no valuables hidden there!"


    "Whaˇ­"


    "You didn''t think I would let you take all the money from the treasury, didn''t you? Not only it didn''t belong to you in the first place, but all sorts of the jewellery and art that you might have planned to take with you will also be considered a payment for your free use of this lands!"

 42 Taking the matters into my own hands

    "Is that everything?"


    Looking at the two small chests brought to me by Elia''s family and association of my men, I couldn''t help but grin internally while faking a serious expression on the outside. While I would love to make use of my super-duper-ultra-great system to either scan the expression of the two exiles-to-be to make sure nothing was hidden inside that wasn''t supposed to leave the mansionˇ­ Either this system had no such usability in the first place, or I simply had no idea how to find it.


    "Yes, or do you want to take even this little bit from us?"


    Sending me a hateful look as if I was the cause of their downfall in the first place, Onar spat out those words through his gritted teeth. With his sabre - the most valued companion of all the lower nobles - still in the hands of my people, he continued to alter his sight between longing looks directed towards his weapon and a gaze filled with despise and pure hate aimed at me.


    "Well, it depends on what you put in there. Men, search them again."


    In a situation like this, I wasn''t going to take any chances. Following my orders in an instant, a new batch of men that didn''t help Elia''s family pack before jumped towards the crates and started throwing everything out on the floor, looking for the stuff that they might''ve managed to sneak in.


    And just like that, three pouches filled with coins, two pieces of golden jewellery generously embedded with various kinds of gems and surprisingly, a small notebook, that I had to pick myself after my men simply dropped it on the floor and discarded it as something unworthy of their attention!


    Just like a stupid friend of mine who fell into the trap of supplying hisˇ­ friends with substances that weren''t strictly legal, either Onar or his mother actually written off the list of their own damned people inside the city!


    As I browsed more and more pages of this handy book, more and more details about various shady businesses unveiled its secrets in front of my eyes!


    "Explain to me this one thingˇ­ If you never intended to go back or meddle with our affairs, why did you need this notebook for?"


    Finally closing it and holding the thin book in my hands while waving it in front of the kneeling people, I didn''t get any reaction out of them outside of the usual, filled with hate stare. Since they were going to play this game like that, I didn''t mind to tune myself to their own tastes.


    "Elemo!"


    While I didn''t mind asking anyone from the militia to do other kinds of mundane tasks, handling the affairs with money had to be done through the hands of the nobles directly under me. Throwing one of the pouches that those fuckers attempted to hide towards my retainer, I looked at Elia''s former family for a moment, before shifting my gaze to my fake fiancee.


    "Sure, do your thing."


    Shrugging her shoulders, Elia turned her head away, as if she thought the things were about to get dirty. But contrary to her expectations, I wasn''t going to get violent with those people. There were better ways to make sure they wouldn''t pose any threat during the first few months that would take us to stabilise the situation and establish ourselves in this city.


    "Elemo, leave only two red goldens in the pouch. You can split the rest equally among everyone."


    While I only judged the worth of the coins inside the pouch basing on how much it weighed in my hand, in the end, I never expected to find additional gold in this situation, so raising the morale of my men just like that was as good as using it on any other project. With the few ideas, I had in mind, making money wouldn''t be any problem in just a matter of a few days anyway.


    Making cement was one of the first things I wanted to introduce, along with the beer that I required to establish control over one of the most profitable and popular aspects of the economy of my lands, but so far, neither of those two projects could be turned into a raw profit in a short amount of time, requiring vast amounts of gold for the wages and all sorts of initial costs instead. That''s why, during the time we had to waste to reach Pilzno, I looked through the system to find something that I figured out all the way back when I couldn''t enjoy the soup of my recipe as much as I thought I would be.


    While hearing the cheers of the militia while watching the sour faces of Elia''s family as they most likely realised the first part of my plan that I was going to explain them anyway, I couldn''t help but recall one particular kind of memory from my past life.


    "Listen now. Since you couldn''t follow either of your promises, let''s have some fun. I''m not a monster to kill you right here and nowˇ­ Or rather, I don''t think it is worth to waste two weeks of my life in house arrest only to obtain the satisfaction of killing you guys myself."


    Reaching my hand to the side, I grabbed now light pouch that Elemo instantly placed on top of my palm, before throwing it in front of the kneeling duo.


    "This money is all that you are allowed to take outside of what you have on yourselves right now. What''s more, I will have my men escort you outside of the city, so that you won''t get in touch with any of your formerˇ­ friends."


    While I officially claimed this, the real intention behind my scheme, was to deprive them of ability to rent or buy any horses in the city, where people would still respect them enough to exchange the gold coins for a currency used by normal people. Forcing them to organise their mounts outside of the city walls, meant that if they didn''t want to simply be robbed by some random thugs, they would have to go to the next city on foot!


    "Also, if I were in your place, I would make sure to travel fast. After all, the nights are dark and full ofˇ­. Bandits!"


    Stopping myself in the last moment from making a reference of one of the shows that I loved all the way till its producers took the initiative to destroy all their hard work with the final season, I graced them with devious smile number seven from my collection of repulsive expressions, before turning my back to them.


    "Men, lead them away!"

 43 Decision

    After getting rid of the nuisance of the day, we could finally get to split the spoils. While not literally, as taking over the city meant that along with all its riches, Elia took all the burdens that came with governing it on herself as well, there was still a big enough field to enjoy ourselves with the newly found wealth. Just a few minutes with the notebook that I found were enough to calculate the estimated amount of funds that her family embezzled from the city cashflow!


    In the end, I expected the greatest challenge to turn into finding this money in this enormous mansion but be it our luck, or just Elia''s family overconfidence, just by looking through a small number of hideouts that my fake fiance knew about, we managed to find enough gold to finance a small army of mercenaries, strong enough to wage war against one of the smaller princedoms in the Holy Roman Empire! (For those who don''t know, it was federation-like gathering on an insane number of small princedoms(at times, even reaching 400!) with huge autonomy, theoretically governed by the Emperor elected by a selected Electors, meaning, a princess with the right to vote. Modern-day, Germany and Austria)


    But while I was happy to enjoy the spoils and plan the next immediate moves, it was Elia who brought a change both to the mood and my pace.


    "This time seriouslyˇ­"


    Grabbing my attention as I continued to delve into the complicated mess of connections and information from the handbook, Elia ignored the fact that her plain, manly to some point, the outfit didn''t fit the situation, before gracing me with a deep and gracious curtsey. While I wasn''t from this age and couldn''t really tell whether the way she moved was filled with mistakes or was a perfectly executed, noble bow, there was no denying that with how intricate her movements were, even if I wanted to repeat this deed myself, without days of prior training, I wouldn''t be unable to do so.


    "... thank you for your help with recovering my heirloom."


    Bowing herself deep enough for her rather tight dress to still reveal just enough of her modest cleavage to ignite some sparks in my blood, she suddenly raised her body and rushed forward, throwing her hands around my neck as she pressed her entire self against me in a deep embrace.


    "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"


    Continuously rubbing her face against the angle between my neck and my shoulder, Elia''s entire body was trembling in joy, as if the weight that her shoulders had to carry for all this time ever since she fled her own house was finally lifted.


    But I still couldn''t get over the way she reacted back in front of the magistrate. While I internally knew that my behaviour wasn''t really mature, with how hurt I was by this relatively small thing, I wasn''t a damn perfect guy!


    Years of sexualisation through all the media possible, relaxation of moral code and culture changing from the one that forced everyone to respect intimacy to one that promoted openness, while glorious in some of its aspects, quickly went out of hand.


    Instead of increased awareness of the health problems related to one''s sex, people were turned into animals, as if in an attempt to control them through their basic needs like food, shelter and sexual fulfilment. While some might enjoy the fact that scoring a girl was never easier than in the times of my college, with the basic moral spine, I never could enjoy such a thing.


    I was born both too early and too late. Too early to explore the space and be forced into the strict rule of respecting everyone and myself foremost, and too late to understand the intricacies of relationships before the sexual revolution!


    "Okay, noted. But it''s not really a time and place now. Getting rid of the scum doesn''t mean our hands are free now!"


    Pushing Elia''s body away, I couldn''t help but wonder what her real intentions were. Maybe I was overreacting? Maybe I was right about her treating it as nothing more than a business relationship, with our intimate moments caused solely by extensive use of alcohol? While those questions had to be answered at some point, for now, I preferred to focus on the tasks at hand.


    "Why? I don''t think there is anything that requires us to hurry!"


    "And what if they knew that we were coming? Considering the fact that your suitor caught the news that we did our best to spread, how could they not be aware of the fact?"


    Even if this matter was already done, I couldn''t help but feel that it all went far too easy than it should go. I was even prepared to use the cement to seal off the gates and call it a God''s retribution on the city for the sins of its former guardians, yet everything went smoother than I expected, saving me from wasting this precious material and risking population''s outrage if they were to learn about it.


    "Didn''t you threaten them to send your people after them? If not, what was the point in making them travel to the other city on foot?"


    While tilting her head to the side in puzzlement, Elia still kept hold of my hands, as if unwilling to let go in order to enjoy this moment alone. With how I was unsure how our relationship would end, this slight gesture of her was causing me quite a bit of anxiety.


    "I just wanted them to focus on watching their back instead of looking for ways to meddle with our business. And as for why we need to hurry, while it''s impossible to leave today, I aim to depart first thing in the morning. That''s why we need to settle everything that requires my presence as soon as possible."


    With her grip on my hands suddenly tensing up, I could tell how surprised she was by this revelation. It was almost unnatural for me to leave so soon, but with the need to monitor the development of all the early investments I made in Tarnow, not to speak about all the other things I had in mind, there was no way for me to enjoy my leisure time here!

 44 Setting up profits

    "How much of this mortar can be produced and what will be its cost?"


    Almost immediately after finishing our matters at the mansion and locating my men in various rooms across Elia''s home, we rushed back to the magistrate in order to deal with all the miscellaneous affairs. Taking a short moment to prepare yet another product with the help of my system from something as simple as wheat, I was now holding onto a small pouch filled with a whiteish powder, that would soon be the foundation of the first, profit-oriented enterprise I would start.


    "For now, I can only produce small amounts, as its still in the phase of testing. As soon as I will find enough money, resources and time to start up the real productionˇ­ It still won''t be available for the market. Long story short, after taking care of the local needs of Tarnow, I wish to use it to connect those two cities with a modern, high-quality road. And for that end, I will need your cooperation."


    Being a town''s mayor didn''t limit one''s responsibility for the city alone, but it stretched one''s influence over most of the villages in the direct and more distant proximity. With how Tarnow and Pilzno were now under the power of me and Elia, binding it even closer together was a must!


    "Yeah, that might be a goodˇ­ ideaˇ­ WHAT THE FUCK!"


    As if the meaning of my words required some time to settle inside his brain for Vlad to fully comprehend them, his reaction to my plan took a while to be accurate. While in this moment of history, Commonwealth was still considered a great, world power, the quality of its roads was so bad it was already turning both into legends and a series of jokes across the entire continent.


    But there simply never was a need to improve the infrastructure! With how most of the most important trade in the entire country was facilitated with the use of all the subsidiary rivers to the Vistula, making it the main artery of the Crown''s lands with the Dnieper river working in a similar way for the easter lands of Ruthenia, connecting cities with roads was never considered an important matter for the nobles, making the crown powerless to change this fact with how limited royal power in the country was.


    That''s why it has to be a local power initiating this project! That''s why I was soo keen on setting up an extensive production of cement! Even if it wasn''t as good as asphalt when it came to laying down the roads, it would still be a major improvement to the current technology across entire Europe, while beaking an age-changing material for the Commonwealth itself!


    "Don''t worry. I already thought about it."


    Gracing the Mayor with one of my sweetest smiles, I stretched my hands over my head. With everything happening so fast, I couldn''t help but feel tired of all the events of the last few hours. But I still had to finish the last few matters before going to rest!


    Taking a sip of the coffee that Vlad once again offered us, I felt the familiar warmth spreading through my body and mind, clearing some of the clogs of exhaustion that slowed down the processing speed of my brain. I would love to set up local production of coffee, but even with the system, unless I was willing to sacrifice every other project on creating a greenhouse, and focusing all my attention in Politics on starting a new war with Ottoman Empire (Turkey in the height of its power in history) in order to steal the fresh coffee beans that they did their best to monopolise, there was no way for me to actually do anything aimed at improving the accessibility of this expensive plant.


    "When all the details will be confirmed, I will push someone to notify you about it, while forwarding the first batch of the powdered mortar along with the instructions on how to build the road. After all, it''s not as easy as just adding water and pouring it on the ground!"


    While in theory, it was Elia that should lead the negotiations here, since I was the one that had all information about the cement and overall idea how it would work, she could only sit beside be and alternate her gaze between the mayor and me.


    "If we get to build the road from the two ends at the same time, I think we could finish it before the end of May. As for how we will cover the initial costsˇ­ Is the soup that I asked for already prepared?"


    There were quite a lot of things that were worth their weight in gold in this time and age. At first, when I was considering this matter, I thought about using the local ingredients that were simply undiscovered or unpopular among wider masses, but in the end, after learning the trick, anyone interested could make something similar just by going on a trip and plucking some wild herbs. That''s when the sour cream soup that I made back in Tarnow, and the memory that popped up in my head back then, came into play.


    There was one spice that could be made out of literally anything, that albeit scorned upon in the future as it became popular to eat stuff without it, it nevertheless, revolutionalised the culinary market of the entire world!


    Spicesˇ­ They were the source of as much wealth as pain and mourning, with how hard it was to import them from the far east. That''s why, instead of investing some ridiculous amount of money into creating my own fleet that would take the risk of sailing all the way across entire Africa in order to reach the lands where the spices grewˇ­ I decided to make one that was wildly popular in the entire world, and turn it into a spice, that took hold of the entire market of the entire eastern and central Europe!


    Curry? That''s something only Asians, Indians and some of the quirky Europeans ate. While I had the privilege of trying it myself back in the future, I never considered it as anything more than just an exotic food. Salt? While its importance was insane, Commonwealth was one of those rare countries where no one could ever lack this resource, with the legendary Wieliczkan salt mines!


    That''s way, the only way to change the world of Europan kitchens, laid in the mixture of several things I prepared in advance, prior to leaving a mansion, all based on some random vegetables mixed into powder, a bit of salt and system synthesisedˇ­


    Monosodium Glutamate!


    Or in simpler words, the essence of taste, source of umami, and the King of all the spices across the world, gluten!


    "Yeah, it should be done already. Marie! Can you ask the servants to bring the soup?"


    Back when I asked Vlad to prepare it, I could easily read the confusion and puzzlement on his face, yet he didn''t waste our time on arguing, and simply followed my request. Now, when the secret of my earlier wish was about to unveil, he leaned over the table, as if eager to see what I was about to do with the soup to make it such an important point of this meeting.


    Waiting for just a moment for the servants to bring the soup, they even brough a small stool with themselves, putting the entire, big cauldron filled with what looked like a chicken-stock on it and leaving right away. Taking two bowls that I actually brought with myself, I submerged them into the pot, filling about half of them with the thick liquid, before putting them on Vlad''s table, with no regard for how the droplets of the soup instantly dirtying his workplace.


    As if magician pulling out a rabbit from a seemingly empty hat, I brough out the small pouch filled with the mix of various herbs, vegetables, salt and gluten, before pouting a bit of its content into one of the bowls and mixing it all with a spoon of mine.


    At first, I wanted to recreate the legendary Vageta (exchange first a for e and you have the real name) spite that took the markets of the central and eastern Europe by the storm, but no matter how hard I tried or thought, I couldn''t find any clue how to turn this whiteish powder into a yellow one! But outside of the colour factor, my earlier tests already proved that all the other aspects of this spice were working just as intended!


    "Please, have a taste of the both, and tell me what do you think!"

 45 Striking the deal

    With how Vlad was absolutely the first one to try out the prowess of gluten after some of my own testings, I could giggle internally all I wanted at Elia''s expression filled with curiosity as she observed the mayor of her town carefully scop up some of the clean soup only to swallow it without any change of expression and then reaching towards the other bowl.


    "I hope it''s not a poisonˇ­"


    With how reluctant the man was to put up the improved liquid to his own mouth, I was left with no other choice than to open up the poach with the spice, wet my finger against the tip of my tongue and touch the powder with the moisturised part of my skin. As if I was some kind of drug addict, I then raised my hand back to my mouthˇ­ but instead of rubbing the gluten against my gum, I licked it out instead and swallowed my saliva in one big gulp to prove that it wasn''t anything harmless.


    In fact, just this spice alone was rather bland in taste, as if it was an essence of chicken stock with a lot of salt in it. On the other hand, encouraged by my example, Vlad finally raised to spoon to his mouth. While some might think that he would erupt in place, dropping everything and falling to my knees while begging me for moreˇ­ In reality, his eyes only widened slightly for a moment, before he sent me a curious look.


    "What is this spice? How much does it cost?"


    As a true man of the business, Vlad just repeated the same question he asked about the cement. If the price was too steep, no matter how insane the product was, no one would waste more money on it than they could afford. If it was hard to come by, the potential profits could only be treated as a bandage on the economy instead of a stable fix.


    And that''s exactly why gluten was such a great opportunity for me. After looking through the options, most likely thanks to lacking level in the required field, I could only produce a single machine that could turn true gluten into what was commonly called as one, the proper MSG.


    "Let''s keep the name away for now. How much do you think one lut (about 12grams, a bit less than half an ounce) could be worth in your book?"


    Being a noble myself, I didn''t really have any good ideas about the pricing of various stuff. While I knew that some spices could reach the worth of their weight in gold, this didn''t apply to all of them, as the only example I had in mind, cinnamon reached the price of even hundreds of ducats for a small pack of over three hundred grams! (about 11/11 ounces)


    "Well, this will be just a rough estimate, but while it''s definitely better than saltˇ­ I guess we could rack it up to about ten red goldens for barrel if you can produce lots of it, but if it''s as rare as the other spices from the far eastˇ­ Then one lut could go for one or two ducats. So, how hard it is to make it?"


    "While it''s not that hard to produce it, one needs to know the super-precise recipe in order to create it. And no, I won''t be willing to share it with anyone. So for now, let''s put the price of the pure spice at one red golden per lut, but there is one thing that you can consider."


    The powder that I brought, wasn''t the pure MSG that I created with the help of the system out of a bunch of wheat. It was a mix consisting of various materials, that were more than common, meaning there was an unlimited amount of possible mixes that could be sold for an even higher price!


    "Listen. What I just used on the soup, contains maybe half of the pure spice that I want to sell. The other half is just a mix of powdered vegetables and herbs that I picked randomly. So while I will be selling you a lut for a single red goldenˇ­ I think you could create one or two kinds of mixtures and sell them for twice the price!"


    The first and foremost rule of doing business was allowing your partners to profit. If I were to simply use everyone in Pilzno to further the growth of Tarnowian economy without caring for their own welfare, sooner or later, the relationship between the cities would deteriorate and lead to an internal conflict. Instead of fanning the spark right from the beginning, it was better to pour a bucket of water on top of it instead!


    "That seems reasonable. With that said, I will eagerly await the first batch of the pure spice, and I will make sure to spread the rumours about the appearance of a new, valuable spice. Do you have any suggestions on what kind of herbs should I use?"


    It was nice to work with someone who shared not only the profits but also the approach in terms of making money. Just his last question alone was enough to prove that this guy will be a valuable addition to the group of my retainers and assistants!


    "Hey, dearˇ­ Do you think I could give it a try?"


    While I was already projecting how this new business of mine would develop, what kind of steps I would''ve to make in order to keep the recipe safe and production going, Elia interrupted my train of thought, while looking at the bowls with her face filled with curiosity.


    "Of course! After all, you will be the one managing this business alongside our friend here!"

 46 Romantic mood slightly smuttish?

    Overall, the meeting with Vlad turned out to be rather fruitful. From the initial plans for the great project of building the road, through the foundations of the spice trade all the way to the mayor sending his people after the figures clearly acting against the welfare of the city as a whole that was outlined in Elia''s mother diary, it could be said that all the matters were finished.


    With just the slight arrangments for the security of the town just in case, if the family of my fiancee would be crafty enough to try something even sooner than I expected, most of my men were already stationed either on the walls, at the gates or simply in many of the mansion''s rooms.


    By the time we could finally return to the mansion after wrapping up the last details at the magistrate, the sun was barely peeking out from behind the city walls, throwing a grand spectacle of shadows on the stone slabs making up the town''s square. Just walking through a few tens of meters of this open space was enough to put Elia''s in the clingy mood, pushing her arms to wrap around my side, as she refused to let go while forcing me to slow my pace down to match hers as she rested her head on the side of my shoulder.


    "That was a busy day. I never expected you to come up with so many novelties."


    Slowly running her hand along my arm, she was looking somewhere further, as if her sight wasn''t limited by the building that would normally obstruct her field of view. Looking at her with the corner of my eye, I couldn''t help but be drawn to her dreamy expression.


    "It''s not that I came up with them on the spot. Most of the ideas I have I actually discovered in the remote corners of the country when I was off, fighting in the northern war."


    The conflict I spoke about was one of the main reasons that caused the usual unrest in such a big country to finally reach the tipping point. A long, exhaustive war that didn''t even brough a definitive conclusion to the conflicting matter was for a reason called THE FIRST northern war in the later ages. Using the fact that in all her stories that she told me about back when we were travelling to Tarnow, she never ever mentioned leaving the Crown lands, I pushed the blame for all the inventions I was bringing up for some random fortunate encounters I happened upon back then.


    "Still, that doesn''t take any bit of your glory. Who cares if someone figured out a way to improve the lives of everyone if he never managed to bring his ideas to reality? It''s not the words that matter, but acts."


    With those words, we reached the doorstep of Elia''s mansion, allowing me to finally free myself from her clinginess. Still conflicted about the current and future nature of our relationship, I couldn''t help but feel strange when she was so touchy with me.


    "It''s cold!"


    While she was the owner of this place, she had simply no way to change the reality of this building. While heating up a single room was still possible with a small fireplace that I hoped this mansion didn''t lack, doing so for the entire palace would not only be wasteful but in fact, was simply impossible.


    "Come here."


    Even if I still didn''t resolve this little conflict in my heart, I couldn''t bear the sight of Elia''s arms trembling when the refreshing air of the outside got replaced by the stagnant and freezing atmosphere of this place. Instead of running right to our chambers to hide from the temperature under a thick set of blankets, I brought her back into my embrace, trying to shield her from the freezing aura of this place to the best of my capability.


    "While we can stay like this for a while, I still need you to guide me to where I''m supposed to sleep."


    Despite complete lack of intention to make it sound romantic or deep, by whispering it directly into her ear separated from my mouth by a minimal distance, it somehow ended up turning into an intimate act!


    "Sure, come with me."


    With her body slightly trembling in reaction to my whisper, Elia grabbed my hand and moved forward, while still keeping her body close to mine. Despite the hour not being that late in my perception, there was no way to artificially keep such a huge mansion bright, without literally burning the money on the candles, forcing us to walk through the corridors with only a slight sphere of light cast by a single candle that Elia picked from one of the shelves carved in the wall.


    Contrary to my expectations, despite how big this mansion was, we managed to arrive in place in just a few moments. Standing in front of huge doors, I could already tell that this place was most likely one of the guests'' room, just from the way it was located on the side of the corridor instead of opening up from its main side.


    "I''m sorry we won''t head to the master''s chamber, but I don''t want to sleep in the same bed as that fucking mother of mine didˇ­"


    So that was the reason. In my own, troubled head, I was already making conjectures about the meaning of this small action of hers, only for all of them to vanish under her rational reasoning. It was only after a moment after Elia already pushed the doors open and pulled me inside when I realised another meaning of what she just said.


    She was supposed to lead me to the place where I could get some sleep, yet she spoke about not wanting to sleep in her mother''s bed herself?


    With that notion crashing all over my mind, I could only stare as Elia reached for the fireplace and used her candle to light it up from the candle she was holding, before putting it at the small shelf above the heating stove.


    "Close the doorsˇ­ please."


    With her voice breaking a bit, she turned around to face me, watching as I mindlessly followed her request. Keeping my eyes on her as if charmed by some unnatural force, I pushed the doors with my back before my hands reached to its knob and locked the entrance to the room.


    Clack.


    As soon as the sound of the lock announced that our privacy was secured, Elia reached towards her shoulders, pushing the straps of her dress to the side and allowing her dress to fall out of her upper body, with only her belt holding the cloth that covered the bottom half of her charms.


    "Come."


    Reaching with her hands towards me, I could see the light from the fireplace reflected on her fair skin. While I had seen more nudity in the few years of my life in the future times than most of the people from the current age would see in their entire lives, the sight of her nipples standing proudly on top of her perky breasts, jiggling ever so slightly to the rhythm of her breath.


    Drawn by the sight and her invitation, I was only able to notice that I was moving when half of the distance that initially separated us already disappeared. In the very next moment, Elia''s hands wrapped around my neck as she reached with her lips forward, placing them lightly on top of my mouth.


    While we shared a long, yet light kiss, Elia dropped one of her hands on top of mine before bringing it up and placing my palm on top of her breast. At the same time as I felt for the first time in my entire, both lives, how the nipple rubbing against the palm of a hand managed to get my blood boiling, she moved to the side, pulling me towards the sizeable bed that took the most of the space in the room.


    "It''s okay. I''m okay with it, or rather, I want it."


    With her calm voice entering through my ears only to caress my brain as she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my body over her. What I was right now experiencing, was in no way comparable to the emotionless fucking of the future. Every smallest gesture of hers was filled with intimacy and emotion as if a slight rubbing of her hand against my cheek could transfer more feeling than an orgy of the entire university campus.


    Lowering my head once again, I kissed her lips, while feeling her hands slowly unbuttoning my clothes only for my upper body to get exposed in just a matter of a single moment. With how close we were, my hands could only caress the sides of her waist, while I continued to press my lips against hers, only to feel her playful tongue joining the fun a moment later.


    It wouldn''t be long before the atmosphere of the night would cast away all the restraints, already diminishing my earlier worries as I succumbed to the insane feeling of tasting Elia''s saliva.

 47 Inside the chamber smu

    "Waitˇ­ Let me take a breathˇ­"


    While my fingers continued to run up and down Elia''s exposed waist while enjoying the warmth of her velvet-like skin, she suddenly moved her hands from my back on top of my chest, pushing me upwards and breaking our long kiss. Raising my head over hers, despite the dim light in the chamber, I could still see how messy her face was, with saliva dripping out from her mouth and her eyes all watery, directed right into my pupils.


    "Are you okay?"


    While the moment that we just shared was enough to spark the fire in my blood and get me going for a long time from now, I still held enough willpower to stop if Elia would turn out to be cruel enough to request us to stop. In the end, I still wasn''t sure about the nature of our relationship, and if this bold act of hers was aimed at repaying the favour I couldn''t do anything else than to pull back.


    "Yesˇ­ I justˇ­ Didn''t expect it to be sooˇ­ intenseˇ­"


    With her voice slightly wavering, she seemed to be either a bit shy or simply unsure if her action was the right move. In the end, I couldn''t blame her. It was partially my fault for not explaining the situation right away from the moment any doubts appeared in my mind.


    "If you want to stopˇ­"


    *smock*


    Instead of replying to what I was about to say, her hands entangled behind my neck as she used them to pull her up a bit and shut me up with yet another sloppy kiss. Not wasting any time, her tongue instantly followed suit, prying my mouth open and rubbing my own. With our bodies now separated by a few spare centimetres, I took the advantage of the situation and once again moved my hand on top of her breast, this time without her help.


    As I continued to enjoy the taste of her mouth, my fingers ran wild on her chest, following the steps I once found out in one of theˇ­ form of art that I was reading. At first, I lightly kneaded the base of her breast, sinking my fingers slowly into her flesh to the point where the resistance turned real. For now, rather than a direct pleasure, I wanted to tease her out with just the force of sheer anticipation of what was about to come.


    Grabbing her upper lip between my own, I sucked at it strongly as if I wanted to pull out all of her life essences with this action, while moving on from simple kneading to now grasping her breast with my entire hand and spread out fingers, starting from the bottom and slowly moving up top, only to stop right when my palm was about to hit her nipple. Pushing my tongue as far inside her mouth as I could, I entered a dance of flesh within her jaws while tightening my grasp on her breast and causing her entire body to tense up, as she released a moan right inside my mouth.


    "AH!"


    As soon as I recalled ear being one of the surprisingly sensitive parts, I traced my mouth towards it only to catch Elia''s earlobe between my lips and suck on it as well, while finally moving my hands further and rubbing my palm against her hardened nipple. While we were both deep inside our passion, it was the first time when Elia spewed such a loud, and outright moan, as if the burst of sensations that I subjected her to was enough to break apart her shame of being heard.


    But I was only starting to have my fun!


    While it kept me puzzled and amazed at the same time, due to some sort of miracle, despite being a mental virgin - as I had no idea what this body went through before I took over it - I was somehow capable of enjoying this foreplay, instead of doing my best to jump into the action right away! But with how inevitable it was, I moved away from Elia''s ear towards her neck, still kissing every inch of her skin on the way.


    By the moment I finally reached the side of her neck, I couldn''t help myself. Catching a small part of her delicate skin between my lips, I used all my might to suck on it!


    In an instant, Elia''s hands landed on top of my head, as she released yet another moan, but instead of pulling my head away to save herself from the pricky pain of hickey, she instead ran her fingers through my hair, as if wanting to lock my head in place.


    "Are you okay?"


    Raising my head, I looked at Elia''s face with a fake concern on my face. I already knew what I was going to do, with my hands already in place, ready for the action as my head hovered slowly over Elia''s chest.


    "I''mˇ­ AGH!"


    As soon as she opened her mouth to say something, I dropped my face right on top of her right breast that so far, didn''t experience any teasing. With my mouth instantly catching up with Elia''s nipple, I moved my fingers on her left breast, pinching the top of her mountain and pulling it in all sides.


    "Noˇ­"


    With her lips protesting as her body tensed, her back angled as her hips and abdomen moved upwards and pressed against me while her hands kept embracing my head, unwilling to let me go off her chestˇ­ Even I was thoughtful enough to realise that she didn''t really mean what she was saying through moans.


    While sucking on her nipple while poking it with my tongue was quite fun, while gnashing her other breast to the point when my finger could sink deeper inside her soft skin, my remaining free hand moved along her waist towards her still clothed legs. With her hips still tightly pressed against mine, as my palm slowly moved downward, I locked my finger against the edge of her pants and pulled them down along with the continuous movement of my hand.


    Pushing my fingers lightly against her soft, bouncy skin on her ass, I actually didn''t stop there to enjoy myself, but moved them even lower, pushing her clothes even further away from her hips.


    With her thighs now exposed, I raised my upper body from hers, and by grabbing her pants with both of my hands, I pulled it upward, moving both of her legs high into the air as I removed the last part of her clothing.


    "Nooˇ­"


    With only slight resistance from Elia, I placed my lips on her thigh, slowly kissing my way down to her crotch. Kiss by kiss, I was getting closer towards her pussy, to the point where I had to move my entire body away from the bed, kneeling on the floor as to get to the proper height.


    "Wait, pleaseˇ­"


    As her lips continued to utter shy protests, her hands belied her words, pushing my head closer towards her most precious place. In the next moment, I finally reached my target, with the first kiss landing right on top of her clitoris.


    "AH!"


    With Elia''s moans accompanying me as I enveloped her sweet button with my lips, I moved my hand from her thigh, rubbing the opening of her vagina, before slowly pushing my forefinger inside her already gaping, wet hole. Freed from my hold, her thighs instantly locked my head in place, while my tongue moved down through her slit, and replaced my finger in its job of caressing the outer insides of her sweet place.


    At this point, despite this strange strength that allowed me to remain calm so far, I was barely able to hold any longer. Pulling down my own pants with my left hand, I continued to caress her pussy, while due to the impatience, I started moving my own hands up and down my shaft in order to ease my own tension for at least a tiny bit.


    "Mikeˇ­ Pleaseˇ­ AH!"


    Licking out the juices flowing out along the inner walls of her hole made her moans interrupt her own words, but only for so long.


    "I don''t wantˇ­ to just receiveˇ­"


    Despite her words, her body was reacting in the way that stated exactly the opposite. In the end, even if I wanted to move away, her hips were pressing against the sides of my head, enveloping my ears in the sweet warmth of her body, contrasting with the coldness of the night that the fireplace was unable to repel from the room.


    "I wantˇ­ to do you too!"

 48 Breakthrough smu

    Grabbing her thighs once again, I forcefully spread them open in order to free myself from her hold. Pushing my body forward, I climbed back on the bed, once again looming over Elia, with my fully erect penis already throbbing against the opening of her wet pussy. Just by slightly rubbing its head against Elia''s inviting opening, I felt like if I didn''t hold myself back, it would get sucked inside even without any initiative from me.


    "And how do you want to do it?"


    With our faces levelled, I caressed Elia''s cheek with the palm of my hand, while looking her deep in the eyes. Despite poor lighting in the chamber, I could still see a hint of red on her face, uncovered by the flicks of fire from the stove behind us.


    "Iˇ­ I''m not sureˇ­"


    Contrary to her usual, lively behaviour, through our nightly encounter, Elia was acting really meek and unsure, putting even more doubt whether she was really eager to spend the night with me rather than this entire event being just a form of repayment for my favour. While the tip of my penis was still rubbing against her pussy, sending waves upon waves of pleasure straight to my brain, this question throbbed painfully in my heart, almost making me lose my drive.


    To fight off against this uncertainty, I moved my hand from her cheek a bit, allowing my thumb to sneak its way towards Elia''s mouth. As if it was the most natural thing for her to do, she instantly covered it with her saliva with the help of her tongue, before starting to suck on it as if she turned to a kid, fed by my finger instead of her mother''s breast.


    With how all my weight was now resting on the single hand supporting my entire body, I was unable to do a thing, outside of slight movements of my hips, that allowed me to enjoy the warmth of the opening of Elia''s bottom hole. With her legs already spreading as if in an attempt to make my job of finally penetrating her easier, her hips twisted upward, making it even simpler for me to simply push forward and start enjoying myself.


    But I wasn''t going to let go of my own imagination that easily. I already spent a huge amount of time doing my best to prepare her for what was about to come, and I was really reluctant to give up the idea of getting her head to do the work.


    "You didn''t answer my question, dear."


    Pulling my hand away from her face, her lips latched to my thumb as if unwilling to let it go, splattering a few more drops of her saliva on top of her already messy face when I finally managed to free my finger. After all, it was improper to speak with a full mouth!


    "Stop teasing meˇ­"


    With Elia''s eyes suddenly turning wet, a few drops of tears flowed down her face as she looked at me with a look of longing mixed with shame. Compared to the times when we were having our fun with the help of the alcohol, she lost her bold side in favour of a cute meekness.


    "I''m sorryˇ­ heheˇ­ You are just too cute!"


    With the bursts of giggle shaking my body over and over, I sneaked my hands under her back and pressed her even closer against my body in this messy hug of ours. Even though every part of me was ready to turn her into a sloppy mess, just by hugging our naked bodies I could feel a strange, pleasant feeling soothing my soul.


    "Wha... "


    At first, Elia turned flabbergasted at my reaction, with her eyes recovering from her earlier daze. With the shame washed away by how openly I was giggling, she soon joined in my laughter, turning both of our bodies into a shaking mess of giggle.


    "Thanks. Honestly, I was quite scared there."


    Moving her face to the side in order to look me in the eyes, Elia graced me with a light, fleeting kiss before suddenly wrapping her hands around my neck and turning her body over, changing our positions. Lying down on my back, I could see all the features of her body with how she moved her upper body up and was now sitting on me as a rider would do on a horse.


    With her hands down near my penis, she grabbed it and started lightly moving her delicate fingers around it, as if unsure what she was supposed to do.


    "I guess this thing will go inside me, won''t it?"


    Still playing around my pridehood, her eyes were glued to it even when she was asking her question. While the feeling of her hands on my most sensitive part wasn''t anything to scoff at, honestly when compared to her throbbing pussy, it was still a degradation of a pleasure for me, allowing me to clear my mind and catch a mental breath.


    "Only if you really want it. I don''t want you to sleep with me out of obligation."


    With my mind slightly calmed down, all the feelings of doubts and uncertainty returned with even greater strength, holding my heart in a painful grip. Despite how we were about to fuck, I suddenly lost all the joy I was feeling just a moment ago.


    "Wait, what?"


    Hearing my words, Elia''s hand suddenly tightened around my shaft, only for her entire body to relax and stop moving at all.


    "Did you really think I was going to give you my entire self just to repay the favour? Is that really who you thought I was?!"


    With her hands now away from my penis, I could make out how she tightened them into fists, as her expression turned ugly. Only now did it dawn on me how my doubts pictured Elia''s character!


    "It''s not like thatˇ­"


    At this point, I genuinely had no idea how to explain myself. If she really never looked at me in this way, then my hesitation turned out from simple worry to a great insult to her feelings! While it wasn''t easy, I resolved myself to lower my guard, expose my inner self and just confront her about the entire thing. Worst case scenario, I would be the one causing our relation to turn purely business-like, but there was still a chance that by baring myself in front of her, she would acknowledge my worries!


    "You see, back at the magistrateˇ­ When you scolded me, you phrased it in the way that made me think you only cared about the town, as if you were worried only about losing the chance to regain your inheritance. Maybe I was wrong there, but it still hurt me quite a bitˇ­"


    Explaining the situation just like that, wasn''t easy on me. It required me to bare my thoughts in front of someone who I still cared about, proved by how hard it was for me to risk destroying our relationship. After all, only by attaching a real value to how she saw me, I managed to make this point bother me so much!


    "Youˇ­! Ahˇ­ You idiotˇ­"


    With the expression of anger flowing down from her face, her fists fallen lightly on my chest, without any energy required for them to regard it as a hit. Next moment, her hands grabbed mine, as she brought them to her belly, cupping them together with hers.


    "You seeˇ­ When I mentioned the planˇ­ Rather than speaking about the cityˇ­ I meant turning from your fake fiancee, into your real wife!"

 49 Making up part 1 smu

    Suddenly, everything started to make sense. From how she reacted at the last night when we both allowed the beer to go into our heads, from how smitten she was upon receiving the ringˇ­ With this new perspective, all my worries turned out simply stupid.


    "I''m sorry. I guess I misunderstood your intentions, even to the point where I suspected you to really go so far only to secure your interests. I truly wronged you, I''m sorry."


    While I had no way of deciding for sure whether what she just said was fully true or not, I still decided to believe in her sincerity. In the end, relationships between humans were all based on trust, and if I wasn''t going to spare any of my trust for her, I could very well just leave for Tarnow right now.


    "No, it''s not like its entirely your fault. I was the one to cause this misunderstanding, as you had no way of knowing what was going on inside my head."


    With the misunderstanding cleared up, both of our bodies relaxed, with Elia''s hands letting go of mine, and allowing them to fall on her thighs. Before I could even react, her hands rested on my abdomen, before slowly crawling up to the previous main interest of our attention.


    "Anyway, speaking about the topic at handˇ­ My hand to be preciseˇ­"


    Hearing this small game of words as her hands started caressing lightly my shaft, I almost laughed out loud, yet I was still unable to hold back my giggle. The next moment, her sweet voice joined with mine, shaking her body to the rhythm of her frantic breaths.


    Moving my hands from her thighs, through her hips, along her waist all the way to her torso, I pulled her down on me, closing her mouth with my lips. With her hands still grasping my manhood, it was now pressed between her delicate fingers and springy skin of her abdomen, as our tongues entered yet another dance.


    Twisting and turning, I could taste her saliva flowing down to my mouth, as our tongues stirred up this mixture while rubbing against each other. With how ready and raring to go the both of us were just a moment ago, just this kiss was enough to rekindle the flames inside our bodies.


    "You really are too cute."


    As she raised her head a bit, freeing both of our mouths, I couldn''t stop myself from throwing this remark. With the corner of her lips curling up, I could barely make out a slight blush on her cheeks appearing under the dim light of the fire cracking behind the bed.


    "Thanks."


    Instead of trying to refute my words in shame, Elia simply smiled and accepted my praise, while raising her body to the sitting position. With the shaft of my penis pressed against her still wet pussy, she continued to rub me with her hands, while casting curious glances at my face.


    "Since we are back at the proper topic, can you tell me what do you want me to do? Even in this dark room, I can tell that this isn''t enough for you."


    "Wellˇ­ There is something I wanted to try. The question is, are you okay with doing it?"


    In fact, it was one of my initial thoughts when I first saw her. To plunge my dick deep into her throat and watch her eyes brim with tears as she chokes on itˇ­ No, that was just my perversion. Right now, just the thought of Elia giving me her head was more than enough to make my blood boil.


    On the other hand, hearing my doubts about her capability, Elia only smiled, before grabbing my hands and putting them on her breasts. With that deed done, she spread out her arms wide, as if she thought that her father was bound to appear from the death in front of her and give her a warm, hug.


    "Everything that this body of mine can handle, I''m ready for."


    Suddenly retracting her hands, she grabbed both of my wrists, before pushing her upper body down while holding my hands in place. With this, my fingers sank deep inside her breasts, instantly enveloped by the warmth of her springy skin.


    "Just tell me what you want. I want to make you happy as well!"


    Since she said all of that, there was no way I could manage to hold myself back at this point! With her hands still locking my wrists in place, I had to use the small part of my legs that was hanging outside of the rim of the bed to pull myself closer to its edge. Pushing my entire upper body to a sitting position, I managed to free my hands and move them on Elia''s soft, shapely ass. But instead of playing around it, I simply made sure I had a firm grasp of her body, pushing them both away from the bed to the point where I could finally, slowly put her down on the floor of the chamber.


    With her legs securing her descend, she ended up kneeling in front of the edge of the bed, while I pushed my hips forward and spreading my own legs, making my penis protrude through the air, straight into her face. But instead of instantly following through with my actions, I acted as if my penis being only a few centimetres away from her curious eyes was just an unfortunate result of something I didn''t think through well enough.


    "Open wide."


    Reaching with my now free hands forward to her face, I grabbed her chin and pulled it down a bit, sneaking in my forefinger of the other hand inside her mouth. As if that alone was enough of a hint for her, she started running her tongue around my finger, coating it with her saliva. Allowing this moment to last for a while, I finally pulled my hand away, while moving the dry one on the side of her head, as if I wanted to caress her cheek.


    "Can you lick me down here, just like you did with my finger?"

 50 Innitiative smu

    "You sure like some quirky stuffˇ­"


    While Elia said those words, she still leaned forward with her mouth still open. Even without anything else, just her pose alone, her face filled with longing and eagerness, her breasts squashed between her arms that she used to support her body, her delicate lines highlighted by the light of the fire burning in the stove behind herˇ­ All of this along with the emotional baggage that this moment carried for me, were enough to bring me to the tipping point!


    But it all lost its value, when she simply pushed her forward, slowly enveloping the tip of my penis with her lips, that continued to spread a bit in order to accommodate the thicker parts of my manhood. Stopping when her lips covered its head, she simply kept it in her mouth, while running her tongue all over it!


    Whenever her warm and wet piece of flesh rubbed against the delicate skin of my shroom, I felt as if someone connected me to a damned energy plant, and made currents flow through my body like if I was some sort of conductor in the hands of a hideous and inhumane, evil scientists. But contrary to that projection, instead of swirling in pain, my body was melting in pleasure!


    "Ahˇ­ You are doing greatˇ­"


    Despite being a man, I still was unable to hold back my moans, as her lips started to slowly venture further down my shaft. With her tongue still as active as it was before, I didn''t even realise when my hand that was supposed only to play with her hair, started guiding Elia''s head movements!


    Inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre, the tip of my penis was venturing further into her mouth as if the base of Elia''s tongue was a track on which it travelled through the uncharted territory of her insides. While my hand guided her head, the moment I realised it, I made sure there would be no pressure on it, making all her movements voluntary. Only when I saw drops of water forming in the corners of Elia''s eyes, I realised I was already going too far, even if she didn''t utter even a hint of protest!


    Suddenly pushing her head away, I had to take a moment to calm myself as I was scared that my building up lust would force my hand and make me hurt her.


    "What happened? Did I do something?"


    With how abrupt my action was, it was no wonder Elia noticed that something wasn''t right. But seeing how she instantly took the responsibility on herself, I could only grab her head and tilt my entire upper body in order to place a gentle kiss on top of her lips.


    "No, you are doing great. Now, that''s basically what I want you to do. Just move your head up and down, add some sucking and improvise the rest. After all, I want to feel you, not just my own instructions."


    "Okay then, here goes nothing!"


    Gracing me with yet another charming smile of hers, Elia once again opened her mouth wide, before leaning her forward and simply allowing my dick to just happen inside her mouth. When her mouth got fully filled, she clasped her lips around my shaft, suddenly sucking on it and turning my sight into one filled with countless stars dancing on the firmament.


    Reaching with her hand, she grasped the base of my manhood, before pulling herself out, only to push the tip of my dick deeper, rubbing it against the back of her throat. With her tongue going wildly around as if she wanted to taste every single piece of my shaft, it took her only a few moments to bring me to the verge of erupting. Unwilling to subject her to the doubtful pleasure of getting her mouth filled with my cum as she tried her best to provide as much pleasure as she could, I grabbed her head and forcefully pulled it away.


    "Let''s stop now. I don''t want to waste even a single drop of my seed outside of you."


    Lowering my head once again to kiss her salivated all over lips, I grabbed Elia under her arms and raised her back to the standing position. Pulling her over myself on the bed, I fell to the back, while still holding her armpits and forcing her to follow suit. Not like she put any resistance, never breaking our kiss during all the motion.


    "How do you want to do it? While hugging? From the back? By yourself?"


    There were many positions that allowed the girl to suffer less during the moment of losing her virginity. Considering the culture of the current times, I was almost certain that she had yet to experience a man, especially when one looked at her haphazard movements before. In order to dissipate the tension even before it would appear, I decided to give her the choice of how we would become one.


    "I thinkˇ­ from behind. If I won''t see it coming, I won''t have the chance of being scared of it, am I wrong?"


    It was strange to speak with a girl about how I would steal her flower away from her. But when she smiled gracefully before once again latching onto my mouth and explaining her reasons when her lips moved to my ear, I understood one thing.


    There was simply no fucking point in comparing my current experience with what research I did in my previous life in preparation for this moment. The stuff that was recorded, was done by professionals, who were following exact steps of the script, aimed to invoke a certain feeling in the client who would buy the tape. The reality, however, was different for everyone. With the different characters, different experiences, different levels of shame or boldness, all those scenarios would be simply different!


    When one added the way of thinking that was special to this period of time, just the fact alone that I was so delicate with Elia instead of simply having my way with her, should be at least, uncommon!


    "From the back it is, then."

 51 As one smu

    With Elia lying on top of me, we had to change the position to move forward with her choice. Grabbing her hips and back, I held her closer to my body and rolled over, in order to move to the top. While there was still some moves we had to make in order to reach the way she wanted to accept me in herself, I only raised my upper body and moved my hands on top of her breast.


    From what I knew, the more excited the girl was, the easier the moment of breaking the hymen would be. With that said, if I were to jump into the true act right away, this moment, that I wanted to imprint in her memory as something beautiful and pleasurable, could turn into a bloody, memory of pain.


    Back when we were only starting, when I went for her breast, I started from their outer part, but this time, I instantly pinched her nipples between my fingers, before pulling them up as far as I could.


    ''Ah!"


    Surprised by this unexpected action of mine, Elia''s body twitched, with her back arching upwards a bit, making her rub her pussy against my erect penis. While this alone should be enough to overcome the slight pain I subjected her to in order to make her used to the varying sensations.


    Feeling quite a lot of moisture on my rod just from this slight touch, I realised that I was simply overthinking things. With how excited I was, it would be stupid to believe she was completely calm after all the teasing we subjected each other for.


    Since that was the case, instead of focusing on her bust, I once again went for her hips. Leaning my body away, I simply turned her around, before pushing her torso down, while pulling her hips up. With her head slammed against the set of pillows that this bed came with, everything was ready for us to finally enjoy the final act of the love.


    Taking a moment to appreciate the situation, I moved on my knees a few centimetres away and looked at the sight in front of my eyes. With her legs spread just enough to allow me free access to her most important place, I could just make out this beautiful and inviting view in the flickering light of the fire. Thanks to my intervention, while her hips were aimed towards me, her upper body was clasped against the matress of the bed, creating the most alluring angle I have ever seen in my life.


    Done with my inspection I moved forward as much as I could, pushing my dick just under her pussy and lying down on her body. With my hands locking below her belly, I made sure I had her locked in place and anticipation.


    "Are you ready?"


    Whispering those words right to her ear, I moved my hips a bit, to lock the tip of my penis at the opening of her wet vagina. Just this alone was enough to make me lose most of my power in my knees, with how her bottom lips instantly enveloped the head of my manhood, slightly convulsing as if attempting to suck my entire penis inside.


    "YeeeAH!"


    In an instant, her reply turned into a slightly pained moan, as her inner walls contracted heavily on my shaft, locking me completely in place. Content with giving her some time to rest after she just lost her virginity, I twisted my neck a bit, and placed my lips on her neck, covering it with kisses.


    "Iˇ­ I can feel you inside meˇ­"


    After a moment of rest, Elia finally uttered her first words, just at the same time as her pussy relaxed enough to allow me to move. Using this opportunity, I pulled back a bit.


    "Wait, why are youAH!"


    I had no idea how much she knew about the reality of intercourse, but as soon as she wanted to protest about me leaving her insides, I reverted my momentum and pried her insides open. Despite the strength at which she was holding my penis inside her weakening, the insane tightness of her vagina was giving me chills. As if myriad tongues enveloped my manhood in a wet, hot prison of flesh, whenever I moved even a tiny little bit, her insides would attempt to pull me back inside, or even deeper towards her womb.


    After a few moments of this sort of back and forth play, my tempo finally stabilised. Scrapping her unused insides with the tip of my penis, I moved my hands forward, grabbing her breasts and using them as a form of support for my moves.


    "Oh! This isˇ­ Insaneˇ­"


    Filling the emptiness of the room with the vibrant sound of her sweet moans, Elia raised her upper body a bit, as if unable to just stay in place. Using this opportunity, I grabbed her left knee, and move her leg up. Kissing her thigh the moment I could reach it with my lips, I suddenly twisted her entire body, and without separating myself from her, turned her over to her back.


    "I want to see your eyes."


    Leaning over her sweaty torso, I continued pumping her insides full, while lowering down my head in order to kiss her. Even before my mouth could reach her lips, she shot her arms upwards, grabbed my neck and used it as a support to kiss me herself.


    Connected both at the height of our crotch and with our lips, I could feel her moans transfering directly through my mouth into my brain, quickly eating away at my willpower. With her tongue moving around my entire jaws, I turned impatient, fucking her faster and faster than before.


    At this point, her pussy was too wet to exert any pressure on me, yet I could still fell that whenever I was pulling out, it would resist it, and whenever I was pushing forward, her inner walls would tighten up to help me reach even deeper parts of her insides.


    "I feelˇ­ strange!"


    Breaking the kiss only to shout those words in my face, she instantly pushed her lips back against mine, as if she couldn''t handle lack of my attention.


    "Don''t worry. I''m getting close too."


    Just from how my hips were madly rushing up and back, one could tell that there wasn''t almost any willpower left in my mind, capable of stopping me from cumming. While others could be bothered about the safety of the intercourse, I was a fucking noble! I had a castle, city and a few villages directly under me, so even if I were to impregnate her, the only thing that could change would be hastening up the marriage formalities!


    With the strange warmth spreading through my abdomen when I realised I was free to fill her insides with my sperm, I reached the tipping point.


    As my body suddenly tensed, so did Elia''s pussy. With her belly arching upward and her inner folds tightening on me to no end, I was unable to hold any longer, and released a powerful stream of semen, right into her thirsty womb.


    "AAAAAH!"


    With a long moan accompanying my climax, I continued to burst out inside her. Feeling how her fingers were running frantically all over my chest as if she lacked support, I raised my hands from her hips and caught her hands, only to entangle our fingers together, reminding Elia that I was here for her.


    When my moment of pure ecstasy was over, I simply fell over on top of Elia''s body, still feeling how her twitching pussy continued to wring up the last drops of my semen only for her womb to gulp it all down.


    "Thank you, dear."


    Only able to raise my head enough to once again kiss her lips, I cast a glance at her upper body, covered with countless, tiny drops of her sweat.


    "The pleasureˇ­"


    Stopping for a moment as yet another wave of pleasure shook her body and deprived her of the air in her lungs, she took a deep breath before finishing.


    "... is all mine."

 52 Morning and news

    8th March 1574 (I''m too tired to read the entire story to make sure that this date is correct, but more or less, should be)


    With the rooster''s screaming, my consciousness returned to me. Feeling the warm rays of the sun warming a part of my exposed back, I slowly raised my eyelids, only to be greeted with a warm smile of sleeping Elia. Resting her head on my arm, her hands were holding my other hand near her purring-through-the-sleep mouth.


    After tiring ourselves out after just the first round, we ended up hugging tightly and falling asleep, without a care in the world of properly covering ourselves with a blanket. As such, while I could enjoy the privilege of gazing at Elia''s now calm body all I wanted, I decided against it, moving my free hand on the back of her waist and pulling her closer to me.


    While the atmosphere in the room could be still hot after the events of last night, we couldn''t forget that not only did the fire in the stove died off long ago, we were still in the middle of a damned winter!


    Just as I felt the softness of her skin rubbing all over my torso, her head started moving impatiently, soon for her face to unbury herself from my chest and tilt upwards, allowing me to gaze deep into her deep, greenish eyes.


    "Good morning."


    Raising my hand from her waist to her cheek, I caressed it with my fingers, as if unwilling to believe that such a charming sight was greeting me right at the start of the day.


    "Good morning, dear."


    With Elia''s hands moving from the height of her chest towards my neck, she pulled my face closer and washed away my sleepiness with a long, soft kiss. While we were both lying naked, close to each other and even kissing, there was not even a hint of lust in this act. Instead of feeling pressured to turn her ower and sate my desires with her body, I firmly believed that if given the chance, I could just stay in the bed and continue staring in her eyes for at least a few hours more!


    "While I would love to just stay like that, we still need to properly wake up."


    With how smitten I was with this calm, happy moment of ours, it was Elia who had to take the initiative to break the impasse. A wise man once said a woman doesn''t need to build a rocketship to get to the moon. All she has to do is to cheer on a man who will do it for her!


    Suddenly breaking out of my light hug, Elia raised her upper body, revealing both the hickeys on her neck that I left there last night and the alluring line of her charms, highlighted with the rays of the morning sun, sneaking through the gaps in the window curtains, as if their sole choice was to accent the line of her slim waits and full breasts when she sat beside me on the bed.


    Mesmerised by the sight, I couldn''t stop staring at her to the point that regardless of what we did last night, she still covered her bust with her hands while throwing me a pouting look.


    Following Elia''s example, I prompted my body up and moved out of the bed. Approaching the bail with water, commonly accessible in the rooms of a proper noble, I washed my face while ignoring the droplets of icy cold water falling down on my entire body.


    With a sudden idea popping up inside my mind, I waited a moment while continuing to wash, eager to hear Elia''s steps. As soon as the awaited sound reached my ears, I gauged the direction and the distance cupped my hands and threw a fistful of water at my fiancee!


    "Ah!"


    Suddenly sprayed by the icy cold water right on her naked skin, Elia jumped away, losing her foothold and falling over back at the bed. With a sweet shout of a surprise coming from her mouth, my lips curled up in a mischievous smile, before I approached her and gave her a hand to help her out of the sleeping place.


    "What was that for?!"


    At first, her face turned ugly, as if she considered my small trick as an attack on her honour, only for her lips to follow my example and curl up as she started to giggle.


    "Sorry, I couldn''t help myself."


    Helping her up, I moved to the place on the floor where I threw my robes back last night. Pulling them over my head, I quickly dressed up while enjoying the small show of Elia doing the same. Contrary to my expectations though, instead of dressing herself in her usual, manly clothes, she wore horseman pants and a light, almost see-through tunic, only then covering her upper body with a fur coat.


    "Anyway, let''s head out, to get some breakfast. What do you think?"


    As soon as I finished binding out my kontus belt around my waist, Elia instantly got close to me, handing her hands on my arm, as if the notion of walking alone no longer applied to her. Reaching with my free hand and poking her cheek while holding back a wide smile from appearing on my face, I was about to respond when a knocking sounded on the doors of our chamber.


    "Lady Elia, Sir Mikeˇ­ We have dire news!"


    Looking at each other, I moved to the front, putting my hand of the sabre''s handle that I just attached back to my normal belt. After confirming that my fiancee would lose even a tiny bit of her dignity by letting someone see her in her current state, I focused my attention at the doors.


    "Come in."


    While I expected some kind of ambush, upon seeing the face of the same, loyal servant of the mansion that greeted us when we first arrived there, I felt relieved and moved my hand away from my weapon.


    On the other hand, this old servant just needed a single look at the bed and the way we were positioned to realise something, making him lower his head as if he didn''t want to shame us with his direct sight. At the same time, I could say with a certain degree of confidence that I could see his lips curling upwards!


    "Speak."


    If he dared to intrude on his lady''s chambers so early in the day - after all, most of the nobles preferred to enjoy themselves in the morning, often shifting their living time a few hours past when the serfs and servants would live - he had to bring some vital intel!


    "I''m sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, sirs!"


    Bowing even deeper, Neren took a breath before raising his head, with all the traces of his previous happiness gone.


    "Mayor Vlad and one of his retainers came to pay you a visit. They asked me to tell sirs, that sir Peter from Ropian is gathering his men and aims to raid this city!"

 53 Basils information

    8th March 1574


    "Call them in. We will talk during breakfast."


    The news that Vlad brough were dire indeed. With how everything went smoothly with Elia''s family, I dared to actually forget that there was another suitor for Elia''s hand! While I didn''t want to plan anything with how little information I had on hand, it seemed that my journey back to the Tarnow would have to be put for the later date!


    "Dearˇ­ What do you want to do about him?"


    Approaching me and once again hugging herself to my arm, Elia asked me while looking at the closed doors, as if the place where her loyal servant stood was a trap ready to spring up and destroy everything that we achieved so far.


    "I have some ideas, but I need to know more. If he is about to reach this place within a few hours, there will be less stuff that we could organise than if he only started gathering his troops. Don''t forget how long it took us to rally everyone for our trip here!"


    For now, the main problem was that my relationship with Elia was simplyˇ­ unofficial. Without the blessing of the other influential nobles from the neighbouring lands and most importantly, helping hand of the governor of the province all three of us lived!


    "Don''t tell me you are going to abandon me nowˇ­"


    Poking her finger into the side of my waist, Elia attempted to lighten the mood with a slight joke, but just a single glance at her face told me that she was just as tense as I was. Even her silly attempt didn''t manage to disperse the air of worry that started to gather in the room.


    "Of course not. On the other hand, I''m considering whether to marry you right here and now. But for now, let''s head to the dining chamber. Standing here and worrying over the matter won''t bring us closer to solving it."


    Not waiting for her reaction, I simply trodded forward while making sure she would be unable to free her hands that she herself wrapped around my arm. In the end, instead of resisting, Elia only hugged herself even tighter to my arm and followed my steps.


    From the guest-chamber that we spent the night in, through the main corridor of the living wing of the mansion, we paced through the gap between stone walls towards one of the bigger places in the entire building.


    With no surprise, both of our guests were already there. Sitting at the table and impatiently hitting his fingers against the wood was Vlad, with someone I didn''t have the chance to be acquaintance with yet.


    "Welcome to our mansion, Mayor Vlad. And who might be the person on your side be?"


    Announcing our arrival as to prevent them from being startled, I nodded slightly to the mayor before turning my sight towards the other person, calmly sipping on the vine on Vlad''s side.


    "Good morning, Sir Mike, Lady Elia. This person here is my brother, Basil. He is one of the merchants tasked with supplying the city with all its necessities."


    "Let''s not waste time then."


    Stepping forward, I pulled the chair at the opposite side of the table as to when Vlad and his brother were sitting, and allowed Elia to sit, before helping her push the chair forward and sitting myself.


    "We were told you have some information regarding Peter Hellan, the owner of the city of Ropian, assembling his army with the intention of marching to this town. I would like you to elaborate on this topic."


    There were only two possibilities. Either that damned guy was already in town with Basil aiming to stall for time, or there was still some time left for us to react. In the first case, there was no way to avoid the bloodshed, but comparing the relative wealth of Tarnow and Ropian, I was sure that the escort I brought with me would be far more than enough to repel his advances with the help of the local guards.


    On the other hand, with how slow everything was happening in this day and age, if he had even a bit of time, wasting a few minutes at calmly analyzing our situation would only do us good.


    "I will pick up from there, then."


    Finally putting aside the glass of vine, Basil cupped his hands over the table and looked at me. With his burrows furrowed and corners of his lips sinking closer to his jaws and making the fat from his cheeks cover them completely, I was unable to tell whether he was happy or worried.


    "Most of the time, I''m travelling between the nearest settlements, like Ropian, Tarnow or Biec to the south. This time, I was returning from the further east, bringing some wares from the Resovia, when I passed through Ropian with hopes of selling off part of my products and buying something else that was locally cheaper and could bring me some profit here."


    Spreading his arms as his eyes took on a dreamy look, Basil seemed to suddenly fall into the depths of his imagination.


    "I soo wish you could see that! Local moonshine for a silver per gar? Jewellery sold according to its weight rather than its worth? The amount of money I can always make thanks to this warlord is insane! He is truly a star of skirmishers! It''s a pity he refused to journey further south against Tatars thoughtˇ­"


    Hearing how this guy was blatantly praising the rival of mine that I was about to most likely start a war with, I inadvertently tightened my fists. Only Elia''s hands placed on my knee and her calming smile prevented me from cracking the skull of this dumb merchant open to check what was wrong with his brain.


    "Mister Basil, I invited you to hear about what you saw in Ropian, that''s true, but instead of wasting our time at the things that do not interest us in the slightest, how about you tell us something that we would really like to know? After all, a successful merchant like you, should know how to earn a proper reward?"


    Recalling a scene from the Polish historical drama about this period, when a young, noble servant of a major noble of a similar status to me was saved by the friends of said noble, I couldn''t help but smirk. Both in that scene of the movie and in my current situation, there was someone that had the knowledge others desired, yet was wasting his saliva speaking about matters no one gave two fuckings about. With no big companion of mine to squeeze the juices out of the merchant''s hand while asking him in a kind voice to speak about the truly important matter, I could only flaunt the only thing that this merchant seemingly cared about, in front of his eyes.


    Rewards.


    "Ah, I was soo busy with trading that I didn''t really have time to worry about that stuffˇ­"


    My firsts once about tightened, ready to smash this damned fatso head, when Vlad actually did me yet another favour and sank his surprisingly tough fist in his own brother''s belly.


    "Okay, okay! I will speak! He was almost finished with forming his party. From the amount of food he was bringing with him and how I heard it was assumed that they could restock in hereˇ­ He will bring about a hundred men with him."

 54 Comming up with a plan

    8th March 1574


    One hundred men.


    That number was far greater than what I expected Peter to be able to achieve. Even after straining my budget a bit, all I could gather was only half of this number, without jeopardising the safety of the town and castle!


    "Those news are indeed worrying."


    In the current situation, facing that guy head-on might be possible, but would be a really costly endeavour. Just the loss of my men would be painful, yet the risk of them actually losing was something that I couldn''t accept!


    "Speaking of which, how long do we have before his arrival? Even if his force is strong, as long as we maintain mobility, we may still best him."


    With a myriad of solutions appearing in my mind, I suddenly recalled one advantage that I had over this guy!


    After all, didn''t I have a system to help me out right now?


    With just a single thought of mine, the screen that was kept to the furthest corner of my vision to not let it bother me in my daily life moved to the central point of my sight.


    After closing the several windows that I used to turn worthless amounts of grain into MGS and beers, I finally reached back to the main map of the game that I was supposed to be playing right now instead of figuring out my way through the countless intrigues of this world.


    Moving my imaginary cursor over the map, I pushed to the east only to find the town of Ropian. Opening its status window, I finally found the tab related to the Peterˇ­ Only to feel a great disappointment.


    Outside of the set of his statistics, there wasn''t even a hint of usefull information there! Not only I was unable to find out where his troops currently were, but I also couldn''t even check how the heck did he get such a big group to follow him without causing the economy of his lands to collapse!


    "I think you have one, no. Two days at most. But waitˇ­ Are you telling me that you are going to fight him?!"


    From how Basil was describing Peter just a moment ago when he realised that the troops that this damned noble gathered were most likely aimed against me, his expression turned ugly, as if all his efforts turned out to be used against him!


    "Fight him? No, that would be utter madness to pit my fifty men, even if supported by the city guards, to clash with his troop twice the size of mine."


    There was no point in denying it. In terms of military, I was in a spot where I could only pit my chances on some lucky event. And doing so, when considered how many other options I had, would be the pinnacle of stupidity!


    "Okay then. I hope you will enjoy your meal, Basil. Vlad, I want you to come with us."


    But that didn''t mean I would reveal the entire truth to him either!


    "Okay then, hear me out. First thing first, I''m not going to waste the lives of my men for no reason. Instead, I want youˇ­" - I pointed my finger at Vlad - "... to simply let him in, and pretend like I drove Elia''s family out, and then kidnapped her to the Tarnow. That''s also where we will head to, butˇ­ by ourselves."


    While the part of letting Peter into Pilzno was true, since that was what Vlad''s part of the plan would be, not even a single of my next words were even close to scratching my real plan!


    "On the other hand, to not raise his suspicion, I will send my men as a trade caravan to Resovia. Do you have anyone trustworthy that could play the part of the merchant who hired my men?"


    Once again turning to Vlad, I ignored the mute question that Elia''s lips was posing. After all, I couldn''t explain her my real plan while standing near someone who I just fed a bunch of lies, could I?"


    "While you might be surprised about this, sir, but I believe Basil could fill that role perfectly. As long as he will see enough benefits for him in this trade, I can assure that his loyalty will be full and eternal."


    "Good then, I will leave it to you, Vlad. Meanwhile, Elia, come with me. I need to have a talk with Elemo and Al."


    After reaching the first form of agreement with Vlad, I quickly lead my fiancee away to not make her ask the questions that could put doubt in the mayor''s mind.


    "Are we really going to escape and give Pilzno to Peter? Just like that?"


    There was obvious disappointment in her voice. Just as she recovered it from the hands of her family, she was about to lose it once again, only because the man that she has chosen refused to fight her suitor! I couldn''t really blame her for that!


    "Of course not. But as things are right now, fighting him openly could only bring us to a loss. Isn''t it better to take over his entire wealth, put him in prison and have a beautiful marriage ceremony?"


    With the plan already forming in my head, I was preparing a list of things I had to take care off before I would ride with Elia into the dying light of the setting sun.


    "What do you mean by that?"


    Mentioning the marriage at this very moment, where everything seemed to be falling apart, puzzled Elia and most likely made her wonder what the heck I was speaking. She was worried about losing her heritage once again and I was going to prevent it with a marriage ceremony?


    "We won''t be going to Tarnow. Or at least, not entirely. While we will hang out in the same tavern we met Kalen back then, we will get Jan to travel back to the Tarnow and alert the guards there about the potential raid of Peter, we will head north for the Ariestown (Baranowice), and then straight for Sandomir!"

 55 Wedding plans

    "Good luck brothers. If we succeed, the entire south of the province will be in our hands!"


    Shaking hands with Jan and Kalen respectively, I watched as they jumped on their horses and rode down to the west, while I stood on the empty road with only Al and Elia to my side. With only two of my men departing with my newly acquired companions to the Tarnow, just in order to pass the message from me to my other people stationed there, the three of us was now left to our devices.


    "Are you really sure about that? Is defeating Peter to such a degree worth the risk of losing Tarnow?"


    Turning my head around, I looked at Al, in his full noble suit. Despite being on the poor side of the nobility, he was capable of wearing a rather expensive hauberk on top of his usual kontus, but instead of a tunic, he was already dressed in gambison. With how only the three of us were going to go on the journey to the Sandomir, it was better to at least take care of the basic aspects of armour.


    "We don''t really have any other way. While I could gather all the troops I could from Tarnow and the nearby villages, not only would that force be slow, it''s quality would also leave a lot to be asked for. Considering how that bastard managed to organise a unit hundred men strong in such short amount of time, I''m worried that instead of simple commoners, they all belong to the group he is raiding the Tatar lands with."


    While in the future times, the difference between a simple man armed with a gun and a professional soldier wasn''t that great, in the current times, a single trained soldier could take on multiple untrained commoners with relative ease. Even without caring for the quality of weapons and armour, most of the troops that I could rally up would be usefull for as long as it would take them to fire their shoots before being cut down by those who would survive the salvo.


    "I''m really sorry about that."


    Joining the topic, Elia hung her head low on her shoulders, as if she was the one responsible for our current problem. While partially this was true, there was no reason to blame her for the reckless actions of some haughty warlord from the east.


    "Don''t let it bother you. Sooner or later we would have to deal with him anyway, so Peter making the move first is nothing else but a wake-up call for us."


    Patting her lightly on her back, I turned back to my horse and jumped on top of its saddle. Grabbing the reins, I threw a quick glance to my companions, only to see them following my example.


    After all, time wasn''t waiting for anyone.


    "Let''s go!"


    Despite the distance that separated us from the Sandomir being around two to three times greater than how far Pilzno lied away from Tarnow, setting of rather early in the morning allowed me to hope that we could reach the city of Mielec, about halfway on the way. Considering how this was one of the other major cities in the province, albeit way is smaller and poorer than towns of Tarnow or even Pilzno, while there was no direct road leading from there to the Sandomir, with the relative proximity of the main branch of the Vistula river, as long as we could find a single barge travelling downstream, we could arrive at the gates right before their closing for the night!


    "Speaking of which, why do you think that travelling to Sandomir will do us any good? It''s not like Governor will pay any attention to yet another small conflict of the local nobility."


    With how mundane and simply boring the travelling in this day and age was, we could kill the time only by talking. As such, it was only a matter of time before either of my companions would ask for the details of my plan.


    "First thing first, don''t escape in the way you will be chased. As soon as Peter arrives in Pilzno, he will learn how we ran to my home, and in the villages we passed through, they will only confirm his guess. That''s why I asked Jan to hurry up on his way so that the militia could be alerted in time. Even if Governor won''t mind a small scale conflict between nobility, Peter ought to know what would happen to him if he dared to attack the villages!"


    First of all, the new king just started his rule, so all the major nobles were very interested in presenting their services in the best way possible. As brutal as stupid conflict sparking up just two weeks after the coronation was the sure way to bother the King and lessen the chances of the Governor to poach some privileges for himself.


    Second of all, with the current tax system of Commonwealth, the taxes that my lands paid, were transferred directly to the Governor''s coffers, who was in change responsible for paying its due part to the crown. If anything happened to the villages that provided Sandomir with the basic and greatest tax from my lands outside of the city of Tarnow itself, he was bound to react in some way, since it would be him who would lose the most.


    And lastly, Peter would achieve simply nothing by raiding my lands! Raiding Pilzno in hopes of routing me and Elia there? Jumping into pursuit right after to do exactly the same on the road? Yeah, that was the simplest and easiest way to fulfil his dream of marrying Elia. Anything else, and he would turn his own ambition into a spark of a rebellion, that most of the nobles in the lands around would love to squash in order to claim his lands as recompensation!


    "And about travelling to the Sandomir itselfˇ­ We are not going there to ask the governor for help. We are riding there so that we could personally invite him to our wedding in Pilzno!"

 56 Details of the plan

    "What?!"


    While our talks about marriage were limited so far to the loving whispers after the deed was finished and back then, when we enjoyed ourselves with more than a single cup of beer, I suddenly came out and announced that I was going to invite one of the major players on Commonwealth political table to our wedding?


    "You don''t like the idea? While we might not be the greatest nobles, my lineage comes directly from the Jan Tarnowski heritage! What''s more, I do believe that your beauty deserves to be graced with such grand guests at our wedding!"


    Adding small praise to my sentence was as much a true statement as much my silly attempt to subjugate Elia''s surprise before it would turn into anger prompted by the fact that I didn''t bother to ask her about her opinion, or even informed her about the fact!


    "It''s not I don''t like itˇ­ But rather, it''s all too sudden for me!"


    It was quite funny to hear those words coming out from the lips that just last night were greedily latching onto the sides of my penis! But it wasn''t an argument I could ever bring out, even if my dear companion Al was far enough to miss the conversation!


    "Look. Our entire relationship is sudden. We suddenly met, we suddenly came to an agreement, we suddenly realised that this fake ruse turned into something real. If I were to be completely honest, seeing a Frenchman sitting on a Polish throne doesn''t fill me with confidence about the stability of his rule. With how our entire world could collapse at any given moment, why not just marry as soon as possible, while using it to make sure no one would be left to meddle with our affairs?"


    Quite obviously, I couldn''t tell them how our beloved king would simply run away from this country as soon as French throne would turn vacant, but that didn''t stop me from hinting how unstable his rule was.


    "You are right, sir."


    As if he didn''t understand that the current conversation was between me and Elia alone, Al suddenly hurried his horse to level himself up with the two of us and butted into the discussion.


    "If we ignore all the bullshit about feelings and love, marriage is a powerful tool for the nobles. If there is a chance to use it for the best of our interests, hesitating because of feelings would only prove how unqualified one is to wield the noble title!"


    While I couldn''t disagree with what he just said, I could only praise him if he said that in private, with no additional pair of ears receiving this message! After all, I might be from the future, I might be unaccustomed to the reality of this times yet, but I wasn''t as stupid to congratulate him those words when Elia was riding just beside me!


    "Hey, Alˇ­ Did anyone ever told you to shut your fucking crap?"


    Only this response saved me from the vicious stare that Elia instantly send towards the two of us.


    Turning my head towards my girl, I reached with my hand and grabbed hers, allowing myself to enjoy the pleasant feeling of her fingers locking with mine for a short moment before the unstable pace of our horses forced us to separate.


    "But then, what does the sole invite do for us? It''s not like the governor will bring his army with him that will help us repel Peter out of Pilzno!"


    To be honest, Elia''s doubt was pretty warranted. Just like my entire plan was based on buying ourselves into the governor''s favour with the smart use of bits of beer and MGS spice, I couldn''t make him do all the job for us!


    "Don''t worry about it, but think deeper. What would happen if the governor accepts our invitation? Let''s say, the date of the wedding would be set for one month from now."


    Instead of explaining my plan right away, I allowed both Elia and Al follow my guidance to realise the idea hidden behind openly stupid moves.


    "He will depart from his place of residence in about three weeks and in order to calmly reach Pilzno in time with his retinue and gifts. Isn''t that obvious?"


    Just like in future, marriage ceremony consisted of the proper marriage at the Sunday''s mess, and grand festival for both the nobles and the commoners of the marrying parties. And just like in the future, all the guests were supposed to present the newlyweds with a gift befitting the status of the guest and the scale of the entire ceremony.


    "And what would happen if, upon arrival, the governor will learn that both the husband and wife-to-be were kidnapped just a few days ago by a warlord who didn''t like the idea?"


    With the grand title of governor, the gifts would most likely require at least a single carriage to be even brought to the Pilzno in the first place. With that, the time that it would take him to travel the distance would turn from two days that we could take to arrive there, to at least an entire week!


    And just like in any other country, such an important person as Governor didn''t really have that much free time to spare!


    "Wait, are you going to let Peter catch us? He will kill you right away!"


    At first, I wanted to reply with the quote from one of the greatest animations I have ever watched in my future life - this is the risk that I''m willing to take - but sadly, it wasn''t entirely true!


    "First, we will give him a hint that since he raided Pilzno, we will raid his own home. And no, I won''t let him catch the both of you. While he will be enjoying his victory by imprisoning me in the basement of his palace in Ropian, you will be safely hidden in Tarnow, so that he won''t be able to kill me right away!"

 57 Rare meeting

    9th march 1574


    Just like I expected, reaching the city of Mielec while having a spare riding horse each, wasn''t a task posing any real difficulty for either us or the horses. In just eight hours since departure, we already crossed the gates and could finally allow our mounts to rest in the stable while moving to the Tavern and enjoying a few drinks ourselves.


    Waking up with the first ringing of the city bells, instead of rushing to the horses in hopes of reaching Sandomir at this very day, I managed to reform my plan a bit in my head. If I wanted Peter to catch me, there was no need to rush! With the month of preparation period necessary for all the other pieces of the puzzle to fall in their place, meeting with the governor had to happen in the few next days, not necessarily today!


    And to be honest, if we rushed our horses to no end and even managed to reach Sandomir before it would close its gatesˇ­ Asking for a meeting with a governor at such time could only be considered as a great disrespect!


    "I miss your beer."


    After being served a hot, chicken soup with various items that pretended to be pieces of vegetable floating in it, only the use of MGS that I had in abundance on me saved us from the prospect of either forcing ourselves to eat this joke of a meal and starvation.


    But there was no way for me to just grab a fistful of grains and other ingredients and just pour a beer from my seemingly empty hand to their cups! While Commonwealth was really tolerant in terms of religion, doing so would either see me getting announced as a saint of my times or being one of the insanely rare cases for the fiery stakes that appeared on Polish lands!


    "You know it''s reserved for the governor."


    While the beer I brough to the Pilzno was all dried up before we even reached it, I somehow managed to create a single garn of it and sneak it as something I hid for special occasions. After all, giving a new, unknown spice as a gift for our meeting with the governor wasn''t the greatest idea, especially with how such a fine, whiteish powder could be easily misunderstood for poison!


    With that said, even though my hands were itchy to open it up and make our morning a little better, we were forced to stick with the piss of a drink that this backwards tavern offered.


    "At least the soup is not that bad. Not that we can thank the cook for that."


    This time it was Al''s turn to throw a hateful glance towards the staff of the tavern, safely hidden behind the thick wood of a counter. But in fact, we only had myself to blame, since I was the one to insist on picking up such a cheap place. After splurging on the ring in Pilzno, the number of coins in my pouch was already limited, and as long as I wouldn''t find another merchant in Sandomir interested in buying out a small stock of MSG, we had to simply save as much as we could!


    "Let''s just finish this and move out. Nothing good will come from wasting our time here. At least, the jerky isn''t that bad."


    Strips of dried or smoked meat was one of the primary food stocks that we took on our journey. Small, light and filling, when smeared by a light layer of my spice it could even be called tasty. If we were to fancy something more filling, we could always stop on the road, pick some wild vegetables that were growing all over the country, add some water from the nearby river and just boil it all to get something aking to a light soup.


    "You guys really are not used to travellingˇ­"


    Out of nowhere, Elia called us out, with a proud smile on her face. With her story of running away from the henchmen that her family sent after her for over three years, it was no wonder she was used to the harsh reality of these times. But it wasn''t like we were new to this game either! Both Al and I had a history of taking part in a crown''s war effort!


    While it didn''t really apply to me since my mentality came from relatively peaceful times, where travelling from Pilzno to Sandomir would take one-two hours at mostˇ­


    "Get off our heads. Let''s go, there is nothing good in staying here any longer for us."


    After finishing the bland soup in a hurry, we swiftly left the tavern, without even leaving our mugs empty. That beer was simply too bad for us to drink it!


    Picking up the horses from stables was yet another costly process in terms of time, since not only we had to tend to their needs ourselves, clean their fur, pick all the small stones stuck in their hoves and make sure they were all well-fed, but just leading them away from the city took us a nice thirty minutes!


    While we all woke up with the first ringing of the city bell, when we were leaving, I could call it singing its usual tune three times in a row already!


    At least, as soon as we left the city, we could finally pick up the pace. Even though we didn''t really hurry our horses too much, the great, sunny weather that finally showed the signs of chasing the winter away from the land only encouraged both us and our mounts to travel at a healthy rate.


    In just about an hour, we managed to reach the bank of the Vistula river. In the current day and age, it was one of the most important trade arteries for the entire country, with most of the grain trade tunnelled into it, and finding an outlet in the trading city of Gdansk all the way to the north (Danzig for german and WW2 folks).


    While in the past, the banks of the river might be still covered in bushes, small forests connecting to greater woodlands that would later be acknowledged as the national natural treasure, with how busy this trade route was, even if no one would go to an extent of calling it a road, it would suffice to say that we could let our horses run as freely as if they were on the steppe!


    But just as the sun reached its highest point of the sky and started slowly descending down, Al spotted a huge group of people, gathered just by the edge of a nearby forest. In just a few moments later, I could see the details myself, recognising big, metal spikes that people of this age used to set up grill parties.


    It seemed that there was some hunt going on just beside us!

 58 Surprise

    9th march 1574


    "Greetings, gentlemen!"


    With my intention to rush all the way to the Sandomir as fast as we could already go after rethinking the matters due to the abundant time I had to actually think about my future moves while on the road, there was no reason to ignore such an opportunity to have some proper food.


    After approaching the crowd close enough to notice several people carrying the sabres on them, I didn''t hesitate to call them out. As expected, while the servants continued to move around with their tasks, several heads of better-dressed folks turned to me.


    "And who did God''s will brough to us?"


    Stepping forward as soon as we reached the distance when moving on the horses would be rude, one of the nobles gathered outside of the forest posed the most obvious question in the world. While a normal person in the future would simply ask - Who are you? - hearing this historical form of speech managed to hit my soft spot.


    "Mike of Tarnow, of Leliwa Crest, my fiancee Elia Pekta and my companion, Al Touwar, currently in my service. Sir Brother, mind allowing us to take a rest here? After rushing to Sandomir for two days already, I crave a different company than those two!"


    Jumping down on the soft ground, I smiled while jokingly referring to the two people doing the same behind me. Catching up the joke, the man in front extended his hand forward.


    "Jan Sien, of the yellow crab crest. I believe it''s our first time meeting."


    Shaking his head I smiled while nodding. While all nobles were considered brothers in the commonwealth, there was no way for everyone to know personally everyone else. As such, even if the distance between newly settled city of Rakow from which my system pointed this guy to originate and Tarnow wasn''t that great, unless some random chance happened, it was hard to get to personally know each other.


    "Then let''s be thankful for the God almighty to give us the opportunity to meet! Speaking of which, mind telling me what''s going on here? It looks like you guys are doing the groundwork for some hunt, but I dare to say, if sir brother does not take part in it, then who would dare?"


    Looking at the information tab brought to me by the system inc. I learned that this guy served the country as the Castelan (Middle-rank gov official, Kasztelan, named after Kasztel - Castel - meaning a fortified city/small castle) of one of the many lands of Commonwealth. If such a relatively big figure was holding back on the hunt, then who could be taking part in it?


    "Ah, don''t joke around, sir brother. I''m not in my years for such form of fun! But as you have said, we are only preparing the camp for the glorious return of sir Jan Bone!"


    Rummaging through the multiple windows of the system at once, it took me just a single breath to realise who did the noble in front of me meant!


    "His lordship Governor is here?!"


    To be honest, it was quite a surprise. Not only the very person I wanted to meet in Sandomir was way closer than I expected, but honestly speaking, the information about him in the system managed to gain the first place amongst the things that surprised me!


    First thing first, he was the father of the saint that became one by abandoning the insanely wealthy and influential family despite being the second son! Secondly, Jan Bone was one of the candidates for the crown of the commonwealth in the very election that decided Henry to rule!


    The list of his titles and possessions was longer than those of most of the western kings and princes, with not only large swats of lands controlled by him directly but even more titles and functions putting him just slightly below the rank of my great ancestor!


    "Yeah, his third son will celebrate the first year of his marriage in a few days, so the government decided to hunt some game himself! And since such a grand figure can''t hunt aloneˇ­ We are all preparing for a feast tonight. Seeing how you claimed to travel to Sandomir, am I right to assume that you wanted to meet with his lordship?"


    As we began moving towards the more central point of the camp, where the rest of the horses was bound, my new friend of sorts asked the perfect question.


    "Yeah. I intended to ask for his blessing for my marriage. Even if he became our governor only recently this year, that doesn''t change the fact that he is a patron for the entire province now! It would be rude of me to ignore such duty!"


    With how Jan Bone only became my senior in the province just two months ago, there shouldn''t be any bad blood between him and neither my great ancestor and uncle, who was the last in the mainline of Tarnowian Leliwa family. Considering how we most likely have never met before, it offered me an even greater chance of bringing him to my side in my conflict with Peter!


    "So sir brother is going to marry soon? I wish you all God''s blessing upon you and your beautiful lady!"


    Hearing about my marital plans, the middle-aged noble lowered his head a bit, only to raise it along with his eyes all the way to the skies. If not for the fact that he actually belonged to the Polish Brother protestant movement, I could even consider inviting him to my wedding as well!


    "Thank you, my lord. He will most likely need those blessing when I will get my hands fully on him!"


    Suddenly latching to my back, Elia wrapped her hands around my waist, while pushing her head above my shoulder. Just in time for the servants who were slowly turning lazy with their preparational work to pick up the pace, as the first horses started to emerge from between the trees of the nearby forest.


    "Speaking of the devil, it seems that the hunt has concluded!"

 59 Governor

    9th march 1574


    "It seems that today''s hunt went well."


    Looking at the long line of mounted nobles and their servants marching right beside their horses, I instantly saw the thing that made my new friend come to such a conclusion. Somewhere in the middle of the entire group, three pairs of servants were carrying a long stick with dead boars hanging from it, while even greater group followed them with all sorts of rabbits, partridges and other small game.


    "That''s great. The governor should be in good mood for introductions then, am I right?"


    As our journey came to an end as well, with some other servants taking the reins of our horses before letting them in inside a grazing field surrounded by a makeshift fence. While we still had to carry the stuff that our horses used to carry for us, being free to go around the camp without worrying about dirtying it was still beneficial.


    By the time we were finally done with our matters, the group of the hunters finally fully emerged from the woods and started settling back in the camp. In one instant, one of the boar was moved away to one of the bigger tents placed at the outer rim of the camp, while the other two joined the rest of the hunted game in what looked like a kitchen.


    "Let''s go introduce ourselves then."


    Nodding to the noble and excusing ourselves from his company, for now, I sent Al to organise two tents, one for me and Elia, and one for himself. While sleeping with merely a fiancee wasn''t the most catholic way of going about it, just like everywhere and always, the official laws had almost nothing to do with the cultural reality.


    "Greetings, Your Governorship."


    After approaching now dismounted Jan Bone, I waited for him to notice our presence before covering the remaining distance and bowing my head. While as nobles we were equal, the position he was holding was that of a crown representative, deserving this minimal respect.


    "Greetings, brother. I don''t recall you or the lady beside you coming with us for the hunt, so may I ask who do I have the pleasure to talk with?"


    While the history remembered this man - at least, as far as my system enhanced memory could tell - as a stern and strict father, just from his initial response to my greeting, I got vibes of a rather kind man. Maybe just like with Elisabeth Bathory, the kin of the very next King of Commonwealth that would be elected after one and a half year of interregnum that followed the escape of our current king, what people said in the future about Jan had little to do with what he really was.


    "I''m Mike of Tarnow, of the Leliwa crest, and this beautiful girl is my fiancee and soon to be wife. Just like your lordship noticed, we joined the camp as we were travelling to the Sandomir to pay our due respects to you."


    "This small barrel is our greeting gift. It contains the finest of the beers that my land managed to produce after a long process of trial and error. If your governorship will find it to his tastes, I will make sure to make haste with setting up the proper brewing that will result in enough supply to cover the demands!"


    In such a situation, giving out the greeting gift was also a great chance for me to promote my beer a bit. As long as the Governor would taste it openly, amongst other nobles, I could be sure that in just a few moments, the entire camp would strive to get some for themselves!


    "A beer you say? Ha!"


    Instantly snatching up the barrel from the hands of his servant, the surprisingly slim noble took out a knife and with a single hit, carved out a hole in the opening of the small barrel. As soon as the content from the inside got revealed to the outside world, he raised it to his mouth, stopping only to add a few words.


    "This is the right way to greet someone after a long hunt, that I said, HA!"


    Just as the aroma of the rich content entered his nostrils, Jan Bone angled the barrel as he raised it to his mouth, taking a mouthful inside his throat. While his movements betrayed that he initially only wanted to have a taste to show his friendliness to me by receiving my gift right away, as soon as his tastebuds got caressed by the insanity that my beer was, the barrel in his hands angled a bit higher, as more and more bulges appeared on the governor''s throat.


    "Thatˇ­. How come you call this a beer? Isn''t that a royal mead?!"


    After finally taking the barrel out of his lips, the Governor looked at me sternly, as if accusing me of a lie, yet the sparks in his eyes told me that I had nothing to fear.


    "Sir, I wouldn''t dare to escape to such tricks! I also have a new spice on me, that might show its proves if you allow me to pass it to the cooks. I think this is the only way for me to prove that no product of my great ancestor''s lands could ever be faked!"


    Flaunting the sack with the MSG in the air, I managed to regain the attention of the governor that was constantly shifting to the barrel, and put a wide smile on his lips.


    "A new spice you say? Fine! Not only I will allow you to use it to enhance our today''s feast, but I will also grant you a right to sit on my left at the table today!"


    For someone not well versed with the Polish culture, being able to sit on someone''s direct left or right, was both a great honour, but also a great responsibility. In this case, I could already tell that outside of rewarding me for such royal gifts, Jan also managed to corner me if I wanted to poison him, by forcing me to eat the same stuff that he would eat at the feast! Truly, a great politician he was!


    Well, that was only to be expected from someone who almost managed to become a King in the first free elections in the civilised world after the fall of antiquity!


    "Also, since you decided to travel such a long distance, you ought to have some other business with me. Why don''t you reveal your cards now, instead of potentially souring our mood during the feast?"


    With his expression turning from one of a generous, amiable father, his eyes suddenly turned cold, as he gazed at me with a thoughtful expression on his face.


    Truly, a great politician he was!

 60 Why didnt you tell him?

    9th march 1574


    "Your Governorship! I wouldn''t dare do something like that! While it''s true that I have some problems on my hands right now, it''s nothing that I can''t solve myself. But to be perfectly honest, there was a single matter I wanted to consult, or rather, to put on your hands."


    Smiling nicely, I looked straight into Jan''s Bone eyes and pointed with my entire hand to my side.


    "My dear fiance and Iˇ­ We are going to get married soon, and hoped that Governor himself could attend our wedding!"


    Instead of beating around the bush, since this guy already saw through me a bit, I decided to just hit him straight in the heart. The noble that welcomed us to the camp said that this entire hunt was aimed to provide wild game for the feast celebrating the wedding in the Governor''s family, so asking him to take part in yet another ceremony was the best way to divert his attention from the problems that I mentioned!


    "Oh, so that''s the case!"


    With his expression relaxing, as he took yet another sip of my beer, the governor looked at Elia and switched his gaze back to me.


    "First of all, I ought to congratulate you. Finding such a fine woman is a deed in itself! Speaking of which, may I ask your name, ladyˇ­?"


    "Elia, of the city of Pilzno."


    Instantly responding, my soon-to-be-wife gave the governor a curtsy, with a light smile plastered on her face. Maybe it was an accident, but as she lowered herself on her knees, she moved her right hand in a way for the sun to be reflected off the ring I gave her right into Governor''s eyes.


    "Eliaˇ­"


    Grabbing his chin, the governor took an expression on racking his brains in search for some long-forgotten information, before he moved his hand away from his face and used it to slap his knee.


    "From the Pekta family, am I right?"


    With the smile turning from just a slight curvature to a fully-fledged grin, Elia bowed her head.


    "It''s an honour to be remembered by such a great figure as you, your governorship!"


    If it was the case for the former governor, remembering such details would be just a part of the job, but with how this guy took this position only a few months ago, being able to recall such detailed information about after all - a minor noble - was a great feat that spoke wonders of how serious he was about fulfiling his duty to the crown!


    "Then to not keep you hanging any longerˇ­ I''m happy that I was invited, and surely I will take part in such a joyous event. Especially, if you could make sure to get some more of this beer on it!"


    Raising the now half-empty barrel to the air, governor shook it a bit as if to accent his words, before pressing the opening once again against his lips and taking a few sips more.


    "Pure Virgin Maryˇ­ If the spice you spoke about is as great as this drinkˇ­ I can''t wait to have the feast started!"


    The question was, did the Governor flaunt the greatness of this drink just out of pure heart, or did he intend to force me into giving up a part of the business that would surely spring up as soon as I could gather all the materials necessary to set the production?


    "I would like to excuse myself then. With your consent, could I order the cooks around a bit? There are some things that need to be harvested from the wild herbs in order to bring the power of my spice to its maximum!"


    Just like I said, I only had pure MSG on me, and the form I was most well-versed about was a specific mix of vegetables, MSG and other ingredients. While some of them have yet to become popular in entire Europe with how slow the new plants were spreading from Spain through the entire continent, in fact, most of them were growing in wild everywhere around!


    "I will allow that. Go then and do your best! Also, I can''t let you go without commending your luck. To be able to fall in love with the direct owner of your neighbouring townˇ­ I can''t tell whether its luck or simply a political wit! Anyway, you have my respect!"


    With the governor dismissing us, I pulled Elia away from the crowd, heading towards the place where servants were now dissecting the two boars and some of the other small game that the hunters managed to bring back from the forest.


    "Why didn''t you tell him about Peter? If you are not going to use his power outright, what''s the whole point of rushing to meet with him in the first place?"


    As I observed the disgusting but necessary process of gutting the animals, Elia latched on my arm and buried her nose in my skin, as if that could help anything with the smell that was already spreading out through the surroundings.


    "You see, while I could tell him about our troubles right away, what kind of impression would that make? Even if he could solve this problem by simply ordering Peter to stay the hell down, he would still remain in the position to do us harm, in a more or less direct way. If we want a complete victory, we need to destroy every last bit of his power and wealth, so when he would come to seek revenge, he would be akin to a child waving his wooden branch against the steel of a knight''s sabre!"

 61 Preparing the feas

    9th march 1574


    "Bring one more pot! Go get some turnip! Where do you think you are bringing this water? Boil it first!"


    Standing in the middle of the open field, I watched as numerous crowd of cooks and servants was rushing about with their tasks. Since I was in control over the cooking process thanks to the Governor permission, I decided to separate this part of the camp in two.


    The first one, located just beyond the illusionary fence made out of just a few sticks smashed into the ground, was following the standard procedures, using the ingredients they intended to use in the way the wanted to. On the other side, all those poor people subjected to my power on the other side of the ''fence'' had to reshuffle their entire mindset, with how I stopped almost every single task they wanted to tackle.


    "Okay guys, this won''t do. Everyone, gather up!"


    After a few attempts to simply change their usual routine, I realised how hard it would be. Cleaning the vegetables in the same water as they would boil them, most of the attention paid to the meat, as if no other dish could be made from the abundance of the ingredients that were already prepared, not to speak about all the different plants - considered a weed - that were growing everywhere around the camp and at the opening of the forest.


    If I wanted to turn their work into something really productive, everything had to be organised from scratch.


    "Okay then, listen up."


    Taking a look at the part of the crowd now obediently waiting for my orders, I assessed their number to be about thirty men strong.


    "Starting from the left, ten of you step up!"


    While in this day and age, most of the people were illiterate, basic calculus was something that everyone required to know. Unless you knew how to add and deduct, you would get scammed at every trade you would do!


    "Now, you will be tasked with preparing the meat. Drain the blood, remove skin and dissect it into edible parts. On one leg!"


    As if I were a general ordering the troops to attack, the designated group of men instantly jumped to the task. Maybe it was because of my decisiveness or maybe just because of the fact that they were placed responsible for the meat that the governor hunted himself, there was not even a single sign of anyone slacking now!


    "From the left, five of you, step up!"


    As I continued to give simple orders to the groups of cooks, in just a few minutes, from the chaotic bunch of servants that were annoying and bothering each other while focused on their own tasks, I created and organised units of people, all working in the separate field and doing tasks simple enough even for illiterate guys to understand.


    "Why do you even bother? Back in Pilzno, you just added the spice to the soup!"


    "You see, just like in warfare, when one wields an organised group with high morale, there is nothing in this world that could best him. This logic can be applied everywhere. You saw how they were scrambling against each other and taking way too long to finish a simple task like moving pot with water from one place to other. Look at them now!"


    Resting my back against one of the supply wagons that separated the cooking area from the rest of the camp, I observed how my temporary underlings were orderly fulfiling the task that I gave them.


    "Give me a moment."


    Freeing myself from Elia''s arms, I ran a few paces forward, smacking the head of one of the servants that attempted to throw a raw carrot into the pot with the water reaching the point of boiling.


    "Scrap its skin before adding it to the pot! There is no point carrying all the dirt into the dish, is there?"


    While I hit a man in his head, there was no hate or real force in it, just an action akin to a friendly nudge that one could serve his friends on every plausible occasion.


    "Yes, my lord!"


    There wasn''t even a single noble in either of the cooking groups. As the highest class, even the poorest and lowest nobles were expected to at least farm the land, as it was what feed the entire population of the commonwealth. Thinking about this, only traders and in some insanely rare cases - craftsmen - were jobs that a noble could busy himself with, without losing the grace of his status.


    But I simply couldn''t care less.


    By preparing a proper feast for the governor, I could attempt to not only gain his favour but also make him think about some basic reforms that I was already slowly implementing in Tarnow with the use of mobile kitchens. Even if the impact on the internal situation of the country wouldn''t be that great even if he turned out to be as enthusiastic about such reforms as I was, it would always set some foundations for the increased prosperity of the lowest class!


    "Okay, now, wait for the turnip to turn completely transparent, before throwing the water away. You guys, if you have bones ready, throw them to a big pot, pour the preboiled water and boil it again!"


    With how everyone was using the water directly from the Vistula river for all the culinary affairs, I could only assume that they weren''t bothered by the fact that just a few steps upstream, someone else was currently pissing right in it! That''s why the very first thing I ordered them to do, even before organising them in a proper manner - was to get three big pots full of water and boil it for quite a while. Not only did it allow me to kill all possible microbes that could be harmful to a human organism in there, but the residual dirt and sand that was gathered along with it from the river had enough time to simply fall on the bottom part of the pot, allowing me to start making the soup with something at least close to clear water!


    "So, what are you going to prepare? From how you got the bones in the water, the stock soup is obvious, but what about the meat?"


    Always following me just a few steps behind as a proper wife-to-be should in this age, Elia looked over my arm at the diligent ants of cooks working around the tasks I gave them.


    "Soup stock with a variety of vegetables, sour soup for those who want to have a taste, and as the best part, grilled meat!"

 62 Feast part 1

    9th march 1574


    "All of you, sirs gentlemen, must be wondering why someone like me, with more wealth than enough to comfortably get by, bothered to look into the topic of food."


    After all the preparation was done for both the group that I was controlling directly and the one that I left to their own devices, all that was left for them to bring what we all made to the great table assembled by a completely separate unit of servants.


    But there was no way I would just let all my effort of managing everyone and ordering them what to do just go to waste by throwing away the chance that this situation presented to me!


    "While it might sound dumb to some, smart to some but most of all, completely worthless to the most from what I observed during my travelsˇ­ But keeping our serfs well-fed, especially if we could do so without wasting our precious crops on them, could only result in greater profit margins for us!"


    There was no point in introducing advanced concepts like education, raising people from poverty, or even transforming unproductive serfs into capable craftsmen. There was simply too many social barriers that blocked all those steps from happening!


    Taking craftsmanship under scrutiny, it wasn''t enough to just let people tinker their time away. The world was already filled with buglers that failed guild''s exam. If one really wanted to advance on the path of currently existing crafts, one had no other way than doing so through guild!


    Even if I was a noble, if I dared to raise my hand against this system, instead of getting an entirely new pool of talent to supply my lands, I would lose the backing fo the currently established and efficient craftsmen! While this was something that sooner or later had to be done on the road of improving the efficiency of the social system, I was nowhere powerful enough to afford the cost of doing so right now!


    As such, only small steps like the one I was taking right now, could lead to the potential improvement to any part of the country! If it fails now, I won''t lose anything, but governor or the other nobles successfully implement it, in a few months or maybe years from now, I could count on their gratitude!


    "But let''s not keep all of us hanging any longer. Men, bring the food out!"


    While at first, I thought about making an entire ceremony of serving a single meal at a time to let everyone have a taste of the difference, but in the end, I decided against it. For such thing to happen, we would need to be in some fancy palace, all set on enjoying our time slowly and peacefully.


    But we were inside a hunting camp, with most of the guest waiting to sate their hunger after a tiring adventure in the forest. If I were to prolong the entire thing any longer, instead of enjoying the food, they would enjoy disconnecting my head from the rest of my body!


    Following my words, the long table got swarmed by the servants, bringing countless pots with a steaming hot content, spreading its aroma all over the place. For the most part, everyone gathered could enjoy either of the soups, depending on which of the pots was closer to them, but right in the middle, where the governor was seated, there were entire four pots with different content!


    "Sir outside of the two soups served for everyone, I dared to prepare a meal often eaten by the commoners, with just a slight touch of meat, poured evenly to two different pots, with the only difference being the further pot being enriched with the spice I brough with me. I did it for the sir Governor to taste the effects of this miraculous powder in its full power!"


    While I could do something like that for the Governor and the people closest to him, if I were to offer commoners food to all the nobility, they would easily misunderstand my intention for the insult, an attempt to make fun of them as if I considered them to be on the level of serfs. Hence, only me, Elia, Governor and the other two nobles on his right hand could enjoy the luxury of tasting all four different soups!


    "I won''t treat it as an insult, you don''t have to worry about. But let''s dig in then!"


    Looking at me meaningfully, the governor forced me to sit down and gesture at the servants to pour me all four kinds of the soup. While it was the highest rank that was supposed to start the feast by swallowing the first bite, as someone who brough a new spice that could potentially be a poison, I was forced to do the honours and start eating first.


    One by one, I sank my spoon into the bowl, taking up a small amount of the soup from the container straight to my mouth. Beginning with the simple commoner''s meal, I could swallow it easily. It couldn''t be said to be bad or something, but it simply lacked any sort of taste that could make such a meal appealing.


    After taking a few spoonfuls of the commoner''s soup, I finally could move on to the one enriched with MSG. While the taste was still bland, far off from what one could achieve with just a bit more ingredients, at least there was a pleasant trickling of my tongue, as the slight taste of the radish and carrot finally had the chance to cares my taste buds.


    "Woahˇ­ I didn''t expect such a difference!"


    For the people of the current age, being able to change the bland taste of the water coloured by boiling vegetables in it into something that actually had any hint of taste in it was already an achievement! If that was the Governor''s reaction to the enriched commoner''s soup, I could wait to see him taste the proper meals!


    Acknowledging the praise with just a slight nod of my head, I moved to the next two bowls, this time taking my sweet moment to enjoy the taste. Starting with the boar stock, it had an insanely rich aroma of wild meat, only improved with the intricate umami taste coming from MSG. With various herbs mixing into the fray and adding a hint of freshness to the soup, it was truly heaven in one''s mouth!


    Immersed in the food, I automatically moved on to the sour, creme soup, finally reaching the pinnacle of a fine taste. At first, the sourness overwhelmed the insides of my jaws, as streams of saliva filled my mouth only to mix with the soup and reveal the light texture of the overly boiled turnip, turning this commoner''s vegetable from a hard and tasteless product, into a mellow and tasty addition that added some solidness to the otherwise liquid meal.


    "This spiceˇ­ Where did you get it from?"

 63 Feast part 2

    9th march 1574


    "I''m sorry sir, but revealing it would deprive me of all the trade opportunities I have right now in the entire province. But I can promise, that as soon as I will deal with the problems plaguing my territories, I could open up a trade route to Sandomir, and sell it at the price similar to what I need to pay to obtain itˇ­ As long as I sir Governor will be the sole buyer, and I will be granted a monopoly for it in the Sandomir and Rhuthernia provinces!"


    Instead of using the spice to ask for help in dealing with Peter, I decided to aim for somethingˇ­ I would have anyway. With how only the system was currently capable of producing any amount of MSG, while the construction of the manufacturing plant capable of replacing me at the core of production, instead of local monopoly, I could say that I had one over the entire world!


    But when dealing with such an intelligent person, experienced in the field of politic way more than I could ever hope to be just by playing some strategic games, instead of aiming them towards the trouble I required their help with, just by hinting at its existence, I could give them something akin to an ace card they could play whenever they felt they could gain something really important from me.


    "It''s not something I can promise right awayˇ­ but you mentioned some troubles with your lands, mind elaborating a bit more about it, sir brother?"


    It was rather hard for me to not smile openly at this very moment. While I gave this opportunity to Jan myself with the very hope that he would use it rather soon, for him to latch on it right away was still quite positively surprising!


    "Nothing really big. Just a disappointed warlord from the east, unhappy with the fact that my beloved one prefered a true love instead of spending her future in the bloodied hands of the Peter of Hellan. By the time I was leaving Pilzno to notify your governorship about our marriage, I had to send my people to put the guards both in my city and the castle on alert against his likely attempts at messing my lands up. But just like I said, it''s something that sooner or later, I should be able to deal with, no reason for your governorship to sour your mood over this matter during a feast! It''s better to focus on the next meal coming, and I can assure you, sir governor, that this form of preparing meat is not yet known in these lands!"


    Instead of using the opportunity right away, I acted as if I was uncomfortable when speaking about matters related to Peter. Just like before, I couldn''t just act outright, but I was forced to dance around the social rules only leaving the hints for the governor to pick from my tracks!


    "Peter? Hmmˇ­ The one from Ropian Village?"


    "Yeah, that''s the guy, but I don''t think this is a topic to be discussed at the meal. Let''s not sour the mood even before I was given a chance to present the best use of the spice! Cooks! Bring the meat!"


    Decisively cutting the discussion out, I called the cooks out. The preparation of the meat was not only the most important but the most resource and time consuming as well. While with the soups, all one had to do was to pour the ingredients into the pot, fill it with water and let it boil for long enough, I used them to buy myself some time so that the cooks could at least finish the preparation work.


    After all, instead of grilling the whole bit at once over the fire, I had to go out of my way by poaching and combining a set of spears to create a primitive grill, over which a thin slice of meat was roasting slowly.


    Smeared from all sides with the MSG, salt and some of the herbs that I found at the edge of the forest, if not for the aroma barrier created by the sour creme soup, everyone could only think about the main dish for today instead of enjoying its first part!


    Thankfully, the time I took to slowly taste all the soups paid off, with the first batch of the meat already arriving at the table as soon as I gave the signal to the cooks.


    "Gentlemen! What you are all used to, is an animal gutted and roasted whole over the fire. While such a method could work for sating the hunger of big groups, with the meat hunted by the governor himself, I do believe we were ought to do a better job at preparing it! As such, let me present you, thin slices of grilled meat! Keep in mind, that what you can see on the table right now, is just a small, first portion with only more to come as soon as it''s ready! Eat while it''s still hot!"


    Once again sitting down after making a small speech, I took out the knife and slammed it onto the wooden plater soaked with the juices oozing from the freshly roasted meat, marked with the characteristic strings of the dark burns from where the edges of the spear touched it while keeping it over the fire.


    With one slice already locked at the top of my knife, I raised it to my mouth and took a hearty bite.


    As if a cloud dissolved in my mouth, turning into a fountain of juices rich in the aroma of wilderness. Encouraged by my example, the governor followed the same steps, starting with a small biteˇ­ Only to stuff the entire piece right in his mouth!


    "This is insane!"


    Even before he managed to fully swallow his piece, his hand already abandoned the knife and reached for the next one directly.


    "How did you get rid of the foul taste in the meat? How did you bring out so much of its flavour?!"


    Using the time between swallowing one piece and stuffing his mouth with another, governor sang praises for the food, unknowingly sinking deeper and deeper into my trap.


    And it would soon be the time for it to spring up on him!

 64 Night talk

    9th march 1574


    "I never expected for this spice to have such great effects."


    Lying down on the mattress organised by a single layer of cloth placed above a small pile of hay, Elia snuggled to my arm. With how close we managed to get to the governor, organising three sets of tens wouldn''t pose any problem, but she still opted for sleeping in the same one as me, so who I was to refuse her request?


    "I told you, rather than spice, it''s a powder that increases the taste. Just like you add salt to bring out the aroma in the dish, this one works in a similar way, just better."


    To be honest, I wasn''t quite sure how to explain it. Even using ''umami'' word at the feast that happened only a few hours ago was a grave mistake, since this term was forgedˇ­ only a few hundred years in the future!


    In the end, I could only attempt to explain how it worked by using the same words that my mother used when she was teaching me how to cook some basic stuff so that I wouldn''t make for a good joke as a grown-up man.


    "Soˇ­ it''s basically how every other spice works, doesn''t it?"


    With how unpopular spices were in the era, with some of the costing ways more than their weight in the gold, it was no wonder that Elia could be slightly confused about the difference. In a world where both coffee and tobacco were scarce enough to be considered a luxury item, talking about spices would bring one to an even higher level!


    "Not exactly. Most of the spices are used in order to add their own taste to the meal, while this one just helps to bring out the innate value of the herbs, vegetables or the meat. Oh, speaking of valuable commodities, I will have to ask the governor whether he could procure some tobacco leaves. Truth be told, I crave a smoke!''


    While I couldn''t really say whether smoking was already popular or not, I was sure that I saw some actors smoking a pipe in a polish period movie taking place only about a century in the future, so I gauged the chances of tobacco already known even if not popular to be high enough to mention it.


    "Anyway, I can''t understand why did you refuseˇ­ or rather, stopped the Governor from showing his initiative in regard to Peter. Wouldn''t it be better to just let him take care of it instead of wasting our time on him?"


    Placing her head on top of my arm, Elia turned sideways, gazing at me with her big, starry eyes. Under the scrutiny of such sigh, I couldn''t help but reply with all honesty that I could muster.


    "I''m a greedy man. As long as he exists, then just as I said before, he will continue to create troubles for us. After all, even if we turn Tarnow and Pilzno into the wealthy oasis of the country, we can''t forget that his city lays on the trade route to the east!"


    In short, words, if I wanted to become a true powerhouse of the commonwealth, investing in the eastern steppe was a must! Not only would it allow me to make profits from trading with the Ottomans and their subsidiaries, as long as I could make the trade profitable enough, not only I could solve the problem of the constant raids from Crimean Tatars by simply paying them more than they could rob, but that would also give me a card of both Tatar and cossacks forces to use instead of experiencing them constantly harass the borderlands of the country!


    "How do you want to get rid of him completely then? It''s not like you can force him into infamy!"


    That was a big word, that some people mistook with the one that encapsulated my plan for Peter. In short words, infamy meant forcing someone out of the country while confiscating all of their goods and wealth, with the monetary price for anyone who would kill the infamed person in case he or she would ever dare to come back to the country.


    "Infamy might be a bit too muchˇ­ but banishment won''t be that hard to achieve as you might think!"


    Contrary to infamy, banishment still meant the sacking of the entire wealth and forcing someone out of the country, but not only it didn''t deprive one of his noble statuses in the eyes of other countries but also meant that such a person still had a chance to be spared at later date. But what was most important in this situation, was a special form of banishment, exile.


    While a banite couldn''t step into the country until his sentence would be over or lifted, an exile was forced to live in a specified area, allowing for even greater control over his whereabouts! And so it happened, governors of the province still had the power to exile someone who sinned greatly enough!


    "I really can''t even begin to guess what is going on through that head of yours. Force someone into exile? How the heck do you aim to achieve that?"


    Instead of answering her, I simply moved my hand up, allowing the blood to resume its flow down my arm, while patting Elia''s head for a moment.


    "You don''t need to worry about it. As long as he will act at least similar to what I expect him to do, then all we have to do for now is wait. After all, the seeds are already sown!"

 65 Before the games

    10th march 1574


    As soon as I woke up, the freezing cold of the morning almost instantly made a short work of my drowsiness, with only a thin layer of cloth in form of a tent shielding a bundle made out my body, Elia and some thick furs that we used to cover ourself from the coldness of the still wintery weather.


    "Good moˇ­"


    Before I even managed to finish my greeting, I realised that Elia was still sleeping, tightly hugging to my bare body, latching to every hint of warmth that it presented. Enveloped by her arms and legs, I could enjoy her softness as she continued to rub her cheek against my breast, unwilling to poke her head from under the furry blanket.


    Moving my palm along her naked back, I enjoyed this warm, little moment between the two of us for as long as I could, only for the camp trumpeter to barge in with his usual and never as annoying as today melody, waking everyone up.


    "What''s goingˇ­ on?"


    Instantly bursting out from below the fur, Elia sprung up alerted by the high-pitched sound, exposing her lovely curves right to my eyes, only to waver still in the middle on her sentence, and fall to her knees, with her head hanging forward and backwards as if she had trouble staying awake.


    While the sight was lovely, it was too damn cold to just enjoy myself while she was risking catching a serious cold!


    Prompting myself up, I pulled the fur with me and embraced Elia, making sure to cover her with the animal blanket whole and pressing her closer to me to repel the coldness that managed to reach her skin in this short period of time that I hesitated between simply adoring her beauty and acting as a proper man should.


    "Good morning, dear."


    With how I pressed her entire body against my chest, I was unable to reach her lips, so I limited myself to kissing her cheek while enjoying the sweet smell of her hair. Even though there was no perfume for the use of moderately wealthy nobility like us, she still somehow managed to get overwhelm me with her adorable fragrance!


    "What made you so lively in the morning?"


    With her hands moving along my spine, she swiftly reached the part that should not be uncovered before anyone else, taking her time caressing it while I continued to hug her. Even if there was a trumpeter in the camp as an honour for the militaristic origin of the nobility, no one would be rude enough to intrude on our tent just like that. After all, the sound that was still lingering in the air was that of a wake-up call, not the enemy attack!


    "It''s a soldier''s duty to always be ready for orders!"


    "Are you really bored enough to take part in the game?"


    Falling powerlessly back on her knees, Elia sat on the side of her bottom, slowly pulling the fur out from her legs, exposing just a tiny little bit of skin with every second, while looking at me with a provocative smile on her lips.


    "Do you really think I prefer to waste my time, playing the circles instead of playing around with you? But we can''t build the relationship with governor only on the spice trade alone. If I want him to support me properly, he needs to acknowledge my military capability as well, otherwise, we would end up like nothing else but a tool in his hand!"


    I explained as I pulled on the pants and moved to the simple, cavalry shirt. Playing circles was a fairly simple game, that most of the nobles that could still fit on the horse loved to play. On a long field, surrounded by the lines that restricted the playground, a set of simple wooden poles was stuck into the ground, with a set of circles hanging from their small, horizontal arm.


    From the start line, one had to guide his horse perfectly along the line of the poles, tearing the circle out of the pole''s arm with his lance, allowing it to fall near the weapon''s handle while continuing the run.


    While there was no time limits that would force one to do it all in one jump, it was commonly agreed that it was better to score only half of the circles at proper speed instead of proving one''s incompetence by taking them all while just marching with the horse!


    "Of course, I know thisˇ­ But it doesn''t change the fact that I would love to have you for myself a bit longer!"


    Suddenly dropping the fur completely to the side, she revealed her entire naked body to my eyes, while moving forward on all fours only to reach with one of her hands to my head, and pull it towards her lips.


    After sharing a long, deep kiss, Elia finally let me go, gracing me with a wholesome smile, before reaching for her own clothes lying similarly at the side of the tent.


    "Just remember. I will be cheering for you, okay?"

 66 Before the friendly contes

    10th march 1574


    After dressing up in my common attire, I left the tent first, leaving Elia to her own morning ritual. Just like women in the future, if given the chance, females of the current age would still do everything to retain their lovely appearance as long and as accented as possible, stretching the time necessary to actually properly wake up for way more than I could afford.


    With the military tradition kicking the camp awake like city guard would do to a drunkard after the last daily holy mess, by the time I reached the open field on the side of the entire place, it was already bustling with activities.


    Some servants were smashing their wooden hammers against the poles, forcing them into the ground, some were making sure that all the riding track was even and devoid of any stones that could lead to a horse''s injury, while others were busying themselves with preparing light snacks along with enough wine to turn maybe not entire Tarnow, but half of it dead drunk.


    While I got the preview of the scale of this camp during the feast, with over one hundred nobles alone gathered in one place, only now I managed to get a clear look at how vast this gathering was. If not for the direct proximity of not only two major cities in the area but the most important river in the entire country, sustaining such a huge mass of people would be absolutely impossible!


    "Good morning, sir brother! How was your night?"


    Hitting me up as soon as I approached the simple fence, serving more as information where the small tournament would take place rather than stopping anyone from entering, a familiar voice greeted me from the side. Turning my head to look at the owner of those words, I saw the same noble that was the first to welcome me to the camp yesterday.


    "Greetings, brother. As per God''s will, I had a great night of sleep. If only his grace could warm this land of his a bit moreˇ­"


    Laughing out, I looked around once again, this time focusing on this small detail. While other people might be more used to this fact compared to someone who lived in way warmer period of the earth cycle, with the temperature slowly reaching the point when you could leave the water in the cup and don''t worry about it turning into ice, it was manageable at best.


    No matter where I cast my eyes, servants were shivering slightly despite wearing rather well-made costumes of the Bone house origin, proving that at least, the governor took care of his own people. While this small detail could escape the attention of anyone else, with how I was about to bind my nearest future to this political figure, it served as silent reassurance for my plans.


    "I really understand where are you coming from. Speaking of which, looking at your dress, do you intend to take part in the contest?"


    "Yeah, it was a while since I did it and I''m rather a sabre man butˇ­ yeah, I will join."


    My words weren''t just an empty statement this time. Not only did my statistic reflected it, with proficiency in sabre marked at twenty-four points with only eighteen in the lance, but most importantly, I already tested the feeling of having the additional weight of the short, white arm, and have yet to play around with the longer, cavalry lance.


    In fact, if someone was to be overly excited about this small and friendly tournament, I was worried that instead of lances, we would be using proper, Polish Copy!


    While in itself, it was a genius craft, made by the wood drilled inside, allowing it to not only be about twice as long as your usual, western lance but also to break easily during a proper charge, swiftly freeing the horseman hand, keeping the battlefield clear of the obstacles that could endanger the next lines of the charging formation and most importantly, preventing the enemy from removing the blade part in an attempt to save the wounded!


    But looking at it from my current point of view, I couldn''t help but feel a bit scared. While Polish Copy had its advantages, handling it, especially in a tournament aimed at precision, could only make me look even worse than I was expecting!


    "Excuses! I hear excuses!"


    Instead of trying to make fun off my clearly sour face when I spoke about the different weapons, Jan only laughed openly and unveiled one part of his robe only to bring out a small bottle with its cork still on.


    "Here, have a drink. Nothing beats a good mead for an encouragement! After all, we don''t want you to embarrass yourself in front of the governor!"


    While I was coming from the age where most of the people were ready to do almost anything after words "hold my beer" but as unsocial as I was, I never understood the underlying reason for this phenomena. Only when I happened to be in the exact spot where I was actually worried about the outcome of my physical exercise, did I understood the allure of taking a sip.


    "Thank you, but no. I prefer to retain a clear mind. I will drink when I will come out on top!"

 67 Tilting at the ring part 1

    10th march 1574


    "Come on, now. You know that I''m not that great with the lance, so I will have to count on you to score nicely."


    Holding Helga''s massive head between my hands, I rested my forehead against her soft skin covering her thick skull. In this tranquil moment of connection between a human and his companion, a rider and his horse, I could bet some sort of mystical bond once again connected the two of us, allowing me to transfer my thoughts to the brain of this smart animal.


    After a long while during which I simply stood in front of my trusty horse, the commotion to the side finally broke me out of my daze, prompting me to grab a few clods of sugar from the hands of one of the servants passing through before feeding it to my partner. Feeling Helga''s soft nostrils as her lips swiftly swept through my palms cleaning them out of any trace of the sugar, I couldn''t help but smile.


    All females were weak to sweets, be it human or a horse!


    "Sit Mike, the contest will be starting soon! Are you content with going second?"


    While if I were to aim for winning the contest, going second meant that I would have no idea what the score I would need to stay at the top, only adding the anxiety to my already nervous state of mind, with how I only needed to make a good impression on the governor, the faster it would go for me the better!


    "Sure, mind telling me who will be going first?"


    Grabbing Helga''s harness and following the servant, I asked the question out of nowhere. There was no rule stating that those who went first were better, worse or simply more or less known. Most of the time, unless it was a royal tournament hosted at the fields beside the capital of the country, people just went one by one in random order.


    "Sir Bart Opurh, of the twin-tail crest. He is but a young knight, recently admitted into Governor''s private army in the rank of colonel."


    Oh? So, sir Jan, decided to start with his familiars? Well, it wasn''t that bad, considering how the young age of the opening challenger gave me some hope to not make a joke out of myself right off the bat!


    Approaching the contest field, I couldn''t help but shrug seeing the unorganised state of everyone. If that''s how most of the noble''s camp looked like, one of the greatest shames on the future commonwealth history, when a big war-camp created to fight off cossacks rebels, turned chaotic, with people trampling each other and leading to the collapse of the entire army, suddenly made sense. And all it took, was a simple drunk noble shouting: KHMELNYTSKY!


    At least, the first challenger was already in the position to start his attempt. With a young horse bearing the marks of the pure polish breed, he flaunted the wealth of his family not only by using such a fine and insanely expensive horse for the sake of simple, friendly tournament but also by wearing his full, hussar heavy armour!


    Looking around, I could see the Governor himself sitting at a small, wooden tribune, despite small sparks of fire clearly visible in his pupils, as he looked with longing at his own set of equipment lying right beside him. Considering how he was the host of the entire camp, he couldn''t take part in the tournament himself, to not make things hard for his fellow nobles. After all, who would dare to try their best, if besting the governor could easily be considered an affront?


    With only a few moments passing, the young man suddenly hit the sides of his horse as if he wanted to squeeze the air out of its lungs. Just this alone showed how little respect he had for such a fine animal, proving that outside of his family wealth, his skills most likely wasn''t up to par.


    As his horse stood on its hind legs for a moment and jumped into a run, the Bart guy leaned over its back, locking the handle of the lance in a special handle mounted on his saddle, attacking the ring on a wester manner, instead of relying on his skill alone to do so, as literally any respected Polish cavalryman would!


    With over ten rings to gather, the first ones were fairly big, making it easy for even an amateur to pick them up. Running along the track, the first three rings have fallen on his hand, indicating the start of the real challenge. With the radius of the following circles already half the size of the starting ones, he barely managed to pick one out of three, finishing the entire track with only five of them.


    Three warmings, one easy and one average, meaning he scored only eight points in total!


    But instead of rejoicing at the fact that just, by comparison, I would have to try really hard to look bad after this show of lack of skill, I decided to focus on my own turn. Ignoring the stirrup, I extended my left leg backward, as if I wanted to hit the ball during the penalties, before kicking the air as strongly as I could and using the momentum to carry me on top of the saddle.


    Marching Helga to the starting line, I nodded my head to Bart, who was just returning back to the area designated for the challengers waiting for their turn. As if insulted by this basic form of respect after his disappointing display, he simply looked at me with his face twisted in poorly hidden anger, before passing by me and breaking the line of sight.


    What a waste of a good horse on such a snob!


    But that wasn''t a time to think about someone else, as I waiting for the servants to replace the rings on the poles that Bart managed to strike out while weighting the short lance in my hand.


    Just like back at the fight with the bandits, it took me only a moment to regain the familiar feeling in my muscles as if my body recalled all the information it required to wield this weapon.


    With a wave of cloth by the referee at the other end of the challenge track, I was free to start my own attempt at any given moment. But instead of jumping into a run right away, I stood in my stirrups, leaning over Helga''s ear.


    "I trust you with this one. Let''s show them what a great horse you are!"

 68 Tilting at the ring part 2

    10th march 1574


    Rather than kicking Helga''s sides, one could tell that I only tickled it with my heel. In an instant, my trusty horse kicked the ground with its legs, jumping forward with only the minimal tilt upwards required to not twist its ankle. With the familiar feeling of momentum filling my mind, I stopped caring about all my previous worries, how I would appear, whether I would manage to make the right impression.


    Right now, my entire mind was focused on the tip of my spear, while my eyes tracked the path that it would have to take to pick the first circle, without tilting it out of the balance as I would approach the next one.


    Even though the diameter of the first picks was big enough to not care about such fine details, if I gave up on the fine control at the very beginning, picking the harder ones would pose a way greater challenge, making me commit the same mistake as Bart.


    Clang!


    With the first ring landing on top of my hand, I corrected the small tilt caused by an additional weight on my wrist, fixing the position of the back of my lance under my arm. Not using the saddle locker that would keep the back of my weapon in place, while it was susceptible for even the smallest change, I retained the full control over it.


    Clang, clang.


    Two more circles falling on my hand indicated the end of the warming up part. With my body relaxing as my mind tensed up, I simply adjusted my movements to Helga''s vibration caused by her run. Even though I could only admire how stable she was despite clearly reaching the upper echelons of her speed, that also meant I had way less time to adjust the tip of my spear for the next approach!


    Clang!


    First normal circle landed on top of my hand, but this time it hit my wrist hard enough to tilt the tip of my lance, making it impossible for me to pick up the very next target. Instead of lamenting at the misfortune though, I simply disregarded the second easy ring and balanced myself out to strike at the third one.


    Clang!


    At this point, I only needed one more ring of any difficulty to be better than the first challenger, yet I wasn''t going to just give up on my attempts to score as much as I could! Being better than an unskilled idiot is not an achievement!


    Thanks to the perfect thrust that I used to pick the last easy ring, I could retract my hand a bit to lower the speed of the tip of my spear relative to its next target, successfully pushing right through its middle!


    Clang!


    As soon as the last pole went past me, Helga quickly turned to a slow trod, before losing enough momentum to take a lefthand turn and start the slow, triumphant march towards the waiting area.


    Waking up from the focused state of my mind, I looked at my hand, holding the lance pointed at the skies to not impale someone by an accident. Three green, two orange, two yellow and a single red ring. Counting up in my head, it added up to eighteen points, out of twenty-three that one could get at a perfect attempt! (green 1 point, orange 2 points, yellow 3 points, red 5 points)


    Not so bad for the very first try in my entire life!


    Reaching the waiting field, I slowly turned the lance down, allowing the rings to slide down right in the hands of one of the servants. Passing the weapon in yet another set of hands, I jumped off my horse, before leading it to the big bail full of water and allowing her to have something to drink.


    By the time Helga was busy with sating her thirst, Elia approached me with an apple in her hand and a wide smile on her lips.


    "Congratulations!"


    Passing me the apple, she used the fact that my hand was now busy, to throw her hands on my neck and grace me with a warm hug. Before I could free myself from her arms or even come to the realisation that it was something that I was ought to do with how we were making a scene and drawing the attention that was supposed to be placed on the contest, I felt something sloppy wet on my hand, as an invisible force suddenly stole the apple from my hand.


    Looking from behind Elia''s shoulder, I saw Helga munching on something, with a content look in her wide eyes, as if she was proud of her own ingenuity.


    "Thanks. I just didn''t want to make a fool out of myself, but thanks to her, I somehow managed to score nicely."


    With Elia''s hands finally moving from my neck to my right arm, I could use my free hand to pat Helga''s soft side. As she already finished her snack, she leaned her big head to the side, looking at me with longing in her eyes, as if hoping for another fruit.


    Reaching for Helga''s head, I scratched her lightly between her eyes, enjoying how her nostrils vibrated as if she somehow managed to purr like a damned cat!


    "That was great, Mike!"


    Butting in this intimate moment between me, Elia and Helga, that some misinformed readers of the chronicles that would surely be written about me would take for the opening of the harem arc in my life, the governor himself appeared right beside us. While it was not so nice for the other competitors to be devoid of Jan''s attention during their attempts, being the Governor, he could commit such faux pas once in a while and get away scot-free with it.


    "Thanks for the praise, Your Governorship!"


    With how my sole aim for taking part in this silly tournament was to make this man notice myself outside the field of trade, seeing how he approached me personally right after my performance could only mean one thing.


    I did it!


    "Actually, I came here with a request. Would you mind hearing me out, brother?"

 69 Rotten end of the deal

    11th march 1574


    With my now increased company and a few carriages filled to the brim with wares brough directly from the Sandomir as per Governor''s request, I was calmly sitting in my saddle, allowing for the monotone wobbling of Helga''s back to lul me to the state near sleeping.


    Considering how we entered the camp with a force of three people because with Elia on my side, I couldn''t even call us three men strong, and how I rode on the front of over fifty men strong division loaned to me directly by Jan Bone!


    Obviously, the deal I made with him wasn''t all that great, with one annoying little brat attached to this nice force of veterans from the recent war!


    "Why didn''t we bring a carriage? What''s the point of making our bottoms hurt from riding all the way to your little town on the horseback? Eh, what else I could expect from a minor noble like youˇ­ It''s a pity Governor got swayed by your lucky performance into thinking you are worth anything as a soldier if you don''t know that muchˇ­"


    Listening to the birds chirping joyfully as the cold days of the year were coming slowly to an end, with more and more sunlight gracing the earth and announcing the swift beginning of the farming season, I used Bart''s rant as yet another element of the background music of the spring slowly recovering from its wounds and pushing the forces of winter away.


    "Shut up, kid. Don''t forget you are speaking to your direct superior!"


    While I couldn''t be bothered with such a low level of baiting, one of the veterans that apparently were forced into his unit previously, now used the fact that he was under my direct leadership to shut the Bart up.


    "What did you say? Don''t you fucking know who I am?!"


    "A poor behaving teenage, who will soon learn what it means to receive flogs on his back for breaking the discipline. We are out on the mission, not on a picnic!"


    Before his rant and flaunting of his status could cause any real discord in the unit, I was forced to react. From what Governor told me, he was an orphan from a major house that used to serve under Bone family. With the death of his father - a loyal servant to the crown - not only he inherited vast wealth in the ruthenian lands but also got pulled under the protection of the governor, creating a lot of opportunities for his arrogance to grow.


    But Jan Bone was known as a strict father, and he couldn''t accept such behaviour of one of his protegees. While his hands were bound as he couldn''t take care of him personally, he requested me to do it in his steed, while offering way more than enough to sway my decision.


    In exchange for turning this arrogant kid into a proper noble, I was pulled into the direct service of the governor as a Viceroy of Jan''s pancer Banner, with Bart supposed to serve as my colonel, along with the sergeant of the banner an Al as the second in charge.


    "You can''t do that! I''m noble!"


    Unwilling to suddenly give up all the rights that he could enjoy for most of his life, Bart flared up, thinking that he could still do something with his words alone. Since the situation didn''t seem to calm down even after my scolding, I pulled on Helga''s reins and stopped the entire column in place.


    Tickling the side of my trusty horse with my foot, I made Helga turn around so that I could face Bart without straining my neck.


    "Listen, Kid. As long as you are under my service, you are not a noble, you are not a commoner and you are not a monk either. You are a damned officer, and if I see any signs of you having trouble with falling into the line, I won''t pay any mind to degrade you into a damned soldier! So if you don''t want to end up clearing the latrines, shut your crap, and don''t bother anyone! We still have a lot of distance to cover, and I prefer to spend this time while listening to the chirping of the birds instead of your feminine voice!"


    Shotting Bart down from his high horse with this short monologue of mine, I waited a bit for his answer, but with no words coming from his mouth, I had to continue.


    "You reply with, yes sir."


    Switching my tone from scolding into a nice way of speaking that a tourist guide would use in later ages, I managed to trick him into thinking his schooling was over now.


    "Yes, sir."


    Like a pouting kid too scared to go against its father, Bart uttered those words under his nose, most likely assuming that it would be enough to free himself from my scrutiny.


    "THE HELL WAS THAT?!"


    Once again switching from nice tone to outright shouting, I managed to startle even the veterans nearest to the two of us, making their horses trod nervously in place as if they wanted to escape at this very moment.


    "Straighten up, push your breast forward and say it loud and clear!"


    While I didn''t attempt to ravage my own throat while shouting those instructions, the harsh volume of my voice still managed to fill its purpose, prompting the young guy to follow my instruction, almost standing up straight in the stirrups.


    "Yes, SIR!"


    With his voice already on the verge of breaking down, and his eyesockets filling with the first drops of tears, he finally reported back to me as a proper soldier should. Maybe his character wasn''t a fault of his own self, but the lack of parental schooling when he was younger? From the looks of things, if I worked on him properly, he could turn into a proper young noble in the near future!

 70 Opening up

    11th march 1574


    Only thanks to the fact that we left the hunting camp as soon as the supplies and men arrived from Sandomir, by the end of the second day of our Travel, despite being slowed down by the set of carriages carrying said supplies, we finally reached the proximity of the Tarnow.


    While unable to reach the city or even the castle on the same day, we still managed to pass the boundary of the big Tarn Oakstone village. Even though it was governed by a completely different family, after just a few words with the local milia, I managed to organise a comfortable sleeping place for everyone.


    With only around fifteen kilometres (9.5mile) separating us from my lands, we could strain ourselves to travel through the night, but with how there was a chance that Peter would learn about our whereabouts and attempted something sketchy during the hours lacking the sunlight, I preferred to take the matter easy.


    The supplies on the carriages were simply too important for me to risk breaking even a single axel of the carriage and leaving them aside on the road, for the commoners to rob it in a manner of few minutes!


    "You guys can take the entire stable for yourself. Don''t forget to cater to your horses!"


    Already on my foot, I was ordering everyone around, to make sure there won''t be any troubles with the locals. Just for the sake of placating the veterans for locating them in a damned stable, two big barrels of beer were already rolling towards their temporary shelter, with four more to come soon.


    "Don''t you need to take a rest too?"


    Hugging me from behind, Elia approached me for the first time since we left the hunting camp. Maybe it was caused by her shyness to show her feelings openly or maybe she just didn''t want to get the attention of my new soldiers on our relationship with how it was the root cause for their appearance in this part of the country.


    After almost two entire days of our skinship limited to just hugging while hidden in our tent during the night stay on the road, the feeling on her warmth enveloping my back managed to spark some additional energy in my body, chasing the dizziness steeming from my exhaustion away.


    "Not yet. I need to make sure everything is done properly. When we were travelling with just the three of us, we could act as we wanted, but now I''m responsible for everyone here."


    Reaching for her hands that locked itself on my chest, I grabbed her cupped palms and raised it to my mouth, placing a light kiss on top of her fingers.


    "We will have some time to ourselves later in the chamber. Just bear with it for a while."


    "Sir Mikeˇ­ May I ask you for a moment of your time?"


    As I was about to enter the tavern, completely unfamiliar voice alerted me, making me turn away on my feet with my hand instantly landing on the handle of my sabre. At such close distance, using a pistol for self-defence was both too slow and unreliable, especially with how I didn''t check its gunpowder in any close past.


    "Oh, it''s you. What do you want?"


    Only after seeing the embarrassed face of Bart, who was just standing at the edge of the shadow thrown by the side of the building while rubbing his hands against each other, I relaxed enough to take my hand off my weapon, without dropping my mental guard though.


    "I came to apologise. I thought that if I were annoying enough, you would send me back to the Sandomir, where I could continue to practice. My poor results at the tournamentˇ­ Only showed that under the expensive set of armour and weaponsˇ­ I don''t really have any real chance to uphold the honour of my house."


    At this point, I suddenly understood why this guy waited for the very last moment when I already was inside the warm and not-so-infested bed, hugging Elia while enjoying the awful drink that the locals could produce in my mind. While I had no idea what made him decide to open himself like that to me, that was the chance that I couldn''t miss!


    "Listen boy, it''s not only about countless practice. It''s not even about being a good soldier. The truth is, this entire idea for the nobility to be the sole real armed force in the country is stupid in my opinion, but let''s not elaborate on that. What I think you are lacking, is not the diligence, but patience."


    Stepping into the shadow, I rested my back against the wall of the Tavern, standing in the psychology neutral position. Just a slight trick I learned in my days as a white-collar worker.


    "From what I saw at that tournament, you didn''t score so tragically because you couldn''t control the lance, but because you would try to strike every single ring you could, missing most of them at the end. While I have way more experience with this game than you, when I knew that I was in no position to get another ring, I simply gave up on it, and used the time to adjust myself for the next one."


    Taking a few breaths, I waited for the tension to build to a certain degree, before explaining the idea I was going about.


    "It works the same in real life. If you focus yourself on what you can achieve, you will be able to get far better results, than when trying to simply do everything. No one is the best in all aspects. The governor is a great politician, but he might not be the best warrior there is in the commonwealth. I might be capable of fighting up to par, but if I were to be forced into making deals with neighboursˇ­ Well, you will understand how that would end, most likely, tomorrow."

 71 Missing Peter

    12th march 1574


    Contrary to my worries and even expectations, we didn''t get to meet Peter''s forces. A night raid didn''t happen, no one ambushed us as we were preparing the carriages to depart, no one blocked our way on the road to the Tarnow nor did anyone gave us a battle under the city walls.


    Without anyone interrupting us, I rode on top of the column of people all the way to the mountain of the saint Martin, when my castle was located. Not even there was there any interruption, outside of the guards arming themselves as they spotted the armed group, only to calm down when they saw me leading it.


    "What''s going onˇ­"


    Speaking to myself, I finally entered the lower castle, while Al already went forward to organise enough space in the stables for the horses that the men of my loaned unit were using, while ordering some servants around to unpack the wares from the carriages directly on the grazing ground.


    As metal ingots, stacks of planks and all kinds of other basic building resources were unloaded, I moved to the higher castle with the former sergeant, Bart and Elia, after asking one of the militia to fetch Jan and Kalen from the city.


    No matter what, I highly doubted that Peter simply gave up on Elia just like that!


    After waiting for about half an hour in the dining hall, most suited for all sorts of bigger conferences, the two nobles that I met in the village near Pilzno finally arrived, instantly clearing up the situation for me.


    "As soon as he realised that you were gone to Sandomir, he left the area and rode for the Pilzno. While I didn''t want to risk my people getting caught, they only tracked him for about ten kilometres, before going back and reporting to me. From what we gathered from the merchants, he stayed in the city and occupied it for now."


    Even if this couldn''t be called an exhaustive report, at least it cleared up my doubts. In the end, while this move surprised me, I couldn''t ask for a better opportunity! With the Tarnow still well in my hands and the enemy forces all the way in Pilzno, I could take my time setting up the brewery before even attempting to deal with him!


    "That''s good then. While we are already on the clock with the marriage, let''s leave him be for now. Was there any problems in the city while I was away?"


    With my head already bustling through the recipes of the system, while I was busy confirming that I had all the items necessary to create the proper brewing system, I still had to ask some questions to not make it look like Peter was the only thing I had on mind and the lack of information about him, the only reason why I called them to the castle.


    With Kalen already busying himself with the Garn of the beer that I prepared in the few minutes that I took while alone in my room, it was Jan that I was having my conversation with. But hearing his recounts of the events, while I managed to hold back from laughing up, Elia couldn''t stop herself from a giggle.


    "You don''t need to worry about it, brother. They were acting on my order. Speaking of which, it would be great if you could go pay them a visit and ask how is the popularity of my idea going. Unless the serfs will appreciate a warm meal during a hard day of work, there won''t be any point in wasting any more resources on it!"


    Cupping my hands on the table, I continued the talk for a little bit longer, before dismissing the two nobles and standing up. Looking to the side, I could see Bart deep in his thoughts.


    "What''s wrong, boy?"


    In theory, away from the military camp, there was no need to keep up the military appearances and the titles, calling him a boy was still a bit unreasonable, but I still decided to go with it. Since he lacked a fatherly figure in his life, the best way to turn him from a hesitant and arrogant young noble into a proper lord, was to assume such place in his heart and act on it!


    "Ah, sorry, I wasn''t really listening. What was the question again?"


    Startled by my question, it took him a while to regain his senses as he wobbled on his chair, almost making it fall to the back.


    "I asked what''s wrong. You seemed deeply infatuated with something."


    Smiling kindly in response to his small mishap, I hoped that my sympathetic approach would be enough to calm him down and make him openly explain what kind of doubts were running through his head.


    "Ah, so that''s what the question wasˇ­"


    Taking his time, Bart rested his head on his hands for a moment, as if gathering either his thoughts or the wits to openly speak about the ideas hidden in his brain.


    "Don''t get me wrong, sir, as I don''t want to be rude, but what''s even the point of catering to the serf''s needs? Aren''t they in a simple deal with the nobles where they rent a part of our lands in exchange for their work? If we take responsibility for one of the things they had to take care of themselves so far, won''t it turn them even lazier than before? I don''t know how the situation looks here, but in my lands, its a pain in the ass to make them work properly without an overseer serving the whipping once in a while!"


    So that was the case. Not some deep problem that was troubling his head, but just a conflict of paradigms born from the nobles inborn contempt towards the lower classes. While I couldn''t blame him for showing this kind of mindset, if he wanted to make a career under me and later achieve some nice position in the empire I was intending to build on my lands, he had to work on it as soon as possible, and this question gave me the opportunity to lay down the seed of doubt that could make him grow into a proper caretaker of his underlings!


    "You see, even if we treat them as a means to obtain more wealth from the grain trade, they still have a vast numerical superiority over us. While we have yet to reach the point of the western Kingdom''s when the nobility accounts to maybe a single man out of a hundred if not less, we are not that far off. And just from those numbers alone, you can already imagine what kind of wealth all those serfs possess combined. If we give them the means to earn, while at the same time making sure they have enough opportunities to return the gold back into our pockets, not only will they work themselves to the bone in order to obtain more goods from our shops, bringing us direct profits, all of the industries that I''m going to set up in my lands, will be backed by this innumerable number of people!"

 72 Setting up the brewery

    12th march 1574


    With a sizeable shed built on the huge area just beside the castle and all the resources moved there, I could finally start working on the very first factory I had in my mind. With over three carriages of metal, wood, barrels and all other sorts of goodies I got from the Sandomir, the first Tarnowian Noble brewery would hopefully start its existence today!


    With the blueprint for the entire project displayed in the corner of my vision, I moved the first batch of wooden planks to one side and turned it into a simple, big pot with a layer of the iron cast on its outer layer. After adding metal rods to support it above a huge hole intended for a fireplace, I could tell I made a very first step on creating my brewery.


    In reality, this simple thing would be used to nothing else than heating up the water, that would later flow through a single, wide pipe to the lower level, where the designated malt would join it and fall down to the big, mashing barrel. But here I encountered my first challenge.


    According to the blueprint, below the mashing container, there should be some kind of filtering mechanism. While making one with the system would take me only a moment and a huge amount of iron and wood, the problem laid in assembling it below the mashing barrel, so that there would be not a single gap between the two layers of equipment!


    But since there was nothing I could do about it, for now, I decided to ditch this for later moment, when all the other items would be prepared so I could call some servants and ask them to figure that stuff out. If the worst thing would come to be, I could always just get some clay, reinforce the sides of the connecting part with iron and just use fire to stop it from absorbing moisture.


    The next part was actually fairly simple. Filtered mash had to flow down to the brewing barrel, with all sorts of additions flowing from yet another set of barrels. After crafting a set of pipes with a varying diameter of the inside, I gathered them all up and pushed into a single, bigger pipe, where all of it could mix and enter the brewing barrel along with the mash. While it looked comical as if some rotten creation of crazy scientist aiming to make his own helicopter. In short, it was just a set of ''L'' shaped pipes, connecting their shorter end inside a bigger one, with their long ends sticking out to all directions.


    Later on, those longer parts would have to be connected to the barrels containing premade preparations of all kinds, from hemp water, through apple cider and other fruit juices aimed to enhance the taste of the beer I would brew, but for now, I simply let them be. Craft the items first, then ask someone else to assemble it.


    After the mash would be properly turned into the brew, it would then flow into a set of barrels, connected through a single, main pipe to the brewing barrel, and with another one that would contain yeast, stolen from the bakery warehouse. Contrary to other breweries, this one wouldn''t depend on a special kind of those super tiny shrooms, but on the brew itself instead!


    In fact, there should be one more step, of cooling down the brew before pouring it into the fermentation chambers - or barrels since I didn''t want to create more complex structures - but in order to simplify the process, I decided that while slowing down the production, the fresh brew would be just left alone to cool down in the barrels, before the yeast would be added to it. After all, this miraculous kind of shrooms would simply die off if placed in the boiling liquid!


    And from there on, the process was as simple as it could get. Following the last set of pipes, the ready product would flow down to the last set of mobile barrels, that could be either stored for later use, or directly moved onto carriages and sold on the market!


    With everything set and done, I finally found the time to wipe out the sweat from my forehead, while looking at the mess I left in the shack. With all the resources already gone, only about a fifth of the place inside the shack was occupied by the prepared items, that would shrink to about half its volume after assembly.


    This alone showed how far I was willing to take this projectˇ­ as soon as I could afford the price of the necessary resources that is! Just the beer and fruits alone were too cheap to bother myself with, yet iron or perfectly fine oak wood wasn''t something that I could just splurge on!


    Unwilling to waste even more time in this particular place, I simply drew the blueprint for the servants that would come to assemble everything in place, and left the shack, covering barely a hundred meters before I finally got back to the lower castle. From there, a short walk and I reached the gate of the higher part of my home, swiftly reaching for my chambers and falling on top of my bed.


    Reaching the Tarnow, having a talk with the noble friends, moving all the resources and even crafting all the items took me the entire day. While I still had to go and at least wash the sweat off my body before going to sleep, I had the feeling that when the sun would finally set over my lands, I would be in for another round of activities!


    After all, Pilzno was in Peter''s hands, and I wasn''t blind enough to not notice the anxiety written on Elia''s face when I decided to ignore that fact for now!

 73 Nights unres

    12th march 1574


    As soon as my body fell lifelessly on the bed, I felt an additional weight pressing me down to the mattress, as my head got buried in the pillow. At first, I was sure that someone managed to hide in the room without me noticing and I would just suffer the face of the Cezar Augustus from the Gludiator movie, but before I could even call out for my strength to fight back, I felt a pair of hands grabbing my clothes before pulling my upper body up and pulling my shirt out of me.


    Falling back headfirst into the pillow, I felt two soft mounds pressing against my back, with two harder points hitting me right between the ribs, as a familiar scent somehow reached my nostrils. Before I could even react, I felt a sucking on the side of my neck, quickly reaching the point of being painful, only to disappear as soon as the pain turned real.


    Finally able to do anything about the events, I rocked my hips to the back, upsetting the balance of the additional weight on my back, and using this opportunity to turn around.


    "What are you trying to do?"


    Turning my head to the side, I saw Elia''s face for the briefest of moments, before she moved closer and closed my mouth with her lips. Feeling her soft skin cuddling into me, a small bit of my energy returned, only to disappear as soon as she once again moved on top of me and pushed her tongue through the defences of my jaw, ravaging the insides of my mouth without even a single word of response.


    But it was strange.


    I could clearly tell how unhappy she was with me putting the matter of Pilzno aside for now, so why would she attack me in bed so energetically as soon as I came back? Unlessˇ­


    Grabbing her shoulders and pushing her upper body away, I looked seriously directly in her eyes, for as long as it took her to avert her gaze.


    "I''m asking once again. What are you trying to do?"


    While I already guessed her motives, I still wanted to hear her say this directly. Honesty was the most important thing in a relationship, and I would prefer if she confronted me with her troubles in a normal way, rather than trying to accomplish something with her body alone.


    "What, can''t a wife, or even a fiancee want to spend some quality time with her chubby?"


    While looking away, her hands still grabbed the bottom part of her shirt, swiftly pulling it out through her head and revealing the beauty of her upper body in its full glory. Even though we already did it once, even though we slept together a few times, and even though I had my own set of experiences with all sort of beautiful woman showing their charms to me from behind the glass panel of my computer screen, seeing the real breast right in front of my eyes was still something that else.


    "Eliaˇ­ Look at me."


    Reactions of the body aside, I wasn''t going to just let her have it her way. Unless I would hear her problems right from her mouth, I was willing to suffer through the plague of so-called silent days, even if it meant going to sleep with my balls turning blue today.


    Thankfully, my request somehow worked, with her gaze finally returning to my face, allowing me to look her deep in her eyes.


    "If you have something you want to say or some problem you want to share with me, you don''t need to buy my time in this way. While I''m happy to cuddle with you at any time, I don''t want it to turn into your way of gaining favours with me."


    Instead of going for her exposed breast, I reached for her hands and pulled them closer to my mouth before placing a light kiss on top of her fingers. Maybe it was just an illusion, but it seemed like my words managed to overcome her stupor, melting her stern face but making her lower her head at the same time.


    "Why did you ignore the fact that Peter most likely occupies Pilzno? I know that you want to deal with it without shedding too much bloodˇ­ But you didn''t even bother to reassure me that you would reclaim it for me!"


    Finally breaking down her defences and openly stating what troubled her for the entire day, I realised what mistake did I make. No matter how I wanted to use all the time I had on hand to make as much progress with the matters that I had an influence on, I shouldn''t just disregard her feelings like that!


    "I''m sorry. While I could say that I had a lot of stuff on my head, that would be just excusing myself out of the fact that I indeed didn''t take my time to reassure you about it. Once again, I''m sorry."


    Pulling on her hands, I made her fall on top of me, before moving my arms around her back and pulling her even deeper into a hug.


    "I promise you here and now, that no matter what will happen, I will do my very best to reclaim your inheritance, and not use our marriage alone as nothing but a tool to do it. Is that what you wanted to hear, or did I misread your feelings? Please, I''m a soldier, not womaniser, so if you won''t tell me, I might misunderstand again, and this is something I would like to avoid at all cost!"


    After saying my bit, I could tell something wet appeared on my shoulder upon which Elia''s head was resting. As she started wiggling in my arms, I let go of my hold and allowed her to rise once again above me, as she stared down in my eyes with tears flowing down on her cheeks.


    "Thankˇ­ youˇ­"


    As the light sobbing started rocking her body, she raised her hands to wipe the tears from her face. At this point, the last bit of my reasonability lost to her cuteness, making me grab her hips as I kicked my shoulders against the bed, moving my torso up, and pushed Elia''s down on the bed.


    "Here I come!"

 74 Weapon concep

    13th march 1574


    After everything was said and doneˇ­ I ended up blue balling myself instead. After licking all the tears from Elia''s face, and stealing another deep kiss from her lips, we started cuddling for a long time, but the longer we were embracing each other, while the fire in my body was only spreading, my hesitation also continued to grow.


    Looking at the situation as a whole, no matter if the problem was resolved or not, it still started with Elia approaching me and attempting to use her body to get me to do something. Even if everything was clear now, if I still ended up having my way with her, all the words I said would lose their meaning.


    But I couldn''t simply just tell her to stop. Instead, while we continued to cuddle, I slowly decreased the intensity of our endearments, bit by bit calming the both of us down, before we simply fell asleep while cuddled in a warm hug.


    Sounds like something a loser would do, I know, but when I woke up, greeted by the sight of Elia''s warm smile and long, sensual kiss, I realised that I made the right choice. Instead of turning that entire moment into nothing else but a carnal pleasure, it turned out into a strong memory of the two of us resolving the first conflict that struck us!


    As Elia continued to rub her cheek against my breast, I actually started thinking about the way to resolve the problem that she came to me with last night. While at first, I really wanted to solve it by just swarming entire city by the guests and then entering it in the Governor company, that wasn''t the way to go.


    Could I call myself a man if I didn''t turn the earth and heaven around for the sake of my woman?!


    My womanˇ­


    Once again focusing on Elia trying so hard to hug me even harder that in a fantasy scenario I would start worrying whether she wanted to simply merge with me into one being, I looked at her hair, while repeating those words in my head.


    My womanˇ­


    Even if the feeling of possessing someone like that was something rather low, stemming from the caveman instinct, it still resonated with me. After all, in this age, a bond between a man and his wife was way stronger than the joke that the future ages turned the marriage into.


    And for the sake of this woman, I had to do something against this damned fucker!


    Not only he dared to defy the natural order of law in the country, using his military power that should be aimed at the uninvited guest visiting our borderlands, but he also had his eyes set on MY WOMAN!


    If he wanted to deal with this by using military force, I would respond to him in kind!


    No more tricks, diplomacy and schemes. If it was about MY WOMAN, I didn''t mind getting my hands dirty!


    But how the heck should I deal with him? Sadly, the system wouldn''t turn my resolve into a disciplined unit of veterans willing to die for such a simple matter like marital strife!


    But before I could even get to outlining any plan of mine, I had to decide what I could and what I could not do.


    First of all, the city of Pilzno had to be safe. If I were to somehow dig up enough uranium to make an atomic bomb, using it would turn the place into nothing more than a pile of burning and radioactive dust. Just like that, all forms of highly potent explosives could be written off my list of potential solutions, along with all kinds of weapon aimed at killing large swats of people enclosed within the city walls. After all, the city prospered out of the backs of its citizens!


    But there was no way that I could simply ask Peter and his people to stand in front of the wall, and let me shoot them all to death!


    Or was it?


    As long as I could bring them outside the gates for some dumb reason, like willing to give him a dumb battle for the sake of Elia''s hand, I could get him to group himself with his people and step up to the field. Knowing the Polish trends, he would most likely use his numerical advantage and mobility of his mounted forces to push me to a corner and cut all of my men up while seizing up my head.


    But there was a reason why modern warfare gave up on the horses through the entire western part of Europe in such a way, that even during Polish-Bolshevic war, great general Pilsudzki openly ignored an enormous horse army under general Budionny, claiming that cavalry would no longer play any part in the war. After all, even soviets wouldn''t find enough suicidal maniacs ready to charge up a reinforced nest of machine guns!


    Wait, machine guns? Wasn''t that a great idea?


    With all Elia''s cuddles disappearing from my mind, I pulled the system in the middle of my vision, sorting through all the items that I could produce. Obviously, a real heavy machine gun or even its ancient cousins from the world wars was impossible to use. Even if it would be possible to craft it, how could I explain it to everyone who would witness its power? I needed something simpler! Something more usable! Something explainable!


    Why not use the revolving gun idea then? With a bit of effort, something like a simplified Maxim gun could be made!


    Even if the step of using the recoil to power it was way over the line of what I could introduce in this age without enough backing and the industry capable of producing it without my involvement, why bother with such things? What if I made a gun powered by nothing else than just a simple crank?


    But while the idea was great, there was actually something else I had to think about first. In the current times, all guns were loaded like cannons - from the front. Even if I could change the way of conducting the war by introducing backloaded weapons, it wasn''t something I could use in a relatively short time, without changing the entire doctrine.


    Yet, the idea could be introduced!


    So for now, I had to find a way to bring Peter''s forces for an open battle, outside of Pilzno. Nothing too hard. I had to get someone to help me with crafting a simple backloading gun, that one would be challenging, but for the sake of keeping the ruse of the entire project being nothing more than a funny idea, it had to be done. Then just expand on it, and make a carriage gun, powered by a crank, where multiple barrels would spin on the base, with the corb powering up the loading, shooting and cleaning mechanism!


    Not so bad for something that would turn me from a simple noble into a god of war!

 75 Drawing the sketch

    13th march 1574


    "What''s with your face? What are you thinking about?"


    Suddenly stopping her cuddles, Elia climbed on top of my chest and after combing her hands together on my solar plexus, she rested her chin on top of them, looking straight in my hazy eyes.


    "Ah, sorry. Was thinking about the possible ways of retaking the Pilzno."


    Just like I said, even if the idea was ready, it''s introduction was far harder than I initially assumed it would be. Not even bothering with the fact that a simple check confirmed that the system required me to reach the third level of gunsmith skill since it only required me to make a finite quantity of weapons or ammunition, the problem laid in the very foundation for any sorts of improvement to the current weaponry.


    And it was the problem of igniting the fused bullet that I found hard to tackle.


    The good thing was that with the huge popularity of the gunpowder in this era, it wasn''t a problem to find the base materials required to create the igniting mixtureˇ­ Yet I was in no way capable of recalling the recipe for it! What''s more, even the system wouldn''t help me with it, forcing me to reach that damned third level before allowing me to pry into its secrets!


    Limited by the source of my technological power, I had to look for other ways to ignite the fused bullet. Creating fused ammunition wasn''t any sort of problem. Just by coating a thin cloth with oil and sprinkling a fair bit of gunpowder on it could be used as the shelling of the ammunition. Just make a tube out of it, place the round inside and fill it with gunpowder so that a single spark will be enough to create a proper explosion. Add some sort of metal coating for the thing, and you have created moisture-resistant ammunition!


    But the problem of the firing mechanism still remained. How Could I make sure that every round would be fired? Using flint was too unreliable without the flash pan, and with such complicated mechanisms, even a single failure could lead to the whole gun collapsing!


    "So, did you figure something out?"


    Only by this point, I managed to somehow cast away my worries and return mentally to the bed in my palace in order to look in Elia''s eyes while wondering how should I answer her.


    "Not really. While I have the idea about what should I doˇ­ Every time I solve a single problem, two more pops out. No matter how much I try to avoid actually solving those problems, in fact, I''m still going back to them over and over again, with all my possible solutions turning out to be useless."


    There was no way I could explain to her what I was thinking about. Even if I were to attempt doing it, the chances that she could understand the way in which a Gatling gun worked that I had to actually reverse engineer to make my plan work, were as great as her turning into angel an ascending all naked into the heavens.


    Raising her head above her hands, she moved one of her fingers and started moving it on top of my chest, as if she wanted to write something on my body with it.


    "If you have troubles with solving a complicated problem by simple measures, how about just ditching away the complicated problem and replacing it with a simple one? Wellˇ­ Don''t take my advice to heart, as I don''t really know what you are thinking aboutˇ­"


    As if the heavens to which Elia failed to ascend right in front of my eyes, decided to grace me with a miracle, her words actually made my mind spin, as I realised that I was plagued with actually a stupid problem! How could I replace the firing mechanism in a Gatling gun that was remade to actually use properly fused ammunition? Why should I even bother doing so?


    The idea that I had to achieve, was a fast shooting, backloaded gun. But what if the gun was actually loaded in the middle? What if I simply got the barrel locked in place, mounted a firing pin behind it and created a magazine that would move between those two?


    While there would still be some intricate work to do, all I had to do, was create a set of short, hollow pipes, with just a small hole in one side and the opening matching the diameter of the barrel on its other side. By connecting such kind of loading mechanism into a long stick, I could simply run it down the hole between the match and the proper barrel, making the bullets shoot only when the hole in the firing mechanism and in the pipe itself would match so that the spark could be transferred, aligning at the same time perfectly with the barrel itself!


    "What happened? You look weird when your eyes are so wide!"


    At this point, I was too hyped to even care about Elia. Pushing her aside, I stormed out of the bed, grabbed a piece of charcoal from an already cold fireplace and started sketching on one of the tables, hoping I could save my idea before it would be washed off by other thoughts of mine.


    As the lines of my new invention came alive, I could already see how the entirety of the project could work. From the simple mechanism locking the magazine in place during the shoot, with the recoil of the burning gases resetting it and allowing for the movement of the magazine, through the simplicity of reloading such magazineˇ­


    "Come here."


    Extending my hand backwards, I continued to stare at the silly drawings of my table, while gesturing Elia to get closer. With how simple the mechanism was, even she should be able to understand the principle behind it!


    "You see, you put a burning match here, then you drive the magazine through the openingˇ­"


    Tracing my fingers along the lines of my sketch, I continued to explain her my idea, while ignoring the soft warmth of her body pressing against my side as she rested herself on my back, looking at the sketch from over my shoulder. But thanks to this position, I could clearly fell when her body tensed up, signalising that she understood what those silly lines on the table meant.


    "Oh, God mercifulˇ­ If that''s what you came up for my sake, I will be too terrified to ask you for anything ever again!"

 76 Gathering the materials

    13th march 1574


    The simplicity of the new project not only means that there was hardly any part that could break during the process of shooting but making the entire thing didn''t require any real skill. After dressing up and turning the sketches that I made into a properly written blueprint on a normal piece of paper, all I had to do is to get down from my castle to the lower part, pick up a horse with Elia and take a quick drive to the city.


    After passing the Tarnow''s gates, it took us only about three minutes before we reached one of the most popular smithies''s in the city, quickly explaining what we wanted to the master of the place.


    "Sure, I have few of the barrels ready since I had a few orders on the entire weapon, but if lord want''s a few of them, I could sell them at the normal price. As for those smaller partsˇ­ Hmm.."


    Looking at the blueprint that I drew in three different ways, from the side, from the front how it would look if cut in half, the blacksmith moved his hand along the hair of his beard.


    "It really depends on how fragile it can be. Making a casting form can take a while, up to even an entire day, but worst-case scenario, everything should be ready at tomorrow, about third bell''s ringing, is that okay?"


    With this part out of the way, I pulled Elia with me as I ran around the city, visiting all sorts of shops in order to get all the required materials for my new weapon. I never was a patient man, so when I saw the chance of changing the history with this new invention of mine, there was no way I could hold myself back!


    "Come on, Mike! How long are you going to drag me around! We are about to get married next month, yet we never actually went on a proper date! This is the first time when we have the chance to just walk leisurely around the city, yet you can''t stop yourself from thinking only about that idea of yours!"


    Suddenly pulling back on my hand just as I was about to enter the City stronghold where all sorts of munition was held, Elia stopped me in my track, pouting. While it was true that we never really had the chance to enjoy ourselves in a calm manner, but wasn''t her request the reason for me to drop everything and focus all my attention on looking for a way to kill Peter and his people without really endangering my own folks?


    Women are truly moody beings!


    "What should I do then? While that thing seems to be fairly simple and feasible to make, we won''t know it before we try it. Take that bullet for example, how can we be sure if it can really shoot properly without testing it out?"


    "Hello, boys. Do you want to tell me I can''t enter my own armoury?"


    Revealing my face, hidden in Elia''s waist so far, I could watch the interesting way in which the expressions of the guard''s faces turned from a stern one, through surprise, amazement all the way to fear and respect.


    "Welcome, Lord Mike!"


    Unsure whether to straighten themselves up and look in front like their official position would require of them, or if the ceiling wasn''t actually the most interesting thing they could see in their entire life with how potentially dangerous looking at the state of their lord and his mistress could be, in the end, the both of them uniformly raised their chins and inspected whether the roof above their heads wasn''t actually rotting in any of the places that could avoid their every day''s inspection.


    With the guards out of the way, I left Elia at the entrance and walked inside, filling a single pouch with gunpowder and a few lead bullets before going back.


    "Come, now we have everything that we need."


    With the thin cloth bough in a clothing store, gunpowder just robbed from the city stockpile along with the bullets, and oil available in any place that has torches, the fused ammunition could be already made. Even though sewing the bullets while using the cloth wet from oil could be a pain in the ass due to dirtying up our hands, it could also serve as fun after time for me and Elia!


    While she complained about me not going on a date with her in the city, it would be far better for us to walk around the Pilzno for the leisure sake when we could actually waste our time, rather than enjoying the cold weather of the middle of the march by pretending that we could have fun in it! It would be far better to just cuddle up near fireplace while watching as our empire would grow!

 77 Testing the new weapon

    14th march 1574


    "Surprisingly, making those small parts was far easier than I expected. Instead of making them separately, I just used one of the old forms and added blockades to split the entire barrel into the small parts you wanted sir. If I were to find the solution for some smaller problems, I could make about three mechanisms that you requested, sir, daily."


    As soon as the new day began, the first thing that I did with Elia, was to rush towards the city, in hopes that the hard part of my primitive machine gun would be already finished. Spending the evening by crafting all the ammunition by hand allowed the two of us to talk quite a bit, yet despite spending over five hours on packing the gunpowder into a cylindrical, wooden container that I carved out of a random piece of wood, enclosing it with the bullet, wrapping it all up with the flammable coat made with the thin cloth soaked in oil and enriched with the loose gunpowder.


    Unwilling to let everyone know about my small invention yet, I could only store all the bullets that we made, amounting to measly two hundred plus. Thinking about the ammunition, I couldn''t help but dream about the future where I could encase it in some kind of metal, to turn it into a properly fused bullet, but doing so would require not only the metal coat for the bullet and the explosive load but also something to start the explosion in the first place!


    "For now, do what you need to do. I still need to test whether it will work in the way I imagined it, but I can tell you already if this small project of mine will turn successful... You will most likely have to abandon your entire shop and move to my castle, where I will make a special workshop just for you. But for now, we will be going to test it out. I will send someone with the information later."


    Grabbing the rough barrels, I nodded to the blacksmith and left the shop. With Elia trodding beside me, I could see her excitement on her face, almost as great as my own. Even though she instantly understood the concept, through the entire yesterday she couldn''t show even a hint of being actually hyped by my creation. The situation changed only when we had to spend hours upon hours to craft the ammunition, that if the test would be successful, would be used up in a matter of minutes!


    With how modern-day warfare was based on sieges and grand battles, as long as we could prove that my invention was worth its price, after using it to my own advantage during the interregnum, I could simply sell it to the new king if I failed to become one, and see military power of commonwealth skyrocket!


    Obviously, only in the short term. Sooner or later, other countries would learn about the new weapon, and I wasn''t prideful enough to assume I was the only one who could come up with such a concept. In fact, grape-shot cannon was invented with the same idea in mind but failed to be usefull outside of the thin, city alleys.


    After reaching the castle, I simply brought the already prepared materials, including two empty, wooden crates that could serve as the base to support the barrels, and one filled with the ammunition we made last day. But along with that, I actually brought a set of three muskets, two pistols and an artillery fuse.


    After all, there was no way I could test my new gun without testing my ammunition first!


    Moving from the formal castle grounds to the roundels at its back, I didn''t forget to alert the guards that I would be exercising my shooting skills in the open. With how no one was allowed to live in the direct proximity of the castle to avoid making the siege easier for the potential enemy, I didn''t have to worry about hurting some passersby by an accident!


    Taking the musket, I reached to the back, only to grab a single, black bullet from Elia''s hand. After all the effort we both made to craft them all, she already informed me that I could forget about any testing if she wasn''t included in them!


    "Okay, let''s move."


    The location I picked for the test wasn''t random. With the earth fortifications in place, aimed at making things hard for the artillery of the potential aggressor, we could simply lay the musket on top of it, while hiding behind the mound itself, safe from the potential hazard of the gun exploding.


    That''s also where the artillery fuse came to use. For an outsider, it looked like a fancy looking spear, with two curved branches splitting right below the blade from the metal handle. But in reality, the way those branches were folded, allowed for a long fuse to be kept right at the tip of its arm!


    While in a normal case, it would be used to fire the big cannons, to which the artilleryman couldn''t get close personally due to the force of recoil, I used it to light the gunpowder on the flashing pan of the musket, while the two of us remained hidden behind the earthy mound.


    BOOM!


    With the nature of the test, there was no way to discern whether everything was all right just from the sound. After all, either the bullet successfully fired, or the barrel of the weapon exploded. With no bulletproof glass to hide behind while observing the events, we could only wait for a while before climbing on the earthy mound.


    And the musket was still in its perfect state!

 78 Finishing the tes

    14th march 1574


    "Since the bullet works in the musket, let''s try the gun itself!"


    Completly rising up from behind the earthy mound, I climbed all the way to its top, discarding the used weapon away. With the help of Elia, we brough up the prefabricated set for my new invention, consisting of the base on which everything would be mounted, a long, barrel and the ignition chamber. Taking the small magazine put together haphazardly with the use of some sticks and threads connecting the bullet tubes, I made sure that everything was in perfect order, before pulling the short magazine out and reaching for the few rounds we actually brough all the way up, as opposed to the rest of our stockpile, safely stored about a hundred meters away.


    With the base of the magazine already as long as it would finally be, there was no problem in mounting it inside the hole. Making sure that the burning match was properly pushed all the way up to the end of the firing chamber, I hooked the upper end of the magazine to the cold end of the artillery fuse, locking it against the ground in a way I could still reach it from the lower position, I made sure that everything was in its place, before jumping down before helping Elia to join me as well.


    "So, let''s see how much my idea is worth. Would you like to do the honours?"


    Considering how eager she was to join me in this endeavour, I decided that it wouldn''t hurt for her to actually cause the first shots. In the end, we had way more than enough bullets to have our fun, and it didn''t really matter who would be pulling down the magazine through its loading chamber.


    "C-can I?"


    Staring at me with her eyes wide open, Elia even went as far shaking her head a bit and moving her hair from her front head as if she thought that she was either in some sort of dream, or her eyes failed to see the ironic look on my face.


    But to her surprise, I actually grabbed her hand and attempted to put in on the artillery fuse handle, only to find out that while I could still barely grab it, the height difference between the two of us made it impossible for her to even scrape the back end of the metal stick! Holding myself back from giggling, I locked the fuse once again on the ground, making sure it wouldn''t just fall off and start running the gun by itself, before leaning down a bit, grabbing Elia around her bottom and lifting her up.


    "Hey! It''s not the time now!"


    As if thinking that me going for her ass indicated some other kind of fun I would like to have in this great moment, Elia started to protest slightly, not strong enough though to stop me if I really had any plans of doing anything to her right now.


    "Calm down. No point trying to reach higher than you can, if I can just lift you up."


    "Just remember to keep your head low!"


    Still enjoying my little moment, I fixed the position of her soft ass on my arms, making sure she wouldn''t fall out of my hands. While the moment was really pleasant for me, in the end, the excitement from the final test of my weapon going to happen at literally any given second still managed to win over the simple carnal pleasure that Elia''s body was trying to provoke in me.


    Boom!


    Boom!


    Boom!


    Just like that, three shots fired.


    Obviously, it was not even close to being anywhere similar to what slow-motion version of a real machine gun would look like if you watched in on a streaming service with additional slowing of the video.


    Instead of typical tratatata that a modern machine gun could produce, spewing out few tens of bullets per second, with how my invention was crafted and aimed to be, reaching three bullets in two seconds was already a score good enough!


    With the peculiar position of ours, I could feel how Elia''s heart thumped faster the moment she realised that the test finished successfully. Instead of freeing herself from my arms, she simply used me as a stepping stone while climbing on the earthy mound, eager to check out the results at a close distance.


    Even if it wasn''t something that a proper lady would do, I was all happy to help her up, making sure she wouldn''t fall off my hands, before climbing the roundel myself.


    Just like I expected from my weapon, the holes on the target were only about one hands apart. Considering how the barrel wasn''t even rifled, nor the bullet had the perfectly uniform amount of gunpowder, this result was already insane, with how the distance to the target we set beforehand reached a hundred meters! (about 109 yards?) With how your everyday pistols could carry the bullet even five times as far, but the real wounding distance was only half as much, while any targeting was possible only at around fifty to seventy meters, being able to hit something such precisely at twice the normal targetted distance was an improvement in itself, without even mentioning the rate of firing!


    "We did it!"


    In the moment of euphory, I placed my hands on top of my head, trying my best to calm down, as if any greater emotion could wake me up from the dream that I was just experiencing.


    "We did!"


    Instead of standing frozen in place like me, Elia jumped right into my arms, instantly proving that being hugged was far superior to just experiencing a close and accidental skinship.


    "You can bet how I will thank you for this tonight!"

 79 Problems and break

    14th march 1574


    After wasting all the bullets that we painstakingly made the day before, while we had a lot of fun seeing how up to five of them could be shot in the quick succession, with the possibility of even more being shot in one series as long as we could get our hands on more tubes for the magazine, we also realised quite a lot of problems coupled with the design.


    First thing first, something that I unconsciously took care off, was the problem of the barrel quickly heating up after just a few shots. In normal musket, the delay between each shoot was enough to keep it from bothering anyone, even in the most heated fight, yet in our case, after repeatedly shooting three magazines, by emptying one, filling it up right away and repeating the process, the end of the barrel was already turning red. Take the unnecessary delay away, and after just a single series, the barrel would need quite a while to cool down.


    Thankfully, I never intended this gun to use only a single barrel. I already predicted that there could be some small details that could lead to the whole gun failing and requiring cleaning up in order to continue shooting. With how ridiculous it would be to ask soldiers to clean the gun when the enemy would be charging at them, this problem could be solved by simplyˇ­ adding another one, two, three or even nine barrels right beside!


    With a sufficiently big supply of the magazines, one could even load all the barrels at once, setting the number of people required to operate the gun to barely three individuals, with one shooting the gun, one passing the magazines down whenever necessary and the last one picking up the empty tubes of the used magazines. But then, the next problem surfaced.


    While the one and half shoot per second didn''t seem like much, compared to up to three shots per minute when one counted on the absolute elites, and more likely, two shots per minute for your average soldier with a musket, the consumption of the ammunition was simply insane.


    Take an instance when three guns would be deployed, with only a minute required to empty out around three hundred bulletsˇ­ Not even the royal armoury could support such usage for a long period of time in terms of resources alone, not to speak about the manpower required to actually craft all those bullets by hand!


    Shooting up all the two hundreds of ammunition that we painstakingly amassed through a few hours of hard work the day before, took us less than half an hour, despite nothing more than a single, half-finished gun in our hands!


    But that wasn''t all!


    Something like that was unacceptable in the heat of the battle, and even while we were testing it out, I learned in the most painful way possible what it means to touch the part of the gun where hot gasses moved around!


    "Why the sour face? Wasn''t the tests successful?"


    As we were returning back from our makeshift testing site, I couldn''t help but notice curious glances thrown by the guards sitting on top of the gatehouse and observing the strange set of barrels I was carrying on me.


    "I just realised a few limiting factors about this idea. While using it against Peter won''t be a problem, in the long term, it''s not really possible to use them as something else than a support weapon in rare chances. Additionally, as soon as we use it once on a country scale, every potential enemy and neighbour of ours will learn about it, and either attempt to make one for themselves or simply create proper countermeasures for it."


    With how many various challenges were stacking up in front of me, I couldn''t even be bothered to look at Elia''s face, as we returned to the higher castle, instantly ditching the iron products to the side of my chamber, before rushing towards the table.


    Grabbing a piece of charred wood that I used previously to draw right on top of the wooden, I started adding improvements and new details to the picture, only to be stopped by Elia hugging me from behind, grabbing my hands and bringing them to my own chest, not caring for the charcoal piece dirtying my robes.


    "Dear, you can''t focus on this project alone. I know you are doing this for me, but I won''t let you ignore all the other matters only because you want to please me!"


    While her words might sound a bit mischievous, her voice was devoid of any seductive tone, betraying her pure worry about me instead. Considering how the only thing that I bothered my mind with for the last two days was this project, it was understandable that she could be irked by this a bit, especially with her previous complaint about not spending any quality time with her.


    "Well, there is some truth in what you said."


    Pulling myself out of what was turning into my sketching table, I put the piece of charcoal back into the small chimney in the room, before grabbing her hand, and pulling her out of the room. Considering how I left the servants to assemble everything in the brewery I recently set up, after two damned days of being busy with other matters, not only they should finish assembling everything, but the first attempts at making a proper brew should already be made!

 80 First profits from the beer trade

    15th march 1574


    "It was a great success!"


    Sitting down in the dining chamber of my Palace inside the city, I watched the same group of merchants and Innkeepers that decided to go along with my plan just a few days ago. From the happy faces that they all presented when I asked about the results of the warm meals distribution at the farmlands, I didn''t even need to hear their report to know the answer for my inquiry.


    "That''s great. Since I already left it completely to your own discretion, I just hope you won''t try to make too much profit off the backs of my serfs. While earning a fair share is okay with me, don''t forget this plot is nothing more than a small side business aimed at increasing everyone''s welfare, rather than a real source of profit for any of us gathered here. Speaking of which, as some of you might''ve guessed, I didn''t ask you all to come just so you could report the results to me!"


    Gesturing to one of the servants standing beside the kitchen doors, I waited only for a moment as he ran towards the kitchen, only to go back with one more guy, rolling a huge barrel on the floor before setting it straight right beside the massive table that stood in the very centre of the chamber.


    With a small barrel about a single Garn passed in the same instant to my hands, the main servant of the palace smashed the beer tap in the special, designated place in the barrel, pushing a specially weakened bit of wood inside the barrel, before turning the handle on top, and allowing the golden liquid to flow down to the small barrel I was holding.


    "As you might see with your own eyes, this is the first barrel of the beer made in the new, castle brewery. Feel free to have a go with it!"


    While occupying the barrel that was passed to my hands, I gestured at the barrel and then at the set of mugs placed in front of every guest of mine. But instead of taking a sip myself, I passed my own container to Elia''s hands, allowing her to have a drink first. In reality, we already tried it before going to sleep last night, but as someone whose taste buds were already accustomed to the higher quality product, I doubted whether I could see the difference between the beer that stood in the barrel for a single night longer than the one we drank the day before.


    "It''s even better."


    Hearing her soft whisper just beside my ear, I smiled lightly while watching the men not even passing their cups, but walking up to the barrel and getting their mugs filled, as if their anxiety brought by the lack of certainty whether the product that I finally brought would be even close to the one I offered to sway them in the first place.


    Waiting for just long enough for everyone to have their containers filled with the beer, I stood up and raised my own small barrel.


    "Gentlemen, let''s all have the taste of the young beer of the Tarnowian Castle. Cheers!"


    "Cheers!"


    With everyone raising their mugs, I took the lead, angling my own barrel and pouring quite a bit of the golden fluid right into my throat. As soon as the first drops of my own product entered my mouth, I couldn''t help but feel surprised. The beer that I made with my system directly was obviously even better, but the one I was drinking right now, wasn''t that far from reaching the level of the simpler one I presented all the way back at the first meeting!


    "It''s great!


    "Woah!"


    With all sorts of reactions that uniformly acknowledged the quality of the beer finally meeting my expectations, I lowered my own cup and passed it once again to Elia. Being the host of this meeting, I couldn''t really drink that much, especially with all the other meetings I was going to attend to in a relatively soon.


    "So, to sum the matters up. For the following weeks, I will be only able to produce aboutˇ­ hmmˇ­ Sixteen barrels a day. With how there is only five of them willing to work with me from the initial group that attended our first meeting, all of you will be eligible to get three barrels a day, but I will leave it to your own discretion to move them from my brewery to your taverns. As soon as I will obtain enough funds to expand the production, you can expect this number to double, triple or even quintuple soon!"


    Sitting back after the initial toast, I smiled and looked at the everyone gathered before taking a long breath and picking up.


    "With forty garns in each barrel, let''s consider this type of the young beer as the cheaper one, bringing up the price for a single barrel to forty silvers. That means, with the current production rate, you will have to pay one red golden, and thirty silvers per day. But to make things easy, you can either pay every time you will be picking up the wares, or just pay upfront for the entire week, it''s entirely up to you. As for the way to pay, just go to the castle and ask for my econom, Matsu."


    While I was explaining the way in which we would finish up our daily deals, I instantly counted up the profits of my plan. With five of them paying up almost nine red goldens per weak, it would add up to a bit over forty-six red goldens per weak. With the cost of the grain and the fruits required to make this quantity of the beer and all the daily wages of the servants adding up to barely fifteen red goldens a week, I effectively more than doubled my weekly income!

 81 Marching ou

    18th march 1574


    "Remember, from what they will pay you, one third goes back into investing in what we actually are focusing on, and the rest will be fully devoted into obtaining iron, barrels and all the other necessary resources I wrote down for you on the list. Also, with how important your work is, I can''t let it go unnoticed, so every week, you can take one red golden to yourself. Do you have anything that you will require to fulfil those orders?"


    After three days of ordering my projects around, improving the aspects that I didn''t realise before or that simply escaped my attention, I amassed enough weapons and ammunition for it to safely challenge Peter''s might with my own. While I only managed to get just two guns properly settled with the designed ten barrels and two magazines for each of them, with all of them storing exactly twelve bullets - the maximum number of bullets that could be shot before the barrel would heat up to the point where we would risk its explosion - I could already produce a hailstorm of two hundred, forty bullets shot in a span of barely forty seconds, just by placing two gunners at each gun, ordered to shoot the bullets simultaneously from the barrels at the opposing end of the gun.


    Three days of working with the gun also allowed me to implement some small improvements, starting with a special ring on the gunner''s glove that could be used to pull out the pin in case a bullet failed to shoot or the magazine was stopped midway, and at a simple pedal that would push the burning fuse into the firing chamber into all barrels at once ending.


    "Sir, seeing the size of your entourage, am I safe to assume that you will be gone for at least two or more weeks? I''m sorry, but with all the shooting sir has done over the past few days, I came to a realisation that the problems in Pilzno are going to soon be dealt with."


    Taking a look at Matsu''s face, I couldn''t help but smile. With how timid her expression was looking now, one could take the false guess that she was like that all the time, without even realising that as the econom of my lands, she was considered the personification of the devil himself for most of the serfs and workshop owners that had to pay taxes to my treasury.


    Just the fact that she ignored the order of not steeping anywhere into the visibility range of the place where I moved all the firing test to showed a part of her real, hardworking nature. If she didn''t know what I was preparing for, she wouldn''t be able to make ample preparations for my departure, nor would she be able to set her own plans of what she would do as soon as my criticising eye would disappear, allowing her to torment everyone under her shoe even more than when I was looking!


    "Yes. If everything goes according to my plan, by the time, the matter concerning the Peter should be all dealt with, but my return can actually end up delayed. If that will be the case, you can expect a summons to the Pilzno, for my wedding ceremony."


    The matter concerning me and Elia binding the knot was even more popular than all the investments I was doing. For commoners, a noble wedding was a bunch of time free of work, with some priveledges and tax exceptions thrown around like money, with actual coins thrown in the face of the eager crowds by the pair of newlyweds as we would return from the Pilzno for the second part of the wedding in Tarnow. With a great feast to obligatory to happen for both the higher social circles and the serfs serving under both of the nobles actually participating in the wedding, it was hard to find any other reason to celebrate as much as everyone would during the marriage ceremony!


    But for the direct servants of the nobles, these kinds of events were a pain in the ass. Starting with the logistic, through the costs of all the feasts, wine and accommodation, all the way to the losses incurred by the lower taxes, one could say that the marriage was celebrated only by those who could afford it!


    Yet I wasn''t bothered by this at all. With the challenge that I was going to issue to Peter, not only would be my life and Elia''s hands on the stake but all our titles and wealth as well. That''s why despite my worries of the secret of the new weapon leaking, I still decided to make some of my more trusted men practice shooting the new weapon before it was even fully finished, just to make sure they wouldn''t panic in the face of a hundred of light cavalry charging right against them!


    "Sir, if that''s the case, then I might need to rent some additional warehouses in the city, to store all the products. While I was quite reluctant towards sir''s business ideas before, seeing how those pesky traders area eager to piss money right in our hands for this beer, I promise I will never have any more doubts about Lord''s ideas. Please, accept my forgiveness!"


    With Matu''s head bowed down, the urge to pat her head returned even stronger, almost capable of overcoming my social distancing habit present in all of the nobles when it came to interacting with people of lower classes. Before I could lose the last bit of my silly resolve to hold my hands near my body instead of rubbing her head in patronising gesture, I moved to the Helga, put my shoe in one of the holsters and jumped on top of the saddle. In the middle of my own castle, with my newly found power basing purely on the hot weapon rather than on the personal military prowess, there was no point in showing off how I was capable to sit on my horse without the help of the holsters!


    "Don''t worry about that. Ah, and before I forget, try to replenish the gunpowder in both the castle and city armoury. With all the firing I done those past few days, the storage rooms are already showing their floor. I want them filled up the ceiling by the time I will be back!"


    Already on top of Helga, I finished my talk with Matsu, with the young econom sending me off with a deep nod of her head. With my trusty mount already stepping in place, as if she couldn''t help but feel excited by the incoming fight, that this smart animal could sense by the amount of metal, gunpowder and humans running around, I let go of the reins, allowing her to step a few paces forward before I stood in my holsters to inspect whether everyone was ready.


    "Sir, carriages are ready!"


    "My lord, footmen are ready to depart!"


    "Sir Mike, Cavalry is ready to go!"


    With the three officers, namely Bart in charge of carriages with weapons hidden on top of them, Kalen for once sober, commanding the footmen and Victor, of the house of Nejal, the man sent to my aid by the Governor who I had more than enough of time to get aquaintanced with during the last few days, commanding my cavalry, all reporting the readiness of their regiments, there was nothing else that would stop us from departing right away.


    "Men! With God''s Mery leading us forward, march out!"

 82 Firing

    18th march 1574


    "Fire!"


    In any other scenario, such command would cause the entire area to shake under the force of powerful thunder coming out of numerable barrels of musketeers lining up in a rows, only to turn silent for as long as it would take them to reload and shoot again or give space for the volley of their enemies. Yet in this case, instead of singular and ear-cracking hailstorm of death, the sound was way gentler, yet its continuous staccato that didn''t stop for good two minutes hailed the appearance of way deadlier age than what any of the former tactics could bring forth.


    As if a grim reaper swung his scythe through the land, the targets were not only falling down under the onslaught of the invisible hand as they were supposed to do upon being hit by the bullet, but they were bursting into messy parts, littering the open field.


    "Reaper one, last mag!"


    With the auxiliary soldier stationed at the nest of the first gun, amply named reaper in the bout of my poetical inspiration, reporting the set command, the group at the other gun, stationed just a few meters away on another carriage supported by the poles holding it from the side opposite to the line of fire, instantly moved into action.


    Making sure the magazines were properly locked, the muzzles of the gun aimed in the general direction of the targets, and all ten fuses properly lit. It didn''t sound like much, but doing so in the short span of barely four seconds that the first team would take to empty out the last magazines proved to be quite challenging.


    "Reaper one, out!"


    Despite signalling with his voice that the first group was out of ammo, the situation at their carriage didn''t grind to a halt. Instead, everyone rushed to the emptied magazines lying at the bottom of their vehicle. Out of the ten that were initially loaded, only four were still inside the carriage, with the rest of them already passed by the auxiliary soldier to the loading team behind the carriage, keeping the live ammo safely away from the potential sparks flying off the firing gun.


    "Fire!"


    With less than a second in between the report of the gun crew and the officer''s order, the second nest started firing, laying down death to everything that could still move on the field.


    That is if the straw targets that the servants that accompanied us on our way were ever mobile in the first place!


    Travelling with a properly armed unit finally taught me why all the wars in the past were happening so slow. With only seventy people ready to fight, the number of servants required to set the camp, move the wares, guide the carriages and take care of all the other matters that neither the nobles nor the veterans could dirty their hands with actually was greater than the number of actual warriors!


    If not for the fact that the distance was relatively short, I think I would already give up on the whole idea of fighting Peter!


    This situation also taught me about how heavy and immobile group like mine was. Setting the camp required time, feeding the horses required time, feeding the men themselves required timeˇ­ Everything required fucking time!


    The distance that I hoped to cover in a matter of two, maybe three hours, ended up as the final reach of my unit for today, even though the sun was barely reaching the line of the horizon!


    "Calm downˇ­ Here, have some beer."


    Approaching my seat on a small hill behind the place where I used the remaining visibility of the day to at least turn some of the ammunition into an experience for my soldiers, Elia passed me a cup filled with the familiar aroma. While this beer was my current source of the most profits in the entire domain, I couldn''t give up on drinking it myself on such a grand occasion! After all, the profits from a single barrel that I brought with me on this small campaign wouldn''t be that big to really bother myself with it!


    "What do you mean, calm down? Don''t you see how happy I am? With all the worries that the soldiers wouldn''t be able to adapt to this new weaponˇ­ Just look at them!"


    Pointing with my hand already holding the cup at the group of barely twenty soldiers continuously firing the guns in short intervals required to cool the barrels down, I actually felt quite a bit of pride. While those reaper guns still required quite a bit of working around them in order to fire in such an orderly manner, for the people used to multistep process of reloading normal guns from the front, this was apparently not a challenge!


    "Don''t give me that. I can see it from your face. Something is bothering you."


    Completely ignoring what I said, Elia sat on top of my lap and rested her back on my chest. With her head turned slightly to the side, I was still able to drink, yet doing so would stop me from spectating the training of my troops.


    "Okay, okay. I just can''t help it but be anxious about our speed. What if Peter decides to use his own mobility to meet us somewhere on the road? If there will be people nearby during our clash, those guns can do them harm. You saw yourself how far they can shoot!"


    The whole point of defeating Peter and connecting Tarnow to Pilzno was in connecting those two cities and integrating all the villages and smaller towns inside my own sphere of influence. If our fight were to cause death amongst the civilians, I would be in for countless uprisings, as all of my serfs would lose their faith in me!


    "Tell me, do you have any influence over what that bastard will do?"


    As if reluctant to even call Peter by his name, Elia moved slightly around, adjusting her position on my lap. With her head resting right on top of my shoulder, even though her voice was rather silent, I could still understand what she spoke despite the continuous thunder coming out from the shooting field.


    "No. Or rather, outside of provoking him into a grand battle, as long as we can call that a clash of less than two hundred of people, I''m unable to even predict what he will try."


    There was no point denying this fact. No matter all my knowledge, system and modern mentality, there was no way to predict how my very first enemy would react to my own movements. Beliving that he would be ignorant towards my advance would be stupid, with how slow and massive this group of mine was, yet I was unable to implement any real countermeasures stopping him from leaving the city!


    "Then why bother with it? Why bother with something you can''t change?"

 83 Events at the midnight kinda smutty?

    19th march 1574 (barely after midnight)


    The night at the camp was nowhere as close as living in my castle chambers, not even comparable to living in a damned stable or even resting in the tent during the Governor''s hunting camp. With my tent located right in the middle of the entire camp, with six other temporary housing for the nobles and officers that accompanied me on the campaign, we were already quite secure from any outside attack, yet just to be safe, the entire middle part of the camp was additionally surrounded by the carriages, with two of them carrying the reaper guns in case of a night attack. With both of their crews sleeping in the direct proximity of their weapons, there were over fifty people in my immediate surrounding, making it impossible to relax.


    "So, what will you do to bait him outside?"


    With how we could expect a night raid at any given time, even in the most secure place in the entire camp, I still didn''t dare to take off my armour. As people say, it''s better to be safe than sorry, yet in this particular case, I was already feeling pity for myself.


    After trying to improve my mood through the entire evening and ultimately failing at this task, Elia attempted to shift my attention from the problems of my campaign by ignoring the safety issue and baring her skin in front of me in the dim light of the few candles that helped us move around the sizeable tent, yet rather than allowing me to forget about the current problems plaguing my head, it only added the unnecessary pressure with how my body was tightly bound by the confines of my light armour.


    "I was thinking that simply calling him out for a fight would suffice. While he might be dumb enough to go against me, he is still a Pole. Seeing his own unit of cavalry against my immobile and smaller unit of footmenˇ­ Not even the number of carriages should stop him from charging right against us. Worst case scenario, I hoped you will help me to bait him out."


    Pulling Elia closer, I had to satisfy myself with her smell and her lips alone. Despite how in any other situation we could go right down to the business, my own caution stood firmly in between our bodies, baring me from enjoying this moment any bit more than I currently could.


    "Help you? What do you mean with this?"


    With her curiosity piqued by my words, Elia stopped her attempts at reaching for my lower body through the layers of cloth, and cupped her hands on top of my breastplate, placing her chin right on top of them and looking deeply into my eyes.


    "Do I really need to spell it out loud? From what I heard, he doesn''t really care about the Pilzno, but he just wants to get you. As long as he will be hesitant to leave the walls of the city, all we need to do is ride on the same horse to the front, and ridicule him."


    "Oh? And what would you like me to do, while on the horse with you?"


    With Elia''s hand escaping from under her head and travelling down on my armour, it didn''t take long for her to reach the knot that brought my pants together, this time proving her feminine skill at unravelling this kind of obstacles effective. With the cloth of my lower suit coming loose, her hand was unbothered by any other obstacles on its journey towards my manhood.


    "Maybeˇ­ like that?"


    Using the fact that instead of sleeping and recovering our strength for the next day of boring march we continued to talk long past the time when all the candles gave up to the natural process of burning out, talk while she continued to do her best to affect my mood despite my armour denying all her attempts, her delicate fingers tightened around my shaft, pulling the foreskin down from my head as she started to slowly jerk me off.


    "Don''t be stupid. No matter the stakes, I would never allow you toˇ­"


    Before I could finish, my lips were blocked by Elia''s mouth with her hand finally pulling my dick outside the confines of my loose pants. Just a single jerk of her hips was enough to move her on top of my body, locking my manhood between her hand and her sweet place.


    "So? What would you never all me to?"


    With Elia raising her head slightly above mine in order to free my lips, as soon as I opened my mouth to answer her inquiry while doing my best to remain calm, she used the opening I gave her, invading my jaw with her tongue.


    Once again muted with her delicate flesh, my barriers was slowly starting to erode, when the unexpected sound broke me from immersing myself in the pleasure that she was offering me.


    "ATTACK!"


    Just as this shout managed to reach the ears of everyone still awake in the camp, a desperate ringing of the bell located in the inner outposts of the camp jerked everyone up from their beds. While I wanted to follow the proper example of my own men, I had to first push Elia aside, push my own erect penis back into my pants, tie the knot that would ensure I wouldn''t end up commanding my troops bare-assed and only then I was finally able to move out from the tent!


    Sea of flames.


    I never knew that such a thing could really happen, yet when the reality once again face slapped my modern beliefs, it did it in the worst way possible.


    Just a single look at the camp told me what a disaster it was.


    With a huge group of mounted men running freely through the tight rows of the tents, unbothered by the pitiful resistance put up by the servants and serfs located on the outer ring of my camp, most of their housing was already set ablaze, with the fire swiftly jumping onto the nearby tents, swiftly spreading the chaos and disorder.


    "My Lord! Peter is attacking!"


    With one of the nobles that decided to join my cause running up to me and reporting, I had the feeling that it was the first time he ever saw the real bloodshed on his own eyes. Despite how tragic the situation looked like, something deep in myself forced me to calm down, slowing down the flow of my blood and casting all the worries aside.


    "East group, retreat towards the centre! We will hold them off at the line of the carriages!"


    Hearing my order, yet another sound of bell broke through the hell of the ongoing onslaught, almost instantly swaying the troops from the affected area towards my own position.


    There was no way to save the people that were already behind the enemy line. There was no way to stop the enemies from ravaging almost a fourth of the entire camp. There was no damn way to stop the chaos and disorder from spreading in all directions, swiftly affecting the morale of the troops that had enough time to cast their sleepiness away and actually prepare for the fight.


    Yet there wasn''t even a single sign of panic in the lines of my soldiers, hidden behind the backs of the poor servants. They calmly continued to retreat towards the circle of carriages, swiftly forming two triangles near the sides of the central point, leaving the front completely unattended, with their ranks forming only where both reaper carriages were located, with their crews already ready for order.


    In a war, there was no way to prevent any casualties from happening. The role of a general, my role, was to make the best use of the sacrifices made, in order to hit the enemy way harder than he could ever expect!

 84 Calm after the breeze, but before the storm

    19th march 1574 (barely after midnight)


    "Wait!"


    Standing on top of the front-most carriage relatively to the direction that the attack came from, I ordered my men to hold their fire. With up to forty people aiming the muskets at the incoming enemies, the effective firing distance was already achieved, yet pure rationality dictated to wait just a little bit more, to make the best use of the salvo, especially with how the events were taking place during the night.


    At least, that''s what any other general would think when being in my shoes. In reality, I had to wait for as long as possible, to make the enemies finish off the remaining few servants of mine that didn''t manage to retreat behind the fortified line, in order to give my reapers gun a nice, tight line of horsemen to shoot at.


    "Wait!"


    With the enemies rounding up the last people of mine, some officers amongst them pulled most of their troops outside of the musket''s effective range and lined them all up in a place far enough to keep them relatively safe, while being close enough to be more than just a threat, especially with how fast they could close the distance on their horses.


    "Dear, how is it going?"


    While I didn''t dare to turn my head away from the threat, the voice that broke my immersion in the battlefield was familiar enough to let me guess who asked this question.


    "Not great, not terrible."


    Only daring to look at Elia with just the corner of my eyes, I felt the blood in my body rush to both my head and my pridehood. With not enough time to completely dress herself up, she simply bound the blanket from our tent around her entire body and kept it in place both with a simple belt of mine and her hands.


    But thinking about it, she wasn''t that stupid to come out dressed like that on a damned battlefield, unless she was already willing to play her part of bait if necessary!


    "See where did your pride have taken you?"


    Finally, a painfully familiar voice came out from behind the enemy lines, accompanied by the small commotion of horsemen pulling to the sides in order to make space for the incoming noble. Seeing how the costly sacrifice of my men managed to reach the situation I aimed for, I had to try my really best to not let the smirk appear on my face, even if the darkness of the night and the distance separating me from Peter was more than enough to hide it from his view.


    "Before we will kill you all, tell me, was it worth? Or do you maybe have any lingering thoughts of surrendering? As you can see, I have a clear advantage!"


    Finally showing himself in the full glory of his, Peter rode his horse to the very front of the line of his men and stopped right outside of the effective range of the muskets, yet well within the aiming distance for my reaper guns.


    "Reapers, be ready for my signal."


    "And what makes you think that I lost? From what I see, you have light cavalry, about to charge on the line of entrenched carriages. Didn''t you study the recounts of the Hussite wars?"


    With the Jan Hus being the first general of Europe to implement a line of the carriages into his battle formations, all sorts of cavalry around the world learned what it meant to charge at the wooden, impregnable wall like that. But compared to the tactic invented by that heretic, instead of a full line of carriages, I only have a few of them!


    "Don''t try to trick me, I have more men than enough to just march over your head. After all, even after you shoot your punny muskets, out of which only about half will manage to fire, what will you be able to do against such an overwhelming advantage of mine? Will your men inside the circle hold on, seeing their comrades slew on the other side of those punny carriages of yours?"


    Seeing how my words achieved the required effect, I put my hands behind my back in order to both look like if my confidence was over the roof, or in this case, over the sky above our heads, and to gesture at Elia to make her come up the carriage.


    "Why don''t you try it yourself then? Seeing how unwilling you are to attack, it makes me think you are just the type of coward who can only attack in surprise, pissing his pants when your enemy is ready to respond in a kind to your unwarranted violence! And trust me, you have drawn the first blood, and if even a single man of mine will survive, the Governor will learn about this matter! Am I right, dear?"


    Reaching with my hands to the back, I didn''t even look to check if Elia got my drift before, almost instantly feeling her hand pulling on mine, as she climbed on top of the carriage and instantly reached for my side, pressing her bosom against the base of my arm.


    "Dear, I''m all antsyˇ­ Can you just kill him already so we can get back to the tent?"


    With her voice silent enough to appear natural, yet loud enough for Peter to hear it through the distance separating us, the bait was even more successful than I expected. Despite the gap between us, I could clearly see his entire body tensing up as he raised his sabre with the intention to call his men to charge.


    "Men! Put your muskets down!"


    Before he could finish his order though, I set a strange order. In fact, I did it only for the sake of confusing both Peter and his people, with no declaration of surrender following my words.


    "Men, charge!"


    "Reapers, fire!"


    Those two commands resounded in the air at the same time, yet the visible confusion of the cavalrymen bough those few precious seconds required for the crews on the carriages to pull the guns up to their proper shooting position, confirm the lock on the magazines and the ignition on the fuse, before two of them, on the opposite sides of the circle simultaneously pressed the pedal, pushing the burning knots inside the firing chambers, as the loaders instantly pushed the magazines down.

 85 Bloody end

    19th march 1574 (a while after midnight)


    In an instant, the darkness of the night got dispelled by the continuous tongues of fire coming off from the four barrels of the reaper guns at once. In theory, using only one barrel per gun provided longer suppression of the enemy forces, but with such a close distance between Peter''s small army and my troops, there was simply no time to waste.


    As soon as the Reapers started their melody, the line of horsemen started to break. Instead of falling one by one like in a movie, entire groups were bursting apart at once, with bullets unable to differentiate between a man and a horse, penetrating the mount, the rider, their companion behind, two trees and ending up somewhere in a bird''s nest few hundred meters behind their line!


    "Muskets! Rise!"


    While I had to base it of the experience that wasn''t really mine, a capable general leading the opposing forces could either wait out the storm and charge when the guns would be empty or charge in an instant, hoping to make the gunners miss most of their shots. Sadly, either of those options would end up exactly the same, with the enemy attack falling apart before it would even begin!


    "Attack! Attack!"


    Even despite the loud onslaught of the reaper guns, I could still make out Peter''s voice, calling his men to a charge. Surprisingly enough, his men were disciplined enough for the entire ten or so of them to follow his lead and jump forward as their flanks were methodically cut down by the invisible scythe of the death, only to end up rooted by the right reaper gun, when its crew noticed the danger.


    In about twenty-second, out of about a hundred of the enemies, only ten or so remained alive, with only Peter and two more guards strictly beside him remaining mounted. With how he killed a lot of my men, there was no way I would be merciful enough to grant him such a quick death!


    "Woahˇ­ While I knew this would happen, knowing and seeing it happen are two completely different mattersˇ­"


    Just like Elia hugged my side even tighter as if the bloody images in front of her managed to squeeze a bit of her feminine delicacy out of her tomboyish nature, all of my men, some of them being experienced veterans, had trouble to swallow the image right in front of their eyes.


    This wasn''t a war they knew and they expected. It didn''t even come close of being it! It was a purely one-sided onslaught, introduced by the death and company, under the skin of those new, demonic guns. If not for the fact that most of them learned how they operated from all the training they went through, I could tell from how quite a bit of them was currently retching their guts out, instead of being praised as a victor, I would be condemned as an antichrist!


    "Cease fire!"


    "Now, do you wish to surrender, or should I let my cannons after you?"


    Shouting from the bottom of my lungs, I had to make sure that my voice would be loud enough to knock this damned Peter out of his gaze. In the end, I preferred to get him alive, to make sure that all the troops that he could''ve left in Pilzno or his own city would surrender peacefully, saving me the trouble of sieging both of those places down.


    While in both cases I had a sizeable troop hiding inside both of the towns, ready to come to aid, as soon as the fighting would move inside the town, I would be unable to use the reaper guns to my advantage, turning my winning position, into nothing else but a mindless slaughter.


    "Monster! I will kill you!"


    Most likely unable to comprehend what just happened around him, instead of getting off his horse and raising his hands in the commonly accepted sign of surrender, this damned idiot knocked the sides of his horse, forcing it to charge through the scorched land that once used to be a wing of my camp right at the lines of my men!


    "Men, shoot his horse down! I want him alive!"


    This action was the sole reason why I had my musketeers remain on standby, instead of joining the fray. With over forty guns aiming at a single target, even if it was moving, there was no chance for Peter to even get close to my lines!


    BANG!


    As if ordered by a heavenly general, all of the guns erupted in the coordinated salvo, instantly cutting the horse almost in half, and throwing Peter from its saddle to the ground. From what I could see away on my position, his face landed in a pile of faeces, that flew out of one of the corpses littered around the entire place.


    And just like that, the strife with the only real opponent that I had in the region, came to an end.


    "Men, comprehend him, bring him to me. After you make sure all the survivors are properly bound, you are free to loot the entire place to the ground!"

 86 Digging the graves part 1

    19th March 1574 (early morning)


    After rounding up every single man that didn''t manage to escape in time and making sure the Peter was all nicely bound, some might go back to their own tasks, with the real mission finally accomplished, yet I decided against it.


    Maybe it was my modern stupidity or just a silly attempt to recreate the rules of the society that I grew used to, I still decided to do the most obvious thing that any modern person would decide to do in my place.


    Bury the dead.


    In the current times, only the rich nobles could count on their commanders or servants to find their body after the battle was over, and even then, only if the battle was won. But I couldn''t agree to such a thing! As soon as I made sure no further threats awaited behind the line of trees, I pushed my people to organise the camp once again, while forcing the healthy prisoners of mine to work alongside my own servants in digging shallow graves beside the road.


    One by one, the graves were dug out, two meters deep, two meters long and half a meter wide. With one meter between each of them in order to make sure it wouldn''t turn into a mass grave that more generous monarch would pay for if they decided to give the last respects to the troops that died for their cause.


    "Is this really necessary?"


    Standing on the road, Elia was back in her normal clothes, yet still hugging my side. Only when it came to digging the resting place for all of the fallen, did both of us and all our people realise the scale of the massacre that happened. While veterans rented to me by the Governor instantly pushed their inquires about this demonic weapon, its price and manufacturing cost, I simply pushed all those questions for later, hoping to finish up the clean up before the end of the day.


    "No, it''s not, and yes, it is."


    Looking down on the first bodies carefully carried on a huge piece of cloth towards their final resting place, I had to try my best to stop myself from taking the blame for their deaths. Those people died for my sake, with most of them never carrying a weapon by them in their entire life! Maybe if I was born in this day and age, I could simply disregard their sacrifice as natural, but my modern nature forced me to at least pay the last respect they were owed!


    "What do you mean by that? Isn''t it only natural to let the bodies where they fell?"


    "Listen, those people died for me. It''s only fair for me, to give their bodies the right for the final, undisturbed rest. As for the enemiesˇ­"


    Looking back, at the other side of the road, I saw an even greater amount of holes in the ground, with some of them already halfway returned to the natural state, after the body was identified by the survivors from Peter''s unit and covered back with the dirt.


    "... No matter our strife, they were all Catholics. While we could fight in life, I''m not a monster to keep the grudge after they died, especially when there was only one man truly responsible for their death."


    Looking to the side of the camp, I saw one of the tents that was quickly set up on my order, inside of which, Peter was tightly bound to the ground and guarded by the mix of my own people and some of the veterans of Jan''s.


    If not for his silly attempt to stop my marriage to Elia, all those dead people could very well end up as my companions, after a random meeting in the inn. But in fact, there was one more reason as for why I decided to bury everyone, without discriminating for which side who fought.


    For my own people, seeing how I wasted a lot of time and resources of burying their comrades, it would serve as a boost to morale. It was rare for the lord to care for his people while they lived, and really uncommon to continue caring for them after they died.


    As for the imprisoned enemies, showing them that I still extended my catholic approach towards their fallen brothers and friends, there was a huge chance that in the future, they might reconsider their allegiances!


    In the end, it all came down to the fact, that those reaper guns, no matter how effective, were unusable in the greater scale. From the insane cost of ammunitions, through the unbelievable amount of gunpowder required to make it in the first place, as soon as Commonwealth would introduce this kind of guns into its army, all the trade that restocked the national reserve of gunpowder would stop.


    With no advanced chemistry, creating this most basic tool of war was simply impossible, forcing both me personally, and the entirety of the country, to keep its usage at a moderate level. Just this was enough to make it impossible for me to introduce those guns at a larger scale, not unless I could force the system to help me with all the hard steps required to create gunpowder from the resources available in the country itself!


    "Your way of thinkingˇ­ At times, I find it really hard to understand what is going on inside that handsome head of yoursˇ­ But let me be honest for once. Aren''t you worried that this unnecessary project of yours, will delay our wedding? If we spend two or more days here, then another week to get to the Pilzno with all those carriages of yours, are you sure you will still be able to cater to the needs of all the quests that will start knocking on our doors soon?"

 87 Digging the graves Part 2

    19th March 1574 (early morning)


    "I don''t think its a good idea to worry about this. Some will travel to Tarnow first, and some will get directly to the Pilzno. With how deserted those two places are after we pulled out all the troops we could, I don''t think there will be any problem with accomodating everyone. Worst case scenario, we will just invite everyone to our own place in both towns."


    Grabbing Elia by her waist, I started moving towards our own tent, still standing in the same place, surrounded by the same circle of carts, as if the storm that happened barely a few hours ago, never affected its area.


    In the end, I couldn''t be bothered to even speak to Peter. I wasn''t so pride driven to improve my mood by ridiculing him right now. We fought, he lost, and now he was going to pay for his crimes, with his own wealth. That was one of the reasons why I preferred to catch him alive.


    By pushing Governor to side with me even before this conflict escalated, I set up the fertile ground for the future judgment on his head, hoping, that the small town he owned, the town of Ropian, would end up falling in my hands. With how unimportant those places were in the grand scheme of things, and how I was willing to give up the reaper guns for the Governor to manage, later on, I was quite sure that with the time remaining before this bastard of a King would start his escape, all my investments would elevate me to a position high enough to sit at the political table along with the other major powers, instead of acting like a hunting hound for one of them. Even if the chances of winning the crown for myself were nigh impossible, I believed I could still use the times of interregnum to my own advantage!


    "Sir, from what we gathered, at least ten men of Peter, managed to escape before the bullets could reach them!"


    By the time we reached the circle through the roundabout way that saved us from stepping on the bloodied battlefield, one of the veterans from the Governor''s unit approached me with a short report of his. Just like I expected, while the battle looked like a total roundup, there were still some men that were quick-witted enough to see what was going on and pull back before the real onslaught begin. Considering their options, they would either ride for Pilzno or directly towards Ropian, but considering how both of those places were already stacked with the people of my own command, I didn''t have to worry that much about them!


    "Thanks, go and fetch the officers now, we will have a meeting."


    As I send the solider off, he saluted to me with his fist and ran off to the distance, where some of the higher-ranking men were gathered.


    "Meeting? What do you need one for?"


    Puzzled by the sudden development, Elia moved to face me from the front, blocking my path towards the tent where the said meeting would take place.


    Seeing a hint of disappointment on Elia''s face, I couldn''t help but smile both internally, and externally, before placing my hand on her head and rubbing her hair for a bit.


    "Come on, won''t you prefer picking it up in the comfortable chamber of our palace in Pilzno already? What''s the point of suffering the cold of the outside?"


    In fact, when she mentioned the problem with accomodating all the guests that would come to our wedding, while I didn''t admit that she was right when mentioning it, that was actually the case! No matter how big the palace was in Pilzno, and how much space I could come up with when locating my guests between the Tarnowian Castle and the small Palace building in the city itself, as long as the wedding would be as sizeable as it should be to fit my status of middle nobility, even that much space wouldn''t be enough to fit everyone!


    But while organising more sleeping space shouldn''t be a problem with the great relationship with Tarnowian innkeepers that I have, the same couldn''t be said about the Pilzno itself, forcing me to split the entire ceremony between the most important quests attending the mass in the church of Pilzno, while all the lesser nobles forced to stay in the Tarnow.


    Yet there was one, very important piece missing from the picture.


    Outside of Governor, and some of the neighbouring nobles that I could alert in a matter of few days at mostˇ­ We didn''t really invite anyone!


    In any normal scenario, ceremony like a wedding, would not only be planned few months ahead, with invitations sent long before the party itself to give the guest time to prepare both the gifts and for the journey itself, yet my hastiness at the Governor''s camp made it impossible for me to fix that small mistake of mine, that could yield tragic results soon!


    "Wait, do you want to go to Pilzno already? Didn''t you just argue about the importance of burying everyone who died?"


    Hearing my response, Elia simply stood in place, unable to make sense of all the opposing signals and information that I gave her. In fact, I couldn''t blame her for it, as the idea of what should be done now was constantly changing in my own head!


    "Yeah, I still plan to have everyone buried nicely in here, yet why is that supposed to stop off from riding for the Pilzno? It''s not like we are going to pick the shelves ourselves!"


    Just as we were about to reach our tent, all of the officers that I wanted to see already reached it, most likely jumping into a run as soon as they received the summons because otherwise, it would be hard for me to find an explanation how could they physically cover more distance than we did.


    "Guys, while the process of burying everyone needs to go on until it will be fully finished, I need to get as many mounted troops as we can get. Not only I need a small escort to get to the Pilzno, but there is quite a lot of letters that I need to send as soon as it will be possible!"

 88 Working hard for the grandest prize

    20th March 1574


    "Good job. How is the caravan going?"


    Sitting at the table in the dining room of the Pilznian palace, I listened to the reports of the multiple messengers that connected me with both Tarnow and the caravan still on its way here.


    Considering how we separated from the main force at the early morning on the day before, reaching the Pilzno took us only a few hours with no carriages slowing us down. Thankfully, the escaping few men of Peter''s didn''t dare to ride for the city but opted for escaping to their own town of Ropian, saving us the trouble of yet another skirmish at the gate.


    While some might rejoice at the fact that we managed to recover Elia''s land just like that, as soon as we crossed the gates of the city, instead of spoiling ourselves with some leisure time, we instantly jumped to dealing with all the matters at hand. With how traditionally I was supposed to write and sign all the invitation letters that we would send to all the nobles we would like to invite, most of the other duties fell on Elia''s shoulders, leaving me stranded in the Palace chamber, with nothing but a quill and a feather in my hand, with only a sizeable stack of papers to either write the letters or wipe the tears out of my face!


    Thankfully, with my modern skill of using the pen, writing all the letters took me only a few moments after I got a local poet come up with the nice formula, that in reality, served as the picture for me to replicate, considering how the written language I knew and the one used presently weren''t as similar as I would like.


    Considering how little time we had, as soon as I got the confirmation from the Pilznian Church that on the eleventh of April they would be able to host the ceremony, the dates and names were filled up, \tand a great number of messengers were sent all over the countryˇ­ Or rather, all over the nearby provinces.


    While there were many figures I would love to see on the wedding in order to get inside their social circles, the time constraints I foolishly set for myself made me unable to reach out for them. Even if the time required for the message and their potential journey would be still smaller than the time before the ceremony, asking them to come on such short notice would be easily considered as faux pas!


    Even though I was already using a small trick, in which only the most important figures would attend the wedding ceremony at Pilzno, with the majority of the guest expected to appear three days later in Tarnow for the proper feast. While it took some load off my shoulders, it didn''t mean I could rest easy!


    If not for the night fun I had after dealing with all this stuff, I might even reconsider the worth of this marriage in the first place! Not even this damned Peter - currently waiting for his fate in the lowest level of prison under the main town''s tower - managed to cause me so many troubles as this wedding did!


    But contrary to his escapade, that ended up with almost nothing else but grief for my people after the initial excitement from the won battle ran off, I could at least enjoy myself in bed with Elia during the only time when we weren''t busy dealing with our current affairs!


    "How is the dress going? Did you get measured already?"


    Sitting in the dining chamber and waiting for even more people to come to bother us, I turned my head to Elia and asked. While all the organisational stuff was important to deal with, we couldn''t forget about the basic stuff like the wedding dress, or the wedding rings! While the rings were dealt with swiftly by simply contracting the old goldsmith that already provided me with the engagement one, the dress was way harder to come by!


    After all, it wasn''t something that could be adjusted to the thickness of the finger from the already prepared piece, but had to be sewn from the starting point to an end! No premade pieces would be good enough to suit Elia''s most important day, nor would I agree to compromise on such an important thing!


    While our marriage started like nothing else but a political ploy aimed to increase the power of my family and secure Elia''s heritage, with how our relationship grew over the course of the last month, I couldn''t help but aim to turn it into a proper, real and eternal love!


    "Yeah, I might surprise you, but it seems my chest has grown a bit since the last time I was measured!"


    Suddenly dropping such bomb, Elia instantly moved on top of my lap, ignoring the risk that the room could be invaded by yet another set of messengers and trouble bringers at any given moment.


    "What are you doing? Don''t you care if someoneˇ­"


    "Stop it."


    Placing her finger on top of my lips, she ran her tongue through her mouth, before speaking.


    "I can see how tired you are. If we all kept it official, only for the sake of tying the know, you wouldn''t have so much on your head. Trust me, I can see how much effort you are putting to make this day as grand as possible."


    Raising her finger from the top of my lips, she leaned over my head and replaced it with her own mouth, connecting with me in a long, wet kiss.


    "While I''m really grateful for it, I don''t want you to overwork yourself, okay?"

 89 Early guests

    9th April 1574


    Looking down from the city walls, I could see the almost endless string of carriages, heading out to the city gates. Despite still almost an entire week before the wedding would take place, not only the invited nobles were gathering in and around the town, but countless small merchants, sensing the opportunity, aimed to make the most of the drunken state of the rich nobles that were bound to roam the city in their not-so-sober adventures.


    The last three weeks turned out to be way calmer than I expected. After sending out the invites and taking care for preparations for the feasts both in Pilzno and Tarnow, increasing the housing for the guests and figuring out some additional attractions for everyone, I found enough time for myself to go back to Tarnow, double the production rate of my brewery and even bring an entire three carriages full of my own beer to the Pilzno myself!


    While some might think that the wedding itself was nothing but a huge strain of my treasure, the reality turned out to be far different than what I imagined. Counting only the increased flow of money in my lands propelled by all the people arriving here, the growth of taxes was already enough to cover half of the wedding costs. As for all the additional small bonuses to my own pocket in form of various merchants forced by the warehousing law to put their products on sale in every city they passed, both those travelling through Pilzno to Tarnow and those doing the same route but in the opposite direction brough more than twice the wedding costs!


    At this point, I couldn''t help but wonder how the heck did those people manage to stay afloat, with all the taxes, tariffs and fees burdening them. While it was nice to see such a huge increase in my income, it also got me thinking about the entire matter.


    What would happen if after finishing building the road between Tarnow and Pilzno, or in future, extending it to the Ropian town that I already counted as my own at this point, I were to simply abolish all the tariffs between those places? What kind of insane growth would spring up in the area, if people caught the news of such a great opportunity?


    Shaking my head, I hoped that the addition of the air brushing my hair due to this sudden movement would be enough to clear my mind from all the exhaustion caused by the residual alcohol slowing my brain capabilities down. No matter what kind of ideas were now popping inside my mind, I was in no state to consider them seriously.


    But wasn''t that why I wanted to make friends with the Governor? As long as I continued to bribe him with all sorts of developments, at reaper guns starting, through building the roads at the new brands of beer ending, I could simply show the middle finger to all those who would dare to oppose me, as long as I kept my influence from affecting the real powers of the country!


    "What are you thinking so hard about?"


    Suddenly appearing beside me, Kalen didn''t forget to bring two cups filled with my own beer with him. Being the greatest cause behind my current hangover in a time when I should be in my top-notch condition to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he always knew how to push my buttons to get me to drink with him.


    Quite timid and closed at first, after sharing enough drinks with me, he turned out to be quite a vivid talker, with an imagination capable of catching up to most of the concepts that I was talking about while drunk. Maybe because of the stern training he went through back at the camp, or maybe because his natural talent, no matter how hard I tried to make him drunk while retaining the senses myself, I always tragically failed, paying for my attempts with more and more information about my ideas, instead of learning about how his camp looked like.


    "Some really dangerous stuff."


    Accepting the mug from his hands, I once again stared at the long line of the carts, taking my damned time to notice the crests flying on the wind over some of the carriages. Yet no matter how hard I tried, my knowledge about history was simply too general to recognise more than a literally two or three of them, and even then, I could only recall that I saw it somewhere back in my school days!


    But then, I saw the single coat of arms I would never forget, not after many years of being a fan of this single, historical figure that has yet to be born!


    A Polish-Lithuanian Union crest, held by the sides by a pair of two angels, all on the background made by the interior of the royal coat!


    It seemed that the esteemed Cherrie family (Wi?niowieccy, From Wi?niowiec (city) meaning Cherry-like? Cherry-ish? Not exactly sure) came to my wedding as well! It seemed that I could get acquaintances with the grandfather of the future Polish King, and the father to the most well-known great noble in the entire Polish history!


    ******

 90 Pleasant meeting

    9th April 1574


    "It''s an honour to have you visit our poor place!"


    Despite being hungover a bit, when seeing the Korybut banner hanging above a set of carriages, I didn''t waste any time but grabbed a small barrel of the finest beer I brough with me to the Pilzno and went outside to greet this major noble myself while sending a servant to prepare the best lodging in the entire palace after the master chambers. While it wasn''t necessary to do so, being able to start on a good foot with such an important figure could mean the world for me later on!


    "Oh, I didn''t expect you to come to greet us so soon! A pleasant surprise, I must say!"


    As we were exchanging our greetings, I had few guards moving around the queue leading to the gates, forcing everyone to give way to this major figure. While some nobles were bound to get angry at this unfair treatment given to them despite being equal to any other noble, with how they were ordered to claim an important person of the city owner family came to visit with the official matter at hand, at least a part of the troublemakers would give way instead of proving to be troublesome.


    After all, no one wanted to anger me at this very moment. While noble myself, I couldn''t really punish them for using the road that ultimately belonged to the crown itself, it was well within my ability to forbid them entry to the town, rendering all their wares worthless, and forcing them to incur the additional costs and risks of bringing them even further.


    "Here, I hope you will accept this modest gift that I prepared as soon as I saw your glorious banners hanging at the air."


    Passing the barrel with the beer produced in my own breweries, I made sure to act kind, but in a way someone familiar would, rather than overflowing with respect like a subordinate would. Considering how I was already almost sure that I would push myself under the umbrella of the Jan Bone protection, I had to be careful to not make Michal Cherrie, one of the most powerful people in the entire country mistake my kindness for the attempt to sneak into his service!


    "Oh? Is that the famous beer that I heard quite a lot from Jan Bone? Considering how much he praised it, I certainly will have expectations towards drinking it!"


    While those sentences might sound like nothing but small talk, I could already derive two important political moves in it. Starting from the fact that by showing his familiarity to my own protector, this shrewd man made sure I wouldn''t dare to gift him with any kind of poison, he also made sure to corner me in case I would attempt to buy his favours with something of a lesser quality than the beer that was surprisingly already gaining traction in the higher echelons of the noble society!


    Considering how well the promotion of my beer went, I suddenly realised a great mistake I made. The first batch of resources bought with the money gained through the sales of the beer was used to simply double its production, while I should actually use it to create a brewing line for the beer of even higher quality!


    With how there was still a few days before the wedding would start, I could produce a few barrels with my system myself, but if some of the more influential nobles would pressure me to give them a tour through the brewery capable of producing such a quality drink, I would end up in a corner!


    But speaking of the beer, as soon as I passed the barrel to the hands of the servant that was honoured enough to travel with the Michal, the patriarch of this insanely rich and powerful clan, took it from my hands, opened it up and poured about half the glass worth before passing the container to his lord.


    Riding on my horse alongside their carriage, I could see how this powerful figure firstly watched the colour of the drink, before smelling it a bit only to finally wet his lips with the drink, only to suddenly raise the glass higher just like Jan Bone did, and gulp the entire thing down!


    "Ah! So that''s what he meant when he called it unparalleled!"


    "With all due respect sir, if my retainers won''t fuck up the delivery, by the time of the wedding, a new product of my breweries, hopefully even better than this brand should arrive in the city! Considering how all the matters are already prepared for the grand day, I wouldn''t mind going to my home city myself to ensure it would be brough in a perfect state for the grand festival!"


    With my mind spinning around on its maximum speed despite the residual alcohol in my bloodstream doing its best to slow this process down, I could already see me galloping all the way back to the Tarnow, demolishing some less profitable workshops in the city and turning their building materials into the next production line for the fruit beer so that I could justify its presence on the wedding table a few days later in Pilzno!


    "Ah, sir, I wouldn''t dare to order you to rush matters just a few days before you will inevitably lose your freedom as a man!"


    Content with my responses and respectful yet distant attitude, Michal only smiled, throwing in a joke so popular and realistic, that it remained in use to the days during which I was originally living.


    "Don''t worry sir. To be honest, I was only looking for an excuse to go ride with the wind like in the old days, before I would be inevitably bound to my chambers, forced to squeeze my lands dry to provide for more and more jewellery for the greatest jewel that would ever be present in my lands!"

 91 Back in Tarnow

    9th April 1574


    As much as I knew that escaping from the city in order to do some more development back in Tarnow might potentially anger Elia, there wasn''t really that much choice that I could have. Considering how the primary beer business already provided for more than half of my current income, there was simply no way I could dare to waste such a great opportunity as my wedding to promote both the basic and the premium brand of my drinks!


    While if in my shoes, someone else might just send some messenger to inform his wife-to-be about the sudden change of short-term plans, I decided to go personally, believing that taking the blame right away would at least alleviate some of Elia''s anger later on.


    Surprisingly, busy with her own, girly matters required to make this wedding as great of an event as she could from her side, my wifey didn''t hold anything against my idea, most likely acknowledging the fact how profitable the beer market was, and how important it would be for the further development of our lands.


    From the reaper guns, my most advanced project so far, now proudly guarding the main gates of the city despite all the ammo for it being safely stored away to prevent some overreacting guards from sending endless innocents to hell, through all the profits that Elia saw flowing down our pockets by herself when we visited Tarnow last time, at the spice powder and almost magical concrete that would revolutionalize their respective market fields ending, everything I touched, seemed to suddenly spike in advancement, overcoming all the obstacles that would prevent others from improving on it.


    She had enough time to realise and get used to the fact that no matter what, the greatest priority of my rule as the noble of two cities would lay in modernising it to a never-seen degree, along with speeding the entire process up as much as I could through promoting and selling off the fruits of my already finished projects.


    That was most likely the reason why rather than spending hours at convincing her about the feasibility of my idea, she simply listened to my request and limited herself to sending me off with a light kiss on a cheek.


    This time, unbothered by all the hassle with carriages, with only my trusty Helga and Kalen to my side, covering the distance between the two cities took barely two hours, allowing me to drop myself into the madness of crafting, upgrading and expanding my so far, most important building in the entire domain.


    Stacked one against the other, huge piles of iron slabs, empty barrels of varying sizes put one into another just like Russian matrioskha dollsˇ­ And this was just a single aspect of her work, with more than two, big sheds already under construction in what used to be the private, lord''s pasture located at the northern part of the hilltop.


    Considering how I hailed from Tarnow in the first place, I never bothered with turning this part of the castle into proper stronghold nor fortification. I well better than anyone that outside of the internal strife that happened after the decline of the Tarnowian family, no one really bothered to siege this place in the entire history I knew! The first time when someone used it ever since the castle was razed down to the ground by the neighbouring major noble in their attempt to take over those lands, was during second world war, when Nazis that occupied Poland at that time, turned the ruins into the nest for a powerful anti-air batteries!


    Rather than wasting a lot of the free space, hidden securely between the walls of the castle and untraversable, northern slope of the Saint Martin hill, Matsu moved just a bit of manpower and resources around, turning more and more of what used to be a grazing field for the castle''s herd, into one of the most developed areas in the entire world!


    With my projects spanning far further than just a simple brewery, when taking the break from constructing the new, complicated brewing line, I took my time to outline the layout of the next, most important factory that would change the countryside status of this area, to the major province on its own!


    The cement factory!


    But this was where I ¨C for the first time ¨C found myself facing the opposition of this loyal and hardworking retainer of mine.


    "My lord! So much spaceˇ­ With how this entire place is growing to become a gold mine in the eyes of anyone who learns about the new beer, how could we use nearly half of its size for just a single building?! Sir, with all due respect, money! Just by renting this land to the merchants, we could swim in more money than we could ever imagine!"


    At this point, I had no heart to tell her that rather than being a factory proper, the borders of the new area I marked with a set of simple wooden poles forced into the ground, was actually to be used for nothing else than obtaining the stone materials required to make the cement in the first place!


    In fact, I could procure them from literaly any other part of the mountain, with some places being actually way easier to be adopted into the role of a makeshift quarry, but there was a single, insanely important point that I had to keep in mind at all time.


    The way of turning the stone into the cement was actually quite simple!


    Outside of the various technological challenges one had to tackle while implementing it, starting with high temperature furnaces and at the correct ratio of some small additions to the mix ending, as long as someone could overcome those hardships, creating the cement of similar quality to the one I would produce, wasn''t anything to be proud off!


    "I''m sorry, but this is something I can''t compromise on. Look, when I started the brewery, I saw the looks that you sent me when you thought I wasn''t looking, and you know the best out of the two of us, how profitable this place is now, with its prospects only showing rising trend, considering how incredibly popular it will most likely become after the wedding, especialy with the addition of the new, premium brand! Can''t you just trust me on this point as well?"


    While her arguments were valid, since most of the merchants interested in stealing a part of my profits would love to rent the place beside the brewery in hopes of learning how the heck I managed to create such a fine brew, to me, the advantage of keeping the secret of the cement for myself for just a few years, was immense. Way more important than a few gold coins we could obtain just by letting this land waste away!

 92 Argument with Matsu

    10th April 1574


    Despite still more than a week for the festivities to reach the Tarnowian area, the preparations were already in the full swing. From the Cathedral church where crowds of your women were running all around, decorating the walls with the fresh bound of flowers, through the streets themselves fully occupied by an insane amount of advertisements hanging out from the windows and inviting any exhausted guest to try resting their head in the local house for a small fee of two weeks worth of craftsmen wage, all the way to the countryside, where albeit no preparations could be seen, the happiness of the folk due to the incoming feast on which they would be able to taste the delicacies they never had before was plainly visible to anyone who would bother to actually visit shit-stinking villages in my dominion.


    But despite all that, rather than soaking this atmosphere and preparing myself mentally for what was about to come knocking into my life and forever change the way I lived my days, I was fully immersed in completing the annoying routine of tampering with wood, iron and all other sorts of materials, figuring out a way to hang this barrel there and keep that pipe in this exact place.


    Compared to the basic beer production, the brewing line for the premium one was a hell of a challenge to complete. While the first brewing line simply required one to go step by step, pouring the liquid from one machine to another, the production that I was setting right now upped the hardship a notch, adding several miscellaneous looking affairs like sprinklers, freezers, juice extractors, fermentation bin and so on.


    Thankfully, on the end of the second day, I finally placed the last screw on its place, and received a warm welcome from the system, congratulating me for achieving this mammoth task. With the added experience from creating this whole thingy, not only did my brewmaster level skyrocket by an astonishing two degrees higher but so did my overall class of craftsman, albeit by only one level!


    With this, I was finally able to at least access the production for the fused ammunition, unlocking the creation of the reaper guns through the system as an added bonus. But regretfully, rather than using it, I could only treat it as a title of honour, due to the fact that not only crafting those guns required one to possess an immense skill in metalworking, but took time and considerable effort as well. If I ever were to suddenly pull one of those guns from behind my back, without creating a proper backstory for it beforehand, people would be bound to notice that something was wrong!


    But with the brewery done, I could finally step in and start working on my concrete factoryˇ­ Only to be slapped back into the reality by the ticking of the clock, in form of my trusty retainer, Matsu.


    While taking on a look of a worried retainer, I could see sparks in her eyes, indicating that first and foremost, Matsu simply wanted to get rid of me from the city. Be it for the sake of finding a reason to stop me from wasting the gold-fertile ground of the former castle''s pasture, or just in order to let her roam and rule my own lands freely as she used to do while I was away, in moments like this, Matsu always knew how to make sure it would be her own interest that would remain on top of the chain of priorities, while capable of convincing others that it lied in their own self-interest as well!


    "Okay, okay, just make sure to not do anything with the land on the Pastureˇ­ Or you know what, outside of those shacks that are already in the process of building, I would love if you could refrain from using any land on the entire hill and on its foothold as well. If everything will go according to my projection, soon, this will be the most important piece of land in the entire country!"


    What others would take for a typical for nobles exaggeration for their own deeds, Matsu accepted as God-given truth, considering how insane my exploits were so far. Just the monetary returns from the brewery were enough to not only shut all her complaints about how much it cost to set it up but even turn her into one of the greatest enthusiasts in my court of this project!

 93 Opening Ceremony

    15th April 1574


    "You look incredibly well, my lord!"


    Standing in the middle of the spacious room in one of the taverns inside the Pilzno, I was watching myself in the mirror, as a crowd of maidservants along with my oldest retainers were making sure that all parts of my official dress were in place.


    With no suits or anything similar that could serve as the universal wedding dress, most of the nobles would choose either their best kontus along with the best quality of the secondary clothes, but in my case, my position as the titular officer in the crown''s army, allowed me to wear my military suit, far more comfortable and suited for the proceedings.


    Similar to the kontus in its look, it was actually made with far more reasonable thinking, aimed to not hinder anyone in battle, while retaining its looks. And just like kontus would be held by the sizeable kontus belt, every single part of my clothing was capable of supporting itself on my body, rather than relying on additions to stay in place.


    "So it really came to thisˇ­"


    Looking at the brownish tone of my armless jacket, I couldn''t help but think about the future. Since I never married in my life on earth, I wasn''t really sure what to expect from how my life as a husband would change, now that I was about to tie the know.


    With the brewing line for the premium beer finished right on time, not only did I manage to go back to the Pilzno in time to ensure Elia wouldn''t panic just before the ceremony, worried I decided to ditch her in the last moment, but even the new batch of beer, created fully by my brewery rather than the system, managed to find its way to the kitchen where the feast would soon take place on time.


    "Sir, do you think you are ready? While we still have some time, it would be proper for you to show up beforehand, in order to cleanse your mind with a prayer!"


    As opposed to my direct retainers, a priest that was in charge of the entire ceremony spoke from the corner of the room. Considering how religious this age was, it was only to be expected that I would be pressured to spend even more time in the church than necessary, so I had no way of avoiding this boring duty.


    "I wish my father could see me nowˇ­"


    Instead of replying, I threw the last glance at my reflection in the huge mirror brought here all the way from the capital city of Krakow, before throwing a short cape to the back and turning on the heel of my shoe. Stepping forward, I pushed the doors open and lead the sizeable entourage that would escort me to the doorstep of the church outside of the inn.


    As soon as we get out of the inn, a row of horses decorated with all sorts of flowers attached to their hair and saddles were already waiting for us. Mounting my trusty Helga, I could tell that even this smart animal was enjoying the moment, as her hoves picked up a slow, majestic pace, starting the glorious march towards the central point of the town.


    Looking around, I could see how much effort all the townsmen did in decorating their homes. Those who were of too low status to fit in the chapel were already hanging their upper bodies from the windows while cheering on my conduct.


    But while this was in itself quite a loud set of actions, when a few moments later I heard a wave of insane cheers coming from the other side of the Town, I realised how beautiful Elia had to look for the townsmen to react in this way!


    Even though I was quite eager to see her with my own eyes, the grandeur of this ceremony would be spat at if I dared to hurry my horse, subjecting me to the cruel fate of holding myself back.


    Thankfully, the city was too small to make this ordeal last longer than my self-restraint could hold, bringing me towards the main doors of the local church in a matter of just a few minutes.


    At this point, there was no longer a reason to stay on the back of my horse. Throwing my leg over Helga''s head, I jumped off onto the street, with my landing softened by a thick layer of flower petals dressing the street itself. Just a few moments later, I could finally feast my eyes on Elia, as her carriage took the last turn before the church, revealing her in the dress that I especially ordered for this very day.


    To be honest, seeing it on the paper, and seeing it on her own flesh, was a completely different experience. While there was no rule ordering the bride to wear herself in white, by combining the slight blue hue obtained from some exotic dyes, with the whiteness of the purest wool that we could find in the entire region, embroiled with the thin, golden threads holding the entire one-piece together, the group of craftsmen I tasked with creating this masterpiece really outdid themselves!


    As soon as the carriage reached the point where Elia would depart from it, I instantly approached it and helped her out.


    "Youˇ­ I don''t even have proper words to express how beautiful you look right now."


    Looking her directly in the eyes, I ignored how light her skin was, how her hair, allowed to flow freely down her back for the very first time since I met her, contrasted with the whiteness of the dress. At this moment, I couldn''t help but just be ensnared by her eyes, deeper than the greatest ravine existing in this poor world.


    "Thanks."


    While I could see her lips moving slightly, as if she wanted to kiss me right here and now, doing so in front of the immense crowd gathered around, especially when the tradition set the time for it at the very last moment of the ceremony would be simply improper. With no other choice than to hold ourselves back, I took her hand, and lead her to the doors of the chapel.


    With Al instantly passing a small box to my free hand, I momentarily freed my own palm from Elia''s grasp, and opened a small, decorated container and showed it to the head priest of the church.


    With both of the priest''s hands busy, as he held a holy bible in his right one and the wedding ring in his left one, his simply raised his left palm above the box, and closed his eyes as his lips silently recited the words of a blessing.


    "Mike Terrna of Tarnow, are you of age?"


    Despite my looks clearly enough to answer this question, I simply put the box to my left hand, grabbing Elia''s with my right one before raising my head and replying confidently.


    "Yes."


    "Mike Terrna of Tarnow, are you connected by blood to the Elia Pekta of Pilzno?"


    "No, I''m not."


    "Mike Terrna of Tarnow, did your guardians and family allowed this marriage?"


    "Yes, they did."


    With the priest''s head now turning to Elia, he asked her exactly the same questions, not because there was any doubt about any of the answers, but simply because that''s what the tradition made him do.


    "Then. Mike Terrna of Tarnow and Elia Pekta of Pilzno, are you entering this sacred bond willfully, with no external pressure forcing you to do it?"


    This time, the priest turned to the two of us, only to hear the word ''yes'' coming out of our mouths at the same time.


    "Good. You can say your vows then."

 94 Wedding

    15th April 1574


    "I, Mike Terrna of Tarnow, take you, Elia Pekta of Pilzno, to be my wedded wife. With the deepest joy, I receive you into my life that together we may be one. As is Christ to His body, the church, so I will be to you a loving and faithful husband. Always will I perform my headship over you even as Christ does over me, knowing that His Lordship is one of the holiest desires for my life. I promise you my deepest love, my fullest devotion, my tenderest care. I promise I will live first unto God rather than others or even you. I promise that I will lead our lives into a life of faith and hope in Christ Jesus. Ever honouring God''s guidance by His spirit through the Word, And so throughout life, no matter what may lie ahead of us, I pledge to you my life as a loving and faithful husband."


    Reciting this formula word by word from the script prepared with just a tiny help of my retainers and my system alike, I could focus on looking Elia in her eyes rather than stressing over missing an important word.


    Contrary to the future, where rather than this elaborate form the newlyweds would simply recite short vows claiming to remain faithful, true and loving until the death would do part them, one was supposed to come with his own words, aimed to describe the innermost state of the soul in this day and age. Or rather, one was supposed to pretend like that was the case, with most of the marriages being political deals rather than a true union of love!


    "I love you, Mike Terrna and I know that you love me. Because of this, I desire to be your wife. For years I have prayed that God would lead me to His choice and I am confident that His will is being fulfilled tonight. Through the pressures of the present and the uncertainties of the future, I promise to be faithful to you. I will love, serve, and obey you as long as we both are alive. Christ told us that the wife must submit herself unto her own husband as unto the Lord. For as Christ is Head of His Church so is the husband head of his wife. My dearest Mike, I hereby submit myself to you."


    With her head lowering as she reached the last part of her vows, Elia reached forward with her hands, instantly grabbed by mine, creating a bridge between us on which the Head priest placed a white cloth, binding our hands together. With that done, one of the servants brough up a sizeable,


    crystalic cup, filled to the brim with wine.


    Grabbing it in our hands, we first raised it so that Elia could take a sip, then moving the container back to my lips and repeating the entire process two more times. With that out of the way, the priest finally placed a corner of his robe on top of our hands and recited his own part.


    "What the God almighty bound, no human will dare to split. Under the authority bestowed on me by the Catholic Church, this marriage is hereby acknowledged in the name of the God-father, God-son and the holy spirit!"


    As soon as the priest finished his formula, the entire crowd repeated along with us the words of confirmation. At this very moment, while there were still some dignified parts of the ceremony that we had to go through, both in the eyes of men and in the authority of the church, we successfully became a husband and a wife!


    While I would give a lot to just take Elia away from the crowd and enjoy this moment between us, I still had to gesture at one of my servants that took up the duty of holding up the box with the wedding rings for the head priest to bless them.


    After making the sign of the cross over the box, the priest took out three different rings from it, and passed them one by one to me, giving me just enough time to gently put them on three Elia''s fingers.


    "Dearest Elia, please do accept those rings, as the sign of my love and faithfulness, in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit."


    After this process repeated itself with just a single ring landing up on my own finger, the exciting part was finally over, allowing us and the conduct of the highest nobles to enter the chapel and take our seats.


    While there was way more than enough place to fit everyone, being the hosts of the ceremony, rather than sitting in the front row of the benches along with everyone else, we were given two simple chairs placed in the very middle of the main church corridor, directly in front of the holy cross located at the top of the altar.


    But instead of sitting down on them, we simply entangled the fingers of our hands and lied flat on the cold, stone floor of the church.


    This tradition of laying flat in front of the altar during the holy proceedings was something that disappeared in the modern times, with the exclusion of strictly inclusive ceremonies like when one was to become a priest or a bishop, yet there was something strangely humbling in the experience.


    Obviously, lying flat on our bellies with our hands spread out to put us in the same position of the crucified Christ was way more comfortable than sitting on hard benches, but it also was quite an eye-opener for me.


    The people of the modern times, even if celebrated the faith, mostly forgotten about its true spirit. In fact, I was just like most of my colleagues, visiting the church out of the sense of duty every Sunday, rather than preparing for the holy mass and actually trying to fully understand the experience behind the ceremony. While I had some memories that my more religious parents tried to teach me about the mysteries behind every single small gesture made by the priests, only now, when I could gauge what was going on only by my poor understanding of the Latin speech I realised how grand those events reminiscent during the holy mass were.


    Only when the time came for the holy feast, during which we would consume what used to be a simple bread, now celebrated as the holy body of the Christ, were we allowed to lift ourselves from the ground and even then, only for the quick moment of kneeling down and accepting the greatest gifts of the faith.


    Thankfully, after the communion, the ceremony swiftly came to an end, finished with the Head Priest generously sprinkling holy water on our backs, without any regard for our comfort or the state of our clothes.


    As we rose from the ground, I couldn''t help but sneak a quick peek at Elia''s face, already covered with blush because of what was about to happen next.


    "Husband, you can now kiss your wife at the sign of peace!"


    Now standing in front of everyone, we were finally allowed to face ourselves again for the first time ever since we exchanged the vows. Unwilling to wait even a single moment longer, I pulled the veil that shielded Elia''s face to the back of her head. While my intention was to instantly go for her mouth to put an end to this embarrassing moment, when our eyes meet, I simply couldn''t help but stare right into her pupils, as if my soul was pulled out by this ensnaring sight.


    In the end, it was Elia who threw me out of my balance, rolling her eyes with a small smirk, as she grabbed the front of my clothes, pulled me towards herself and finally reunited our lips.

 95 Feasting grounds part 1

    15th April 1574


    As soon as the cheers subsidized, the official part was finally over. Stepping out of the church, rather than doing it in the usual way, I surprised everyone and caught Elia under her knees, instantly lifting her up in the cliche princess carry.


    While it wasn''t anything much, I wanted to make sure that everyone would understand that not only was our marriage a deal, but it was backed by a relationship where a true love resided!


    "Congratulations!"


    Even while we were still passing through the benches inside the church, the high nobles were already shouting their words of encouragement, with their eyes already set on the grand feast that would follow the official ceremony. But there was still one minor element, that would end up as one of the most costly parts of the entire event!


    As soon as we stepped out from the church, a pair of servants approached us while carrying a sizeable chest on their arms. Forced to place Elia back on the ground, I pretended that this didn''t pain me at all when I pulled out a key to the lock of the chest, before revealing its shiny content to the crowd.


    This time, we would be subjected to travelling through the entire city and all the way to the feasting grounds outside the town walls, on foot! And to add the pain to the injury, every single step of ours had to be bough by throwing those hard-earned coins around, for the common folk to enjoy!


    But there wasn''t any point in going against the tradition. Rather than treating it as a waste of money that could be so effectively used elsewhere, I decided to consider it an investment in my own prestige, that would take a huge hit if I were to refrain from doing so. In the end, all the money that I would just throw around today would sooner or later return to my coffers, but it didn''t change the fact that just throwing away days of my work still put a dent in the defences of my heart!


    "Don''t worry dear, I will be sure to compensate you for all our losses during the nightˇ­"


    As we marched through the decorated streets of the town, Elia used one of the moments when she was reaching for yet another handful of coins, to whisper those words right into my ear.


    Just like it was a bridal privilege to look insane during the wedding, it was the groom''s both duty and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only tear those clothes out of his new wife''s body but to make sure they would be unusable for the rest of her life!


    Just thinking about what would happen during our first night as a married couple alleviated some of the pain from my heart, especially when I noticed a small, playful smirk on top of Elia''s lips.


    Thankfully, the feasting grounds where all sorts of tents, tables, and other necessary accommodations were prepared already few days in advance couldn''t be that far away from the city, otherwise, logistical aspect of moving all the necessary stuff between those two locations would make creating this place impossible. This was also my main idea of dealing with the problem of accommodation!


    Instead of struggling to find a way to fit everyone in the very limited space inside the town, I decided to turn the entire feast into an outdoor event, where there was way more than enough space for everyone to comfortably spend the time!


    As soon as we reached the feasting grounds, I lead Elia to our private tent, where with the help of various servants, we dropped the more formal parts of our clothes, leaving only the bare minimum that would be enough to shield us from the cold while still accenting our position as the most important people in the entire place.


    Sadly, while I still wanted to use this short time to spend some quality moments with my wife, we were quickly forced outside to attend the first pleasant part of the wedding - receiving gifts from all the guests!


    Due to the fact that neither of us had any close family to invite, rather than organising everyone according to their familiarity with us, we simply went with sorting them out with their rank. Even though putting the rich before the poor could result in the later nobles feeling bad for their gifts not reaching the grand level of what magnates could offer to us, rather than bothering with the feelings of those who couldn''t afford a proper gift, I decided it would be better to make them feel indebted to us for accepting their relatively inexpensive gifts.


    "Congratulations on your marriage! I heard that you managed to deal with the problems you mentioned back at the campˇ­"


    Starting with the governor himself, as he could not only flaunt his enormous wealth but also a multitude of his honourable titles and functions in the country, I also hoped to deal with the matter of Peter. Just like a thorn, his name was plaguing my head through the entire ceremony, making me worry whether the Governor would give the verdict I hoped he would.


    "Sir, while I managed to deal with the troublemaker, I''m in no position to impose any punishment on him, so I decided to keep him locked up until your Governorship would arrive. I hope that in due time, I could ask for this single favour, to have your Governorship use your authority as the official of the Crown to impose proper punishments for the crimes he did!"

 96 Feasting grounds part 2

    15th April 1574


    "Speaking of the Peterˇ­"


    Instead of finishing his sentence up, the Governor closed the distance between us while reaching forward with his hand, as if asking me for a handshake. As soon as I accepted his touch, I was brough into a light, manly hug, allowing Jan''s lips to line up with my ear.


    "... I heard some unsettling rumours about the way you dealt with himˇ­"


    In an instant, my mind splurged into its full spin, analyzing the exact meaning and the reasons for the Governor to mention is in the open, even if in a covert manner. While I already expected him to uncover the existence of the reaper guns, I was quite surprised that he didn''t wait for a more private occasion to speak about it!


    With such a great politician like him, there was no way his actions were just a small slip of the tongue, especially with how he intentionally made sure others would take our quick exchange for nothing but more private congratulations. And since that was the case, with how willing I was to land under his protective umbrella, there wasn''t really any point in hiding my own gift for him.


    "Sir, those rumours are best held back and turned into a fairy tale. After all, what I used my new invention for, is already the limit of what I could achieve with it, so I would like you, governor, to hold on it in wait for the opportune moment, when their momentary usability could bring the best results."


    In the end, there was no way for me to make any real use of those reaper guns. Despite the troubling times akin to a civil war coming soon, there wouldn''t be that much real fighting between the factions during this period that would warrant the usage of such overwhelming weapon, especially if one were to consider how quickly other countries would learn about its existence and either make one for themselves or just find countermeasures against it.


    If I wanted for my invention to truly change the course of the history, it would be best to simply hold on to this ace card, while making as great of a stock of ammunition and gunpowder for it, so that when it would be used, the country wouldn''t be limited by the constraints of importing the base resources required to even shoot it, considering how most of our neighbours would ban the gunpowder trade with us in order to sack our ability to use it in the first place!


    In fact, I was already set on prioritizing the development of the lands that would fall directly under my rule, in order to turn them from rich but backwards place of the continent to the technological centre of not only the country but the entire world! That''s why, with how I planned to play high rather than wide, there was no point for me to lose favour only to keep a hold on this weapon that I wouldn''t even be able to use!


    "That''s quite aˇ­ generous offer. What do you seek in exchange for them?"


    "Sir, when Peter will enter the trialsˇ­ Not only I would love to see him banished, but his town stands on the way between my lands and the profitable markets of Resovia and all the cities further eastˇ­ If there was a way to change its ownershipˇ­"


    There was no need for me to continue. As the sole remaining blood of the Tarnowian line of the Terrna house, my ambitions to rebuild the power of my great ancestor were already in my portfolio. But rather than looking to expand haphazardly, taking the ownership of the lands all over the country, I limited myself to the places that I could directly connect.


    This alone should be enough to convince the governor that no matter how I would grow, my power would remain well within his grasp, allowing him to use me as his own asset, rather than worrying about me trying to take over his place. With how the agriculture industry permeated the blood of all the nobles in the country, being this strange one who aimed to industrialise his lands had to first prove profitable before they could stop patronising me in their hearts!


    "Consider it done then."


    Finally breaking our hug, the governor once again shook my head while his lips dressed a wide smile as if I sent him off with a great joke.


    "Before I leave you to be tormented by the others, here, accept this small gift of mine."


    With a single clasp of his hands, the governor called a huge group of men, that brough an enormous coffer, with a piece of paper, nailed just above its lock.


    "My people told me that your servants are buying all the iron they can find. Looking at how you already introduced one kind of great drink to us, and how the rumours are claiming that we will have a chance to experience yet another product of yours today, rather than decorating you and your beautiful wife with pointless gold and jewellery that you will be able to afford by yourself soon, I decided to support your efforts directly!"


    Taking out a big key from his pouch, Jan approached the coffer while ordering his men to slowly drop it to the ground. With how it was carried on four different poles by over twelve men, it became obvious that its content had to be extremely heavy.


    After tearing the piece of paper away from the chest, the governor inserted the key into the lock, only to open the lid and reveal the content of the coffer to the public.


    "In order to help you on your endeavours, I brought you all kinds of the best metals that can be found in the entire continent, along with a contract, giving you the right to exploit two of my iron mines for twenty years!"


    As if the lightning struck me down.


    Just a single mine was capable of turning a common noble to a rich one, with how expensive the iron was in this age! While this gift has its own limitations considering how the mines were located outside of my own lands!


    In fact, while I could make great use of this gift, it wasn''t without its own constraints. Just a single look at the piece of parchment that the governor passed to my hands proved that while those mines were confirmed to contain a huge amount of iron and other metals, not only I would''ve to pay for all sorts of constructions required to put them to real use, all the costs of maintaining it along with the worker''s wages would burden my own coffers, while providing a constant stream of inevitable taxes both to the Crown, and the Governor''s treasury!


    But all those problems could be disregarded, with how desperate I was to find a reliable source of iron for myself. According to my knowledge, while drastically limited, there were many points even in the lands that I already owned, where oil could be extracted. While the coal was simply outside of my means to procure in any reasonable amounts, with those new mines of mine and some more investment in the oil extraction, the development of my lands would soon skyrocket!


    "This giftˇ­ I will gratefully accept it!"

 97 Feasting grounds part 3

    15th April 1574


    After the bomb dropped by the governor, all the other gifts that we received seem blank at best, and simply worthless when the queue reached the less wealthy figures, yet I still received them all with all the necessary honours, keeping both my smile and gratitude plastered all over my face.


    From the two small villages from the Ostros Prince family, through the elaborate, french jewellery gifted by the Prince of Cherrie, all the way to the simpler staff like dresses, horses and even just a few coins from the smaller nobles, the pile of wedding gifts continuously grow for the next two hours that this procession of wealth took.


    As soon as this part of the show was over, we could finally move on to the main event, being the feast itself.


    With everyone located at a long, circular table placed in the very middle of the camp, the kitchen was located in the very middle of the table, allowing everyone to raise their expectations while watching the food prepared right in front of their eyes. Considered how cheaply I could obtain my new spice from just a fistful of grain, most of the meals used it in abundance, turning what was supposed to be a great feast, into a event rivalling the royal celebrations in the culinary aspect.


    "Once again, and for the last time, welcome, everyone!"


    With everyone now seated in their place, the closer to me and my dear wife the greater their status was, I waited for the natural noise of people talking to subsidize just enough before standing up and raising my cup. Considering how I and Elia were the most important people in this day, no one dared to touch their cups before we would wet our lips first.


    "At first, I would like to thank everyone for attending this small ceremony of mine, despite sending the invitations on such short notice. It really soothes my heart to see our noble brotherhood as united as we are today in the times of joy!"


    Seeing how everyone was paying attention to me while clearly in a merry mood, I couldn''t help but think about the future, when internal strifes would tear this unity apart, putting the entire country on a silver platter for the powerful neighbours to feast on.


    With how there was still a lot of time before the current trends would turn this nobility into nothing more than just a rowdy bunch of entitled slackers, I could still do my best to prevent at least some of the worst events that would upset the stability of the country. But while I had this thought, doing so during my wedding speech would be a disaster!


    "But rather than boring everyone with a lengthy speech, I would simply like to invite you all, to have a drink with us!"


    While it was nothing more than just a superstition, if the cup broke due to our drunkness or the constant use of it, our marriage would be said to be unstable, fated to break apart just like the cup. But while nobody really paid any real attention to it just a few days after the wedding, it served as a good limitation for our drinking during this most important day for the two of us!


    "While some of you might already heard about it, I want to come clean in front of everyone!"


    Starting my sentence like that was aimed at nothing else but just brining back the people''s attention that despite how quick I was with my words, was already wandering away towards the content of their cups rather my lips.


    "Today, for our first drink, everyone will have the chance to taste the greatest beer ever produced in the Commonwealth lands!"


    While I had no way of telling with how everyone instantly grabbed their cups and raised up from their seats, I could only hope that the rumours about new brand of beer of mine already reached the ears of most of the people gathered at the table. With how I aimed this feast to be the breaking point in the limited advertisement campaign that I would run in the current times if it turned out to be a failure, the entire premium beer idea would have to be scrapped!


    But before everyone could drink, I had to do my part of the ceremony.


    Raising the crystalline cup in my hands, I felt Elia''s soft fingers touching the upper part of my hands, as she added her strength to mine, pushing the cups towards her lips first and allowing her to take a huge gulp, before she generously angled the cup in the other way, even going as far as to stop me when I already filled my entire mouth, forcing me to gulp away everything I had hidden behind my teeth just to not let this precious drink spill on my face!


    As soon as I finally managed to bring the cup down, everyone shouted "cheers" and went to drink themselves, yet I was simply too focused on my wife to bother with that. As soon as the base of the cup touched the table, I pushed my head forward and attacked her lips.


    With some of the beer still in my mouth, I repeated the same dead that marked the first time when we enjoyed our skinship in our entire relationship. Only when the drink finally stopped circulating between our connected mouth, soaked into the interior of our mouth, did I realise that the cheering that should only announce the start of drinking, continued through our actions, even aided with some of the guests hitting their more solid cups against the table!


    Prompted into action by their encouragement, instead of stopping as soon as we could depart from each other without spilling the drink away, I pushed my tongue inside her mouth, instantly rubbing it against hers.


    With my hands landing on the sides of her waist, I pulled Elia even closer to me, feeling her hands coiling behind my neck as she reacted with even more vigour than I expected. Second by second, instead of moving the beer around our connected mouth, we continued to exchange our saliva, while enjoying this rare moment of open closeness that we could finally show to other people without fear of losing our Christian reputation.


    "You littleˇ­"


    When we finally separated from each other, I still couldn''t break our eye contact, drawn to her pupils like a mouse to a trap. Only when I felt a strong nudge to my back, did I manage to recover myself from this loving daze.


    "Mikeˇ­ Everyone is waitingˇ­"


    Rather than Elia or any of my servants, it was the Governor himself, sitting on my left, prompting me to give the order. Recovering myself from this momentary mishap, I could only hope that people would either understand or forgive me this mistake, before facing the entire crowd and shouting.


    "Let''s the feast begin!"

 98 Old, wedding tradition

    15th April 1574


    In any other wedding, the number of different dishes that the kitchen would prepare would be used to gauge the wealth and prestige of the house hosting the festivities, yet with the addition of the spice of my system production, I simply decided to drop this tradition and focus on creating the best form of an outdoor feast.


    A grill!


    Famed as the best way to spend time with friends and family in modern times, it had various reasons behind its popularity. From how the smell would incite everyone to eagerly wait for each piece of meat that would be served hot and fresh, through the anticipation of looking how the food was slowly preparing itself while rotating above the fire, all the way to the chance for everyone to prepare their meal in the way they wanted!


    At first, everyone drank their beers, already poured in the cups by the crowd of servants running around the curvature of the tables. To make the most of this occasion, the first round of drinks was fully focused on my premium drink, with even the lowest and poorest guest allowed to have a full cup of it.


    By the time the cups turned empty, the tables were already filling with the steaming meat, only now taken down from the various forms of grills. While the tables around my position were catered to with the utmost care with all sorts of meats served at once for everyone to pick what they wanted, even the furthest place from me on this long table was allowed to pick between at least two different kinds of meat.


    But only the savages would settle on one kind of meal alone during the grill! While it took me quite a bit of effort to either buy or rob clean most of the herbal gardens in the entire province, as soon as the first hunger of my guests was sated, the tables were filled by my servants with all sorts of dishes. Considering the insane number of possible ways to prepare a single vegetable, this time the meals were distributed randomly, as the atmosphere of the feast was slowly but steadily turning less and less official.


    "This beerˇ­ Where did you get it from?"


    As soon as most of the people fully focused on eating all sorts of delicacies prepared in the kitchen right in front of their eyes, Jan Bone finally leaned towards me, asking one of the most important questions that could be asked at the event.


    "Sir, just like I claimed before, this beer is produced in my private, Tarnowian brewery. While filling everyone''s cups took most of what I was capable of procuring for today, fear not, there are still two or three more barrels prepared for the more distinct guests!"


    If I were to just give everyone a taste and then suddenly drop the matter, rather than making everyone reminiscent it with joy, there was a huge chance most of them would believe I was unable to produce any reasonable quantity of it, sabotaging my own idea of trading it across the entire country.


    Raising his cup, the governor invited me for a drink, intentionally or not, subjecting me to yet another Elia''s prank, when she once again held the cup near my mouth for a bit longer for my comfort. But this time, I used the fact that I was the first one to wet my lips, paying her back in the same manner!


    But in spite of my eagerness to see her fight for her breath as she would be overwhelmed by the amount of beer that I would pour to her throat, she eagerly accepted it all, allowing the drink to simply flow down her throat for as long as I held it at the proper angle, forcing me to stop it when I realised that at this rate, the both of us would have to vacate our own ceremony due to getting dead drunk!


    "Hahaha! This wife of yours is really something! With such backing, you won''t need to fear any of your future rivals!"


    Seeing this small interaction between the two of us, rather than speaking business as I hoped he would, the governor simply burst out laughing, taking a long moment to calm down. But just as I thought his burst of happiness would die off and allow of us to speak about important matters, his joyful outburst infected people around him, swiftly making everyone around and then the entire crowd around the table join in the fun.


    "So-ur! So-ur! So-ur!"


    To be honest, when I heard this shouts starting and taking the entire crowd by the storm, I realised that this stupid, wedding tradition wasn''t born in the later ages as I expected, but was present in my current times already!


    Born from the simple fact that booze was naturally sour, everyone would encourage the newlyweds to sweeten it up with a kiss, yet in our case - all we drank was a god-damned bear rather than the booze!


    Yet there was no denying the crowd wishes. With even the servants joining in on the fun as the entire surroundings uniformly filled with this simple shout, I had no other choice than to lean over Elia, and once again connect our lips.


    While at first, I did it for the sake of finally silencing those simple people and turning back to important matters that I wanted to discuss with the governor when my pranky wife forced her tongue inside my mouth and even pushed her entire body forward placing her above me as she rested her entire self on top of my upper body, all the useless stuff regarding the stupid stuff like the future of my lands and the prosperity of the country simply vanished from my head, now fully immersed in the sweet taste of my wife''s lips.


    As her tongue continued to swirl around my mouth, I couldn''t stop myself from paying her back on my own, pushing her back in her place to the point where her back rested on the side of the table. Disregarding the fact that everyone around was cheering on us with their eyes glued to me and my wife, I ignored Elia''s attempt to stop and catch the breath until I was fully satisfied!


    "Aaaah!"


    When I finally gave up on teasing her and pulled myself away, Elia took her sweet time gasping for air with her sight already gone from this world before her pupils once again focused on my eyes while she lasciviously licked her lips clean, never breaking our eye contact. Feeling that if this situation continued I wouldn''t be able to hold myself back, I forced myself to stand up, raise the crystalline cup of ours and turn to the now-silent crowd, tired from all the cheering they did.


    "Everyone! I think we all had enough of this stupid formal approach to this joyful day! Since you all saw that both I and my wife needs some time toˇ­ rest a bit, how about we all tear this stupid table apart, and enjoy ourselves to the fullest! Musicians! It''s time for your slacking to end!"

 99 Wedding not-exactly night smut?

    15th April 1574


    Even if some people might take my order as something that was improvised on the spot after I realised how little my wife required to already reach the state of light drunkness, with how all my servants instantly jumped forward towards the tables, some of the smarter guests had to realise that in fact, it was yet another part of the evolution of this event, all set up in advance for some unknown reason.


    While tearing the table apart sounds drastic, in reality, the servants simply locked one end of the long tables in place, while moving the other end ninety degrees away from the centre of the former circle, allowing everyone free access to the outer kitchen area. From now on, all those nobles would have to assume the position of their own servants, fetching both the drinks and food directly from the kitchen, while allowing their men to have some fun themselves!


    In theory, this move could pose some problems later on if some of the nobles felt insulted by such an approach, yet I believed it was something necessary. Unless I started knocking it in their heads that people of the lower social standing were just like them, with all their feelings, joys and problems right away, there might never be another occasion like this for me to do so!


    But while I already announced that both I and Elia would take a quick break, indicating that the rule of first night would soon be fulfilled, even after all the tables were turned around I still remained on my position, holding the same crystalline cup in my hand, already filled with the normal kind of my own beer.


    "My dear guests! Before I will take my wife so that we can fulfil our God-ordained duty, let me once again raise a toast to you all. I hope that during our hopefully long absence, you will all have a great time!"


    Inserting a small joke into my short speech, I once again raised the cup high into the air, before lowering it down to Elia''s lips. This time, however, I allowed her to fully control how much she wanted to drink, giving up on the opportunity to tease her a bit more. After all, in just a few moments, I would have more than enough occasions to do so!


    Yet once again, this silly wife of mine managed to catch me by surprise, gulping down almost perfect half of the beer within the cup, while keeping her pupils looked at my eyes. Seeing the sparks of joy in her eyes, when it came to me to have a drink, rather than practising restraint with drinking, I followed her example and emptied the entire cup!


    "Let''s go!"


    "Did you really have to make such a big point of carrying me away?"


    While her voice contained quite a bit of anger, from the fact that she instantly wrapped her hands around my neck and brough her upper body even closer to mine, I could tell that it was nothing but a cheeky act. While we had our first time long ago, seeing how lovely she was in her bare but still a wedding dress, with her face already all red, I couldn''t help but feel the blood flowing down to the parts that would soon be put to use.


    "I just want everyone to know that you are mine, and mine alone!"


    Instead of whispering those words right to Elia''s ear, I simply shouted them, instantly attracting the attention of some servants and nobles that happened to walk beside, before they turned their eyes away all the while attempting to hide small smirks appearing on their lips.


    "Oh, what a knight on a white horse you are, right now!"


    Saying those words through her constantly giggling mouth, Elia rubber her face on my chest, as if unable to handle all this time that I required to reach our resting place. Just for this occasion, there was an enormous, private tent set up at the far side of the entire camp, surrounded by the fence at a distance that was supposed to give us some privacy, yet close enough for anyone bold and rude enough to catch some hints of the ongoing fight inside through its thin walls.


    "Don''t worry, I will make sure everyone will know what a kind of gifted man you areˇ­"


    This time, pulling herself on my neck up, Elia whispered those words right into my ear, just as I pushed the two of us through the loose piece of cloth serving as the entryway to the tent.


    With my body already burning, I didn''t waste any time, instantly moving to the inner compartment of the temporary housing, gently placing my woman on top of a pile of sheets making up our bed, before brutally ripping her dress apart.


    I didn''t have to worry about how we would come out later, because as soon as this tent was set up prior to even the wedding ceremony at the church, I made sure that two sets of fresh clothes would be waiting for us. And looking at the current state of Elia''s dress, there was no way it could be ever fixed even by the most skilled craftsmen!


    With the upper part of her clothing fully ripped to her both sides, her ample bosom was hidden by only a thin, see-through belt, only pretending to cover her charms and most likely used only to keep her breast nice and springy while clothed. With how I attacked her only once, her legs and her secret place was still properly hidden under the wraps of the dress, yet I would soon see to have this obstacle removed as well!


    "Come!"


    Even though still dressed to a certain degree, Elia already pushed both of her legs to the side while reaching with her arms forward in a futile attempt to grab me and pull me closer. While I was eager to start our own fun, kneeling over her and adoring her almost entirely exposed beauty was simply too much for me to process!


    Seeing how I was simply frozen in place, rather than waiting for me to knock myself off my daze, Elia prompted her upper body up, instantly grabbing my coat, and sliding it off my powerless arms. With just a single pull on my tunic, she ripped it to pieces, exposing my bare, upper body, already heated up by the huge amount of alcohol I drank.


    "Don''t make me waitˇ­"


    With one of her hands moving on top of my crotch while her other one pulled my own palm towards her most important place, she slowly raised her legs above my waist and with the coordinated movement unachievable for someone as drunk as we were, she pulled my entire self into her clutches. With yet another swift move of her delicate fingers, both of our nether regions got exposed, making my penis instantly stand on attention and rubbing against her unprotected pussy.


    "Take me hard!"


    Whispering those words to my ear, Elia finally managed to rekindle the spark of my energy, instantly turning it into flames when I fully realised in what kind of situation we were right now. With no further hesitation, I moved my hands on her cheeks, lowering my head just enough to tease her with a delicate kiss, before pushing my hips forward and plunging into the depths of her hole!

 100 Fulfiling the duties smu

    15th April 1574


    As soon as I fully immersed myself in Elia''s flesh, both her legs and arms wrapped themselves around me, locking me in place. Held tightly close to her body, I could only enjoy the feeling of her skin rubbing against mine and run my hands around her entire figure, yet I wasn''t able to do the one thing required to really fulfil my duty!


    "Just stay like that for a momentˇ­"


    Hearing her request, spoken in her lovely, soft voice, rather than struggling to free myself from her hold and continue, I relaxed my body, pinning her down to the ground and moving my lips over her mouth only to immerse ourselves in yet another, long kiss.


    While it wasn''t our first time, nor the first attempt to enjoy ourselves while drunk, I could feel Elia''s entire body trembling, as if just plunging into her depths was enough to bring her to the bring of climax after all the teasing, kisses and expectation that lead us to this situation.


    "Do you remember my promise?"


    After our lips finally parted, instead of enjoying this tranquil moment for even a bit longer, Elia simply looked me in the eyes while asking.


    "How could I forget? Yet I''m not exactly sure not only what to expect, but even if I should look forward to it in the first placeˇ­"


    Making sure everyone would know how gifted I am as the man? What, was she going to pain how far my penis could reach in her insides on her belly and show it around to everyone outside after we would be done? Or did she intend to come out of the tent, fully dressed in completely golden clothes made behind my back from the beer profits?


    "Don''t worry about it."


    Suddenly loosening her arms, Elia brough one of her hands to my head, placing her finger on top of my lips as if she wanted me to shut my mouth for a moment.


    "Let me change the position a bit."


    Suddenly untangling her legs from behind my back, bringing them above her chest, squeezing her knees between us and pushing away, she almost instantly managed to force me off her, leaving me to drop powerlessly on my ass, unable to comprehend what she was aiming to do.


    Yet my answers were quickly answered, with her entire body twisting around as she herself caught the bottom part of her skirt that still remained in place and tearing it off while pushing her bottom up and resting her head on a small pyramid of pillows she made on the spot.


    Flashing her exposed bottom lips at me while bending her back as high as she could, finally ceasing her movements. Seeing her on all fours, jiggling her bottom around a bit as if inviting me to come to fuck her, I couldn''t stop myself. Just like all the teasing and fun we had was enough for her to almost reach the climax just during the first insertion, seeing her flash her most important parts right in front of my eyes broke through all the dams of the reason that remained in my head.


    Unwilling to keep up with her jokes, I grabbed her butt cheeks and stopped all her movements. No matter how much she attempted to wrestle her bottom free from my hands, it only resulted in my fingers sinking deeper and deeper into her soft flesh, spiking my arousal even higher. With the target now clearly in the line of my intended charge, I didn''t waste any time, and pushed my hips forward through the wet gates of her pussy, feeling her bottom lips tighten around my shaft the deeper I went in this one, continuous thrust.


    "aaaAAH!"


    With her moan only growing in loudness the deeper I ventured inside her, she ended up screaming from the bottom of her lungs, finally revealing what her damned plan was!


    Thanks to the fact that we already had our first time behind us, just from the way her body was reacting to my thrusts I could tell that she was nowhere near being as excited to release such voice, only pushing the limits that I wanted to put on myself away!


    After all, what kind of man would be satisfied with faked moans of the woman he was fucking? If she wanted to scream, I was going to at least make her do it honestly!


    With this new resolve born in my head, all my switches flipped at once. Sinking my fingers even deeper in the skin of her soft ass, I continued to thrust inside her with all the strength I had in my hips, only to see her actually push back on me, even using her arms to add to this movement by pushing the ground away from her!


    "AH! AH! AH!"


    As her voice synced with the rhythm of my movements, what I thought to be the maximum arousal that my mind could reach, turned out to be nothing else but a single, small bottleneck, before the entirely new stage after breaching it!


    "FUCK ME!"


    No longer limiting herself to faked shouts, Elia was now honestly shouting her mind out loud. At this point, she was no longer able to exert any strength in her body, desperately reaching with her hands to the back, as if hoping that I could grab them and add even more pressure to our intercourse!


    And who I would be if I refused such initiative on her end?


    Grabbing her wrists, I started to pull on them whenever I entered yet another forward sliding motion. At this point, I could feel her inner muscles contracting on my penis, yet contrary to one''s expectation, scraping the walls of her vagina only became easier by the moment, with more and more of her love juices lubricating the path to her womb.


    At this point, Elia''s moans became undistinguishable from the cries of some strange animals, as she was only capable of releasing a high pitched air from her lungs whenever I pushed forward, just as if I was, in fact, pumping her, yet with some kind of faulty air-pressure valve along the way.


    As I was already at the verge of collapsing just as much as she did, for the last, final push, rather than keeping her in hips high in the air, I pushed against the floor, moving the two of us forward, sliding the entire set of blankets along with us!


    "YEASH!"


    As the wave of pleasure rocked my entire body from within, all the strength that allowed me to be so hard on my dearest wife just a moment ago vanished in just a blink of an eye, making me wonder if it wasn''t sucked off the tip of my penis along with all the sperm I feed Elia''s womb!

 101 Breaking news! smut? More like cuddling imho

    15th April 1574


    As soon as the moment of climax passed through our bodies, the two of us collapsed on top of each other. With the last remaining bit of strength still in my body, I grabbed Elia''s sweaty thigh, turning her around on the back, only to once again push myself just a tiny bit forward and fall right on top of her wet body.


    Feeling the violent rocking of her heart directly on my skin as her hands moved on my back and head only for the sake of lightly caressing them, I felt yet another wave of powerful emotion swiping through my mind. This time, however, rather than being something as simple as an animalistic urge to mate, it was something closer to finally reaching the place when I, as a man, had to travel through my entire life.


    Maybe it was something as simple as a hormonal reaction in my body influencing my thoughts, but despite how powerless Elia seemed to be, pinned in all sorts of meaning under me, with her fingers running through my hair I never felt so safe as I did right now, coated by the soft touch of her arms.


    "Kiss me, dear."


    After all the shouting she initially faked only to release from the honest bottom of her heart later, her voice was now haggard, breaking on every beat of her heart, as if wasting even a single opportunity to inhale the air would lead to her demise.


    "Sure."


    Despite the entire act already done, I never pulled myself out of her soaked hole, even now straining myself to reach her lips without being forced to separate. With all our movements coming to an abrupt stop and turned slow, as if we were deprived of sleep for the entire week, I once again immersed myself in the taste of her lips, while enjoying the way in which her wet thighs were rubbing against my waist.


    "Hmph?"


    While still kissing her, I suddenly felt a strike of a dread overwhelming my mind. What if my weight could do her harm, now that we were all tired and relaxed?


    Not breaking the contact on either end of our bodies, I coiled my hands around her waist only to turn the two of us around, now placing her in the safe position above me.


    Maybe due to the change of position which allowed her far easier movement, while we were still kissing, Elia''s hips started to slowly move up and down, gently caressing my still hard dick inside her, as if trying to suck all the drops of liquid seeds remaining inside my shaft.


    Rather than once again turning to the almost violent level with her, I simply moved my hands to caress her softback, running my fingers on her spine all the way from her neck to the spilling wonderland of her bottom.


    "Thank youˇ­ for your treatˇ­"


    Feeling her mischievous tongue doing whatever she wanted it to do, I suddenly pushed against it, almost making her choke on her own saliva, only to close my mouth on her bottom lips, sucking at it with all my might.


    While this moment of slight dominance lasted, Elia''s hips started to move a bit faster, slowly rekindling the flame in my abdomen. Even though I couldn''t be more eager to go for another round, this time with a slow and caring feel to it, considering the fact that we were still in the middle of the party thrown by us and for our sake, it would be rude to keep our quests alone and entertained for too long!


    "Loveˇ­ We should get going soonˇ­"


    As much as it pained me, there was no other way for us. We could enjoy ourselves as much as we wanted through the night, but the festivities would only last for so long.


    "Dear, wait for a second, pleaseˇ­"


    Suddenly pulling the movement of her hips to a complete halt, Elia raised on top of me, now in the proper cowrider position. Yet rather than jumping on my dick in order to go for yet another round, she reached for my hand, before placing it on top of her belly.


    "This is where your seed came, dearˇ­"


    With a mysterious light behind her eyes, I could feel a strange feeling growing inside my heart, yet as this entire thing was a first for me, I was unable to recognise it, not even speaking about naming it properly.


    "Here."


    With my other hand suddenly landing on top of Elia''s breast, I wasn''t sure whether she wanted me to enjoy touching her, or something entirely else.


    Seeing the mute question on my face, she only smiled gently, before covering the hand on top of her breast with her own palm, and pressing it closer to her heart.


    "Dearˇ­ don''t you think that my breastsˇ­ grew a bit?"


    Hearing those words, I felt as if the entire world suddenly stopped. Disregarding all the bullshit about from the few animes I watched back in the modern times about massaging one''s breasts in order to make them grow, there was one, obvious reason for the growth of that part of a woman''s body.


    "Don''t tell meˇ­"


    Still unwilling to accept such an outcome, I could only look on at Elia''s uncertain expression, in the hopes of finding an answer there.


    "Iˇ­. I h-hope you won''t mind ifˇ­"


    While the reality was now clearly painted in front of my eyes, with how confused my mind was by the sudden influx of all sort of emotions, I could only guess how dumb my own face looked like.


    As if suddenly a switch was turned in my mind, all Elia''s gentle action started to make sense. The reason why she placed my hand on her tummy, why she directed my attention to her breasts, why she was looking so defeated when I failed to give her a proper response even after all the obvious hints she droppedˇ­


    While I was still unable to sort the thoughts running desperately through the channels of my mind, I didn''t dare to put myself into even a greater shame than my stupidity forced me in already!


    Kicking the ground behind my back with my shoulders, I tensed my belly muscles and raised to a sitting position, instantly squeezing Elia between my chest and my arms locking her from behind.


    "Iˇ­ I really don''t know what to say right nowˇ­ Like, I have never been so overwhelmed in my entire life!"


    Exclaiming openly right to her ear, I realised that I just made yet another blunder, so rather than crying over the spilt milk, I suddenly pushed Elia''s body just a bit away, just far enough to look her directly in the eyes.


    With a new kind of resolve taking over my entire mind and pushing all the other useless thoughts aside, I placed the top of my head against Elia''s forehead.


    "Dear, you couldn''t make me happier. It''s justˇ­"


    Taking a small break both for the sake of building the tension and trying to calm the heart that was violently knocking around my chest as if in an attempt to break free from the confines of my ribs.


    "... I''m worried that this joyˇ­ this happiness?? Will be too much for my heart to handle right now!"


    This time, there was no hesitation in my voice nor action. With everything that was supposed to be said already in Elia''s ears, I simply lowered my head and closed her lightly shaking lips, sealing all the words that I uttered with yet another, long and loving kiss.

 102 Trouble

    15th April 1574


    No matter how insane Elia''s revelation was, in the end, it was nothing but a guess. And even if we could confirm it right away, we would still be forced to push this matter for the later time, as our absence was slowly reaching the limits of what could be acceptable for our guests.


    After our lips parted for the last time, while reluctantly we still had to separate ourselves completely and go on to dress in the clothes that we prepared in advance. With my mind now fully focused on Elia''s health and safety, I even went for the additional mile of helping her dress up, unwilling to see her stretch her arms and belly for the sake of reaching the buttons at her back.


    "Oh my, how kind of you!"


    Seeing my poor attempts to save her the trouble, Elia couldn''t help herself and stare at me with a teasing smile, before finally giving up and presenting her still exposed back to me. With how vengeful I was all the way down in my core, rather than helping her out, I placed my finger on her neck and slowly tracked it down, along her spine, all the way to the back of her crotch. Just as I was about to reach her sweet spot, I suddenly retracted my hand and started pulling on the sides of the dress, slowly buttoning it up from the bottom up.


    "Okay now, until we will be fully sure, let''s not reveal even a hint about the matter. I don''t want to start the inheritance struggle before we will be fully prepared for it."


    While the marriage itself was a joyous event, some venomous snakes were bound to appear. For as long as I remained childless or rather, without a male heir, some people were bound to eye my lands, especially with how they were turning richer and richer by the day. If the news of Elia''s potential pregnancy were to reach their eyes, then even with all the possible attempts of mine, I would be unable to fully guarantee her safety!


    "Yeah, I get it. Let''s not think about it for now, and enjoy this party of ours instead!"


    As soon as she finished dressing, Elia wrapped herself around my arm and pulled me outside of the tent, while pretending to support herself on my side. While the times where the crowd would demand the newlyweds to show the bloodied blanket as the proof od the bride''s purity were long gone, there was no point in stirring up the more traditional folk, especially with how the potential birth of our child would be rather quick when compared to the wedding date.


    "The young ones have returned!"


    I couldn''t tell who was so daring to announce our reappearance on the open field. As soon as the shout resounded in the air, a crowd of people instantly jumped at us, swiftly kidnapping Elia from my hands only to lift the both of us on their hands and start throwing us in the air!


    When this moment of stupid, drunken fun was finally over, I was barely able to stand on my own legs from the fear that something would happen to my wife, unable to be even bothered by the fact that while throwing her around, some of them statistically looking, had to end up touching the parts that should belong solely to me!


    While this thought was enough for me to place my hand on the top of my sabre, according to the noble tradition - always hanging down from my belt, yet rather than pulling it out and freaking everyone out, I could only use it as a stick to support my own body.


    "Come on guys! We couldn''t start the dances without you!"


    Rather than giving me some time in peace to recover my strength and make sure Elia was all right, as soon as I somehow managed to pull myself to a proper standing position, yet another group of nobles kidnapped everyone with them, pulling us towards the central point of the camp.


    From the looks of things, the statement about the dances was true. With the musicians already waiting in a small group beside the open field, most of the guests could be seen trodding around and looking for the initial pair. Seeing this sight, I realised what kind of trouble I suddenly found myself in!


    While I knew how to dance the most basic and culturally rich dance of the later ages that keep their legacy in modern times, I had no idea what were the moves for the dances of the current time!


    Sensing Elia''s hand suddenly taking over my own fingers and pulling me towards the very middle of the gathering of the guests, I started manically looking through the system, with the hopes of finding some way for me to avoid embarrassing myself in front of all the guests that I invited myself. Yet rather than helping me out, I wasted a few precious moments looking through the numerable menus and options only to find that in the end, I was left to my own devices!


    "Darling? Are you okay?"


    Seeing the distress on my face, Elia leaned towards me, shielding her face with my own torso from the looks of everyone around. From how her eyes were filled with worry reaching the level of fear, I instantly understood that with what kind of challenges we had to overcome to get to this point, being scared of a simple dance was simply silly!


    "Don''t mind me. It''s just that, I never really had the chance to learn how to properly danceˇ­"


    With how turning my head would expose my blush right to the eyes of the massive crowd setting itself behind me, I had no other choice than to let Elia feast her eyes of my own shame.


    Yet rather than giggling up or even putting up a smirk, she instantly raised her head and gave me a light peck on the cheek.


    "Don''t worry. While I''m not the greatest dancer myself, I will help you out. And if you really won''t be able to handle it, just give me a hint, and I will pretend to be unable to move properly."


    With the fear now replaced by the determination in her eyes, all my worries suddenly disappeared. How I could call myself a man if I would even consider my wife taking a hit for me? Yet it went without saying that seeing her willingness to cover for me at the cost of her own face without even a hint of hesitation once again fanned at the flames of my affection to her!

 103 Dance and offer

    15th April 1574


    "Esteemed guests! Let''s start the dance with something suited for the glory of our happy couple! Musicians, play the Belle qui tiens ma vie"


    As soon as everyone took the proper position in a single column, Jan Bone himself stepped up to the task, most likely noticing the small problem that my military upbringing might create, ordering the musicians to play some kind of song.


    And only then the system came to my help, with its crude and totally unhelpful approach. Thanks to it, I could learn that the music ordered by the governor was one of the greatest and most remembered examples of the ''pawana'' type of dance, aimed to resemble the moves of a peacock. With its slow movements and alternating direction, even such newbie in terms of dancing like me could get used to it and escape the scrutiny of the nobles that considered themselves a proper aristocracy!


    With the first few steps, I had no other choice than to allow Elia to take the lead. As soon as the music started playing, several voices suddenly joined it, with some of them even coming from directly behind me, indicating that some of the dancers joined in the tune as well. Yet contrary to my expectations, rather than making the first step as soon as the rhythm of the tune fitted, Elia joined the singing as well, waiting for the entire first part of the song to pass before squeezing my hand and steeping on the second opening tone.


    Following her lead at first, just a few moments later I felt a strange force taking over my body as if I was losing the control over the host that I inhabited ever since the reincarnation. Surprisingly, this strange feeling was even stronger than when I fought the bandits all the way back on the road, swinging my body lightly to the sides with each step that we made.


    After moving for exactly sixteen paces, the tune entered yet another part of the song, indicating the change of direction. This time, even without Elia''s help, my body suddenly moved to the side, breaking any form of contact with my partner. After a light bow, we turned once again, joining with the other set of hands before moving sixteen paces back to where we started in the exact same tempo.


    This slow and majestic dance went on for a while, only to end up with loud applause as soon as the musicians played the last tune. Yet there was no time to rest, as I could see the instruments still tightly held by their owners, as they prepared themselves to start yet another song.


    "You lierˇ­ You told me you can''t dance!"


    Replying to Elia''s accusation with a wry smile alone, I fixed my hold on her hand as the tunes for the Branle started playing. This time, almost double as fast as the previous dance, our bodies almost instantly started swinging lightly to the sides as we simply marched in half jumps forward, without any complicated stuff like reversing the direction of the dancing column.


    "God bless the newlyweds! God bless the commonwealth!"


    As soon as this second dance finished, the cheering started all over, finally giving me the window of opportunity to excuse myself from the crowd and move back to the seats that were originally ours. Flaunting the need to rest for a bit against the people attempting to force us back into the dance, I poured some of the premium beer to our shared crystalline cup, allowing Elia to have a light sip before sating my own thirst.


    Despite the two of us taking at least a momentary leave from the dancing, it didn''t bother the rest of the guests, as even a greater crowd already joined in the rhythmic jumping in the middle of the open space of the campsite.


    Yet even in this situation, there was a nice group of nobles mixed amongst the crowd of servants, making the best use of the open kitchen and enjoying the food prepared with the generous use of my spice. Sadly for them, the premium beer was moved around in the exact same barrels as the normal one, with only a small marking on its side, known only to the kitchen servants and myself, so that whenever required, I could serve it for me and the distinguished guests.


    And we didn''t need to wait for a long for such a necessity to arise.


    "That was a great dance!"


    For the first time since the festivities started, the second major figure of the entire event, Michal Cherrie approached me, even bringing one of the chairs with him, only to place it on the opposite end of my own table and shamelessly pour himself a cup from the barrel standing in front of me.


    "Thank you, for your generous words, sir."


    While I was happy that such an important person came to talk with me directly, I couldn''t help but wonder whether his intention was to talk real business or just secure a stable supply of my beer.


    "You see, I''m not one of the kinds to beat around the bush, so I will get straight to the crux of the matter. What would you want in exchange for building one brewery capable of producing this kind of beer on my lands? Speak out your mind, as I already checked your recent history. While I do realise the worth of keeping the monopoly on the recipe and production means, so I won''t mind if the price turns out to be quite steep!"

 104 Idea for investment part 1

    15th April 1574


    "The price for the ability to produce itˇ­ Just like you, sir, decided, to be frank, I will be honest as well. I never really thought about it, and considering how this drink didn''t hit the market in the truest sense, I can''t really gauge the worth of such exchange."


    Rather than jumping at the occasion and asking for either something that I would really need in the near future or just something impossible to push this idea to the litter, I seriously started calculating the stuff in my head, thinking what would be the best response.


    "Don''t worry about it, just take your time in it, although I would love to maybe hear what sort of thing you would even consider when calculating the price."


    Seeing that I wasn''t completely opposed to the matter, Michal instantly latched on to me, giving me just enough space to not feel pressured while making sure I wouldn''t escape from his grasp right away.


    But it was only to be expected. With how the lives of most of the people was ultimatelyˇ­ boring, being able to secure a stable source for such a great beer was way more valuable than what people would pay for craft beers far in the future!


    "Okay then, let''s start thinking about the future and how I want to expand my wealth then. Considering how I will inevitably reach for the borderlands with my investments, I would much rather have someone like you, sir, back them up rather than trying to curb them out of the existence."


    Looking at the figure of the major lord in front of my eyes, I could already see the carnages of the local people that would be forced into serfdom by the current generation of nobles. With their prideful attitude and for how long they were used to be almost completely autonomous, many rebellions would rise up only to fall under the shoes of the commonwealth militaryˇ­ All the way to the Chmielnicki uprising, that was one of the reasons why this entire country fell apart!


    While looking after my own business was important, if I could make sure that the reasons for all those uprisings, with one of the major ones coming in barely twenty years from now, were eliminated, I would truly hit two birds with one stone!


    "First thing first, I need to ask one question. Did you realise, sir, how popular western jewellery, clothes and all sorts of expensive yet useless in the long run items are in our country?"


    To be honest, I wasn''t quite sure if the first idea that came to my mind could be successful, but with how insanely big the market of the commonwealth was for me, if I played it smart, I could make sure that the entire thing that I portrayed in my head would not only not cost me a single dime, yet it would bring immense wealth to both me and my potential partner in crime, but also lead to the increased wealth amongst the common folks of the southern borderlands, which would directly translate in their willingness to fight for the luxury they obtained!


    Rather than it being a matter of the local being unable to compete with the west in terms of skill or artistic soul, with the insane power of nobility in the country, merchants and craftsmen in cities simply had no way to expand as much as they did in the west, severely limiting both their production capability and due to that - their ability to invest their income back in their work or simply promoting their products!


    But while this trend was impossible to change in a short span of a single life, who said local market was the only place where we could sell?


    "Sir, what I''m going to propose now, is nothing but a strange idea that happened to appear in my head a while back, when I first saw how popular my normal beer became amongst the people. While the road to success is uncertain, I don''t think it will bear any real risk for us.??


    Taking a sip of the beer, I peeked stealthily at the lord in front of me, gauging whether delaying the revelation achieved the effect of raising his tension. Seeing how his eyes were now fully focused on my face, I smiled internally, helped Elia to get even with me in terms of drinking before placing the cup down on the table and focusing all my attention at the next few phrases.


    "While lands of the war west or even south are more inclined to the wine than any form of beer, many of the german princedoms are still within the striking range of my beer. As soon as the production will increase to the point when I can seel my normal drink cheaply there, I will be able to create an avenue to liquify other products as wellˇ­"


    Instead of finishing up the sentence with what I perfectly had in mind, I simply stopped moving my mouth and looked at the lord in front of me, waiting for him to catch up and say the rest himself.


    "That means you will be able to sell the local wares there as well while riding the popularity of your beer. While I think that''s a clever idea, what do the eastern lands or my protection have to do with this? It''s not like we would introduce something new to the market that could compete with their local production, especially if we were to add all the costs of transporting it from the steppes to the holy roman empire!"


    Seeing how my future business partner took the bait, I only smiled a gave him a bit more time, in hopes that he would reach the conclusion himself. Regretfully, maybe he simply never considered the locals as his own people, making it hard for him to even think about them in terms of potential cooperation.


    "Sir, the cossacks are slowly starting to pose a problem for everyone at the borderlands, do they not?"

 105 Idea for investment part 2

    15th April 1574


    "Cossacks? Do you mean those poor souls thinking they can go against the rightful rule of the crown on those lands? Why did you even bring them up?"


    At this point, I realised that I might hurry a bit with my revelations. While I missed only a few years, the age of growth for their organisations at the borderlands that were under Commonwealth rule only on paper would fall on the time of rule for the next King, one of the greatest that this poor country has seen in its history.


    For now, the cossacks that the history knew as the brave yet unruly fighters that posed quite a bit of diplomatic problems with their daring raids against ottoman lands, had yet to truly form! Even though they already existed as the commonly know group, they had yet to be considered as officially acknowledged organisation by the crown!


    It would be only the next king that would create a cossack register, allowing them to directly serve under the crown, yet that didn''t stop most of the nobles in the region to consider them as a barrier against the Tatar raids on the sizeable farmlands of Ukraine!


    "Sir, this problem is quite a complicated one, so let me explain myself from the very core of this matter. If I''m not wrong, the period of time when we could borrow the strength of those people and just throw them away as soon as their period of use was over, won''t last long. Sooner or later, they will realise their value as a semi-standing army guarding our borderlands against the Tatar raids, and start pushing forth demands."


    While we were talking, due to the nature of what I was saying, I had to look around to make sure no soul would be any wiser of the content of our discussion. While people from my neighbourhood couldn''t care less about matters regarding cossacks as they never influenced their way of life in any way, if the word got to the Governor, who was a high official in the country, it might draw quite a lot of unnecessary attention!


    "What I expect to happen, is someone sooner or later accepting at least a part of their wishes, but ignoring the rest. Just like always, if you don''t know what something is about, then its about money. What I intend to do then, is not only offer you the setting up of the brewery for your own use, sir, but also rights to sell it in the entire Rhuthernian province and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. But the terms for this transaction are just as harsh as juicy the profits would be."


    Rather than putting forward all the potential profits that my partner could earn from the deal, I wanted to explain all the risks and costs that he would potentially suffer from it right off the bat, to avoid him later blaming me for it. In the end, investment always bore the risk of failing, but in the case of what I was going to offer, I firmly believed it had a huge chance of bringing more money than any of us could imagine!


    This time, rather than picking up the glass and drinking even more of my premium beer, I simply smiled to the lord in front of me, while watching him raise his own cup towards his own lips.


    "I think I know what you want. By selling those uncommon goods to the west as a luxury product that can''t be found anywhere else, we will be able to obtain an immense wealth, while providing a good source of revenue to finance the development of the cossacks lands, further binding their loyalty to usˇ­ I think that''s a great idea!"


    Hearing the Michal find my proposition not only reasonable but as wholesome as he found out himself, I couldn''t help but openly grin, to the point where Elia had to serve me a nudge to the side to calm me down.


    "Obviously, this entire proposition will need a lot of time to bring real benefits, while forcing us in the position when we will be clearly seen as supportive of the cossack case. The question that stands is, do you think the possible benefits that could not only fill our coffers but create a loyal and devoted army for the protection of the country as well are worth the risk of being ostracised by some of the other major nobles? After all, before those people will see the benefits of our investment, it will be hard to change their habits!"


    It went without saying that investing in the cossack region brought not only those risks that I spoke about but quite a greater ones along as well. By encouraging the raids on the Tatar and Turkish lands, the tension would only raise, just as they did in the history I knew, leading to a series of a bloody war on the south, that only further weakened the country. Yet if the benefits of this line of trade would be great enough, not only we would create something that Commonwealth lacked the most - a standing and loyal army, financed by its own people, while bound to us as we would be the one providing a way to sell off their wares - but the potential income from this investment should be way more than enough to hire more mercenaries that was even necessary to simply crush any potential enemy with the sheer number of troops!


    "There is no benefit if one is not ready to take some risks! If that''s how you wish to put this matter, I don''t think I have any other choice than to accept your offer!"


    Standing up, Michal extended his hand to me with a smile. With how this was a traditional way of settling the deal, I knew that upon shaking his arm, no matter of paperwork would shake our commitment to this cause!


    Standing up myself, I even prompted Elia to do the same. Reaching forward with my hand, I grabbed the fingers of my new partner and decisively shook his hand. While it was just a feeling, I could swear that at this moment, I felt the gears turning the world around suddenly stop, only to pick up their pace right away.


    Considering the way in which I appeared in this world, this strange feeling made me quite worried, yet seeing the curious look on Elia''s face, I simply fixed my own expression and sat back down on the chair of mine and grab a piece of freshly roasted pork brought by a thoughtful servant.


    "I don''t know why, but I have the feeling that with just this simple handshake, we changed the fate of the world."

 106 Morning of the big day

    16th April 1574


    With all the dances and fun extending way into the night, I made sure to escape the public eyes with my dear wife as soon as the sun started to set behind the line of the trees in the distance, initially moving back to our tent to rest, but swiftly relocating back to the city.


    No matter how fun camping was, there was no way in hell that I would prefer sleeping on a pile of blankets rather than doing the same in a comfortable bed back at the Pilznian palace, especially with how little effort it required to have a better sleep. While if Elia was all right, I might have considered staying longer into the night and playing around with everyone else, thinking about the possible repercussions if she really was bearing my child, I didn''t dare to risk her, or our potential kid health just for the sake of a few more hours of fun!


    Thankfully, my idea to hire some nobles skilled in maintaining the festivities paid off, with how the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in our bedchamber, was a sign of drunken people roaming around the town in a long procession surrounding the entire palace in a silly yet silent dance.


    As if they were reenacting the pagan rites, a huge crowd of people holding each other by their hands and danced around the entire building, instantly attracting the attention of my eyes that I would much better use turning my head just a slightly to the side to stare at the beautiful face of my still-sleeping wife.


    Ignoring the silly folk outside, I simply stared at the small movements of Elia''s mouth as the air continued to raise her chest, only to suddenly escape from her body in form of a slight, warm breeze hitting me squarely in the chest. With her face barely a few inches away from my breast, even looking at her cute, peaceful expression was a tough challenge, at least compensated with her half-naked body tightly hugged into mine.


    "Good morning, dear."


    After feasting my eyes and mind on the sight of Elia''s sleeping face, when I realised her eyelids started to twitch only to suddenly raise all the way up, I couldn''t help myself from reaching with my hand forward and swiping away a wild strand of her hair that blocked my direct line of sight to her pupils.


    "Gmoornnin."


    While her eyes were already open, the morning dizziness only started to dissolve from her mind, turning her new day welcome from a complete phrase into one long yet cute mumble. Yet while lying right beside her just like that was awesome in its own sense, looking at the how short the shadows were under the window, the time was nigh for us to properly wake up and prepare for the main event for today.


    "Come on, babe. Today is a big day."


    Seeing how my words alone wouldn''t be able to do the work, with a decisive move of my hand, I tore the blanket from above us and threw it to the side, exposing the two of us equally to the chilliness of the early spring.


    Instantly roused from her sleep, Elia attempted to grab the blanket, yet with the advantage of surprise on my end, she ended up rolling on me and failing. Thanks to our position, just by moving myself up I lifted her along the way, swiftly grabbing her under her knees and carrying her down from the bed.


    "Don''t tell me you want to miss the trial?"


    Only those words were finally able to put some reason back into the head of my dear wife, pushing her to grab her clothes stored beforehand on a small stool beside the bed. Seeing that I no longer had to force her into reality, I moved to dress myself.


    "SNEAK ATTACK!"


    Feeling a sudden weight pulling me down by my neck, I felt my body reacting instantly by tensing the muscles of my legs in order to kick with both of them forward at the same time and protect myself from strangling by dropping myself back, only to suddenly freeze and force myself to stay still.


    "I got you!"


    With the hands that initially grabbed my throat now moving to my chest, I felt two hard points pressing against my back as Elia started nibbling on my ear.


    "Dear, stop it. We can''t make everyone wait!"


    Instead of fighting off the assailant, I leaned forward, reaching for my own kontus before raising it above my head. Without even a hint of hesitation, the hands that were roaming my upper body suddenly moved up and helped me pull the cloth down.


    "Thanks."


    With Elia finally giving up on her silly attempts to prolong our morning cuddles, I could at last pull the pants on my ass and hold both parts of my dress with the normal belt, before covering it with the sizeable, contus one.


    "Are you ready?"


    After fully dressing myself up and finishing the worst part being forcing my feet inside the tight shoes, I turned around only to see Elia adding the finishing touches to her own dress.


    Yet another advantage of the current times rather than the future. With how insanely expensive all sorts of make-up and perfumes were in this day and age, it took way shorter for any woman to prepare for any outing!


    "Yeah. Let''s go."


    As soon as the last string of cloth that held her dress on her shoulders was fixed in place, Elia stood up and snatched my arm to herself, leading me out of the chamber.


    "Come on, what are you waiting for now?"


    With her instantly taking the lead in our way out of the palace to the main square of the town, she couldn''t miss the opportunity to tease me, could she?


    "Okay, okay, I''m coming. We still have some time, so no need to pull on my hand so much!"

 107 Opening of the trial and enlightmen

    16th April 1574


    Thanks to the fact that there was still some time before the second ringing of the city bell that would announce the start of the trial on Peter, rather than instantly reaching the town''s plaza and just waiting there, we passed through the crowd of people dancing around our palace and too drunk to even recognise that it was the people whose wedding they were celebrating that came out and moved to the smaller streets.


    Even though the wedding was already over, all the decorations that people put on the streets remained, yet the state of those that happened to be within the reach of the drunken guests turned this place in a great mess.


    Countless flowers were deprived of their petals, now mixing with the everpresent mud on the streets, enriching it with all the colours present in the fields and forests and in effect, making it look like nothing else but a colourful poop.


    "This place isn''t as lovely as it was just yesterdayˇ­"


    With the wedding now gone, there was no reason for either of us to wear our official and most expensive dresses, making us keep the normal clothes that allowed for comfortable moving around.


    "That was only to be expected. In the end, this city built haphazardly, rather than keeping any deeper thought in mind while laying its foundations."


    While I would love to keep our slow stroll a bit longer, just when we were about to take yet another turn and finally reach a single place unpolluted by the everpresent leftovers from the celebration, the sound of the city bell announced that it was time for us to go back for the trial.


    Yet it wasn''t enough to make us hurry!


    As we slowly wandered back to the square, what used to be an almost empty plot of open space in the middle of the town, now was already occupied by quite a crowd, with the sets of seats for me, Elia and the other important figures right in front of the small pedestal on which Peter was already standing, chained to a nearby pole.


    Just a single look on his body could make one tell that the time he spent in the town''s tower''s basement didn''t serve him all that well. While all the bruises and wounds he sustained during the clash with my forces were long gone due to the passing of time and the minimal care he received in order to not kick the bucket before he could be expelled, just his eyes told the story of the horrors he had to suffer through while waiting for his fate to be fulfilled.


    After sitting down at the very front row in the places designated for us, it took only a while for the last spectators to arrive before Jan Bone came himself, and by sitting on the throne of a judge, placed just a bit to the side between the elevated platform and the seats for the spectators, signalling the start of the trial.


    While this man was completely bound by his chains, during the governor''s speech, he threw such a hateful stare to me, and one filled with devious craziness to my wife, that despite all the precautions in place to prevent any of his potential outbursts, I still ended up leaning over Elia as if to shield her from any potential aggression and placing my hand on the handle of my sabre.


    "I stand accused? I think you got the wrong person, sir!"


    Suddenly, all the crazy emotions disappeared from the eyes of this poor man, as he turned - now completely calm - to the governor.


    "It was this man, that so defiantly sits now in the front row right beside my rightful fiancee that kidnapped a noble, threatened me, and when I dared to stand up for myself like a Polish Noble and experienced soldier would, he summoned the devil forces from the depths of the hell to deal a fatal blow to the unit of veterans that served their life protecting the southern border of our glorious country against the Tatar raids! With all due respect that is due to you sir, because of the position you hold as the country official, how many Tatars did you kill in your life to sit now in all your glory and judge a proper soldier like me?!"


    While initially his counterclaims seemed reasonable and could actually sway the crowd of the observers to his side for a moment, as soon as he went on to rant against the governor, his fate was instantly sealed.


    "First thing first, when you speak those words to me, you do not spell them to me directly, but you are insulting the glory of the commonwealth itself!"


    Hearing those words, I couldn''t help but get the vibes of Senator Kisiel and the grandson of the Michal Cherrie, the famous Hetman Jarema. Just like in the scene of the popular movie where the senator claimed that it was not his will that spoke through his mouth be the will of the commonwealth, so did the Jan Bone now, awakening strange, patriotic tunes in my soul.


    Out of this single moment, I realised that so far, rather than focusing on changing the entire country, I could only think about my own benefits, that could maybe make the country benefit as the side profit, yet wasn''t that just the kind of mindset that leads to the weakening of the entire state and its later tragedy of one hundred, twenty-three years of being divided and occupied by the nations doing their best to make sure no remnants of the polish spirit would remain on this world?


    Yet the world wasn''t waiting for me to sort my own thoughts out, with the Governor standing up, and looking sternly at the chained Peter.


    "If you don''t have anything to say in your own defence, then say so. We will proceed with the trial and get this over with so that everyone can go back to their own tasks."

 108 Verdic

    16th April 1574


    "I''m not going to defend myself against false accusations! If you want to abuse your own power granted to you by the entire noble brotherhood, you should remember how our brothers will react when they learn about you bullying one of them!"


    With his mind unable to accept the fact that his claims were simply ignored and refuted, Peter added the last straw to the fireplace below his feet, going as far as to openly threaten the governor!


    While it was true that all the official positions were in theory granted by King but confirmed and passed to the picked nobles by the senate, just like in any other country of my new timeline, those high and profitable positions both in terms of pension and the possibilities granted by the power turned out to be inherited by the son after the father, with only a few cases of an excelling noble taking over a position of a fallen one!


    "Since you refuse to acknowledge your crimes, I will have Mike of Tarnow to step up with his testimony. Mike, your turn."


    Unwilling to bother with Peter more than necessary, Jan simply went back to his seat, while gesturing me to take over from him. With no other choice, and actually unwilling to pass the opportunity to make myself, a face for all the investments that I would be doing, turn even more popular with a teary story about the love that just got fulfilled yesterday, I placed a gentle kiss on Elia''s cheek and stood up.


    "Dear brothers and sisters in the nobilityhood. This trial, this day, are the results of all the incredible efforts I had to put in order to prevent my dearest Elia, from meeting with any harm from the hand of both her step-family and this pesky little brute."


    Taking a moment with my story to reach the place just below the stage, I turned my back to the chained Peter, as if in an attempt to show him that he has fallen to the point when not even exposing my back to him would put me in any disadvantage.


    "While I don''t want to bore you with the long story, there are some things that I need to bring up. It all started when I was going back from the glorious coronation of our new, wise king, back to my lands in Tarnow."


    With these words, I started recounting the most important events that brought Elia and me close, while revealing just enough to point the listeners in the right direction. From how our meeting happened to coincide with the bandit raid on my entourage, through the haughty visit of Peter right on my castle, all the way to the preparations for the obvious attack, escape from Pilzno at the battle with his forces ending.


    "Just like he accused me to base my strength of the devil''s forces, I''m now going to point you all to the place where this strength of mine came from!"


    "The guns that allowed me to defeat him, despite losing quite a lot of innocent servants that came with us to make sure no harm would be done to villagers while procuring and preparing the food, the cost of not only making them, but also providing for the immense amount of ammunition to use them, managed to almost empty out all my coffers! If not for the spoils from the battle that we took over, I can''t say for sure if I could afford this wedding in the first place!"


    While my story was nothing but a fantastic way to wrap all the events in the mystical shroud of love and sacrifice, the fact that using the reapers guns was expensive, was greatly underrated. Just a single magazine without even ammunition for it was worth close to two red goldens, with the cost of all the ammunition that I prepared reaching almost a fifty red goldens!


    Calculating all the expenses together, two and a half weeks worth of income from my entire wealth went down the drain just to give me a way to deal with this pesky bandit! And while I didn''t really mind it due to how incredible amounts of gold I could obtain from the newly established beer trade, all the other nobles could calculate the worth of my sacrifice according to their own standards, unspoiled by such intricate business!


    "I think that''s enough, brother."


    Standing up just as I neared the absolute end of what I could say before running out of teary stories to bring the spectators even closer to my side in this trial, the governor finally freed me from my acting, allowing me to sit back beside Elia and calm myself with her hand instantly moving to caress my cheek.


    "Brothers, I have heard enough. With everything that this trusty soldier of the commonwealthˇ­ Ah, you didn''t know?"


    Suddenly bringing up another point that I intentionally decided to ignore after talking with the Governor about how we should go about this trial last night, Jan looked around at the faces of the spectators before shaking his head in the sign of powerlessness.


    "This man, Mike of Tarnow, suffered the fate of fighting in the last great, northern war, and to this day, hold the honorary title of the royal lieutenant, had to pay most of his wealth just to have a shot at protecting someone he fell in love with. If that''s not the sign of the God-given love, then you can call me a heretic and trial me right now!"


    Taking a moment to calm his agitated heart and breath, the Jan suddenly raised his previously lovered face and looked at Peter with scorn seeping out of his eyes.


    "I have heard enough, and I''m ready to give the verdict for this trial. I hereby announce that you, Peter Hellan, formerly a lord over the city of Ropian, are from this day no longer welcomed within the borders of the commonwealth! At this very moment, I''m stripping you out of all your wealth, that will be passed in form of compensation and wedding gift for the newlyweds, while you are hereby announced to be infamed and exiled!"

 109 Talks about the near future

    16th April 1574


    After giving the verdict out, the guards of the governor himself took Peter away, announcing the end of this last event for today. With all the fun that everyone had yesterday, the entire second day of the celebration was aimed to let everyone rest, before the grand march towards the Tarnow could be started.


    Yet with the compensation part of the judgment, both Jan and I had to go to the study, juts in order to sing an insane amount of papers required for the transfer of the land ownership to be acknowledged by the kingdom.


    "What are your plans for all this wealth, now that you basically created the foundation for the new great family?"


    As we were sitting alone in the study, with Elia excusing herself to personally prepare some food for us, in theory, I could speak my mind without bothering myself with her own ideas for the development of her city, yet rather than being relaxed, all the questions that the Governor was asking, were putting me on the edge.


    "From what I could tell, looking at all the great noble families, if I wanted to reach their level of wealth in the same way, looking for new ways to obtain even more arable land should be the obvious choice, yet I don''t think starting a family fortune like that from the scratch is a viable option in our times already. Rather than expanding my lands further, I prefer to focus on consolidating my power in the three cities under me and making sure that they could bring as much wealth as possible. After all, no one will argue with the fact that the city of Gdansk (Danzig) alone brings more revenue to its merchants and craftsmen than what your average noble can ever obtain from his lands!"


    Instead of making sure I wouldn''t cross the bottom line of my wife in terms of the changes that I would be implementing in our territory, I had to make sure that no matter what, the governor wouldn''t suddenly perceive me as a threat to himself, but rather an ambitious yet grounded in reality noble, striving for the absolute maximum of what he could achieve without overstepping his bounds. After all, the times of the glory for the Tarnowian family were gone with the death of my great ancestor, and I could tell how the remaining great nobles would be wary of the reemergence of their old competitor which influence was already divided among them.


    "Don''t mind me asking if answering my question could sabotage your plansˇ­ But how do you intend to go about enriching your lands? It''s not like you would be the first one with such an idea, yet unless you could somehow obtain an immense wealth greatly exceeding the worth of your lands, I don''t really see a way in which you could elevate the worth of your cities to the level of the main trade hub for the entire country!"


    And there never was any problems with encouraging people to fuck! They would do so willingly through marriage and whores, not to speak about any war happening and leaving a trail of the bastard kids indicating the path that any army would take through the enemy territory. In the end, while some of the conflicts were insanely bloody, humans ability to reproduce was naturally greater than their tendency to kill each other!


    That''s why if I wanted to really influence the growth of the entire country, I had to hit at the health and sanitisation issues as soon as possibleˇ­ But that''s, where my current attempts to bring all my lands into unified administration, came from!


    Unless I would be able to effectively govern and improve the life in my lands, I simply would lack both the funds and manpower required to implement any health-related policies!


    "For starters, I''m thinking about investing the great revenue I''m receiving from selling off my normal beer in my own towns into building a proper road connecting all three cities. Do you think you could help me ask the crown for some monetary help with it? I think our new king would be glad to see such an initiative!"


    Seeing the opportunity to start talking about this great project of mine, I couldn''t miss using my relationship with the governor to instantly elevate it to a high level of command! With how all the trade and communication based on the quality of the road that was connecting two places together, if I could use some of the crown funds to finance my investment into the concrete factory, my dream of tuning all three cities into one, great metropolis could maybe not be fulfilled, but at least turn into a realistic future!


    "A road, hmm? That''s quite a big project, but if you can find some way to make it cheaper, just like you came up with the design of those reaper guns that you showed meˇ­ I think that we could somehow manage to get some gold from the crown for it!"

 110 Governors advice

    16th April 1574


    "I don''t think that finding a proper material will pose any problem. I''m more worried about the insane amount of work necessary to put the thing I have in mind to useˇ­"


    Due to the shortage of coal on my lands, the most basic flammable material that was accessible in abundance was wood. While the process of turning it into charcoal that was capable of bringing forth enough heat energy to create some kind of basic steam furnace, unless, establishing the entire production for the charcoal, most of which would sink back into the production of itself, was not a cost I was willing to take.


    On the other hand, there was oil. While their reserves located around the modern lesser Poland and current eastern Sandomir province were laughable when compared to what the middle east could produce, for the minimal use that my lands would require, there was far more than enough of it!


    While some people might think that both the oil extraction and refining process are hard and something that only modern people could achieve, as long as I were to be satisfied with the inferior quality of the finished product, just by investing enough gold into this project, I could easily obtain both the petrol for the basic engines and asphalt for the cheaper production of the road!


    "Oho? Seeing what kind of weapons you introduced, I''m all the more interested in this roadmaking product of yours!"


    With the reaper guns giving me way more than enough validation in the governor''s trust, I realised that as long as I could put this road project as something that would benefit me, him and the entire commonwealth at the same time, maybe I wouldn''t need to bother with the financing it myself!


    "You see sir, while the products I have in mind are theoretically not that hard to obtain, set up the proper production of them on the scale that could be sufficient to build just a single, short road should be easy. If I were to strain my coffers, I might be even able to do it all by myself!"


    At this point, there was no way I would explain exactly what kind of idea was coursing through my mind. In fact, the entire project could be started only when the mines that the governor gifted to me would start bringing up the minimal amount of ore required to cut my dependency on the imported iron. But to make any excavation process efficient, I had to create at least a basic engine along with something to fuel it, forcing me to create at least a basic oil extraction and refinery plants and closing the vicious circle, where any steps I would like to begin with required all the others to be completed!


    "But?"


    Hearing how I left my phrase kind of open, the Governor thoughtfully put me back on the track of reality, forcing all my dreamlike thoughts about the future prosperity of my lands to dissipate.


    "As soon as the process of building this road will star, not only the entire country but most likely all of our neighbours will sell half of their lives to obtain the recipes and instructions how to do it. The moment any noble sees what can be done, no matter if I put my entire income into expanding the production of those materials alone, it won''t be enough to sate even a small percentage of the orders, not to speak about providing supplies for the road itself. And even if we somehow managed to keep it under wraps for the time being, no matter how wonderful the material is, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to build a road."


    In the end, there was no escaping it. In order to create a proper road based on concrete and asphalt, one still had to dig a trench deep enough, test out how the water would influence it over time, supply the food for all the workers digging the trenchesˇ­


    No matter how one looked at it, starting a fully industrial project like that, required a proper industrial backing to do so!


    "Okay, I think I understand what''s the problem right now. I would lie if I were to claim that I perfectly understand every single step of your plan and how are you going to go about setting everything up, but I think I see the greatest problem that plagues your mind."


    Hearing those words from the governor, I was stupefied at first. How could he even begin to unravel the intensity of my anxiety when he had no idea how immense this project of mine was? What started as a simple drive to build a plain, concrete road, now turned into practically pushing the development of the world by about two hundred years at the very least!


    But thinking about this, I realised that while anxious about all the problems piling up in from of me, I turned so worried about everything that this emotion even started showing up on my face. Yet I couldn''t help but get curious what kind of result did this old fox derive just from the sign of anxiety on my expression?


    "Just from your words, I can tell how insanely complicated and multilayered this project is. But while I don''t know the details, I can assure you. Leading the military campaigns or even managing all the countless nobles that have more conflicts between them than one could imagine to be possible, can''t be done all at once."


    Suddenly standing up from his chair and passing the last piece of paper required to finalize the transfer of the Ropian town and the surrounding villages to my family.


    "That''s why, instead of rushing to get everything done at once, you just need to focus on a single step, and move to the next one only, when that first step of yours will be fully finished."

 111 First step

    16th April 1574


    "Here, now the area of Ropian officially belongs to you. Congratulations!"


    As soon as I placed the last signature on the document, I stood up and grabbed extended Governor''s hand, before shaking it decisively. Yet before I could even have a moment of happiness for achieving just a first step to the world domiˇ­ eeeˇ­ my lands development and unification, Jan instantly turned my attention back to the topic we just spoke about.


    "Tell me, please. What will be your first step, and what do you need to get it done as soon as possible? If we can use the gold to speed up the process of getting even more gold, then I won''t mind investing my own resources. But I hope you do realise that by doing so, you will be getting quite a huge debt of my trust."


    With governor putting the matter like that, instead of answering right away with some washed-up thanks or affirmation, I sat back down on the chair, and let my thoughts run amok.


    In theory, any project should start with obtaining the resources. If we were to procure enough manpower to push the roadmaking project forward at a satisfactory rate, all the resources should be already piled up by the place where the road would go through, while even more would be produced during the roadmaking process itself.


    But if I wanted to effectively start any reasonable production of either concrete required for the bottom layer of the road or the asphalt, I had the entire manufacturing base in place. But to do so, there was a need for at least a few steam engines that would power up the mining of the limestone, along with at least a basic refinery that would be capable of supplying those few engines with fuel!


    But with how crude my design of the steam engine would be, I had to additionally come up with a way for my own people to be able to make one, forcing me to invest in the process of creating the engines in the very first place!


    Yet just as I was about to speak my mind, I realised one, a great mistake I made!


    There was no point in fueling the stationary steam engines that would serve to help in mines with petrol! With how most of the entire commonwealth was covered in dense forests, as long as every mine would have a charcoal plant right beside, then any desired amount of steam engines could be rolling on it!


    With that in mind, as long as I would be able to provide even one or two steam engines for the iron mines that the governor gifted me while making him invest in the charcoal plant, the output of the mines could be funnelled into the factory making crude but working steam engines that would provide the further horsepower for all the other plants we would set up!


    "Sir Janˇ­ I just got a very dangerous, yet profitable idea. Before I will answer your first inquiry, I need to ask something that could be easily considered treason. Will I be allowed that privilege?"


    As soon as the engines would start moving the gears of the productivity in all the lands that we would invest them in, not only the commonwealth neighbours, but all the nobles smart enough to see the potential behind those machines would do their absolute best to secure at least one for themselves. Yet surprisingly, the thing that worried me the most was the king!


    While I couldn''t tell anyone that this bastard would defect to France as soon as its throne would be given to him due to his older brother death, I was sure that if we wanted to make the most of this investment, we had to go through few more steps before the troubling time of interregnum, meaning that our steam engines would have to start rolling out before the King would escape the country!


    And what if he decided to take this entire business over, seeing its potential benefits? What would be even worse, what if he saw the insane potential behind it and decided to stay in the country that was capable of producing and using those engines?


    "Speak your mind. If you were a traitor, you wouldn''t even bring that point to my attention, so you don''t need to worry about any repercussions about your worries alone!"


    With his face turned slightly red, I felt like Jan took my question personally, as if someone who he put his trust in, dared to doubt his loyalty to those who he worked with!


    "Sirˇ­ What if the King decided to claim our investments for his own, seeing through their value and declaring them a royal property?"


    While our current King, Henry of the Valois house wasn''t famed as someone who would dare to reach for the property of his temporary subjects, especially with how the entire noble brotherhood would oppose such move, when it came to the royal power, he could still manipulate the situation to get what he wanted from us!


    "While I can see what you are worried about, I don''t think that will ever be the case. Yet, if you think that what you have in mind is so valuable that even the King wouldn''t mind stealing it even for the price of his crown, then we can make sure that your plans won''t be revealed to the public before we will be ready to deal with the backslash."


    Hearing the reassuring words of the Governor, I couldn''t help but sigh with relief. Even though I knew how little value did the words hold in real life, the fact that he was willing to shield me from the royal envy still meant a lot to me.


    "Okay then. Sir, I don''t think there is any need to explain how does the gun work. The gunpowder is ignited, and due to the explosion being contained within the barrel, its force pushes the bullet out of its only open end. I don''t think I need to explain what would happen if we were to put a pot, filled with water, over a fire, and cover it tightly with a lid. But have you ever wondered, sir, how could we use the force that makes the lid tremble as the steam escapes the pot?"

 112 Potential problems

    17th April 1574


    "Are you really sure it was a good idea to share your inventions, even if they are still nothing but a project on your drawing board, with the governor? While I can get while you went all out while speaking to prince Cherrie, I''m not that sure if putting all our hopes in the protective umbrella of Jan can work in the long run!"


    Riding down the earthen road that connected the town of Pilzno to Tarnow, where the second part of the festivities would take place, I made sure to ditch all the responsibilities of the host and move at the very front of the entire column of the guests, traders and even whores that followed such a big gathering of people, hoping to use the time that this manoeuvre would save me to further at least a single project of mine.


    "It''s not like he can come up with any design by himself if he only knows the base idea for the entire project. Just like you know how gunpowder works, I''m quite sure you wouldn''t be able to make it from its base materials, could you?"


    Speaking about it, this was the problem that I had to face myself. While I knew that in the modern mining, people used nitroglycerin to smash the huge parts of the stone wall apart to make the mining process easier, even though I knew that I only required two acids and glycerineˇ­ I had no idea how to obtain either one of them!


    Thankfully, just like I mentioned the gunpowder to Elia, it could be used as a replacement for the nitroglycerin or even dynamite, even if its effectiveness was way worse. But that also meant that I would''ve to start some massive orders for any given amount of gunpowder!


    Even though any of my projects related to mining have yet to really start, I could already tell what would be the reaction of both my local neighbours and the countries rivalling the commonwealth when the market would be swept clean from all traces of gunpowder!


    In the end, if I really wanted to use gunpowder as the viable solution for the mining, then once again I would most likely have to rely on the system capabilities to create both the item in question and the recipe for obtaining it. Even if setting up gunpowder factory would cost me more than all the other projects put together, it was still something that simply has to be done, especially with my intention to develop rapid-firing guns later on!


    "While it''s true that I can''t really make gunpowder on my own if I were given the general idea how it is made and enough resources to fund the research on it, it wouldn''t pose me any problem to figure out the way to make it!"


    How much easier all of my projects would be if I had a proper scientific background to know how to make all of this stuff instead of relying on my system?


    But thinking about it in this way, maybe I received the help of the system precisely because rather than being an omnibus engineer, I was a simple white-collar worker knowing only how to code back-end for the phone apps and just enough of marketing to sell them on the modern markets of yet another set of mobile apps?


    "Well, point for you. Thinking about it in this way, the governor will most likely be able to create a design for the finished product basing on the idea aloneˇ­ but why would he do so in the first place?"


    Just as I was about to admit to losing in this debate, I realised that we couldn''t limit ourselves to just a single point of view! After all, human relationships and one''s actions were caused not by a single emotion or reason, but a complex formula that brought forward the result that certain action was either worth the effort or not!


    "What do you mean by that? Isn''t it obvious that he would love to free himself from the disadvantageous position he is when compared to you? Seeing how big of a figure he is, I don''t think he likes the idea of you holding all the aces in this game!"


    Shifting her position on top of the saddle, Elia almost managed to throw me off my train of thought with how this subtle movement of her forced my mind to replay all the images of when she, rather than riding the horse, was happily riding on top of my hips.


    After taking a moment to calm myself down and push aside those impure thoughts, I looked back at Elia, trying my best to not let her cute face throw me off once again.


    "I already agreed to work with him. What''s more, with how reliant we will be on the mines he gifted to us, he will be forced to take care of one of the most important places in the entire project of mine, the one producing all the steam horses. And just like I told you last night, most of our future projects will rely heavily on those!"


    Considering how I already changed the name for the machine guns to reaper guns, there was no point in trying to stick with the conventions I knew from the future times. With how insanely popular and deeply engraved in polish culture the horses were, using the name of a steam horse would make the steam engines even more popular where the time for selling them all over the country would come!


    "Don''t you think that on the other hand, puts us at his mercy? What will happen if he were to suddenly die? In the end, there is no way for us to make sure that his successor will like the idea of cooperating with us!"


    Once again, Elia was on her roll of proper points that I didn''t think about before, yet this time, she managed to hit at the matter I didn''t have any real countermeasure for. Just like she pointed out, if something were to happen to the Governor and his heir would block us from both the mines or just the steam horses factory, most of the rapid progress that would hopefully be happening all over my lands, would almost instantly slow down to the point of stalling!


    "While there is nothing we can do about this, who said that we can''t set a single factory for the steam horses on our lands? Even if we would lose the access to the mines, we could still buy the iron all over the continent, and as soon as our roads will connect us to even a single diffrent mine, just by throwing enough gold at its owner we could not only help to modernise it, but also buy the rights to a part of its haul!"

 113 Atmospheric Steam Engine

    17th April 1574


    "Let the feast begin!"


    Despite quite a lot of the guests still travelling with their more extensive luggage and entourage, as soon as I got back to the Tarnow with Elia and just a few of my trusty retainers, I rushed towards the town centre to announce the start of the fest.


    Rather than trying to make them skip the fun, I simply wanted to save them the trouble of dealing with the official part that unofficially most of the nobles simply despised, yet did their best to uphold due to the nature of their social standing.


    With the new batch of my premium beer instantly delivered to both the town centre where the higher social circles would have their town and in lesser quantity to the commoner''s ground, so that even the poor part of my subjects would have the chance to revel in the luxury of normally only applicable to the lives of the nobles.


    At first, I thought that this entire event would be nothing more than just a waste of time with some occasional chances of meeting with a figure that I could use later on for the sake of expanding my projects or influence, and the reality didn''t disappoint me all that much.


    As soon as the official introductions were done, rather than wasting my precious time on silly dances or just drinking beer with the nobles around, I instead moved back to the castle, while leaving Elia along with a few people to make sure she would be safe to cater to the guests.


    If I were to do something like this in the modern times, I would be met with the huge scorn of all sides of political spectrum, starting with leftists hating the fact that I pushed the responsibility on a damned woman, while those on the rights hating me for not taking proper care for my own wife, who could be pregnant.


    Yet in my new times, the wife wasn''t only a womb that was supposed to bring more children to the family, but an important person in a said household! If not for the fact that in this particular case I had to hold the control over the entire treasury of ours to make sure all the projects had enough gold to develop at a fast rate, I could forget about ever seeing a red-golden again in my life!


    As soon as I got back to my own chambers, I sat in front of what Elia called a "drawing table" but what was, in essence, the simplest of the desks one could find in the world, along with a pile of clean paper sheets, a piece of charcoal in a special handle aimed to prevent one''s fingers from getting dirty and a set of sharpened, goose feathers along with a capped, small bottle of ink.


    I knew that for most of the nobles in not only the commonwealth but the entire continent, this set would be worth a few silvers at most, with most of them only bothering to spare any thought about the writing utensils as they could fetch a few beers worth of price on the market, yet for me, this was the greatest treasure that my lands could offer!


    With no prior experiences of trying to create this kind of tool, I couldn''t rely on the system to provide a complete blueprint for me, catered to the problems this particular engine had to solve. Rather than that, I wrote down a few lines highlighting the points of what I wanted this steam horse to do, before trying to figure out a way in which it could work.


    Yet instead of trying to create complicated machinery required to make a proper steam engine, I decided to go with the mechanism far more popular and easy to make, yet for the wider populace known only from the places that used it even in modern times.


    The atmospheric steam engine that is!


    Instead of using the high pressure created by turning the water into vapour, it was the force of counterweight that lift the cylinder up, while turning the valve between the cylinder pipe and the boiler and allowing the steam to fill the tube. At its maximum height, another valve would turn, opening a pipe that sprinkled cold water inside the tube filled with vapour, instantly lowering its temperature, and leading to its condensation. With the volume inside the tube now changing, the pressure from the air itself would push the cylinder back down, closing the cooling water valve, and opening back the valve connecting the cylinder to the boiler, allowing the process to be reset and restarted.


    But while turning the up and down movement into a circular movement required by any of the real machines to work was easy, how I would go about transfering this momentum through the expanses of the mine?


    A rope.


    Putting the massive building outside of the mine itself, it would simply spin a single, big circle, that would be connected with rope or later on, a metal chain. This kind of connector would be later pulled to the transmission pole, on which a set of gear circles would spin as well, and allow yet another rope or chain to be attached to the next pole, all the way to the place where the energy would actually be required!


    As for the systems that would make use of this free energy, if I were to waste my time on figuring out the designs for all of them, then before any of the machines would be put to actual use, my sons would be ruling what would remain out of my underdeveloped lands!


    Yet as soon as I finished drawing the project for this atmospheric engine before I could even waste some of my precious materials on making my first attempt at building it with my own hands, I felt my consciousness trembling before I saw a flash in the corner of my vision.


    Instantly moving the window with the system back to the royal place in the middle of my sight, I couldn''t prevent a big, crazed smile from emerging on top of my lips.


    "Steam engineer title acquired!"


    "Unlocking basic steam engineer tools!"

 114 Not-yet golden area

    17th April 1574


    In the end, while the notification from the system sounded like a solution to all my problems, I hit the same wall I did back when I first used the crafting tool with the beer. But this time, instead of a few handfuls of grain, some fruits and water necessary to make the final product, creating the atmospheric steam engine would require me to provide only about fifty kilograms (110pounds) of iron for the boiler and cylinder tube, twenty kilograms of wood for the cold water container, twenty kilograms of iron for all the miscellaneous parts like pipes, valves and sprinklers and only about three thousand bricks!


    But at least there was a tasty topping on this cake made out of bullshit, in form of a complete blueprint, that I could simply redraw on the physical paper to avoid making all sorts of mistakes that I would do by following my gut feeling alone.


    Yet while the cost of creating an atmospheric steam engine was rather steep for a personal project of mine done only for the sake of testing its capability, if I wanted to, there would be no problem with investing only about one hundred, fifty kilograms (about 290 pounds) to make a more compact version of a proper steam engine, using the densely condensed water vapour as its driving force rather than the pressure from the air itself.


    Sadly, this wasn''t something that I could just make in one day and claim that I was working on it since a while ago. With the level of details that this example would require to be replicated, one would need to just go around few smiths in the lands that I visited in the last month to realise that the orders for such precise and fine elements were never placed in their workshops!


    In the end, while I had to abandon the idea of creating a small engine for myself with how the customizing ability was locked behind higher level of the title I just received, as soon as I would get to those iron mines, completing the design that I came up with and improved with the help of my system would take only a few days, allowing for the swift exploitation of the reserves of iron hidden deep underground.


    As for its usages, I already talked about this topic back when I introduced the idea of steam power to the governor. With how the mines lied to the north of the Stone River, just a bit to the north of the middle-sized city of Kiel, any kind of the finished products in the area of the mines could be transported downstream on the stone river, and then upstream the Vistula River with barges all the way to my lands!


    At the very least, the reserves of oil could be found directly on the lands that I owned, giving me the window of an advantage as soon as the engines working on oil alone could be producedˇ­ Meaning that for the next few years at the very least, the grace and friendship of the governor would be of the utmost importance!


    After weighing all the pros and cons of the current situation, I finally came to a realisation that in order to put the development in its full spin, there was no other choice than to start most of my industrial projects in the iron mining area!


    Thankfully, with how much land did the governor directly own around this place, I could ship the sulfur directly from his own mines barely fifty kilometres (about 31 miles) to the south, providing the two of us with ample resource of gunpowder required in mining the limestone required to make the concrete and the asphalt mix itself.


    With the decision where my next focus would be, I forced myself to ignore the pain in my heart as I did so, but still written off three major projects that would start in this area, while hoping that I would somehow convince the governor to pass those lands directly to me later on, in exchange for the insane wealth that they would bring to him in taxes.


    At first, the first atmospheric steam horse had to be built. With how the mines would rely on its power to speed up the most annoying tasks like pumping the water out, moving the haul up to the surface or even crushing the hard rocks with a primitive steam tool I already found a design for in the system, there was no other way to start it out.


    Later on, when enough of the necessary resources would be gathered, I would go on and build a first, massive smelting area, with air pumps powered by either the same steam horse that would be already in place or by its twin that I wouldn''t mind paying for from my own pocket. While making steel would still require me to find a stable source of coal, as long as even a minimal amount of it could be found on the market, creating proper steel in almost any given amount wouldn''t be that far from reality!


    As for the last of the projects that I would place in the same area, it would be nothing else than a stone quarry. With how much power would be required to bring its production levels to what would satisfy me, I already expected two, three or even more steam horses to be required for all the tasks from transporting the ore around, through crushing it into small pieces all the way to storing it in a place where either carriages or barges could pick it up.


    While all of the tasks that I outlined already felt overwhelming, once again following the advice of the governor, all I really had to do to kick them off, was to gather the materials that the system asked for and get some people to assemble them into the very first steam horse!


    As soon as that bit would be done, not only I could prove to the governor that there was nothing more profitable than investing in my projects, all the other steps required to push the commonwealth into industrial ear would become easier as well.


    Tired from all the thinking, drawing and analyzing, I took a last look at the piece of paper that contained the blueprint for the very first steam horse that this world would see, along with the insane number of notes, smaller pictures and quick ideas that filled all the gaps outside of the main image of the machine before finally standing up from my desk only to realise that while I was so focused on my task, a bowl filled with meat and pieces of bread somehow found its way to the room!

 115 You want to expand even more?

    19th April 1574


    Contrary to all the events in Pilzno that concluded after just a single day, the partying in Tarnow lasted an entire three days before the guests finally started moving on and returning back to their own homes.


    Overall, while the cost of organising all the festivities sucked all of the profits from the beer trade ever since its establishment, just the amount of primary contracts and down payment I got from all kinds of nobles willing to pay with their own blood for just a barrel of the premium beer allowed me to not only make up for the cost of the party, but also gain a hefty sum of about two hundred red goldens!


    With how insanely huge the demand for the product was, all of the resources that were in the town were instantly turned into additional brewing lines for the beer, yet contrary to what some might expect, after doubling the output of the premium drink, all the further expansion focused solely on the basic one.


    Yet I perfectly knew that if I flooded the market with more beer than I could sell to the nearest neighbours of mine, rather than earning from it myself, people would just use it as yet another luxury product that could bring them money a bit further down the road either west or east. Even if this kind of natural promotion done by the smaller merchants could work wonders in terms of popularizing the brand, with how insane this beer was as compared to the modern standards, I could make far better use of it by introducing it myself and using the sudden rise of popularity to promote all the other products.


    But while the drink business was insanely profitable, rather than managing it myself, I shifted all the responsibility for it on Matsu''s shoulders, even going as far as starting the construction of the very first, administration building, located right beside the castle, where all the managers for all my projects would tune the fine details of their respective responsibilities.


    After all, while I could focus my entire attention and bring far more benefits by constantly upgrading it and expanding to new fields of with new products, that would be a waste not only of my time, but also of my capabilities. Just like with the monopolisation process of all the taverns in my lands, rather than dealing with it myself, I simply pushed the responsibility on the shoulders of the most prominent owner out of those who decided to cooperate with me, and after setting the outline of what I expected him to do, I simply pushed this project out of my memory, limiting my interaction with the matter to the occasional reading through reports.


    Because right now, I had a far more important task on my hands!


    "So that''s the lists of the items you need to create the first steam horse?"


    Using the opportunity that the Governor would return to his own lands from the Tarnow, I decided to accompany him on his way there. With various tasks still requiring the attention of the owners, I already convinced Elia to stay home for about two weeks, before she would get her own escort and join me at the mining town that I was going to establish at our mines.


    "Yeah. What''s more, this steam horse is just a first step in my plan of developing those lands, so I hoped that as soon as it would be made, we could reach an agreement in which the lands where those mines are, along with the settlement that I want to establish there could be transferred to my ownership. While all its taxes could be transferred directly to your family coffers, sir, if I want to set all the projects I have in mind for that land, I need to be in direct control over this land."


    Just like Elia pointed out unless the governor would gift or sell me that part of his own lands, I would be unable to really invest myself in it. But there was no way he would deprive himself of all the benefits stemming from the fact that not only he promoted the development of this place but also invested in it as well. That was the reason why I before even talking about the terms of this potential transaction, I already gave up the rights to any taxes collected in that place!


    "You just tripled the amount of land you own directly in a single place, and you are already seeking a way to expand even further? Aren''t you a bit too hasty here?"


    It was only understandable that Jan would oppose this idea. If I were to grow too fast, not only he could feel his control over my actions wavering a bit, but all the neighbouring nobles both in the southern part of the province as well around the lands that I was currently trying to buy, would find me quite annoying, especially when the prosperity of those lands would start attracting the refugees and free men from their lands directly under my rule!


    "Sir, with all due respect, I do not aim to become one of the grain potentates. I do not wish to receive large swaths of land that could be farmed for profit, but only as much as it would take to establish a proper housing and amenities for all the workers that will soon flood this place! With your coffers filling with a part of the wages I would pay them, along with a portion of the haul from all the investments I will focus myself in, rather than keeping it to yourself, wouldn''t it be easier to just wash your hands away from it while collecting the taxes in peace? But just like you said, sir. We can always talk about this topic when the first steam horse will start operating!"


    As the entire travelling column already formed at the fields outside of the city, if we didn''t want to stall the entire group from leaving, we had to end our talk right here. Jumping on Helga''s back, I looked back, only to spot some of my own carriages filled with barrels upon barrels of beer. Rather than taking the heavy resources required to settle the first engine along on this rather lengthy ride, I preferred to take way lighter beer with me, sell it during our stay in Sandomir and use the money obtained to procure all the materials right there, before letting them all flow down the Vistula and then upstream the Stone River all the way to our final destination.


    "I think that''s a good idea. As for the workers required for your mines and the building projects, I think you can obtain them cheaply from the Sandomir slums or fetch them from the villages along the way. Anyway, are you really sure you don''t want to travel in the carriage with me?"


    Hearing the governor''s kind invitation, I shifted my head to the side, watching the simple construction of the massive vehicle he intended to ravel in, only to shift my eyes back to the soft back of my loyal mount.


    "Thank you, sir, but I think I will stay on the horseback. With the quality of our roads, we wouldn''t get to talk all that much anyway, so there is no point in making my buttocks sore from all the bumping!"


    Kindly refusing the generous offer, I nodded my head, before tickling Helga''s sides with my heels and making her jump into a slow trot. With the two of us finishing our conversation, there was nothing else stopping the entire column from starting its journey, so with just a simple gesture of the governor''s hand from the insides of his carriage, the men started shouting around as the horses stopped grazing on the roadside grass and finally pushed the entire group forward.

 116 Meeting the merchan

    20th April 1574


    Back in the times where I studied the history both on my own and while listening to my class teacher, I never imagined how important the water connections would be for the people living in the times that now turned into my own timeline. With all the automation, mechanisation and most importantly - cars and roads, I simply couldn''t understand what was so great in living beside a big river, outside of the easy access to an abundant source of water.


    Yet after a slightly painful trip on top of Helga''s back during which I had to adjust my tempo to the unimaginably slow speed of the carriages when we finally reached a small town on the right coast of the Vistula river, I finally got my answer to the doubt I had ever since learning about the water transportation all those years back.


    As soon as the most important wares that would be instantly required in the Sandomir were moved on top of those simple boats, the governor along with some of his most loyal men boarder the first barge and invited me in. With no other choice, after making sure that the all the barrels with my beer found its way to one of the other barges that would normally remain idle all the way to the harvest season outside of rare situations like the one we had right now, I accepted the invitation and boarded the wooden vessel.


    And then I realised how wrong I was so far when disregarding this kind of transportation!


    Despite two paddlers priming the way in front of the transportation barges, the rope that held them together was constantly loose, with the only source of our momentum coming from the flow of the river itself. Yet even then, judging by how fast we were skimming through the vast expanses of land I could already tell that while the marching speed for the horse was still a bit greater, compared to using mounts, the boats didn''t tire at all!


    In just three hours we moved all the way from the small port to the River docks in the major city of Sandomir!


    Even though I hoped that I could instantly unload the cargo and go around the town selling it to every merchant willing to buy it, as soon as Jan saw my eagerness to start working, he had to force me to slow down and take it easy. Unable to refuse the direct order from my superior, I could only swallow this sour pill and sit down on my bottom in the chamber of the Sandomir''s palace, anxious about wasting so much time!


    Yet contrary to my expectations, as soon as the morning of the next day came, rather than putting me through a set of official feasts or even a proper breakfast, the governor himself leads me to one of the merchants that had close ties with the palace, instantly liquifying all my assets at once!


    While I was quite happy to get this useless load off my back and wanted to go to the market myself to procure all the resources necessary to start the development of my mines before I could even leave the place, the very same merchant already promised to deliver iron, bricks, mortar and even the food required to feed all the workers I would have to bring while promising to rally up a group of at least one hundred people to work under me!


    At this point, I couldn''t help but suspect that rather than being a merchant, this man was just the governor''s retainer tasked with fulfilling all the requests I would have just in order to put me in debt of his lord, yet when all the details were finally discussed and most of my money that I just got had to be returned back to this man, I had the chance to see him board one of the most exquisite carriages I ever saw in my life!


    With its walls decorated with true gold, and doors with a real, clean glass that I didn''t expect to see in this time and age, I finally have begun to believe that this person was, in fact, a huge merchant, capable of providing all the stuff I required but also smart enough to believe when Governor recommended a product himself!


    "I know what you were thinking, and no, it''s not one of my men dressed in fancy clothes. If you are willing to use at least some of the haul from all those projects of yours, there won''t be a better trading partner for you than him."


    From how respectful the governor was towards this rich person, I could tell that rather than being just a big and wealthy merchant, his influence had to reach far further than I expected, maybe even all the way to the northern, port city of Gdansk (Danzing). The fact that he, as a trader, managed to create such a powerful position for himself in this nobility controlled country, only meant on how crafty and decisive he had to be!


    Thinking about his position and what it would mean for me, I couldn''t help but once again think about the silly idea I had whenever I looked at the map of the commonwealth in this period. If all my projects turned out to be as successful as I hoped they would, then maybe connecting the northern ports on the baltic sea with the southern trade hubs lying on the coast of the black sea could become a reality?


    "Sir, what is the name of that man?"


    "He is Dantan Grunning, a polonised Noble whose family got exiled from the Saxon Electorate. Rumours says that he built his power with the help of the Hanseatic league."

 117 Anxiety and lesson

    20th April 1574


    "Hanseatic League you sayˇ­"


    This name was enough to awaken the memories of the great time I had when reading quite a popular book that spoke about the characters that happened to find themselves in quite a similar situation that I currently am, despite the fact that they would be reincarnated not in Poland, but in the Danish occupied Norway. The other differences lied in the fact that instead of simply appearing in the different timeline, they were killed during the apocalypse and kind of remade from the super-ultra-futuristic hard drive that the alien responsible for said apocalypse created to rebuild their bodies and psyche in another timeline for the sake of making them find some kind of artefact.


    But with how I was transported to this time with not even a hint of a clue what might be the reason for it, could I maybe find the traces of their existence during my own endeavours?


    Yet before my mind could be flooded by the memories of the good old days where my greatest worry was nothing else but the incoming math test, I realised that after dropping this vague mention of this powerful organisation, the governor expected me to follow up with something else.


    "That means if we could rope him to our project, making him the main outlet for all the wares that will be produced in the mining areaˇ­ Then wouldn''t our influence overwhelm the entire baltic and northern sea regions?"


    The Hanseatic League was nothing else but a powerful merchant company, that not only held the lands in various coastal cities in the eastern and northern Europe, it was also one of the most influential organisations, not bound by the country, but that also existed in the current age!


    If not for the trends of the western part of the continent to focus more on the exploration of the faraway lands, their strength could remain a deciding factor for far longer, which would, in turn, keep Polish trade far stabler than it was after the downfall of the Hansa and the rise of the national fleets of both the Russia and future Swedish empire.


    But what if instead of failing to compete with more western-oriented merchants, I would give them the tool to promote Commonwealth as the centre of the modernisation for the entire world? With their money, creating multiple, portable steam engines would be as easy as wrecking an entire island from the hands of militaristic Teutonic order - something they accomplished by pushing both the Poland and Lithuania, yet to be united at that time, to the war that ended up with the greatest medieval battle that ever happened!


    "It''s not me that you should be asking those questions. When you will get this steam horse prepared, I will make sure to invite him so that he could take a look and judge its worth himself."


    But on the other hand, if I could prove to the governor and Dantan the true worth of modernisation, then wouldn''t I have far more resources at hand than necessary to make the development drive explode in the entire country?


    With proper financing, instead of building a silly road between the cities that I owned, I could connect all the major cities with proper tracts. By turning the traditional mining and smelting into highly industrialised projects, even creating the very first train in the entire world didn''t seem all that impossible!


    "The look on your face has changed, what happened?"


    Instead of waiting for me to reply to his words, Governor used his years of experience of dealing with people to see right through the anxious look on my face. Only when I heard his question did I realise that under the immense joy of turning the country I loved so much into a powerhouse even greater than it already was, but most importantly - giving it a way out of the quagmire its system would soon put it in, my actions would most likely lead to an all-out war where industrialised commonwealth would have to face all its neighbours, worried about its sudden development spike!


    "Sirˇ­ I just realised what my inventions will lead to. And I''m not sure if someone as small as me can handle the consequences that this change will bring not only to this country but to the entire world as well."


    Speaking those words, I fully opened myself to the governor. While I grew up in the future and speaking about the matters concerning the entire world should be far easier for me, when faced with the fact that I would be at the forefront of this change, not only sparking the fire of development in the country but also being its main fuel with all the inventions I had in store, I realised that I simply had no way of protecting myself against the wrath of all the people whose ages-long traditions would be tackled and destroyed by the movement I created!


    "There is no point in worrying about it, brother. Just like you got overwhelmed by how complicated some of your ideas are, to the point where I don''t really understand whats their point myself, now you are just anxious about exactly the same thing. But rather than trying to take it a step at a time, this time, I need to give you different advice."


    Suddenly approaching me, the governor put an amiable smile on his face, only to suddenly reach with his hand to the back, only to slap me straight in the face with all the might that this veteran had!


    "Stop being so fucking arrogant!"


    With the slap making my face sting all over, governor''s words only added the insult to the injury. Initially flaring up against this unfair treatment received for the honest worries I had, when the pain in my cheek subsidised enough to let me think straight, I realised that rather than following up his initial attack with the next round of beating, Jan was simply standing a single step away, with an expectant look on his face.


    Stirring my mind to its highest spin, I did my very best to understand what did this man meant by both his actions and words. It wasn''t like him to just slap someone in the face for no good reason. What did he mean by calling me arrogant?


    "Ah, I get it."


    With the sudden realisation finally pushing all my worries and anxiety aside, I straightened myself back to the normal position, before bowing deeply to the man in front of me.


    "Thank you for your advice."


    Just like the governor said, I was truly arrogant. Not only I have yet to build a single steam engine, but I was also already worrying about the matters that would turn into reality only if everything would go exactly as I planned it to go.


    But what if the blueprints I had turned out to be faulty? What if the materials would turn out to be not resilient enough to handle the stress that the engine would put on them? What if literally anything happens that would prevent some of the other projects I had in my mind from succeeding?


    That alone showed how defiant I was to the fact, that rather than the creator of my own fate, I was just a small ant in the eyes of the God that created this world and that I, despite transmigration to a different timeline, still choose to believe in. Yet even if my faith was directed in a wrong place, what did I meant to someone who managed to transport me here from my original place?


    And to top it all up, even if everything would go just as planned, the responsibility wouldn''t rest on my shoulders alone! If I got the backing of Hansa, along with all the help that the governor already offered me, wouldn''t they be here to share this burden with me?

 118 Difrence between a story and a reality

    21st April 1574


    Despite my initial intention to have a serious talk with Dantan, even though I had the opportunity to do so right at the evening of the day when all the resources would be loaded on top of the barges while the workers would be temporarily housed in a big barn near the city docks, yet after thinking this through, I refrained from doing so.


    According to the Governor''s words, in about two weeks time, he would bring him along in order to check the progress on building the steam horse, giving me the chance to start the talks based on an existing machine rather than something that for now remained as nothing but a simple concept.


    After a good night of sleep preceded by a sumptuous supper at the Jan''s palace, I woke up with the first ringing of the city bell, and after dressing as soon as possible, I almost ran to the docks. With how the road to our destination would still take us around five hours, most of which we would spend by being pulled upstream the Stone River which would drastically reduce our speed, there wasn''t any time left for me to waste.


    Instead of visiting the palace''s kitchen on the go in order to grab something to eat, I used the fact that most of the shop vendors on the streets woke up way before just for the sake of catching the same kind of people like me, rushing towards their tasks without any time to waste on such a stupid matter like food.


    After a fast exchange of a single Grosh (*Check A/N) for a dish that I honestly would never believe if someone would tell me it wasn''t a modern invention. With a long, crunchy baguette serving as the base for the meal, filled with all sorts of ingredients from meat, through onion all the way to the cheese, and then baked again in a portable oven that the shop owner had on the side of his stall, I could fill my belly with a juicy mix of various flavours that otherwise would only be available all the way in Italy, in form of the dish that does not need an introduction.


    Destroying this meal that came close to the level of a piece of art with huge bites that didn''t even allow me to fully enjoy the complicated taste I ran towards the docks area, only to see the crowd of people already boarding the barges. Contrary to the previous travel we caught in a small village on the coast of Vistula, Sandomir could offer all sorts of high-end ships, even ones that outside of the pulling factor for the barges could serve as a proper housing for the higher ranked nobles who rented them.


    Instead of cramming in line with everyone else, I simply boarded the ship at the front, spending the loading time on watching the events in the dock. While almost all of the materials were already loaded yesterday or through the night, there was still quite a lot of wares that some of the craftsmen worked overnight to prepare, as there would be no specialistic tools required to make them already in the mining area.


    Finally, after about an hour spent by the workers of the dock mostly on moving the heavy metal parts from the land on board the barges, the entire naval group finally started to move.


    At first, all that the sailors did was to drop the securing lines that bound the ships to the pylons ashore, yet instead of just allowing the ships to drift along with the current of the river, the people that remained on land used long, wooden poles to push the ships away from the danger of crashing them against landed infrastructure and other docked ship.


    Moment by moment, the port area of the town was moving further and further away, indicating that my journey towards the mines gifted to me by the governor was finally fully starting. While there was still quite a lot of time before I would get to see the lands that would soon become a focal point for the development in the entire country, and the basis for the development directly in the Tarnowian region, I could already feel the hype growing in my mind.


    Yet this was also the moment what I once again painfully realised the difference between dreams, novels and reality. While in some kind of book, just by using the words "and so a day passed" the story would move on to the next important or interesting point, keeping the reader''s attention to the stuff that would actually keep him entertained, yet living those events with my own most likely mortal body, I had to sit down and endure the long hours of the journey.


    At first, I managed to keep myself occupied with the novelty of travelling on the ship, yet contrary to moving around by horse, I didn''t even get this trusty mount of mine to talk to in the moments of loneliness. Even though the ship was full of people taking their time to rest before the long hours of paddling would start, with the difference between their common and my noble status, even attempting to start an empty talk would be seen as a gross slap to the social expectations placed on my shoulders.


    God, how I wished to just be able to snap my fingers and say "and so the mundane journey came to an end" only to appear in my destination already! Watching the changing landscape wasn''t as interesting as poets liked to put it, not even the playful moves of the ships easily traceable from the deck of my ship could kill my boredom at this point!


    And so, this boring journey came to an end.

 119 Problems with the design

    21st April 1574


    Despite how we arrived in the place rather late, with only about two or three hours before the sun would set beyond the horizon, rather than looking for the nearby villages where this huge crowd of people could spend the incoming night, I instantly pushed them to work.


    Obviously, before the construction of the steam horse could start, I still had to take care of their basic needs, but that was something I thought about in advance. Following the example of the later ages, instead of making small tents capable of housing up to two or maybe three people, I ordered one group of people to bring the huge pieces of cloth along with the sharpened, wooden poles.


    As soon as the materials arrived on the site set just beside the messy sheds containing the hole leading towards the depths of the mine, craftsmen received a rare responsibility to order the rest of the people around, erecting four massive tents almost in an instant.


    With each one of them capable of housing exactly twenty-five people, I could house all the simple workers in the big tents, while allowing the skilled craftsmen to set smaller ones for themselves.


    Thinking about this, I couldn''t help but hope that the work on the steam horse could progress as quickly as possible since even in this limestone-rich land, it wasn''t any trouble to find a reasonable amount of clay to warrant building a small brick factory.


    Yet even this small project aiming at turning all of this temporary housing into a camp filled with sturdy buildings required the presence of the steam horse, not only for the sake of making the excavation job easier but for almost complete automation of the process shaping, burning and drying the bricks!


    Obviously, while I could dream of automating most of the work that was necessary to get the finished products, even if I were to get close to this goal, a single type of work would remain fueled only by the power of the human muscles.


    Heating the boilers.


    Even though all the problems related to the production of charcoal could be simply ignored due to the fact that a huge forest was just beside the mining area, I still had to push some people to cut those trees, portion them and throw them into the ever-burning fire under the boilers of all the steam horses that I would build in this place!


    My creative soul was screaming the ideas that could help to solve this problem, yet I simply didn''t have access to complicated tools like conveyor belts or conveyor splitters that I remembered from one of the factory building games that I loved to waste my time on. No matter how much I racked my brains, the problem of delivering the wood to the fire, but in reality, all the other transportation problems that applied to all the other projects still required manpower to be solved!


    Just as I was about to once again throw my imagination in its full spin into figuring out how would this place develop in a span of not months, but years, one of the skilled workers approached me, forcing me out of my bubble back into the problems of the current day.


    "Sir, the tents are all done, what should we do now?"


    With how the very first thing I did after landing on the ground was to set up the chain of command with the craftsmen capable of ordering around a small group of common workers as they wished, rather than gathering everyone whenever a task was finished, I simply had to relay my orders to one of the craftsmen to have all of my subordinates start working.


    "I don''t think there is any point to waste our time on anything else than our main project. We need to move all the resources from the barges to the building site, and at least markdown areas where all the buildings will be set. I assume you received the blueprints?"


    Back during the height of my boredom on the ship, I made sure to draw several copies of the blueprint for the steam horse and distribute it amongst the craftsmen to let them familiarise themselves with the design. As such, I could at least expect them to know the overall size of this stationary machine, giving me the chance to as them for this much, without bothering my own hands with doing it myself.


    "Yes, sir. But about this blueprintˇ­ One of my friends pointed out that it would provide movement only during the raise of the counterweight, meaning that as long as the burden will be greater than the pull on the weight, this entire machine, with all the respect to how ingenious the use of steam is, would stall. Ah, please, do not misunderstand, my lord. Rather than trying to oppose the idea, he proposed to make two machines at once, with one delayed just enough to provide movement when the other one is in the process of reheating."


    Listening to the proposition of the courageous man in front of me, I couldn''t help but once again sweep my impression of the people of this time under the rug while pretending it never existed. Rather than blindly following the blueprints, those early engineers managed to find this rather obvious flaw, and actually send someone to report it?


    That by itself was quite commendable, as not many people of this age would dare to even express their doubts directly into a noble''s face!


    "You are absolutely right, but it''s not like I don''t think that solution would work, but we still need to start with something. With the limited number of small parts like valves or sprinklers, we can only afford to build a single steam horse. But as your suggestion is absolutely rightˇ­"


    Taking the blueprint from the pile made off my own luggage, I grabbed a small piece of dirt from the ground and added a few, ugly lines to the drawing.


    "Since we have more than enough bricks and wood to set the layout of more than a single steam horse, you can reserve the space directly next to the one we can afford to build. Also, there is something you or your friend didn''t think about."


    Looking at the nearby place where in just a few short days, the most futuristic machine of this entire world would be built, I couldn''t stop myself from putting on a hopeful smile.


    "We don''t know whether the process of heating and cooling will take the same amount of time. That''s why I don''t want to build more than one steam engines, before testing it out. Only when we will know the exact timing for the steam horse cycles, will we be able to come up with a design that will be able to work without rest!"

 120 Meeting the locals

    22nd April 1574


    After spending the night in a surprisingly comfortable manner, as soon as the sun started peeking from beyond the horizon line, most of the workers woke up, used to this kind of schedule. While there was no city bell to wake me up, a simple request to one of the craftsmen was enough to get me going along with everyone.


    With the entire new day at hand, the work started surprisingly quickly. From digging a small hole in the place where the steam horse would be just so that we could lay its foundations and make it more stable than it would be if built right on top of the ground. Even though the idea was to set up a long line of those machines one by one, for now, I still decided to prevent the workers from digging along the marked line, limiting them to preparing the space for a single set only.


    Thanks to the fact that the amount of the different wares that we brough with us was so huge, there wasn''t any problem with me sneaking out to collect some of the limestones from the huge pile of the leftover stone ditched right beside the entrance shed to the mine, turning it with the help of the system into a small pile of concrete. It was true that we brough way more than enough resources to build the frame for even three different steam horses at once, but if we were to use the local mortar on the foundations, this number would fall down drastically, forcing me to provide another kind of material that would actually do an even better job.


    But when it finally came to laying down the foundations, I once again realised, how long it would take for this kind of simple job to be finished! With no concrete mixer, I had to steal one of the big pots that were supposed to be used by the cooks to prepare simple meals for everyone, clean it up with water, two bags of concrete inside and add enough water to turn it into a proper paste, before pouring it down to the hole which walls were reinforced with simple, wooden planks.


    And this entire process, that took me about a quarter of an hour, filled maybe a twentieth of the hole itself!


    Only at this point did I realise why the governor gave me two weeks before he would visit. If all the buildings steps would take so long, it would be hard to even finish this task in the given time-frame!


    But thinking about this, rather than lacking the manpower here, we simply lacked the proper tools to speed up the progress of the more mundane tasks. And since that was the case, instead of lamenting over how long it would take us to finish just the first step of the job, it would be better to actually do something about it!


    "Al, get four more people and give them some weapons. We are going to the nearby village."


    In fact, I did it without even considering the option of robbing the entire village out of all their tools that could become useful for the building process, since outside of the cities, showing up a single golden coin was enough to make the entire local community grab whatever weapons they could use at hand and chase us down to get their hands on this rare treasure!


    That was also the reason why despite holding silvers in my pouch that were far safer to use in trade, I still brough a small escort with me as we departed to pay a visit to a nearby village.


    With how beneficial it was for the fields and later, pushing the goods down the main trade highway of the Vistula river, walking on foot to the nearest settlement took us only about half an hour. Yet contrary to my expectations, the village we found wasn''t nearly as big as I hoped it would be, indicating that the number of useful utensils that we could buy off them would be pitifully low, not to speak about a local smithy where such items could be produced.


    "Who are you and what the fuck do you want in our place?"


    As soon as we reached the distance when it became obvious that the village was the target for my small, relatively well-armed group, a party of villagers holding forks, knives and even some selfires(*) came out from the small yard around which most of the houses were build, forcing us to stop our travel.


    "How dare you threaten a noble with your pitiful weapons! Drop them down and fall down to your kneesˇ­"


    Rather than letting me deal with the matter, Al stepped to the front with the intention of properly introducing me. But when I heard what kind of approach he took, I hurried forward only to hold him down, stopping this dumb noble from worsening our situation.


    "I''m sorry for him. While I am a noble, I came here hoping to buy some stuff. Those people here are only for my protection. Can we all lower our weapons now? I don''t think any reason to kill each other over a small misunderstanding like this one!"


    Considering how those lands belonged to the Jan Bone alone, if I were to stir up some mess with his villagers, our relationship was bound to suffer a rather heavy hit. It wasn''t even about the fact that killing his serfs would lead to a direct decrease of his income from his own fields, but rather the fact that he wouldn''t do anything about someone who killed his people, putting the loyalty of the rest of his subjects in a danger.


    "What the hell do you want then?"

 121 Negotiating with the villagers

    22nd April 1574


    "I know this might sound weird, but do you maybe have any huge pots? The bigger, the better. Also, if you have any men looking for work, I could make use of them as well."


    Rather than replying in kind to the rude question of the villager, I simply explained what I came here for, hoping that my politeness wouldn''t be taken as a sign of weakness. While it was rare to see villagers randomly attack a noble, especially if they knew that not only he had an armed escort but also a huge group waiting for his return, I couldn''t help but worry.


    After all, in this day and age, taking one''s life was as simple and easy as eating a meal!


    "We don''t have any spare ones, but Nemen Village might have some in stock. After all, they have a smithyˇ­"


    As soon as the villager finished his sentence, he spewed his saliva to the side, as if even a single mention of the neighbouring place made him want to throw up. But while others might take it for a bad sign, since the conflict between local communities would make it harder to cooperate with them all at once, I saw a nice opportunity in it!


    "Tell me, do you guys hate each other to the point when you would be forbidden entry into the other village?"


    Rather than having my workers or even retainers move around the large swaths of land, trying to collect anything that could seem to be useful, it would be far easier to simply make the locals do it in our steed.


    "Nah, those fuckers simply can''t stand the fact that they need to pay us a transportation fee whenever the time for shipping the grain comes. But for some reason, our benevolent lord decided to send a smithy to their place, rather to our village!"


    So rather than a real, ongoing conflict or some kind of blood-feud, the enmity between those two places steemed directly from the conflict of interestsˇ­ That meant that my sudden idea would turn all the easier than I imagined it to be!


    "Okay, I think I get it. What would you say, if I offered to pay double what they would ask for their pots? Would you be willing to fetch them and bring them along with anything else that I would need and you could organise to my place?"


    Flaunting the money was always the easiest way to make others cooperate with you. Just like that, rather than negotiating between the two places, or even using my technology to help the closest village to triumph over the one further away, I could simply smack them in their faces with the silver from my pouch, and have everything I deemed useful transported directly to the construction site!


    "Sirˇ­ Of course, we would!"


    "Okay then. Also, I think I can safely assume you don''t have any spare food? My men would use some fresh meals rather than those preserved rations we brought with usˇ­"


    The point I brough right now was something that I said completely randomly. From what I knew, even in the later ages, all the way until the modernisation entered its full swing around the world, the current time of the year was rather rough for the villagers'' life. With the supplies left from the last year slowly dwindling, and the first sprout of the harvestable food only coming in about month or two, I asked them for food more for the sake of making them believe I was a clueless noble just like most of them, rather than receiving fresh supplies!


    With how generous I was, claiming to pay double whey they did for the materials I required, I was giving them quite a huge field for simple cheating. By reinforcing the image of stupid noble in their heads, I could simply send one of my men to the neighbouring village to watch the events and fish for the rumours, and when he would go back with his report, I would have all the rights to take back even more money than the villagers ripped of me, simply because of the compensation right!


    "I''m sorry, sir, but we don''t really have any food to spare. If you will remain in the vincity of our village all the way to the harvesting season, we could easily trade some grain or maybe even some meat, but right now, if we were to sell you some of our supplies, then some of our people might starve later on!"


    Nodding my head while listening to the guy''s words, I noticed that at last, his party finally lowered their weapon, now holding them as nothing but additional luggage they stupidly brought. If I were to have any intention of attacking them, now would be the best time for it butˇ­


    "Okay, I get it. You can find my encampment just by following the river downstream for a while, so if you have any boats, you might want to use them for the heavier stuff. As for the men free enough to work under me for a while?"


    Putting up a front of kind and understanding yet naive noble, I switched the topic to the next most interesting matter for me. With all the wood that I had to cut and turn either to firewood or planks, with all the digging I had to do to obtain enough clay to start making my own bricks, with all the work that could be at least started before the steam horse would be finished, a bit over a hundred people was simply not enough for me!


    While I knew that hiring even more workers would hit me in my pouch, but what would be the use of money if not investing it to gain even more of it? With every finished project of mine, I could count on the Governor to provide me with supplies and investment fund, while in about two weeks, Elia would come to pay me a visit and bring yet another batch of gold partially siphoned from the beer income. If I were to keep my money for myself, in about two weeks time, I would have way more of it, with no real use for it!


    "Spare menˇ­ Sir, I''m sorry, but I don''t think I can answer this question right away. While I and my sons are free since we took care of most of our duties already, I know for a fact that some of my neighboursˇ­"


    As the villager who was most likely the village elder or leader from how he was leading the discussion with a damned noble without showing any real fear in himself, turned around to look at the people behind him, I could see whenever his sight lingered on someone''s face for a slightly longer moment than it did on the others, making their cheeks instantly turn into a nice tone of pink.


    "... my neighboursˇ­ Some of them may be willing to work, but we are not as free to do it for free!"

 122 Problems at the construction site

    22nd April 1574


    After returning from this small trip to the village, I noticed that despite over two hours passing ever since we left, the pit that was slowly taking the form of a proper foundation wasn''t even filled to the half of its height!


    While some might consider it a disgrace, with how mixing and pouring the concrete should take a lot longer, from the panicked faces of the people standing above the pit I could tell that something was wrong.


    "Sir! Thank Almighty that you are back! There is something wrong with that mortar!"


    Without me to explain that the concrete was slightly different than the mortar two of the craftsmen who worked as stonemasons were used to, it was only natural that some problems would arise, yet with my drive to increase the speed of our progress, I actually forgot about this problem so clearly outlined in the system!


    "Tell me what happened."


    Instead of turning angry or disappointed, as some of the workers might expect from a noble who saw something going not how he planned it, I asked them to tell me the details that they observed and what actually happened. From what I saw it, the main reason behind their panic could be either the fact that the concrete was poured to the hole too slowly to properly solidify or the amount of water they sprinkled it with afterwards was simply too low.


    As opposed to the older mortar, concrete was a real drinker. Even without the system reminding me about it, I could still recall watching videos on the popular platform how workers were throwing bucket after bucket of water at the drying concrete only for it to disappear before the next portion would come!


    "Sir, just like always, we were slowly pouring some water to allow the mortar to properly turn solid, as when making one on the spot, that was the standard procedure. Yet out of nowhere, not only did it absorb all the water we gave it but even started cracking! Yet even after we filled the gaps with a fresh one to make sure the foundation would be as stable as possible, the process only continued!"


    Hearing the recount of the workers who had to be instructed on the job by the stonemason due to the fact that he knew that even the old mortar had to get quite a lot of water to properly bind itself, I realised that it was the problem of the water indeed.


    "Listen up guys, this is new kind of mortar, called concrete. It needs a lot more liquid to properly solidify. From what I saw back when I was first testing it, after laying out a layer about one hand wide, we will need to leave it for about an hour, pouring the water whenever we see it drying up. Only when it will stop absorbing it, will we be able to dry it off with a cloth and pour another layer. Now, get some more water on it before it completely crumbles apart!"


    Coming inside, I saw all the skilled workers gathered over a simple table made out of some planks, nailed together and placed on top of small piles of all sort of rubble that could be easily found around the mines. On the said desk, a few, huge pieces of primitive paper was lying around, with all sorts of lines, markings and symbols indicating the distinctive places in the nearby area.


    "I''m telling you! If we set the houses near the water, not only will it be hard to secure them against the flooding, but we will take the space that could be used for the shipping buildings as well!"


    "But without doing so, creating any feasible canalisation system will be a nightmare!"


    As it appeared, I walked in right on some kind of argument between the two stonemasons, that rather than inspecting the work I ordered them to take care off, couldn''t come to an agreement regarding how would the housing for all the workers be set up in the area.


    "Guys, stop it at once!"


    Instead of letting them have their fun, I instantly infused the argument with my stern voice.


    "I guess you didn''t even realise that the mortar you used almost broke down!"


    Saying those words, I almost couldn''t stop a small smile appearing on my face. Pulling down the corners of my lips lifted by the sight of their terrified faces, I pointed at the entry to the tent.


    "I already told the workers what to do, and won''t blame you because this is a new kind of mortar, but I would like if rather than arguing over the things that are for me to decide, you would do your job properly!"


    While I couldn''t expect them to know that concrete required more water than the mortar they were used to, as people who worked with stones and mortars their entire life, I could bet that if they saw what was going on, they would realise the need to pour more water on it themselves, allowing me to blame them for leaving their duties for someone else. As for the part about deciding something myself, I inserted it in my mouth only to remind everyone that I wouldn''t let them just do all the work in my stead, as I was the one most interested in making the entire project work!


    "Listen up boys. We can''t set the town directly near the river. We don''t know how it floods, we don''t know how high it can get, we don''t know anything about it. The town will be placed deeper into the flatlands, about five to ten minutes walk from the shore of the river. And as for how to pull the water towards the town or how to settle the severs problemˇ­ You can trust me on this pointˇ­ This town will be the first of its kind!"

 123 Plans for the town

    22nd April 1574


    "While it''s not yet commonly known, but this steam horse machineˇ­ Is just a tool that will be used to increase the productivity of everything that will be built here in the future. That''s why, when thinking about building the settlement for all the workers, rather than hoping the town would grow organically, we need to assume it will explode in terms of population and as such, take proper countermeasures for all the troubles we know we will have to tackle."


    Instead of standing in front of the table, I took a piece of charcoal used by the craftsmen to draw on the paper and started walking around the inside of the tens, as if I was some kind of inspired professor giving out a lecture to a bunch of students.


    "But even if we know that we will either create some kind of severs or will be forced to live among our own dung, there are still many more questions that need to be answered before we will even start digging out the earth to make space for the foundations. Tell me then, what do one needs in a house?"


    Using this partially rhetorical question was my own way of receiving an answer that people gathered would otherwise consider obvious. As someone born and raised in the modern times of the future, I could tell about freshwater, heating service severs, gas, electricity even going as far as to include post or garbage management.


    While stuff like electricity or the gas was simply impossible to implement, not unless the gasoline would be properly introduced on an industrial scale, it was still possible to provide heating service, savage and freshwater! As long as big enough number of steam horses could be put to work, taking the freshwater from the river and dumping used one along with the severs back to its streams would be an easy task, as long as all the infrastructure would be constructed beforehand!


    "Wellˇ­ Access to water is a must, having savage would be nice, and thenˇ­ short distance to the firewood storage? Maybe short walk to the stalls area where one could supply oneself with food?"


    Hearing the answers, I couldn''t help but be terrified with how low standards the local people had. Food, water and waste, that''s all you want to be happy? If that''s true, then let''s turn this place into a heaven city worthy of the king!


    "Okay guys, to not waste any more time. Even though there is quite a few more things that I want this new city of ours to have, no matter how much we will want to expand it, we need to start with the very basic. We need to dig up the ground deep enough, to not only make sure every building will stand atop a proper foundation, similar to the one we are making for the steam horse right now but with two hollow pipes, one to lead the savage away while the other for the hot water that we might use to warm the future houses!"


    While in the future, the hot water used for heating up the houses would be provided by a single, big company located somewhere away from the town itself, I simply lacked the means to replicate the grand scale of their buildings and systems. Creating a single building where charcoal would be stored and used to heat up a single, big boiler that would be connected to the heating systems of the local neighbourhood was already the most I could do, while still forcing all the houses to use their own heaters if they wanted to obtain some hot water to wash.


    "Sir, while I understand the need for the savage hole, can you explain what will the other two be there for?"


    "Sure. Just like you pointed out, one hole in the foundations of all the buildings will be used to move the savage away. The other one will be connected in a closed system to this central building hereˇ­"


    Using my own hand, I pointed at the smaller building in the middle of the neighbourhood.


    "... where some men will be tasked to always keep the water inside said system hot enough to warm the houses up. As for the third holeˇ­"


    Looking around the room, I couldn''t help but send everyone a curious stare, unable to hold back myself from teasing them a bit, wanting to see if any of them would guess what the purpose of the last hole in the foundation would be.


    "If we take the steam horse into considerationˇ­ Can it be?!"


    Seeing that one of the craftsmen who I didn''t even recognise seemed to find some clues, rather than putting him down, I looked at him and nodded my head at him to indicate he should follow up with his thinking.


    "Do you want to use the steam horse to pump the freshwater directly to all the houses?!"


    Considering how even in major towns like Krakow, the only way to get yourself some freshwater was going on a trip to fetch some from the nearest well or directly from the river, automating the access to water would be already a huge step in bringing this world to the future reality!


    "Yes. And that''s why, building this town will be the greatest project that we will embark on, even if starting it will only be possible after all the production facilities will start working in their full swing!"

 124 Finishing the foundations

    22nd April 1574


    By the time all the blueprints for both the testing grounds for when the minimal amount of required resources would be produced and the real layout of the city were finished, I moved out from the tent, leaving the craftsmen to think over all the hints I dropped about the construction of the city.


    In the end, I was just a single person, how had some insights what kind of services made living in a city easier and would be appreciated, yet that didn''t mean I knew how to deal with all sorts of problems that local people have in my current timeline.


    Just like I thought about making small grocery stores in the middle of each neighbourhood, after consulting it with the craftsmen, they made me realise that creating a proper supply chain for each of them would be simply too hard to implement. Rather than that, this central building would be divided into twenty room and managed by a single person, who would collect the orders and money from the people living in his area and buy them from the local warehouses that would connect the town to the outside world.


    Settling the matter of simple trade like that, not only would provide all the houses with additional storage space that would be relatively close to them, it would also mean simpler distribution of goods around the town, growing at the same time as the income of the local citizens would increase, rather than averaging across the entire site!


    Yet with my thoughts returning from the imaginary streets of my future city, my eyes were drawn to the foundation pit, now nearly fully filled with wet concrete, continuously splashed with bucket upon bucket of water by the workers nearby.


    Seeing how some of the men simply watched the process as almost all craftsmen responsible for managing this workforce of mine were now busying themselves with studying the blueprint for the city, I had no other choice than to approach them by myself.


    "Hey! You guys! Go grab some tools and go cut some trees. We will need quite a lot of firewood soon!"


    Not even daring to confirm that they heard my order, the workers instantly straightened their bodies before running away towards the pile where most of the tools were. Seeing how they instantly departed for the nearby forest, I could finally rest my gaze on the foundation in making.


    "How is it going?"


    Looking at the focused faces of the craftsmen not daring to raise their eyes from the surface of the concrete even when asked directly, I turned my sight to look at the details of the almost finished foundation. Yet to my positive surprise, there wasn''t even a single crack present on its smooth surface!


    While seeing how the most annoying task out of all that would be present during the construction of the steam horse was almost done now I felt happy, hearing the inquiry about the concrete itself put me on the tip of my toes. Right now, even the production plant in Tarnow was still under the construction, while all the supply of the concrete powder was made by my system on the spot from the limestone ditched from the mines.


    "You could call it a test product I brought all the way from my southern lands, but from what I saw, as soon as we finish a few of those steam engines, we could start producing it locally. Sadly, for now, we will have to do with the limited supply that we have on hand."


    With the lack of coal, I was unable to make coke that was necessary to make any form of an efficient iron furnace. Without a proper example of steam horse to prove the governor that investing in my project was a worthwhile endeavour, I would be unable to convince him to negotiate with the owner of the nearest coal-rich lands to the east any form of trade that would require the other guy to set up the mines in the first place, as doing so was one of the most costly investments in the current age!


    That''s why, while I would love to jumpstart the productivity of this place and my lands, I had to limit myself to the charcoal-based furnaces, which would, in turn, require insane amounts of wood to be cut by hand in the first place to match the future output of the iron mines. At least, with a working steam horse, I could automate the process of pumping the fresh air into the furnace, freeing some manpower to be used elsewhere.


    "That''s really sad, sir. Anyway, I think the foundation should be done now. With your permission, we would like to start laying out the bricks. From what I remember, we should start with filling the base, and limiting ourselves to building the walls alone the higher we go, right, sir?"


    With how the bricks of this construction would be used only for the sake of holding the entire metal structure in place, as long as the walls would be made thick enough to survive the constant onslaught of heat from the fires below the boiler, there was no reason to waste more bring on expanding them even further!


    "Yes. When you finish the base, take some men to place the boiler in its future position, and use it as reference for how thick the walls can be built. While we can fill the gaps with clay that will harden as the fires will start burning underneath, the fewer gaps will remain after placing the bricks, the better!"

 125 Figuring out a proper steam engine

    22nd April 1574


    With everything regarding the Steam Horse already set in motion, there was no need for me to linger around. After making sure that I pushed as many people as it was possible into laying down the bricks, hauling them towards the construction site and preparing the mortars, I split the remaining group into two, sending one of them right back to cutting down trees while tasking the other one with the long and mundane job of digging up the huge area of ground, of a perfect, one hundred by one hundred meters square (110yards).


    Just the volume of the ground that I wanted them to excavate would be enough to create an insanely huge pile of earth, so to make the task a bit easier, rather than going entire one meter down to the ground, I settled with half of this depth, while ordering them to stack the uncovered earth at the boundaries of the excavated pit, to make up for the remaining part.


    With the enormous size of the ditch I wanted to create, I knew that outside of about three thousands working hours required to dig this entire thing out, I still need to give my workers time to reinforce the wall of the pit to prevent it from collapsing during the first rain that would come.


    Overall, just this test grounds for the future city that would hopefully be later expanded into a proper settlement, would take at the very least a week if I dared to push all my workers into this task, or about two weeks if I did it in a realistic way. But in the harsh reality, if that project was bound to make any sense, doing it over a span of an entire month with my current workforce, would be the best approach, since as soon as the steam horse would near the end of its construction, all the other kinds of projects would be started!


    At first, a proper smithy with a steam-powered air intake. As long as I could get one to start melting the ore provided by the mines, all the problems stemming from the lack of tools could be solved almost instantly, by making some makeshift forms from the excavated clay and turning them into a solid cast of whatever I wanted to make.


    On the other hand, there was the enormous project of the limestone quarry, required if I wanted to even start thinking about making any reasonable amounts of concrete. Yet contrary to the smelting which could be done with just a single steam horse, this kind of quarry along with the basic crushing tools would require at least a few of them to provide enough strength to crush the rocks.


    But when I thought about it for a slightly longer time, I realised that I missed quite an important point!


    "Fuckˇ­ where did I put my papersˇ­"


    With this idea hitting me like a hammer, I ran back to my tent, rummaging through my luggage for as long as it took me to find some spare sheets of clean parchment before throwing it on the ground and kneeling right in front of it with yet another piece of charcoal. Unwilling to waste any time on looking for the handle, I had to compromise with the fact that my fingers instantly turned black, as if I spent my entire life in the mines!


    "Since I need it to do a lot of work, I will need to make it bigˇ­"


    With the possibility to cast all the parts that I required, as long as I would find some sort of lubricant to keep the cylinder parts from wearing off, crafting one was actually fairly easy.


    Taking the boiler out of the picture as keeping it would only complicate everything even though its function was just to create steam from the water, the design remained quite simple.


    Consisting of a huge working chamber, fitted with only a long rod and cylinder plate mounted on it and two openings at its both ends connected to the upper part of the engine, the way it worked was insanely simple. When the steam entered through one of the upper holes, it would move the cylinder plate in one direction. Upon reaching its maximum extent, the hole that so far provided the steam would turn into the way for it to escape the system, while the hole on the other end of the cylinder plate would start injecting the mechanism with steam once again.


    It was how this process was automated that proved to be difficult. By placing something aking to a thick tube, just slightly longer than the cylinder chamber itself, not only it had to be fitted with two holes at the bottom perfectly aligned with the openings of the cylinder chamber, but with three more openings at its top!


    The two of them, carved right at the opposing ends of the tube, would only serve as the way to exhaust the used steam out of the machine, while the hole placed right in the middle of the upper side of the tube, was only responsible for infusing the system with more of superheated steam. But if that was all, then the steam would just instantly escape the system through the exhaust holes, never exerting any force on the cylinder plate!


    That''s where the most important and most difficult to craft part came to the picture.


    A long rod, fitted with two, thick cylinder plates, that depending on its position inside the upper tube, would always keep either of the exhaust holes closed while shifting the entry for the pressured steam between left or right bottom hole.


    This way, as soon as the bottom cylinder would be pushed far enough, its current intake hole would change to the exhaust one, while the flow between the so-far closed bottom hole and the steam intake would be opened, allowing for the cylinder plate to be pushed in the opposite direction!


    Even though in terms of crafting the parts, creating a proper lubricant to allow for a smooth movement and isolation between the cylinder plate and the cylinder itself, it was connecting the cylinder rod with the rod that controlled the exhaust mechanism that was the most difficult!


    While connecting them and making sure that the ratio between how far they would move was fairly simple by using a wheel and a crank to connect the two of them, with the distance from the centre of the wheel that would determine how far one rod would be moved in relation to the other, but finding the perfect spot that would allow for correct automation was something that I didn''t dare to take on myself!


    Looking at the blueprint now written down on the piece of paper right in front of my eyes, I realised that drawing something and building it from a scratch wasn''t even comparable when it came to building part!


    That''s when I realised that no one was pressuring me to finish this new machine!


    I could take as much time to build it as I wanted, with the power of the governor and most likely the influence of the Michal Cherrie being more than enough to shield me from the incoming times of trouble!


    That''s why, rather than trying to make an engine from the scratch and nail it on the first attempt, why not build a model, cut perfectly in half, that would allow me to get the ratios right, and simply replicate the model but along with its other side?

 126 Waking up early

    23rd April 1574


    After all the planning, managing and overlooking that I did, it was no surprise that when the day finally came to its end, rather than using the evening like I would do so in my modern life with a glass of beer in some form of relaxation, I completely disregarded the beauty of the Commonwealth countryside, and simply plunged back to sleep.


    Yet this time, when I woke up, I realised that no one actually came to help me out of my bed!


    Obviously, in such spartan environment, there was no servant of mine that could be free enough to prepare clothes or even a breakfast for me, but I still had one of the workers come to wake me up whenever the working day for them started.


    Since my own body decided that I have already rested enough, there was no point in lingering in the bed any longer. Pushing a thick blanket aside, I instantly shrugged as the wave of the morning coldness overwhelmed me.


    Throwing some clothes on myself to cover my nakedness, I spent quite a long while on donning my shoes before I finally moved out of my tent.


    With no noises of people bustling around the camp while basking in the first rays of the sun providing at least a little of additional heat, it came as a no surprise when after getting to the open area I realised that the sun has yet to rise.


    But while others might think that there wasn''t that much that I could do by myself, with no workers to order around, rather than going around and waking everyone, I decided to let them have a proper rest. Yet rather than using this romantic, dying breath of the night, I instantly trodded to one of the mountains of the limestone piling up beside the entrance shed to the mines.


    After placing a large piece of cloth directly on the ground, I started picking up smaller stones from the pile and reforming them with the use of my system to the concrete dust. As it continued to fall from my hands right on the cloth, I couldn''t help but start thinking about one particular thing that I noticed already, yet had no time to really put my mind into.


    All the way back before departing from Sandomir, I confirmed with the Governor that the miners were already working below the ground. Yet despite spending already my third day in the direct proximity to the mines, so close that even one of them came out to take a piss, I would be sure to notice him, to this day, not even a single sign of them could be seen.


    Even after considering the option that they were simply staying underground for an extended period of time before switching with another group that would take over this hard job and keep the flow of ores stable, my still modern mind, despite how I was slowly accustoming myself with local rituals and habits, still couldn''t accept the fact that those people could stay in the dark for so long!


    Yet while I was quite curious about how it worked in my new timeline, when I heard some rustling coming off from the nearby camp, I realised that I had no time to think about such idle matters.


    Before anyone could notice what was going on, I dropped the stones that I had in my hands and grabbed all four ends of the cloth, before pulling it right beside the central pile of resources that we got from the barges. Seeing how the cloth of the massive tents started to waver, I simply dropped some loose wares on top of the sizeable package with concrete before bowing my own back and making myself look like if I was rummaging through this pile of resources.


    Even though my current clothes weren''t as classy as the ones I would usually wear due to how dirty I could get even by standing beside the construction site, the worker that woke up earlier than anyone else but me, was still capable of recognising who had the guts to touch the stuff directly owned by the noble, simply gazing at me for a moment in surprise, before he realised that it was quite rude of him to stare at me like that.


    Realising that I was properly noticed, I took a few more moments while pretending to throw the stuff around, before completely uncovering back the package with the concrete, raising up and taking up a pose full of satisfaction.


    "So it was hereˇ­"


    Pretending that I woke up earlier only to find more of this miraculous powder that I could hear the workers whisper about as they passed the brick pillar standing atop a concrete foundation, I clapped my hands to clean them from the dust that attached itself to my skin, before making my way towards the future first steam horse.


    After measuring the size of the boiler and drawing its curvature directly on top of the bricky base of the future engine, the two stonemasons did a great job of putting all three walls so high, that the basic furnace mouth was already formed. Somehow, despite how little time they had by the time the foundation finally dried up properly, they even managed to fill the gaps that would appear when the boiler would be placed inside the pillar to about half the walls height!


    If the work progressed at this speed, then if not for the limitation of the materials, I could easily make maybe even four or five of the machines!


    But even thought this idea was quite tempting, I knew that if I really wanted to progress my work here, rather than wasting resources and manpower on possibly faulty design, I had to make sure that everything worked as perfectly as I imagined it would, all the while using all the spare manpower on other projects!


    With how the miners were still missing, I hoped that by the time they would finally emerge from the mine along with the ore that I missed so much, at least a primitive form of a blast furnace, not really worthy of its name according to the design I had in mind.


    By building a simple, bricked tube, standing straight on the ground while making sure its walls would be thick enough to endure the intense heat inside, one would fill it from the top with iron ore and charcoal, and after making sure that this mix accepted the initial spark, blowing as much air as it was possible to provide ample supply of oxygen to the mixture!


    With no way to preheat the air that I would infuse the furnace with, it wouldn''t deserve the name of ''blast'', yet in the end, it would still allow me to craft some basic shapes by casting the molten metal into any form I would desire!

 127 Finishing the steam horse

    24th April 1574


    "Steady! Steady!"


    As the final bit of the steam horse was inching ever closer to the place where it would rest, I could feel my heart jumping so wildly as if it wanted to break free from my chest. While building this entire piece didn''t take us as long as I was worried it would when I saw how long we had to take to get just the foundation done if anything went wrong at this point, all sorts of delicate parts that were already mounted in place could be easily damaged, rendering all our efforts useless.


    Unless I wanted to go all the way back to Sandomir and return here with just a single piece that would break down during this vital step, everything had to go as planned!


    "Stop lowering!"


    In the first place, to mount the arm of the leaver, we had to erect four different wooden masts, each of them even higher than the tower itself as to allow us to pull this damned piece of wood at its designated level. But as if a huge, solid wooden log wasn''t enough of a challenge, it was reinforced on all its length with iron nails and plates, as to prolong its usability period.


    With a huge strain placed on this single part during both parts of each cycle, it had to bear the brunt of the energy created both by the counterweight and the pull of the steam horse itself, forcing me to reinforce it with all that heavy metal, that was now making it even harder to put it in its designated place!


    But from the looks of things, now came the most delicate step.


    As soon as the log would reach the desired height, a group of nimble workers climbed the tower itself, not caring for the fact that it was here for only a single day, with some of its bricks laid only a few hours ago!


    Taking up any position that they deemed stable, they had to somehow reach for the log in order to mount it on its bearing, that would allow its arms to swing in both sides. But in order to work, the log had to find its centre of mass perfectly in the middle of the iron swing, or else not only would finding the proper weight of the counterweight be a lot harder, but the engine itself would wear off a lot faster!


    "We can''t reach it!"


    Hearing the shout from one of the workers on top of the tower, I pushed my thoughts aside and realised that while the setup of the wooden masts was perfect, we didn''t account for the fact that due to a rather strong wind today, the log was violently pushed to the side, not only too far for the workers to reach, but also threatening to destroy the delicate structure of the brick tower by smashing its iron side against it!


    "At this rate, we will have to try it again laterˇ­"


    "I got it!"


    As the log swung on the wind, one of the workers as bravely as recklessly leaned his entire upper body, relying only on his legs alone to keep him atop the tower to reach with his hands for the logˇ­


    He grabbed it!


    This crazy son of a bitch somehow did it, desperately grabbing the heavy log with his hands and refusing to let go. In one instant, the three other guys hanging out at the top of the tower leaned towards him, grabbed him by his waist and pulled the brave guy''s body closer towards the tower.


    Finally, with the log now firmly in all their eight combined hands, it was placed in the iron-bearing. Yet I didn''t have the order to lose the ropes just yet. Unless it would remain perfectly still without anyone holding it in place, we couldn''t let go of the ropes!


    While my heart refused to calm down even after the most dangerous part of the entire process was done, I watched as the men on the tower moved the log to the left, then a bit to the right only to once again move it back to the left as they looked for its centre of mass.


    With all the added iron plates and nails, finding out its perfect middle wasn''t enough, as the distribution of the iron couldn''t be said to be even!


    "We did it!"


    Finally, after a long struggle to place it exactly as it should be, the workers grabbed a small pocket raised to their altitude on one of the now loosened ropes, nailing the log down to the bearing. With this part done, all that was now left was to add the counterweight and launch the engine!


    "Good job boys. While every one of you will receive six silvers as promised, you, come here."


    After the men climbed down from the tower, I made sure to point out the guy who was daring enough to risk his health for the cause and called him in.


    "For your outstanding deed, you will be rewarded either twelve silver coins now, or a single red golden when the Governor comes to see the fruits of our efforts. What would you prefer?"


    While in the open I was busy with rewarding the man that distinguished himself, my mind was already fully occupied with everything that we would need to do to make sure that the steam horse was working. After all, if we managed to finish it earlier than expected, we could use all the freed manpower to further other projects!


    As long as we could finish the blast furnace in any reasonable time and hopefully receive a first batch of the ore from those damned, introverted miners, rather than showing off a single atmospheric steam engine to the governor, I might be able to create a proper pressure steam engine as well!


    "Sirˇ­ I don''t think there is any need to ask me about my choice! If given the choice between a few groshes and a real gold ducatˇ­ I will obviously choose the ducat!"


    For poor people like him, silver coins were something they used in their daily life to trade for the resources, pay in the taverns or even receive their daily wage. On the other hand, a real gold coin was something that rather than being used as money, could be used as a showcase of one''s status!


    "Smart decision, I won''t lie."


    Smiling at the man in front of me, I even went as far as to reach forward with my hand and shake his palm, already picturing myself throwing the first burning coal under the boiler of the steam horse when a new shout broke my immersion and forced me back to the reality.


    "Sir, the villagers have come!"

 128 Villagers arriving

    24th April 1574


    "Sir, just like you requested, we brough three big pots, along with a group of men willing to work. As for the food, just like we expected, our neighbours refused to sell any."


    Forcibly pulled apart from my dear child just as it was about to shine in this world for the very first time, I couldn''t help but feel quite annoyed by this rotten timing of those villagers. They had so much time to come earlier, and they could literally come even an hour later, and I would already see the greatest obstacle on the road to industrialisation shattering and falling apart with my own eyes!


    But now, instead of enjoying the fruits of my hard labour and investment, I had to deal with some plebs since they refused to deal with anyone but me as if fearing that my men would dare to go against my orders!


    "Good, how much did you pay for the pots?"


    According to the deal we had, for every coin they spent, I would pay two. Even though I knew how bad that deal was, I never expected them to provide me with anything of any real value, so I couldn''t be really bothered with their problems.


    Additionally, now that I had most likely a working steam horse, creating a simple blast furnace was just as simple as it could get, meaning that with just a little bit more effort, rather than using cooking pots, I could simply cast a proper concrete mixer!


    But it went without saying that I did offer them this deal and asked them to provide some pots for me, so instead of trying to save some silly coins right now, I simply pulled out my pouch from my belt and looked up waiting for the elder to give his price.


    "Yyyˇ­ eight groshes!"


    Clearly staggering as if he couldn''t decide whether to risk asking for such an exorbitant price or hesitating whether not to try his luck even more by claiming to pay even more. But rather than getting angry at him, I simply sent him an annoyed look of someone who was pulled away from his business.


    "For all three of them, I assume?"


    On the market, a single iron pot could go for two, maybe three groshes, yet this man was clearly claiming to pay about three times as much, and asking for double the amount! While I could accept a small cheat on his side as I understood that everyone was simply trying to make a living, seeing how he tried to rob me out of almost an entire red-golden in damned daylight, I would lose my own self-respect if I were to just accept it!


    "Sirˇ­ Didn''t you promiseˇ­"


    "Yeah, I did promise and I will deliver. I just want you to keep in mind that I also send one of my men to ask around for how much did those pots go. Do I need to explain what will happen if the number you gave me and the number my man will report me won''t match?"


    "S-sirˇ­"


    With a visible fear building on the face of the villager, I could finally see how he acted when instead of having a group of his brethren behind him, he was in front of a huge mass of people ready to do my bidding at any given moment.


    "We p-paidˇ­ one grosh for eachˇ­"


    From one extreme to another, for God''s sake! Even on the city markets when the prices could be lower than in the villages due to the simple fact that those pots were made there, no one would ever sell one for one grosh! Just the iron required to make one was worth as much, meaning that the man in front of me was most likely trying to just get his money back and return to the safety of his village.


    Not willing to pay him any more of my mind, I pulled out twelve silver coins from my pouch and tossed them towards the scheming villager.


    "About the men willing to work, how many did you bring?"


    With the payment for the pots done, the villagers quickly placed them aside. Just one look was enough for me to realise that instead of using spare ones, the three containers they brought still had some leftover food in them. Just to be safe, I pulled out three more coins and tossed them at the man, before looking at him in a way that made it obvious I wanted to get my answer as soon as possible.


    "From my village, there were twenty-sevenˇ­"


    "In total, man! I''m kinda busy right here, so stop giving me half-truths and just tell whats going on."


    Instead of wasting even more of my time on this stupid villager, I wanted to get this matter over with as soon as possible to get back to my dear steam horse.


    "S-sir. I brought sixty-three men in total!"


    Realising that my annoyance must come from the fact that I was busy rather than from how he attempted to cheat me, the villager suddenly changed his composure and finally answered the question in the way that could satisfy me.


    "Good. As promised, each will receive a grosh per day of work. Since you guys came late today, you will work for the food you will eat. Now, get out of my sight!"


    Finally freed from this annoying task, I summoned the two stonemasons that irked me a bit before, ordering them to turn those stupid villagers into a proper workforce, capable of helping out with our tasks.


    While I was quite harsh on those villagers, in fact, they would be of great help! Used to the hard work, as soon as the task wouldn''t be too complicated for them, the vision of earning an entire silver for a day should be enough for them to work their bottoms off!


    "Now, let''s finally get back to theˇ­"


    "Sir! The miners have returned from the mines!"


    "FUCK!"

 129 Unexpected behaviour

    24th April 1574


    While in itself this was a good message, I felt like if God decided that everything would now pile up on my head just for the sake of making me unable to go and see how would my damned creation work!


    But this matter was too important to ignore, as depending on how big their haul was, I would have to adjust the size of the first blast furnace that we would build in order to smelt it all.


    And to make matters even more surprising, before even a single man managed to come out of the mine, two barges reached the shore to the equal surprise of their crews and my men watching them with utmost curiosity.


    Only when a few moments later, as if following some kind of divine clock, the first batch of dirty men started to come out of the entrance sheds did I realise why did those barges arrive in almost a perfectly synchronised manner to the miners coming out.


    "That was a long week!"


    Even before I managed to reach the mine''s entrance to have a talk with its workers, I could hear their loud voices carried by the winds over the flatlands. Used to working at a great depths, they made a habit of shouting in order for the other party to heart them, with no one really caring if said habit would be annoying for the others, as for the most part, miners rather than merging with the local villagers, would create a community of their own.


    "I see that you have finally come out. How was work?"


    While I still wanted to hurry as much as I could to test the steam horse of mine, if I were to blatantly ask them for their haul and what they would like to have automated in their mine, I would be either taken for a crazy man that no one should pay any attention to, or simply killed on the spot if the miners even for a moment believed I could turn dangerous.


    Even though killing a noble was one of the greatest offences one could commit in the current times, miners never really cared about the law that much. Just like the soldiers, even if of common birth, would toughen up and be willing to fight for what they considered as their own rights, with how taxing on the body the work in the mines were, the bottom line for this kind of people was really fragile.


    "And who the heck are you?"


    As soon as I spoke, the entire group that had the fortune to finish their work and come out of the mines first stopped in their tracks, gripping the pickaxes in their hands a bit stronger as they turned around to face me.


    Sensing the potential danger, Al instantly jumped to my side, bringing quite a lot of the workers along with him, putting me in the uncomfortable stand-offish position with the miners.


    "Hello, I''m the new owner of this place. Both of those mines were gifted to me for a span of twenty years by the governor. As such, I wanted to know and will ask again. How. Was. The. Work."


    "Ughˇ­ What do you want then, your nobleship?"


    While changing the way he spoke, the tone of the leader of the group changed from clearly hostile to just sarcastic. Even though this was already a nice improvement, I still wasn''t satisfied with the way he treated the owner of the place he worked at!


    "Since you don''t want to waste time on the small talk, then I won''t insist on it. How much ore did you get this time?"


    Hearing the question, the man and his followers instantly returned to their previous, clearly hostile behaviour, prompting Al to place his hands on the handle of his sabre and pistol. Forced to act myself, I raised my hand and stopped him before his overreacting would make the situation take a turn for the worse.


    "Don''t worry, your noble sirˇ­ As soon as the merchants will get the haul, you will get your fair share."


    Spitting his words from behind his closed teeth, the man clearly noticed my move to stop the thing from escalating and most likely took it for a sign that I wouldn''t dare to start the fight right here and now.


    And to be honest, he was actually right!


    With how limited my manpower was if I were to just execute this small group in front of me, both in the short and in the long run, the amount of ore that this mine would provide me with would decrease. As such, rather than killing those unruly workers of mine for the sake of saving the pride of my status, I allowed this man''s rude behaviour to vanish from my mind before refuting his words.


    "This time, merchants won''t get their hands on the ores at all. How much would they pay you for what you guys got then?"


    Building a blast furnace with the amount of manpower I had on hand would take one, maybe two days at most. If I were to just sell the ore to the merchants, there would be no way for me to create the second generation of the steam engine before the governor would come to pay me a visit!


    "Whaˇ­ Ehˇ­ Three and a half ducats. As for the tax, one and a half ducat would go to your hands, your lordship."


    Seeing that he wouldn''t force his way by being rude or aggressive, the man attempted a different approach, flaunting the money right in my eyes. And if thinking about it through the eyes of almost any other noble of the commonwealth, there would be no way I would insist of doing it my way if I could get ninety groshes worth of gold just like that!


    But once again, I wasn''t your normal noble, and this kind of silly monetary benefits didn''t catch my attention at all, especially when compared to the potential benefits I would get from creating and putting a new model of steam engine to use!


    "We will do it this way then. You will bring all your haul here, and you will receive four red goldens, albeit only when the governor will come to pay me a visit in about a week. I think its a fair trade."


    Once again, instead of wasting my time on arguing with this kind of stubborn people, it was better to just throw some money in their faces, and just watch how they turn from wild boars into cute, little doggos!


    "With all due respect, sir, but you can put this kind of promises right up the end of your ass!"


    To my surprise, proposing them double the amount that they would receive from trading the haul with the merchants that arrived along with the next shift on the barges, didn''t change this guy''s man, but instead turned him aggressive once again!

 130 Strange negotiations with miners

    24th April 1574


    "So you don''t want to earn double and keep a positive relationship with the one person capable of driving you out of work just because?"


    Rather than flaring up in anger, I decided to pry into the reasons of this miner. With how good those strange negotiations were going, for this man to suddenly do a one hundred eighty degrees turn with his attitude, meant that I had to strike some nerve of his without even realising it.


    "Just like I said, you can go and shove your nice speech down your ass. We have families to feed, and we won''t bet their starvation on some random noble word!"


    So that was the reason!


    While I could expect it, with how for most of the people their wage meant the means to get by before the next payment would arrive, as someone from the future when despite how bad the economy in my country was, if someone used his money smart, he could still create a comfortable buffer in case something happened, making him suddenly lose his income.


    On the other hand, for those miners, to get the payment for their work or not get it meant whether or not they would be able to support their livelihood for the next short period of time! And I could only imagine how bad it would feel to work this kind of high-paying but a health-costly job only to lose a week worth of income to a scummy noble!


    "So that''s your reason. I think I get it, but I can''t convince you right away. Would you mind coming with me? It so happens that both your appearance and the arrival of the villagers that you might see in the distance forced me away from finishing a funny project of mine, that will greatly change your lives in the near future."


    Rather than trying to convince the miner of my pure heart and golden intentions, it would be better to simply show him the machine that would soon turn his acceptable paycheck into something that half of the country would envy. Even though I was going to buy off the iron from the miners for a lower price than what it was now, with the insane increase of productivity provided by this miraculous machine of steam, the amount they could steal from the greedy hold of the earth would also increase at least severalfold!


    "Ehˇ­ You won''t give upˇ­ Just make it quick, we are tired after working for a damned week straight!"


    Yeah, as if!


    While it was true that they remained underground for about a week from what I heard and saw with my own eyes, I highly doubted they worked without any break for that long! According to my estimates, as soon as they hit the cap of what they had to produce to get just enough money to be satisfies, their work turned into a drinking festival, when only those who lost the penalty would have to work for a while before returning to the work!


    But there was a simple way to put this kind of people in line. A way so devious it was used all the way from the moment of its invention to the times I lived in.


    While to some point, they could already claim to work in this system, with how hard this work was right now, they most likely knew that overexerting themselves in the mine would not only lead to the greater risk for their health but also the potential fall of the prices of their ware!


    That''s why instead of making them work for as much as they wanted, after implementing my inventions in their mine, I would guarantee them the price at which I would buy the ore they would extract from the ground!


    Obviously, as more and more inventions would enter their life, that price would be lowered by all sorts of applicancies I would offer them, yet no matter what, their earnings could only keep on increasing as would the output!


    With most of the hard work taken away from them by the track and carts powered by the steam engine, with the steam horse pumping the water away from the flooded parts of the mine or even with steam-powered tools that could be developed as soon as I would be capable of producing portable steam engines, every single invention of mine that would be implemented in their line of work, would drastically increase their output, while slightly lowering the price of the ore.


    But if that trend continued, even with all the uses I had for the metal, sooner or later I would hit the cap when I simply couldn''t afford any more of the ore dug out from this mine!


    Yet I couldn''t be bothered by such a silly problem!


    By the time the ore would become so popular and inexpensive, rather than me using this place for my own benefit, the entire commonwealth would keep placing massive orders on literally any product coming out of my factories, clogging the production queue for weeks if not months, and providing me with enough funds to keep expanding the mining area and rate!


    Yet as my mind continued to want in the beautiful scenario that might soon be fulfilled, the reality, as usual, came knocking only to chase away all those useless thoughts, replacing them with the sight of my beautiful creation.


    Even though it wasn''t finished by any means, with some auxiliary mechanisms still requiring attention, as long as we would compromise on doing some stuff by hand instead of making the machine itself solve its problems.


    "Now, just watch."


    Keeping in mind that the miners followed me to this site, I couldn''t be bothered to even spare them a single look, busy signalling to my men that it was finally the time to wake up this beast from its slumber and put its fires to work!


    It was time for the first-ever steam engine, or rather, steam horse to flex its muscles in front of an audience!

 131 The fire is lit!

    24th April 1574


    "Hang the core now. We need the counterweight to be quite a lot heavier than the cylinder itself."


    With the miners standing idle and watching the peculiar building with a visible confusion on their faces, I continued to order around my workers who turned out to be almost as enthusiastic about this project as I did.


    Even though the official purpose of this machine wasn''t properly explained to anyone but the craftsmen, it was inevitable that the rumours would appear even amongst the common folk. But while I was happy that everyone was eager to do their part of the work, seeing how some of them acted quite recklessly as if trying to finish their tasks as soon as possible, I couldn''t help but start to get slightly worried.


    As for the core of the counterweight, it was nothing else than a several iron disk-bound together by chains and nails, making it easy to attach anything to it whenever we decided the weight of the working arm had to be greater.


    But the whole process of launching the steam engine started now with the counterweight, but by connecting the long iron pole to the chain nailed tightly to the side of the balancing beam in a way that made only the last two pieces of the iron chain hang freely and allow for some liberty in the movement.


    After making sure that the metal rod was properly connected both to the chain and the cylinder, forcibly pushing the balancing beam to the ''in house'' position meaning that it was lowered over the cylinder rather than at the counterweight side, a group of workers climbed the top of the cylinder, filling the space between the plate and the walls with thick ropes soaked in oil and finishing the task by pouring four buckets of water at the very top.


    With the ropes isolating the space below the cylinder plate and the rest of the world above, and water added as the last insurance to make sure there would be no leaks of the gas from the cylinder to the atmosphere nor the air from the atmosphere to the cylinder, we could finally move to the last step.


    As the chain was already hanging from the ''out house'' side of the balancing beam, all that was left was to hook it with the second iron rod and mounting several pieces of the counterweight looking rather similar to the gym weights with a simplest possible lock in the middle, allowing to simply push them on top of the rod by aligning its small, metal arms with the opening in the weight and then simply turning it around with the metal pipe already protruding right through its centre.


    At first, I thought that this would be the hardest step, as we didn''t know what was the proper size of the counterweight, but contrary to my belief, as soon as the balancing beam finally started moving to the ''out house'' position, we simply waited for it to stabilise before adding two more weights to start with in order to check how much weight could the steam engine lift.


    But rather than worrying about the constant uncertainty, I was about to give the signal to load the wood under the belly of the boiler, when I noticed that the miners were already moving aside as if trying to sneak out!


    "Hey, where do you think you are going? The best part is about to start!"


    Rather than treating them with anger for the fact that they couldn''t sit still for a while, I did my best to look like a child, disappointed at its parents for not willing to see the nice house I built in the Minecraft. While I knew that the process of heating the boiler up to the point where it would start producing steam could take a rather long while if they were to miss the moment when the history would be made, not only convincing them to agree to my terms would be easier, but they would never be able to forgive themselves for missing this insanely important moment!


    "Sir, with all due respect, the other group is already coming out with the ores. If we don''t see something that will crush out entire world-view right now, we will have to sell the ores right away."


    Considering how I wanted them to experience something before making their decision, it was only natural that with the lack of any effect after all the time they spent here already, they would start hesitating whether there was any point in lingering around for any longer.


    "We will be starting things out right now. Just imagine how long will it take for the water in this boiler to boil properly, and a few minutes later, you will be begging me to repeat the same offer I gave to you already."


    From this point on, it would be their own decision whether to stay here or not. I already gave them the chance and all the reasons to stay, and if they decide to go to manage their own business anyway, it would be their loss. The fact that this steam horse was placed right beside their mine would make it easier to improve their workplace first, but with the second mine only about four hundred meters away, transmitting the energy provided by the steam horse could still be done fairly easy!


    Right when I turned back to face the steam engine in front of me, I noticed that the belly of the furnace already got filled to its safe brim with the wood, with the older of the two stonemasons approaching me with a burning torch.


    "Sir, everything is ready. We splattered some oil on top of the wood to make it start burning a bit easier, so all that''s left now, is to start the fire."


    After taking one last look at the machine in general and confirming that the two workers were waiting for my orders at the two valves that allowed either the steam to flow into the cylinder or the cold water to be sprinkled, I took a deep breathˇ­


    And threw the torch inside!


    Yet this heroic and historical move quickly proved to be simply stupid, as the sudden gust of wind caused by the fast movement managed to do its job and extinguished the fire burning on top of the torch, causing me to simply throw another piece of wood inside the furnace!


    While I could bet I heard some laughs going off in the distance, another servant quickly lit the next torch and passed it to me while trying his best to hide his mocking smile from his face.


    Even though he was far better at working hard than at masking his emotions, I was too excited to care, taking the torch from his hand and this time, simply approaching the furnace and placing the burning head of this oversized match to the wood soaked in oil.


    And so the fire has started!

 132 Its working!

    24th April 1574


    At first, nothing happened.


    But well, that was only to be expected. Starting the fires meant that the water would slowly heat up, only reaching the point of bursting into steam when we would hear the metal of boiler whining under the constant barrage of the inner pressure, signalling that we could finally start the first tests on the engine.


    With how there were two valves that operated the supply of both the hot steam and the cold water, we had to figure out the ratios at which they should be turned on and off to connect it with the swinging movement of the balancing beam as to allow this entire machine to work without any other human help than supplying more fuel into its furnace!


    Seeing that something was finally going on and how tense the atmosphere was amongst all the workers that were responsible for creating this strange building, even the miners decided to stay and observe the events, joining the fun as the spectators, yet keeping their distance as if worried that this strange thing could suddenly burst in flames.


    "Congratulations!"


    "User completed his first steam machine without the help of the system!"


    "Reached the second level of the steam engineer!"


    "Unlocking hidden reward - Control-man!"


    Even before this steam horse could start working properly, the system already flooded my mind with a streak of its messages. Yet while seeing that I managed to reach the second level of the steam engineer was nice as it would most likely unlock some new blueprints or even system-crafting for more advanced tools, the hidden reward took my entire attention, as if I understood the meaning behind this reward name, it could solve my current greatest problem!


    "System, activate the control-man function or tool or whatever it is."


    Mumbling to myself in a voice low enough to make sure no one would hear me do so, I was ready to be met with a huge disappointment, yet to my surprise, my vision suddenly changed!


    What used to look like just a brick tower with its furnace mouth and two valve controls being the only things visible from the outside, now turned semi-transparent, allowing me to take a look into how much steam did enter the system, what kind of general forces were interacting with specific parts of the mechanism, even to the point to see the walls of the boiler slowly turning orange as the amount of steam and the pressure started to build up!


    Right when the walls of the boilers started to turn pale red, I heard the first cracking from the machine.


    "Release the steam valve!"


    Shouting my order in a half-panicky way, I saw a sudden change in my vision, as the steam suddenly gushed towards the raised cylinder, filling the entire free space while turning the walls of the entire system into a light orange.


    "Prepare more weights!"


    As the orange colour turned more intense, I realised that soon, the influx of steam would have to be blocked. Raising my hand high into the air to let the workers see it, I waited for the first moment when the isolating rope would reach the slightly dangerous level before swinging my hand and shouting!


    "Change the valves!"


    While if someone would do the job without prior explanation, then both of the valves would be turned simultaneously, yet I already stressed it more than enough to the workers operating them that under no circumstances, the cold water valve could be open while the steam intake one have yet to close!


    "Steam cut off!"


    As soon as the worker at the lower part of the machine shouted his report, the other guy controlling the sprinkled turned the handle on top of the valve, allowing a sudden bust o cold water to be sprinkled right inside the chamber filled with hot steam!


    In an instant, the steam suddenly cooled down, instantly forcing the cylinder plate to the bottom under the pressure between a partial void and the weight of the atmosphere itself!


    Prompted by this move, the counterweight shoot high up to the skies, reaching its upper limit in a matter of just two seconds!


    "Change!"


    With the water sprinkler now closed, the steam intake was opened once again, allowing the counterweight to plummet back down, yet at a much slower rate than it did raise to the air!


    Completely focused on the processes taking place inside the steam horse, I only now realised that the entire surroundings filled with cheers, with a strange silence surrounding the vincity of the miners. Yet while others could celebrate already, I remained focused to the limit of my perception!


    With how the steam horse was aimed to operate continuously, making just a single full spin didn''t mean its force was exhausted!


    "NOW! ADD THE WEIGHTS!"


    As soon as the counterweights fell to its resting position, I prompted a group of workers with additional weights to hurry up towards the counterweight and add the iron rings they brought with them. Watching as the steam was filling the inner part of the cylinder once again, as soon as the isolation turned dangerously close to changing from orange to red, I once again swiped my hands to pull all the workers away from the danger zone, before once again ordering the change of the valves.


    This time, under the additional weight, the fall of the cylinder was calmer, allowing us to finally calculate the overall strength of the machine.


    "Extinguish the fires!"


    Seeing that this greatest project of mine so far ended up working just like I wanted it to work, I realised that there was no point in making it do the idle swings, as no other machine benefited from its work right now.


    With one more swing happening before the water cooled down enough to stop producing steam, the swinging beam finally returned back to its resting position, allowing the weight to rest on a pile of wood stacked to the perfect height to decrease the burden on the beam while the machine was idle.


    "Guysˇ­"


    As the steam horse finally stopped operating completely, I made sure to call out to everyone, allowing their joyous faces to focus on me.


    "GREAT JOB!"

 133 Striking the deal with miners

    24th April 1574


    In one instant, the entire crowd of people which turned silent to hear what I had to say, erupted once again in cheers. Even though most of the normal workers were simply happy that the first part of their work was finished, the craftsmen that watched how this machine managed to turn the fire into a movement that didn''t require animals to pull on the ropes, couldn''t even begin to cheer with how overwhelming this new invention was for them.


    Moving the heavy stuff around, lifting the items to higher floors, increasing the airflow in the furnacesˇ­ All of the tasks that required a huge group of people to complete now could be done with this newfound power!


    But the faces of the miners provided me with the most fun. Without taking part in the entire building process, they had no way of knowing what was happening inside the machine, making it almost impossible for them to understand just how the heck did that monstrosity move!


    Yet from the sight of various people moving various parts around, they couldn''t claim that it was the work of a devil, some kind of magic trick designed to cheat them out of their hard earner ore. If that was to be the case, there would be no need for all this crowd, not to speak about the enthusiasm that those people were showing!


    "Okay everyone, now that we finished our first projectˇ­ It''s time to work on the blast furnace!"


    Even though I still didn''t come to an agreement with the miners, if they still opted to decline my offer and sell the ore to the merchants, I was sure that I could strike a deal with those traders and the workers of the other mine.


    "As for you guys, do you want to know how this thing works?"


    Turning myself back to the miners, I finally decided it was time to talk business. Right after the showcase of the prowess of my invention, but before the drive that took over everyone''s mind would die off due to the fact that unless we built anything that could make use of this machine power, it was just a strange ornament marking the end of the old era and the beginning of the time of industrialisation!


    "Wellˇ­ We heard you shout stuff like steam, water and all, so I guess it works on water vapour?"


    Only now did I realise that my commands were more than enough for normal people to at least try to understand the basic principle of this machine. Yet it didn''t mean they would know how to operate nor build one, so I had no reason to worry about them replicating this entire thing for their own use.


    "Yes, without going into the details, you could tell that it works on vapour. But now, can you tell me why would I build this kind of machine so close to one of the mines that were presented to me by the governor?"


    For simple people like the miners, unless I explained how would this machine influence their lives, they would only take this machine as something fun, yet useless.


    With all of his previous arrogance and aggressiveness disappearing after the show and in face of the joyous crowd, this particular miner was far easier partner to talk with. Additionally, with me announcing that the first thing we would build to make use of this machine would be a blast furnace, it didn''t take a genius to understand why the haul from the iron mines was so important to me.


    "Outside of the blast furnace that we will be building anyway, tell me, how much time you could save if instead of pushing the carts with the ore by yourself, something was to do it for you?"


    Just like I already pointed out many times over, it was the repetitive and simple menial tasks that this kind of steam engine was the best at taking care off. While as soon as I could create a pressure steam horse, the number of mining carts that could be pulled at once would increase drastically, for now, supplying the blast furnace with ample amount of fresh air and letting the miners focus on mining rather than moving stuff around should lay within the capability of this prototype of mine!


    "Have something to do it for us? Does that meanˇ­"


    "Yes, as long as we craft a simple tool, we could make this steam horse pull all the carts that you would otherwise have to push all the way from where you are loading them towards the surface. While you have to understand that this would mean that not only we would have to demolish the existing entrance shed and replace it with a place that would allow us to move the ore from the carts to the warehouse easier, but you guys would be also responsible for extending the wooden tracks on which those carts are moving around right now."


    While the current rail system was based on incredibly intuitive design when simple, plain wheels would roll on plain planks with only a secure pin located in the middle of the cart and locked between said planks stopped the vehicle from going offroad.


    Yet even this design was enough for the steam machine to operate on it. With just a set of simple poles with rollers mounted on their tops, we could attach a set of ropes to the main wheel powered by the steam horse mark one. As long as we added some simple hooks to said rope and attached the minecarts to them, rather than pushing the carts themselves, miners could focus on providing more ore, while a surface team would busy themselves with unloading it on the pile, from which the blast furnace would be fed!


    "Sir, while I''m not really sure if I understand the concept, there is no way sir would invest so much time, effort and thought only for the sake of stealing away a few golden coins worth of haul. Where can we dump the ore then?"

 134 Yet another project!

    24th April 1574


    With the supply of ore now secured, I turned my attention to the construction site of the blast furnace. Even though everything that we were building here was nothing but a prototype, the respective areas where all projects would be constructed were already drafted and marked on the very first day since we arrived here.


    But while everyone was busying themselves with digging out the earth to make space for the foundations of the blast furnace, I actually approached the steam horse mark one with quite a bit of iron ore on hand.


    After making sure that no one was looking, I opened my crafting window and used the materials I had on hand with the already existing steam horse to remake it into a proper one, with both valves controlled by a set of simple levers that would open and close them depending on the angle of the swinging beam.


    While this kind of engine was a good start to help with some minor projects, rather than focusing all my resources on this kind of mobile and ineffective machine, I would rather make sure that it would work nicely enough for the governor to praise it and invest his own funds and manpower in my projects, so that when the time would come for the introduction of the mark two steam engine, I would have all the means necessary to produce all the parts for it!


    After finishing my job with the steam horse, I moved back to the construction area of the furnace. While the amount of manpower that I could move around increased about by half when the villagers came to work under me, considering how all the tents and materials that they could be made from were already used, instead of instantly putting them to the necessary work, I had to give up on this opportunity and make them craft some basic sheds to sleep in.


    But with over a hundred people, digging up a small plot of land that was required for the simple blast furnace wasn''t that hard of a task. By the time I finally reached its construction site, stonemasons were already preparing the concrete in the pots while the workers were reinforcing the borders of the ditch with the wooden planks.


    While seeing this sight, I realised that there was one, insanely simple thing that could come handy in all kinds of constructions that would be required later. Thanks to the fact that most of the work here was done now, I pulled away twenty workers and one of the carpenters with me.


    "Listen up guys, we need to build a spacious shed here. Rather than having to manually cut all the logs into the required sized and planks, we can use the steam horse to power up something I called a quicksaw."


    "Sir, I think I know what you mean, but if we place it vertically as you showedˇ­"


    After seeing my cup place my hands on top of one another in the peculiar fashion, the carpenter quickly understood the idea and gathered his guts to reply.


    "... then we will only be able to cut the planks. If we want to be able to work on the entire logs, we would need a far greater blade along with something to move the logs around!"


    Hearing his words, I realised one flaw of my design prompted by the image of the table saw I had in my head. But just like the man pointed out, if I used the blade with a diameter of about a hand, it would be far too small to cut through the entire log!


    "That''s true, thanks for pointing it out. So how about we make two cutting tables bearing the quicksaw, one would be used to work on the planks, while the other would be used to turn logs into said planks. But that would also lead us to the sad realisation that you would require quite a lot of help to manage all the wood that would be going through this place. So rather than the question about building the quicksaw itself, I should ask, do you feel you could manage this task?"


    Once again, while having a steady and stable supply of the wood in all shapes and sizes could increase the overall rate of all the constructions that would happen in the area, doing so required manpower. And not only that, operating with highly dangerous tools like a table saw mean that rather than moving the people in and out of this place depending on the demand for the wooden products, I had to decide how many of them I could commit to working on it from now on!


    "Sir, forgive me asking, but would it be possible to somehow use the steam horse to move the logs around? While carrying the planks between two places is fairly easy, as long as we could somehow pull those heavy logs from the outside all the way through the sets of saws that would cut it to the desired sizesˇ­ or rather, if we could make a set of five saws placed horizontally one above the other and push the logs through them, wouldn''t that allow us to produce planks with close to no manpower commitment?"


    Hearing the proposition of the man who worked in his job for a long time, I realised how simple this idea was, while how much manpower could it save! As long as we had an angled conveyor ramp that would carry the logs inside the building, put them through a set of horizontal saws that would turn it into a set of planks of the desired thickness only to dump them to some kind of storage from which the workers would pick the pieces and carry them to the manual table sawˇ­ Out of nowhere, this few simple sentences allowed me to crystalise the entire idea in my head!


    "That''s a great idea. So instead of debating over it, go somewhere near the forest and mark the area for the shed. Make your group of people provide you with enough wood and bricks to build this shed as soon as possible, while I will try to get those blades from the Sandomir. Seeing how the merchant came to our shore, it would be a waste not to use their presence to fetch some more useful tools!"


    As soon as those words left my mouth, I ran towards the shore. Just a single look from the place where I was talking to the carpenter and his group of workers allowed me to see that after the miners denied them the trade, rather than lingering here for no reason, they were already moving on to depart from this place!


    "Hey! Wait for a moment, guys!"


    Thinking about this, I guess it was the first time when those merchants saw a damned noble sprinting to them as if his life depended on it!

 135 New type of gold

    24th April 1574


    "Are you by any chance going to sail to the Sandomir right now?"


    After approaching the merchant barge that brough a new group of miners to the work and was initially going to get the ore back to the city where it would be smelted, was now forced to go back empty-handed due to my own shenanigans. While others might feel awkward to propose them any trade right after depriving them of the business they most likely were doing on the weekly basis, as long as I could offer them anything of value, they would most likely agree in hopes of recouping the losses.


    "Well, we were going to, but due to the miners suddenly abolishing the deal we had ever since this mine was established, we will have to sail somewhere else."


    Shrugging his arms, one of the merchants approached the edge of the ship and replied, while not even trying to hide his annoyance at the situation. To be honest, I couldn''t really blame him as I was the one responsible for his loss!


    "What if I tell you that you could make a great business in the Sandomir?"


    Rather than instantly explaining what happened to them and what I had in mind, I decided it would be better to keep them in the dark for as long as possible to make them curious about what was going on inside my head. As long as I could lead them by the nose all the way to the trade deal I could propose them, just the sheer anticipation would make it way greater than it would be in reality!


    "As long as it will be profitable, I don''t really mind. Since it''s already past the noon today, we would be able to return only tomorrow, assuming that the stuff you need from Sandomir can be easily obtained."


    Just like I thought, rather than keeping his anger and preventing himself from earning a good amount for a simple, two days long journey this man was rational enough to prioritize making money over his negative perception of my person.


    "Since I don''t really want to part with gold right now as I need to pay my people, tell me please, did you heard the rumours of a new, luxury spice used on the recent Tarnowian wedding?"


    Due to the fact that I was rather generous with my money, I could feel how my pouch was getting lighter and lighter with each passing day. While I could still easily afford any of the items that I wanted this merchant to fetch me from the city, when combining the costs of all of them, the price might take a bit too big of a bite out of my savings.


    "This funny, white powder? How could you ask! While everyone in the town is focused on the beer that appeared there, ask any merchant and they will tell you how sought for this spice is!"


    "It so happens that I have a bit of it somewhere in this pile of resources."


    Pointing my hand at what was left out of all the wares that we brough from Sandomir after building the entire steam horse and starting all sorts of other projects. Yet even despite how much of it was already used up, it still remained easily visible on the flat plain beside the river.


    "If I were to offer you a small pouch of the spice, how much gold would you give me in return?"


    Now came the most important part of the entire deal. In fact, all I had on that pile was just a bunch of grain that has not yet been moved to the makeshift granary we made with one of the tents, yet depending on the deal that I might settle right now, the final price of the spice would be forget out of nothing. Since I never sold any of it, only using it for my own purposes, I could literally claim any price I wanted, but if I went too high, this merchant wouldn''t be able to pay me up. On the other hand, if I were to offer too affordable terms, the worth of this spice would plummet. That''s why, instead of starting with the price on my side, I pushed the responsibility of coming out with the starting cost of the spice to this merchant!


    "A pouch? How much does it weigh? The spice inside, I mean."


    Just when I thought I won a better position in this barter, I realised my mistake. With no concrete numbers, I couldn''t ask for any realistic price connected to the amount I was selling! In this situation, I had only one way out.


    "To be frank, I have no idea. How about you find some scale and get down on the land so we could measure it? On my end, I will go and find the pouch."


    Seeing the merchant nod to my proposition, I turned around and moved to the pile, lowering myself over the grain while catching a small piece of cloth from the pile of the resources. With my back shielding me from the prying eyes of the merchant or literally anyone else, I sank my hand into the bag with grain and recalled the system from the corner of my eyes.


    After going through the extensive menu of various options, I finally found the crafting window for the modern spice, turning the grain held by my hand into a fistful of the spice before throwing it on top of the cloth and repeating the process a few times until I was satisfied with the amount.


    Grabbing the four corners of the piece of cloth that would serve as my pouch, I made sure nothing was escaping the hold of this spile container before smashing my own chest a few times with an open hand in order to clean it from the dust that remained glued to it.


    "Sir, I brought the scale."


    Hearing the shout from the merchant, I took a look at myself to check for the last time whether any of the white dust remained of my clothes as if I was some kind of drug-dealer trying his best to appear like a normal citizen after throwing a bunch of coke around the garden.


    "That''s how much I can part with."


    Seeing that the scale was already set on the ground and levelled properly, I carefully pulled one end of the cloth from my makeshift sack and poured its content on top of a small tray resting on one arm of the scale.


    After adding the weights to the other wing of the scale, the merchant made sure a few times that both of the scale''s arms lined up perfectly before raising his head.


    "Half of Gryw. Considering how sought after this spice is, I can pay youˇ­ Five red goldens!"

 136 Annoying success

    26th April 1574


    Waking up in the morning, I hoped that I could once again sneakily craft some concrete from the limestone blocks, only to realise that rather than waking up by myself, it was one of the workers shaking my arm.


    "What''s g-goin onˇ­"


    With my mind still trying its best to return to the sweet dream in which I was spending quality time with Elia in the modern world, showing her all the wonders of the civilisation, it took me a while to shake the sleepiness off and realise that I couldn''t see any sunlight from the small opening between the side of the tent and its pulled opening cloth.


    "Sir, they finished the furnace!"


    Only when hearing those words did I manage to push my sleepiness aside, shake my head to clear it from the remnants of the dreaming state and properly move out from the bedding made by placing several blankets directly on the hard ground.


    While I could easily organise some better sleeping place for myself, I still decided to keep my own tent as spartan as every other sleeping place was in the entire camp. For this small cost of my own comfort at sleeping, I gained quite a lot of sympathy from the workers, allowing me to drive them even harder while they were working.


    "Sure, I will be there right away. Go and tell them to prepare everything."


    With how some of the workers offered to work through the night to finish laying down the last layers of the bricks, finishing the blast furnace was only to be expected. Outside of the simple, brick structure of the entire building, all that was changed from the commonly known blueprint was the air intake.


    Rather than using standard bellows, we mounted a set of three sets of fan blades mounted on a simple, thin pipe, that was later connected to the flywheel powered by the steam horse right beside it. With this done, as soon as the basic fire would start burning inside and lodge itself in the charcoal, we could turn the fire under the steam horse on and start pumping crazy amounts of fresh air right inside the burning chamber, supplying more than enough air for the burning process to reach greater temperature than ever achieved elsewhere!


    As I moved out of my tent, rather than going directly for the furnace, I took a swing by the stockpile, where ten different clay forms was waiting for their first use. Since I wasn''t going to make a proper pressure steam engine right away but rather it''s cut in a half prototype that would allow me to measure the distance and lengths of the required parts, and adjust everything before going for the real thing.


    The moment I came back, the workers finally received the signal they awaited for and started throwing iron ore and charcoal in turns, slowly but steadily filling the entire thing almost all the way to the top.


    Due to the fact that the amount of ore we had was limited rather than allowing us for a continuous supply of it, this furnace would work only for as long as both the fuel and the iron ore would be supplied to it, forcing my people to waste a lot of time cleaning it after it would be extinguished.


    That''s why, rather than doing a test run and wasting quite a lot of resources, all kinds of moulds, forms and stacks were prepared to let the liquid metal form into the desired shape rather than forming a nice, metallic pool right beside the furnace itself.


    "Start the fire!"


    With my forms already placed beside all the other ones prepared by the workers, all I really had to do was to witness the process of the furnace heating up before I would be able to go back to sleep. After all the overtime work that those people put into finishing it if I were to ignore this important moment when the steam horse would for the first time supply the furnace with fresh air!


    Yet the reality turned out to be really boring.


    Thanks to my own additions to the steam horse, outside of constantly throwing more and more wood under the belly of the boiler, its swinging beam made sure that all the valves would open and close in the perfect timing, turning the rod with fan blades on it with a constant speed.


    In just a few moments, as soon as the charcoal properly lit up, the entire process started, slowly but steadily leading to the first drops of molten metal pouring out of the special hole at the bottom of the furnaceˇ­ Or rather would do it, if something like this could happen in a matter of just a few minutes!


    Bored to no end, I couldn''t tell that I wasn''t enjoying the sight of my inventions turning into a reality, yet when thinking about standing in front of this hellishly hot furnace and just watching as nothing would happen for hours, I would much rather prefer just going back to my bed!


    "Sir, we finished the shed! Now we only need the blades and we will be able to connect the entire thing to the steam horse!"


    Just before I could turn around on my feet and head back to the sweet wonderland of dreams, another group of workers approached me just as enthusiastically, forcing me to stay awake for even longer.


    "Okay, let''s go see it."


    Yet rather than letting me deal with yet another mundane tasks of seeing how the efforts of the workers under my guidance were coming to the fruition, one more report reached my ears.


    "Sir, there are ships coming our way!"

 137 Nature of the local developmen

    26th April 1574


    While traveling on the horseback through the night was simply impossible due to how high of a risk it posed for the horses to trip, doing so on the river wasn''t that much of a trouble. As long as one was willing to waste his manpower of people constantly making sure that the shore was far enough while the waterway was deep enough, moving through the river was pretty feasible.


    Yet, with how only the merchants were scheduled to come soon with the supplies from Sandomir that would let the development of this place finally reach the stage on which I could produce most of the simple stuff locally rather than relying on the external source for all sorts of products, I couldn''t help but wonder what made them go for such lengths to travel overnight!


    Was it the Governor''s influence or direct order backed up with enough gold to convince them it was a worthy investment of their time after assessing the risks? Or maybe they somehow sneaked enough peaks at what was going on back when they came here for the last time to realise the potential that this place held in both the short and long term?


    Just like later ages would prove in a rather brutal way, industrialisation was a process that could be compared to a sink for the resources during its growth stages, inducing a huge growth and development to all the areas subjected to its influence, only to turn into a complex and efficient machine literally shitting out more wares than the local population and traders could move and use for themselves, forcing the governments to look for the new ways to dump all of the products made in the urbanised areas.


    Yet with no competition in place that could compete with anything produced by my projects, I didn''t have to worry about saturating the market, as my aim, in the long run, was to invest a huge portion of the product back into the development, only leaving enough wares for the others to buy.


    In this way, while the areas in which I would invest, rather than ever facing the problem of spreading their products around the world, would simply dump this task on the others while turning into a forced modernisation drive for literally the rest of the world! By the time I would move from the steam engines to the diesel ones, I would open the gates of my factories and dumb all the remaining stock in the hands of those interested of replicating my steps.


    Did someone want to buy the blueprints for the efficient blast furnace? Sure! But by the time he would build one, my lands would be already using industrial-grade arc furnaces! Did someone want to build his own table saw? Not a problem! But by the time it would be completed, my lands would already have fully automated production of planks in all shapes one''s heart could desire!


    "Have someone go and greet the merchants. If everything went as I hope it would, they will bring all sorts of tools that we were lacking those past few days. While I hope it won''t happen, if there will be any problems, feel free to call for me."


    Rather than wasting my time by dealing with those profit-oriented bunch, I would much rather see the forms filling up with the liquid metal even if one droplet at a time, or even just go to my tent and catch up on my missing sleep.


    As for the missing materials, with how even I never expected to finish the first type of steam horse so soon, I simply didn''t bother myself with ordering them back when I was in Sandomir myself. With the limited space on the barges that took us to this area, there was no way to fit all the chains, blades and other elements that would allow me to replace the fragile parts we made on the spot from what we had on hand.


    For example, using the hemp rope to power up all the mechanisms connected to the steam horse wasˇ­ a bad idea to say the least. If the resistance offered by the receiving machines was a bit too big for the rope to handle, rather than moving it around, it would simply slide on it with not enough traction to keep it moving.


    On the other hand, when using a simple chain to connect any two machines together, just by adding small pins to the wheel that powered the entire thing, I could make sure that as long as the chain held itself together, the two machines would continue to work to the best of their ability!


    But as my thoughts once again roamed free through all the tasks I had to finish and the perspectives on the development for the future days, yet another shout forced me out of my dreamlike state back into the harsh reality.


    "Sir! I think you should come here right now!"


    Just what could''ve happened for those craftsmen that went to meet with the merchants to call me out so soon? Even a single look to the river was enough for me to realise that the ships didn''t stop their travel yet, so how come there could be any troubles requiring my attention?


    Was I simply too nice to my workers and craftsmen working under me to the point they started treating me as their equal that they could call to even the simplest of tasks?


    With the slight anger slowly helping me to push the thoughts of my warm bed aside, I made my way to the shore, only to freeze in place as soon as I saw a familiar face lingering atop the ship''s deck.


    What the hell was he doing here?

 138 Unexpected visi

    26th April 1574


    "Welcome, your governorship!"


    Even before the ship could come to a halt, I lowered my head at a sign of respect and greeted the most important person standing atop the ship''s deck. While I was greatly surprised by him visiting not only so quickly, over a week earlier than he was supposed to by his own words, but what was the most upsetting was that he dared to travel through the night!


    I said that swimming in the rivers was far safer than moving by the horse through the night, but that didn''t mean it was completely safe either! With how fast the Vistula river flow was, rather than using it''s to the fullest potential, the staff on board would have to rather slow the ship down in order to have the make sure the voyage would be safe than using the flow to travel quickly.


    "Hello there, Mister Mike!"


    Hearing my welcome, the governor waved his hand at me and replied, but due to how unstable the ship was during its stalling period, we had to limit our interaction all the way to the moment when their vessel came to a complete stop, allowing the people on board to get down on land.


    "It''s a surprise to see you so soon to be sure, my lord, but a welcome one. It just so happens that we started our first project using the steam horse, so you are in for the perfect time to inspect how it works!"


    While I didn''t expect him to visit so soon, seeing how at least a single project outside of the steam horse was already working in its full swing, I could hope that the influx of the money and manpower could come even quicker!


    "That''s actually a great idea. To be completely honest, I came here mostly due to the reports of the merchants. Hearing how you forced me to pay for quite a lot of stuff, I didn''t really have any other option than to come!"


    Back two days ago, when I first settled the deal with the merchants, outside of exchanging the spice for the gold that would allow me to pay all the wages and still keep some money on myself, I told the traders that all the stuff that I required would be paid for by the governor, along with passing him a letter informing about the progress of our development.


    With how I painted the steam engine in the bright colours for him back when we talked about my ideas, it was only to be expected that he wouldn''t waste an entire week waiting if the prototype was already finished!


    "Woah."


    Even before we reached the distance from which all the details could be seen in the darkness of the late-night, thanks to the fires burning under both the blast furnace and the steam horse one could still make out the shape of the major parts of those two buildings.


    "To be honest, I couldn''t really believe that you could build one when I first heard about it, or that you could do it so fast when those merchants came to report to meˇ­"


    "So, how does this thing work exactly?"


    After taking his time to simply adore the automated movement of the steam horse that seemed to move all by itself if one were to take the workers constantly feeding its furnace with fuel out of the picture, Jan finally turned his head to me, seeking an explanation.


    "Sir, it''s actually quite simple. In the resting position, the arm is pulled to the left, creating a lot of space in the cylinder hidden behind those bricks. As one of the valves opens, the free space in the cylinder is filled with the vapour all the way to the point when the other valve opens up, sprinkling cold water inside the cylinder."


    Just as I was about to explain the next steps, I realised that in order to do so, I would have to introduce the concept of the atmospheric pressure as it was the main factor that provided the energy that would be turned into the movement!


    "In short words, hot steam takes more space than normal water. Just like it happens to the gunpowder if we could reverse the process of burning it, as there is not enough stuff to fill the enclosed cylinder, its pulled down by the reverse explosion of sortsˇ­"


    In the end, I had to simplify the process even more to avoid falling into the trap of exposing more advanced technological knowledge. While the stuff like the pressure was something that even the middle-grade school kids knew in my timeline, I wasn''t that sure whether this concept was popularised in this age already.


    "So that''s itˇ­ And that wheel on its left side?"


    Pointing his finger towards the flywheel forced to spin around by the simplest crank mechanism possible, Governor asked yet another question. Considering how this scheme of turning the up and down movement into a rotational one that could be used more efficiently for my needs would be implemented in all types of engines that would appear in my lands from now on, this was something that had to be explained anyway.


    "It only serves one purpose. As you can see, my lord, the steam horse can only move its arm up and down. Since we wanted to use it to turn the fans supplying the blast furnace with fresh air, I came up with the idea of using this sort of wheel. As for the blast furnaceˇ­"


    With how the steam engine was as grand of an invention as simple it was when it came to what it did, I was much more interested in introducing this improved kind of furnace, capable of increasing the smelting rate of the ore from a pitiful score of the single-use bloomery furnaces still supplying the majority of the local iron production in the Commonwealth!


    "... If everything will go as planned, then in just a few moments, I will be able to present an instructional prototype of the new model of a steam horse, not only way smaller and cheaper than the one we are seeing in front of us, but also capable of providing much more energy!"


    Initially turning around in order to bring the governor to the casting area filled with all sorts of forms in order to check on the one that would provide me with the model of mark two, pressure steam engine, seeing how Jan remained in his place, I had no other option than to stop myself and wait for his reaction.


    "You see, when you first told me about all those wonders, I really didn''t believe anything of this sort could be done. After all, if something like that would be possible, someone else would come up with this idea long ago - that was the way of my thinking back then. But looking at how quick you are with not only introducing those new inventions but putting them in proper use, I''m now convinced."


    After a moment of silence, the governor finally spoke, raising his head and looking at me with a determination seeping out of his eyes.


    "When I first saw what you ordered, I was worried you wanted to enslave the workers with those chains and force them to work hard in order to fake how would this steam horse work. That was also the main reason why did I came here myself. But just by looking at how everyone is so enthusiastic, despite working through the night, I have no other doubts. Tell me then, what do you need to keep the work going here?"


    Finally, the moment I have been waiting for has come! Not only I could now rob the Governor out of most of his wealth and put it into much greater use, but the limits on the progress set by the lack of manpower could also finally be lifted. But most importantly, with how Jan now knew that all my ideas weren''t just the projections of a crazy man''s mind, I could negotiate the absolute ownership of this piece of land!


    "Sir, the answer is simple. The more resources and manpower I have on hand, the greater the effects will be. But at the same time, the more men will come here, the harder supplying them all with food will turn out to be. That''s why, before even discussing what I need to keep developing this land, I would like to once again ask you this daring question I posed all the way back in Pilzno."


    Taking a moment to not only build the tension but also prepare myself for the daring words that I would utter in just a moment. After all, most of the times, the land could switch hand only when someone distinguished himself on the battlefield and was rewarded by the King himself, or when inheritance came to play its inherent role. Receiving a land just for the economical deeds was something that never happened in the history of the Commonwealth before!


    "Sir, I would like to have this land placed under my own jurisdiction, with all the profits that would remain after reinvesting in this place itself, split evenly between the two of us."

 139 Monetary side of the things

    26th April 1574


    "Starting from a high horse, I see."


    Instead of instantly providing me with a reply, the governor only muttered those few words before sinking into the sea of his thoughts. After all, I couldn''t expect him to suddenly give me even more land that was currently his own, especially after he ruled the ownership of Ropian in my favour.


    It wasn''t only about the potential loss of the tax income from those lands or even the decreasing number of farms that would provide more grain for him to sell in the northern ports. It was about my sudden growth in power!


    As the descendant of the formerly major house, just uniting the three cities in one, a long line of land could put my neighbours on the edge, as if the trend continued, it would be their land that might catch my attention later. If the governor were to suddenly gift me even more land in a different area, not only my local neighbours would start eyeing my growth, but so would almost every noble of who would turn green from envy when seeing my sudden raise!


    "Sorry, brother, but while I want to support you as much as I can, ceding this land directly to youˇ­ Even if I did, I''m worried you would simply not be able to face the consequences. The best I can do is to sign this land off for you in my testament while abolishing all the taxes for all your current projects. Does that sound all right to you?"


    While the governor had his reasons to put this kind of offer forward, when thinking about it from the perspective of someone who knew what kind of turmoil was about to start on this lands, it seemed like an even better idea than what I intentionally wanted!


    As long as this land would de jure belong to the governor, while all the de facto rights would stay on my side, no minor noble would dare to go against this place! No matter how far I would go in poaching the serfs from their lands, forcing them to sell me the food rather than selling it off in the northern ports or doing literally anything else, being nothing but a proxy for the governor, they would be unwilling to risk their entire wealth and name only to get even with me!


    "Ah, speaking of taxes, my lord, I think I might have an idea that will allow this place to earn the gold we will need for the future expansions by itself. Just like we discussed all the way back in Pilzno, local nobles prefer to buy all sorts of stuff from the foreign merchants, rather than allowing local producers to earn their rightful keep. I guess with all the chains that I ordered, the set of strange circular blades didn''t escape your attention?"


    While initially the wood factory was intended to supply all the planks and wooden blocks that my future projects would require, thinking about this in a more realistic way, I couldn''t rely on the governor to provide all the funds that this place would gobble like a starved outcast!


    As soon as just a few of mark two steam horses would start their operation, I could turn this side project of mine into the greatest manufacturing plant that would exist in the entire continent, turning the entire nearby forest into a constant stream of furniture that could be sold cheaply to any buyer interested!


    "Yeah, I was quite curious about their use you imagined, and since I didn''t really trust your wits at that time, all that came to my mind was some kind of elaborate torture tool for the unruly workersˇ­"


    Hearing the Governor''s reasoning, I had to rest my hand on the steam horse''s bricked wall, only to jump away from it when my entire inner palm blasted my mind with a sudden burst of pain. In my daze, I forgot that this thing was constantly heated up to a rather high degree!


    "Sirˇ­ With all due respect, what did you hear about me to have such an image of my personality in your head?"


    Taking a moment to calm myself down and get used to the stinging pain in my hand, I raised my head back to look at the governor.


    "Anyway, those blades are going to be used in this small shed that you can see being built right over there."


    Pointing my hand at the nearby structure still under construction by the same team of workers that I assigned to the lone carpenter, I already could imagine how it would look in the near future. Or rather, instead of expanding it from its pitiful size that it was intended to have right now, I would push some of the manpower to prepare proper foundations and set the walls to be made either with concrete or the brick, so that this cash plant could be at least several stories high!


    "In short words, I want this place to take the huge logs, pull them on special holdings through a set of moving blades so that at the end of the line, nothing more but nicely cut planks in all kinds of required sizes will be ready to be turned into furniture! To be honest, as long as the second type of the steam horse will be put to use, it''s even possible to simply place the logs at the starting location, allow the building to work on it by itself and receive a finished product at the ending location!"


    As long as proper machinery would be put in place, there would be no need for anyone but a small crew to work in this entire, future plant. Outside of making sure that all the machines were working properly and eliminating all possible problems before they would lead to the stalling of the entire manufacturing process, all the steps of cutting the wood into required sizes, nailing the parts in a set sequence and even polishing it to add a nice shine to the wood, all of those steps could be fully automated!


    "I really want to see it happening. From how fast you are developing this place already, how long do you think it would take for the first items that we could sell to be produced?"


    Instead of joining in my futuristic enjoyment, the Governor once again pulled me back to the ground with his precise question. Just like he mentioned behind the lines of his words, it didn''t matter what I could achieve in the far-off future. All that mattered was whether I could produce something that would sell in a relatively short time so that rather than sinking more and more of his savings into this project, it could start earning for itself!


    "To be honest, if we want to sell something, we could produce cast sabres as soon as we improve the mining process, meaning that in about a week or two, not only we could replace this furnace with even better one, casting steel sabres or even uniform guns would be entirely possible!"

 140 How to earn from industralisation

    26th April 1574


    "Okay then. Now that we know what you will be aiming for, I will make sure to forward this offer to all the parties that might be possibly interested. As for the priceˇ­"


    If we were talking business, then the worth of the wares produced by my furnaces was of the utmost importance. With how most of its elements were made out of simple steel, as long as I could improve the quality of the metal produced by my furnaces, most of its cost could be decreased from even tens of red goldens to just a few of them.


    But the problem here wasn''t in casting the proper shape or readying it for the use. Just like with working around the wood, with enough effort and steam engines in place, automating the process of casting, cooling and sharpening could be done. The worst part when looking at the sabre from an industrial point of view laid in finishing the handle off with a material that allowed for a good grasp of the weapon!


    Yet just like in modern times, if something would pose the trouble for the automation, I could simply outsource it to someone else!


    "While this is just a rough estimate, I think we could get a raw sabre for about one or two red goldens. That would include all the costs of ores, smelting and casting it, all the way to sharpening. The problematic part is finishing the handle off. As long as you could find a bunch of craftsmen that could focus only at this task alone, then from tens of ducats that the sabres can cost right now in their pure state without any decorations, we could lower their prices to just a few red goldens!"


    As I was saying those words, my mind was already wandering through all the possible arnments that my future plants could produce. While making a pistol required one to just get a barrel, firing mechanism and the handle done, I didn''t see any reason to make this outdated technology if I could invest in more advanced types of weapons!


    If only I could push forward the creation of the fused ammunitionˇ­


    But wait, didn''t I already create the great way to do it?


    What if I replicated the concept of my reaper guns in form of a mix between a carabine and revolving gun?


    The greatest hurdle to overcome while creating fused ammunition was developing an element or mixture that could serve as the ignition mechanism for the gunpowder loaded inside. But what if I simply ignored that step, created a simple, iron casing, as thin as it could get, hammer the bullet at its top, loaded the gunpowder to the back and cover it with oiled paper?


    "Your face is changing rapidly. Did you thought of something?"


    Seeing the ongoing transformations of my expression, Governor stopped me from diving even deeper into the field of my imagination. But the excitement that took over my mind was simply too great to be calmed down by a single question.


    "Sir, you surely remember those reaper guns, do you?"


    As the concept behind those early type of machine guns and my idea for a personal weapon was basically the same, it was easier to simply point out at something that already existed and explain the intended changes rather than explaining the concept from the scratch.


    "Yeah, I even fired them a few times to see their potential, and I have to admit, as long as you could improve the production of gunpowder as well, then it would change how all the wars will look from now on. After all, no one will find enough suicidal people to line against those machines of death!"


    Hearing the confirmation from the governor, I asked him to come with me. After reaching my private tent, I grabbed one of the free pieces of parchment and the loose piece of charcoal, kneeled right on the ground and started drawing.


    "We won''t make any big changes to the design. But just by taking a single barrel, that we can easily cast with the technology we already have on hand, locking it in line with the ignition mechanism by just two pieces of wood and adding the trigger that would push the burning match to the shoot rather than using a pedal, we could turn those heavy and hard to move around cannons, into something that all of the soldiers could be equipped with!"


    After sending a glance towards the simple blueprint I drew on the paper, Governor kneeled in front of it and after thinking for a while, raised his head to line up his sight with mine.


    "But you are still how are you going to make the bullets? From what I saw when testing the shots you gave me, they were all made with oiled cloth! While it pains me to say it, we don''t have enough cloth to produce it on a scale large enough to provide enough munition for even a single battle."


    Hearing Jan''s input, I was too excited to even try to hide the proud smile from my face. With just a few more swings of my palm, I drew a simple design for the bullet casing, the bullet itself and its firing mechanism, before explaining the entire concept.


    "So you want to do it like this! But what about the casing? If it will be shot along the bullet itself, won''t it decrease its reach due to the added weight?"


    Once again, stunned by how smart this man was to point out something that even a man from the future like me forgot to even consider, I thought about it for a moment, before adding a few lines to the design of the magazine that would once again, go from the top of the gun to the bottom, only allowing one to shoot when it was perfectly lined with both the firing pipe and the barrel itself.


    "That''s actually pretty simple. We will make the holes in the magazine a bit smaller than the casing, yet big enough for the bullet to pass. This way, the casing will remain in the used magazine, allowing us to melt it down and reuse it later on!"


    In fact, when thinking about the design, I already realised that I could do a small improvement to the barrel itself! As long as it would be rifled, not only would the accuracy of the weapon improve, but so would the range at which it could be shoot!


    "Sir, right now, I have simply too many ideas roaming through my head. For now, I will do my best to start the production of the simple sabres. As soon as I will have enough free time on my hands, I will make sure to focus on creating this new kind of gun. On the other side, if we want to have any chance at promoting this weapon, we will need an insane supply of the gunpowder itself. Do you think you could increase the local production with your own influence?"


    Since I was now focused on the industrialization of the lands rather than making use of all the newly implemented inventions into their military aspect, I simply couldn''t waste my time on increasing the production of the gunpowder. As long as it would be done with the standard means available to the governor, even if only a small amount, those new rifles could enter the local market and earn us quite a lot of gold!


    "Yes, it won''t be that much of a problemˇ­ But you said something about creating a portable steam horse, didn''t you? Would you mind showing the prototype you spoke about to me? As long as I could bring one or two machines like that to the sulfur mines, I''m sure the production of the gunpowder would skyrocket!"


    Only now recalling the fact that my half-sized model of the mark two engines was most likely already done, I quickly stood up and cleaned my clothes from the dirt that attached to them while I was kneeling directly on the ground.


    "Sure thing, sir. Follow me."

 141 Prototype

    26th April 1574


    "As you can see, sir, there are two chambers and three circular shields inside the new kind of steam horse. The bottom chamber is where all the work happens, while the upper one is there only to control and automate the process."


    After brutally smashing apart the clay form, I picked the iron cast product out of it. With just one more moment of waiting, all the other parts in the form of the pistons or pipes were picked out of their respective forms, allowing me a quick assembly of the exemplary model of the mark two steam horse.


    "To make it all simpler, let''s call the bottom holes, cylinder holes, the middle hole in the upper chamber a steam intake, while the side holes in the upper chamber, exhaust holes."


    If I were to call all of the openings in this engine just holes with added adjectives like upper, bottom, left and right, it would quickly get confusing, even if I were to point my fingers at them whenever I mentioned one of the holes. That''s why, it was better to introduce some organisation even at the vocabulary level beforehand, to make all the explanations simpler.


    "If we consider this engine to be in a natural position right now, with its cylinder plate pushed all the way to the leftˇ­"


    Even though I said all the way, the plate was moved only to the point where still a small gap remained. Thinking about this, it would be wise to add some kind of blockade, that would prevent the piston plate to be pushed against the cylinder wall because, in that setting, the steam would have no way to enter the space in between!


    "... then the control mechanism in the upper chamber would lock away the left exhaust hole, allowing the steam intake to push the vapour through the left cylinder opening. At the same time, the right cylinder opening would connect to the right exhaust hole, allowing the remaining gasses to flow out."


    Whenever I spoke about something happening, I moved my hands to place the right parts to their designed position, sometimes forced to add the thickness to the control piston as to indicate that its final version would be simply thicker.


    No matter how advanced this exemplary project already was, it was nothing but a prototype aimed to calculate all the properties of the required parts as to the next piece that would be soon cast with our blast furnace could be put to use without the annoying process of prolonged testing and adjusting.


    The whole idea of the control chamber based on those two plates, mounted on a single rod, blocking one of the exhaust holes out of the system while stopping any fresh steam from escaping while the exhaust vapour would move out of the system. Yet contrary to how I automated the mechanism of opening and closing the valves in the atmospheric steam engine, this system was simply necessary because of two factors.


    First, the alternation process between pushing and pulling the power rod connected to the main cylinder was simply too fast for any human to realistically be able to operate itˇ­ And what was even more important, the entire system would be enclosed, making it impossible to operate it by hand in the first place!


    "I think I understand nowˇ­ And since there is no need to constantly bring the water back and forth, you will cool the vapour somewhere else and let it drip back to the boiler tank, right?"


    After my detailed explanation, anyone who learned about the principle of the steam engines should be able to understand the means at which they would operate but to come up with a new idea to improve outer parts of the system?


    Times and times again, Governor was proving that his position wasn''t inherited, but obtained through his own, vivid imagination and intelligence!


    "Yeah. If I wanted to let the steam go to waste, the speed at which freshwater would have to be supplied would require at least a half of the power that this engine could produce."


    As the show was done now, I picked all the parts and moved back to my tent while ordering some workers to bring me a bucket of formable clay. Now that the prototype was finished, I could work on the clay to create the final moulds that would be later used to cast the real thing!


    Obviously, due to the fact that the engine consisted of both stationary and moving parts, it would still be made with two separate halves, firstly filled with the necessary parts and then bound together by a thin layer of liquid metal. With no melding tools, that was the only way in which I could make sure it would have any endurance, as any attempts of binding it together by the ropes or nails would simply end up with a vapour explosion!


    "So, what are your plans for now? Like, I know you want to settle the carpentry plant to get some additional income that could cover at least a part of the costs for all your projects, but in terms of the next few days or weeks, what do you plan to do?"


    To be honest, I was slowly getting used to this approach of the governor. Instead of letting the emotions sweep his mind and push him to the wonderlands of the future, he preferred to stay down to earth, slowly but steadily forcing me to adopt this approach of his to my own way of thinking.


    "Since now I have the prototype to work on, I will focus on setting the production for those steam engines. With how boilers and heaters can be made by literally any craftsman around the country, rather than wasting my time and resources on doing so, I will just keep producing those base units. As soon as I will get a few of them ready, I will push some of my manpower and resources to improve the smelters and built said carpentry, but in the short term, those engines will be my priority."


    While I still allowed myself to project my actions for the near future, I ended my response on a decisive note for the actions I would directly focus on right now.


    With the prototype, after creating two or maybe three next models, I could perfect the sizes and dimensions for all the parts, and start crafting all the engines I would ever want!


    "Okay then. What do you need from me right now then? More men? More materials?"


    Sensing what was my greatest worry right now, Jan instantly changed the topic to the real problems, rather than wasting his and my time on praising the ingenuity of my inventions.


    "I need everything. Every man you can spare, every penny that lies unused in your coffers, every brick, every nail, every chainˇ­ I don''t think I need to go on with the list. But right now, I would be incredibly happy if you could send a messenger to my wife so that she could bring our own gold, men and beer. I want to let my workers celebrate all the successes we achieved already!"

 142 Finishing touches

    27th April 1574


    After all the commotion caused by the appearance of the Governor, before even the sun had the chance to peek at how this land looked now after my dedicated workers finished the blast furnace, Jan already boarded the same ship that carried him here and departed to the Sandomir, claiming that there was no point for him to stay here.


    While I could understand his reasons, it still made me a bit sad seeing how he left so soon. Even if it would help just a bit, having him behind my back here could work wonders in terms of both the workers and the villagers'' morale!


    Speaking of the villagers, after they finished all the construction work for their own housing, I instantly put them to work, asking them to move all the ore from the foothold of the mine to the specially designated flat and empty space below the blast furnace.


    Even though I knew that in reality, this kind of smelting wasn''t even close to what I should do given all the tools and knowledge that I had on hand, for now, just like I promised to the Governor, I wanted to focus on making the final model of the steam horse mark two!


    Yet it wasn''t as simple as I thought it would be. Even if ignoring the fact that two of the models that I thought to be perfect, ended up simply deforming because of how fast I took them out of the mould, unable to hold my excitement, even when the third one finally came out it still turned out to be unusable due to some small mistakes I made while forming the shape of the form for it.


    That''s why, despite the entire day passing without me making any progress, I was sitting down in my tent, carefully moving small portions of the wet clay around the form in front of me, trying to make sure that every single part would end up perfect.


    With no tools to create round shapes, I had to compromise and just go for the general curve, basing it on the round shape of the cylinder plates that came out in the right size during their second casting already.


    Yet while thinking about all the resources that I seemingly wasted on the failed products, someone else might accusee me of wasting the resources that could be put to use elsewhere, but thanks to how the blast furnace worked, resmelting the failed metal products was as simple as just dropping them along with the ore and waiting for the furnace to do the rest of the work!


    But after all the time I spent on remoulding the shape of the form and fixing all the problems that might arise, I finally left this clay structure on the sideˇ­ and took the spare bucket with clay to make another one, as close to its brother as I could make it!


    Yet thanks to how used I was to this task after all the previous failures, finishing the other part of the form wasn''t that hard and took me only two hours or so!


    But after all of this hard work, I could finally pick one of the forms up and carry it to the blast furnace, before going all the way back and repeating the process with the other one. While I was capable of creating them in a fairly short amount of time, it still wasn''t something that I was willing to just destroy by not acting carefully around it!


    "Sir, did you finish the forms?"


    With how I kind of overreacted when the last three attempts ended up failing, most of the workers already knew that I was working on something new. Considering the kind approach I took to all those working under me, while I knew it was against the social standard of the age, I didn''t mind when even the simple workers started to address me more directly.


    "Yeah, will the new batch of iron flow anytime soon?"


    As the blast furnace burned through layers of fuel and ore stacked on top of each other, there were times when one had to wait up to even a fifteen minutes of the new batch of liquid metal to start flowing out. Even though this process wasn''t super precise but more of a guessed timing, even if I were to be forced into standing here idle for an hour, I was set on watching my first ever pressure steam horse come into being!


    "I guess, it''s been ten minutes since the last flow, so in another five minutes next batch should come."


    Even though my own projects took up quite a lot of iron, with how the pile of ore behind the furnace only continued to grow as more and more of its pieces were halted from the foothold of the mountain to the stockpiling area, I didn''t need to worry about running out of iron for my projects for at least a few more days, despite how most of the pig iron that managed to flow out of the furnace so far, was already used in all sorts of other moulds!


    After all, while my steam engine would allow me to push this place to a new level in terms of development, there was still a need to produce various parts from blades, through pipes all the way to simple tools.


    "Sir, it started coming out!"


    With a group of workers wearing thick gloves made out of several layers of cloth covered in the expensive animal skin, carefully moving the forms to the thick, leading pipe that spread the trickling, liquid metal evenly between all of the forms, I could see how at first only a few drops of iron fallen to the forms only to be replaced with a constant stream filing all the holes and the gaps.


    Yet even when all the forms finally filled up, forcing the workers to pull on the chains, forcing the liquid metal to stay in a small bowl right in front of the furnace''s mouth so that it wouldn''t spill all around while they moved the pipe to the next row of forms, I still remained idle.


    After all, I wasn''t willing to repeat the same mistake I did with the previous two forms. Using the spare time I had on hand, I confirmed that all of the inner parts were already prepared for me to put them inside the very first steam engine.


    "Sir, it should be done by now."


    While the workers at the furnace only had about two days worth of experience in their job, with how constant their task was, most of them learned how to judge the results just by glancing over it.


    "Great!"


    Seeing that the iron was still flowing down the half-pipe to the forms near the last part of the rows with forms, I hurriedly smashed the clay brick with a nearby small hammer, cleaning the half of the steam engine from the rubble and dust with just a few swipes of my hand.


    Disregarding my position as the noble, I carefully placed all the parts in their respective places, making sure that everything fitted its location perfectly, before grabbing a strange form that I prepared long ago.


    With all the parts of the steam engine in place, I cleaned the other half from the dust as well and closed the entire thing with my hands alone. Only then did I add the next form that fits perfectly around the engine, covering all the length of the ugly scar that indicated that it still consisted of two separate parts.


    Strapping it all together with a set of ropes, seeing how the flow of molten iron was slowly thinning, I even called some of the workers to help me out with my tasks, before ordering the operators of the pipe to raise it once again, and fill the last form of mine.


    With no welding tools and no way to add a small layer of iron on top of the steam horse''s casing edge, I had no other way than to apply a thick layer of iron all around the split where those two halves connected!


    Following my order without even a second of hesitation, the workers raised the pipe, forcing the remaining iron to once again pile up in the small bowl, before lowering it above the single opening in my current form.


    As the hot metal poured inside, no one was allowed to stay near this new invention of mine, due to the hazardous nature of the process. Only when the last drop of iron finally fell down to the form and managed to spill out, did the workers pulled on the chains once again, and locked them on a special hold.


    After all, if they were to fill some of the forms only partially, the resulting product would very well be melted down, as I wouldn''t accept any fragile tools on objects in my lands of industrialisation!


    But rather than worrying over what the workers were supposed to do with the remaining metal, I waited for long enough to let the metal cool down and solidify, before smashing the form into pieces.


    And with that, mark two steam horse was finally done!

 143 Its done!

    27th April 1574


    Just like I explained to the Governor, the base unit of the steam engine was the only part that was complicated to make, yet that didn''t mean that it would operate without all the other required parts!


    First, came the boiler. I had to pick one that could produce enough steam to power up the engine and allow it to reach its full efficiency, yet keep it small enough to not make its walls rupture under the pressure. While for now, I had no other way to connect the two halves of the casing together than covering them with a thick layer of cast iron, it left a rather fragile scar on the inner structure of this machine, forcing me to be really careful while using it.


    Then came the pipes that would connect everything together. Just like the steam engine itself, they had to be capable of sustaining the huge pressure of the condensed water vapour, while remaining big enough on the inside to allow for its free flow inside the engine itself.


    Lastly, I still have yet to find the proper way to connect the work pipe and the control pipe to make it fully and properly automated!


    Yet no matter how many problems would arise from now on, it wouldn''t change the fact that the hardest step to overcome was already behind me!


    Considering how important this engine was to the development of my lands, rather than putting enough of my focus into other projects to make sure they would grow properly, I moved all my attention to this steam horse mark two. In the end, if any problem arisen with the carpentry plant, I could take care of them after dealing with the pressure steam engine!


    At first, I decided to tackle the problem of connecting the two rods and automating their movements. If I were to start with anything else, the only access to the insides of the engines through its three upper holes would be gone, forcing me to take this approach.


    Yet this task, while seemingly hard with how the entire inner workings of the steam engine would rely on how close to perfection it would be, wasn''t that hard at all! With the distance that both the control piston and the cylinder plate both measured, all I had to do was to find the ratio between the two, and apply it while mounting the two cranks on top of the flywheel!


    As the blast furnace was working ceaselessly since quite a long time already, I didn''t need to bother with lack of any of the tools or parts, with even a relatively small flywheel already waiting for me to make the best use out of it.


    After applying the rations and calculating the exact placement of the two cranks depending on the required distance from the centre of the wheel, I finally placed the nails and smashed their protruding ends to make sure they wouldn''t fall off under the stress that constant movement would subject them to.


    Come back to this damned furnace and wait for a new batch of iron to connect the two of them together!


    While I could use nails or even rope to mount it, that would only decrease the maximum durability of the entire machine, throwing all my efforts to make it as perfect as I could out of the window for the sake of saving me just a bit of effort.


    This time though, I didn''t need to wait at all for the iron to start flowing, as when I finally managed to haul the power unit already connected to the flywheel towards the smelter area, it so happened that the process of filling the form was currently taking place.


    After raising the entire machine on top of a simple set of planks nailed together and placed on top of the wooded logs, I allowed the workers at the smelter to the rest of the job. As the ropes that held the two parts together could finally be loosened, I couldn''t help but admire how beautiful this thing was!


    While for now it still consisted of nothing else but the power unit, flywheel and ''U'' shaped pipe protruding from its top. Yet the actually worst part has yet to come!


    Despite what I claimed when Governor came up with the idea of reusing the steam, it wasn''t as simple as one could think it would be. Not only it would require me to instal a cooling tank where the steam would gather and drip on its bottom only to flow down into the boiler tank later on when it came to moving this entire thing around, the more weight I added to the entire thing, the harder it would get to push it even while using this ancient method of moving heavy objects from place to place!


    Yet if I wanted to create a properly working engine, I had no other way than make it into a fully closed machine! If there was even a single opening in the entire machine that would allow the workers to pour the water in, then it would also be the easiest way for the steam to escape the system, never building up any proper pressure to move the cylinder plate around!


    After lamenting on this matter for quite a while, I ended up pulling out quite a crowd of workers only to work as pulling force for the object that was turning stranger and stranger with every minute.


    With two more pipes added to the exhaust holes and reaching all the way to where the cooling tank would be later mounted, I finally moved on to figuring out the proper sizes of the boilerˇ­


    Only to give up on the idea soon after.


    With how bad my mathematical and physical calculus was back in the high school, there was no way I could come up with the proper equations that would allow me to calculate through the entire process just like that!


    Forced by the sad reality, I had to pick the boiler based on my gut feeling alone, slowly turning what was supposed to be a mobile engine into a monstrosity slowly approaching the weight of the entire atmospheric steam horse! But even before the boiler could be added in the exact same method of pouring liquid iron on the place where it would connect with the rest of the machinery, we ended up adding the cooling tank only for the sake of actually checking where would its outgoing pipe reach, forcing us to pick even bigger boiler than initially intended!


    That''s why, when all the steps were finally done, and as I watched the liquid iron pour on the connection between the steam intake pipe, I couldn''t help but feel fulfilled.


    What I thought that would take a few hours at most, turned into a task that by its finish, engaged almost half of the entire workforce in the entire area!


    Yet with the step of connecting the boiler to all the other parts, with only a small valve located in the middle of the water return pipe, the entire steam horse was finally done!

 144 First run of the new engine

    27th April 1574


    "Slowly, slowly!"


    Once again, commanding a huge crowd of people that lowered the mark two steam engine to do it carefully, I felt my heart jumping out so strongly, that is almost kicked itself out of my body straight through my throat and mouth.


    "Stop the chains!"


    With how deformed the entire construct was with all the pipes and cooling tanks stretched into the air, the boiler placed beside the power unit and the weight completely unbalanced, this simple machine had to be placed in a robust supporting construction, that would prevent it from simply falling to the side.


    Yet where one could think that just a simple set of supporting poles would be enough to keep the cooling tank in the air, I knew that as soon as the engine would start working, all the vibrations caused by the violent rocking of the thick, cylinder plate, along with its momentum forcibly stopped in one place only to be transferred back to the other end of the machine, could easily turn such a fragile support upside down within first few seconds of operating the engine!


    That''s why not only the support poles were reinforced with the iron itself, the entire construction looked more like an iron cage, with several nails the size of a cavalry pike stuck deep into the ground to keep the entire thing in place.


    "Okay, now just a little bit to the left!"


    Since the cage and the steam engine couldn''t be pieced together until all the metal poles would be stuck tightly to the ground and covered with a layer of the concrete that finally dried up the stockpile that I did my best to prepare away from everyone''s eyes, now we were holding this entire, heavy construction on a set of over twenty heavy metal chains, as I couldn''t trust any number of ropes to hold such a monstrosity in the air.


    "How is it going up there?"


    Shouting out to the craftsmen hanging out from the rods protruding a bit into the air from the entire construction, I anxiously waited for their report while eyeing how the entire thing dangerously swayed on those chains.


    Even with about eighty people employed to put it in its final piece right beside the original steam horse, holding the entire thing in the air wasn''t that big of a task, but any drastic move caused by the sudden wind or one of the workers losing consciousness would risk the entire thing going down the drain, as we had no tools to cut the iron apart.


    If anything were to happen to the engine now, not only all the work we all put in making it would go down the drain, but several red goldens worth of ore would be wasted as well!


    "Sir, it''s sitting tightly as a whore on her clients cook!"


    "Okay boys, it''s time to wrap it up! Lower the beast!"


    As long as even one of the supporting points was safely locked, the rest should easily fall into its designed place as well.


    Yet despite how I assured everyone, there was no sign in relaxation in any of the workers still operating the chains with the utmost care. It seemed that the amount of effort everyone put into creating this beast ended up making them all ultra-careful around it!


    CLANG!


    With a loud noise of the metal hitting metal, the steam horse mark two finally rested its entire weight of the huge iron supports, allowing everyone to pull the chains from underneath it.


    As the sound of the iron hitting iron continued, everyone simply stared at the monstrosity in front of their eyes. With the water poured inside just before the last part was connected to the rest, closing the entire mechanism for as long as we would find a way to either open it, or it would turn out that the boiler tank was too big for it ending up with a huge explosion of iron and steam.


    "Okay boys, let''s not waste our time, and see how it works!"


    Even though using the engine while nothing was connected to the flywheel could put an unnecessary burden on it and wouldn''t contribute to showing how powerful it was, considering how we already did it with the first generation of the steam horses, just by comparing the speed at which the wheel would turn would serve as an example good enough to let everyone just what kind of power this strange beast had in itself!


    "Bring the wood and fire it up!"


    With just those few words, the entire crowd suddenly recalled all the other tasks they would have to fulfil otherwise, instantly springing to their respective jobs. After all the time and effort put into placing the engine in its final resting place, no one wanted to have too much job stacked on their backs to lose the chance to see this monstrosity do its first spin of the wheel!


    Since I was the only noble in the entire area, I could just sit down right on the ground and stare at the raw beauty of the machine in front of me. Yet this tranquil time of simply adoring the raw industrial-strength contained in this strange set of pipes and chambers was quickly disturbed when the workers finally managed to ran back to this place and started putting loads of wood under the boiler.


    "Stop! Don''t put too much. We don''t know how much heat this boy can handle."


    In the end, this turned out to be the last command I gave before gesturing the furnace workers that contributed the most to the creation of this machine to start the fire. I already had this privilege with the first steam horse, and to be honest, I didn''t feel anything insane while doing so.


    For me, it wouldn''t change anything if someone else would get this honour, but for the workers, it could serve as a good motivation to work even harder!


    And just like that, when the water inside the boiler finally reached the temperature when it started turning into steam, the flywheel only budged at first, only to slowly start spinning as the power rod moved the crank forward and backwards, forcing it to move the entire iron wheel around.


    As more and more water turned into steam, the speed of the wheel rotating only accelerated, quickly reaching the point that the previous steam horse managed to achieve at the peak of its power, and surpassing it as if that was no achievement at all!


    With more seconds passing, the speed of the flywheel didn''t stabilise at all, constantly increasing by a small amount and reaching the point where one couldn''t even recognise the patterns inscribed on it due to the uneven form it was made out!


    Yet rather than being happy, I suddenly realised that this amount of power to turn such a heavy object around wasn''t something that this kind of engine could easily produce!


    With a bad feeling suddenly taking over my entire mind, I switched to the tool that the system gifted to me just a few days ago, only to realise that almost half of the more fragile components of the engine were already coloured in a bright red!


    "TURN IT DOWN!"


    I shouted, yet I did it too late.


    WIth a huge crack, the nails that held the cranks to the rods, and the cranks themselves suddenly erupted, turning this place form one filled with joy, into a hellscape of blood!

 145 Sudden Chaos

    27th April 1574


    "Who''s hurt!?"


    As soon as the initial shock after the crash passed through my mind, I raised myself and shouted in the air. Yet rather than listening to the potential responses, my sight instantly moved all over my body, scanning whether I wasn''t hurt myself.


    Working as a white-collar worker for most of my adult''s life forced me to remember one of this vital tips for any accidents. Take care of yourself first. With the sudden rush of the adrenaline from the explosion, it wouldn''t be that strange if I were to lose a limb and not even realise that fact! Who couldn''t have known that those safety seminars could come in handy in such a strange way!


    Only when I confirmed that no foreign pieces of iron protruded from my body in places where metal should never happen to be, I raised my sight to analyse the situation. Maybe due to the sheer luck or maybe due to their determination, the workers at the boiler managed to spill the water from the nearby buckets on the fires, stalling the engine, yet just a quick peek to the side revealed that with all the accumulated steam, it would still take a long time for it to cool down, but with all the cranks destroyed, the control piston couldn''t move anymore, saving us from the onslaught of the broken iron pipes poking the air at an insane speed.


    "We have injured!"


    As soon as I confirmed that the steam horse didn''t pose any additional threat, for now, I moved my sight to the source of the voice that somehow managed to be hearable despite all the commotion that turned this joyous place into a complete mess.


    With my sight landing on a few gravely injured men, I had to use all my mental power to hold myself back form instantly puking my guts out. From what I saw, when the crank gave up due to the excessive speed at which they were operating, after shattering in many pieces, quite a lot of them shoot at their given speed into the air, with a part of them ending up penetrating the bodies of unlucky workers.


    "STOP!"


    Seeing how one of the luckily unharmed workers kneeled in front of one of the injured and reached for the iron needle that stuck to his abdomen, I could only shout and realise with growing desperation that in the sea of screams of fear and pain, my shout simply didn''t reach the ears of the man.


    First rule of injuries like that. Do not pull the foreign body unless you have ample stock of bandages around to stop the bleeding from the wound!


    "EVERYONE, DON''T YOU FUCKING MOVE!"


    Ignoring the pain from a few bruises I earned when the shockwave forced my body to drop flat to the ground with the instincts I never expected to have kicked in, I ran towards the injured man while repeating my shout over and over again. Only when I dropped to my knees, tearing my own robes in the same, smooth move did I notice that my words started to take any effect, allowing me to give more reasonable orders.


    With the pieces of expensive cloth now completely torn in my hands, I covered now profusely bleeding wound with the makeshift bandage, making sure to tie it tight enough to keep it from moving.


    "Don''t move him, let him rest just like that. I need some men to bring all the alcohol we have, two pots, one bigger than the other and an iron plate, hurry!"


    Lacking any proper, medical tools, all I could do right was to try to disinfect the wounds to the best of my ability and prevent others from being patched up without any rational approach.


    "Sir, we have seventeen wounded!"


    Only when Al appeared near me did I managed to calm down to a certain degree, and rethink the orders that I just gave. There was no way I could distil any reasonable amount of spirit in the open, especially when everyone was in such a tragic mental state! After the explosion, I doubted anyone would be willing to just light the fire under any kind of machinery of my making!


    "Wait, forget about those pots, I should have some spirit saved up in my own pile. Al, take over the wounded. Make sure they won''t attempt to remove the iron pieces without the necessary amount of bandages. Also, get someone to find some spiders web!"


    With a sudden memory emerging in my mind, I realised that maybe even without all the alcohol necessary to disinfect the wounds of the people, we could still use some of the more traditional medicine, wildly used across entire eastern and central Europe at this time.


    Chewed up breed mixed with spiders web. From when I was curious enough to verify whether this scene so commonly appearing in the period movies and novels had any sense to it, and to my surprise, it turned out to be actually a proper, ancient method to produce makeshift penicillin!


    While obviously, its efficiency was a far cry from the pure ingredient, in my current situation, every little bit would help!


    "Patch the wounded, and leave the steam horse for now. I know why it failed, and I will personally compensate all the wounded!"


    Standing up, I said those words with as deep voice as I could produce, hoping it would reach the majority of the workers and craftsmen. Even if most of them wouldn''t believe even a single word of mine after this spectacular foresight, just by having someone composed in the middle of this chaos would lift their morale to a manageable degree!


    Additionally, when I brought up the matter of the compensation, all of the injured would gain all the more reasons to toughen up through the pain just to see this free money they would get after recovering!


    "Sir, we have two dead. The flywheel broke free from its restraints and smashed them to the deathˇ­"


    While the flywheel wasn''t as big and heavy to be a dangerous element in itself, with how fast it was rotating at the moment of the crash, rather than being a relatively harmless part of the engine, it turned into a disc of death, shooting forward just under the force of its own movement.


    "Pull them away from everyone and cover the bodies with some blanket. Their families will receive two red goldens each!"


    While splurging on the compensation fee like that was uncommon, with how important this project was both to me and the entire country in the future, I couldn''t allow any bad rumours to go about it in the near future. With how manpower hungry this place already was, only for this hunger to grow at an exponential rate in the future, unless I was willing to go to war with nearby nobles in order to steal their serfs and force them to work under me, I had to make sure that this stupid mistake wouldn''t bear any negative effect on my projects in the future!

 146 Aftermatch of the acciden

    27th April 1574


    "Move all the injuries to one of the tents! Send someone on the fastest horse to the Sandomir to fetch some cyryls (cyrulik - kind of self-schooled herbalist of the age)!"


    Giving out the orders one by one, I wanted to make sure that no one would remain idle, allowed to think about what happened. With the bodies of the unfortunate casualties of my own stupidity already dragged away from everyone''s sight, I still had to make sure their families - if they had any - would receive proper compensation and care later on. Yet while dealing with the dead ones was easy, it was the injured that had to be reassured about their future.


    After all, most of the work that was going around this place was focused on the menial activities alone. If any of them ended up unable to continue cutting the threes, hauling the ore or doing anything that he was designed to, they would think that their only way to earn money would be taken away from them by this accident!


    "Everyone! As we are slowly starting to take control of this situation, let me assure you guys about one, important thing."


    While accidents were tragic, what industrialisation excelled at, was moving away the stupid, menial tasks form the human labour and putting its burden on the machines, while allowing the humans themselves to focus on more detailed work. With this factor in mind, I could at least calm the injured down, while showing them how kind and thoughtful lord I was!


    "All of the injured who will be unable to continue their previous work will be taken care off! If you won''t be able to work as you used to before, I will make sure that we will make use of you when doing something else!"


    Only when these sentences of mine reached the ears of the injured did I allow the people to carry them away to one of the tents for the later medical care. While I knew that they were all injured and keeping them like that only to raise their morale was kind of heartless by me, without any painkillers in place, it didn''t really matter whether they would try to heal their wounds while on the makeshift stretcher or when lying down in the tent and if I could prevent the appearance of the bad rumours before any of them started to circulate and grow on themselves, I wouldn''t hesitate even a single moment in doing so!


    "As for the rest of you guysˇ­ Like I said, I know what caused this accident. I know that you are all going to be scared of doing anything related to this steam horse now butˇ­"


    Before I managed to even finish my sentence aimed at encouraging the people to go back to work in order to fix the mistake that caused the accident and remake all the parts that broke down, some of the workers uniformly stood up and lead by the stonemasons that experienced my scolding back when we have yet to finish the foundation for the mark one steam horse, approached me.


    "My lord, people are dying. People are getting injured. It can happen during a war, but it can also happen during something as simple as a hunt. The fact that some died while some got injured in this accident doesn''t change the fact that we already saw how great those machines are!"


    Starting his speech with just a simple, flat voice, as the words flowed out of the stonemason''s mouth, he turned more and more passionate, ending his speech almost shouting.


    "Countless people die in mines when they slip while carrying the ore to the surface. Countless people are getting heavy burns when a furnace cracks or the hot metal spills out. It''s only normal for things like this to happen. If we were to give up on all those projects, not to speak about the money that you are paying to us, my lord, how could we face our ancestors after dying a dog''s breath somewhere else? I for once would prefer to be memorised as someone who contributed to those grand inventions, rather than someone who lived his life and achieved nothing!"


    The more words came out of the mouth of the stonemason, the more passionate he got, all the way to smashing his fist on his sizeable chest in the sign of determination.


    "Okay, I understand. I''m sorry for doubting your resolve guys. As for what we need to do next then, let''s start with fixing the problem that caused this sad accident. I need you guys to dig up a perfectly circular hole, about a hand''s width deep and reinforce it with wood. It needs to be done close enough to the furnace for us to fill it up with iron!"


    Since the arms of the steam engine were moving too fast for the small flywheel, we had to do a much bigger one. While the initial swing it would take would be much harder to introduce, as soon as it would start rotating on its axis, most of the initial hardship would be gone, while the energy of the steam engine would be stored in a much safer way.


    After all, the energy that this wheel could transfer was directly correspondent to the product of its mass and speed. While increasing its size and weight would make the movement slower than it was before, the resulting energy would remain exactly the same!


    "Sir, what about the cranks and the other parts?"


    Since I already gave my order, everyone finally started to moving once again, returning this place to its usual look akin to a busy ant colony. Only the stonemason that was slowly turning into one of the more important figures in the entire area remained, daring to pose his question.


    "For now, we need to focus on the flywheel. But if I remember correctly, there should be some spares left, thrown somewhere after casting them. Oh, since you are still here, you can go and pass one more message to the people digging up the trench. Tell them to start from a single point and gradually expand the ditch. I will come there soon and tell them the exact measurements of how big I want the new flywheel to be!"

 147 Its finally working!

    29th April 1574


    "Start the fires!"


    After learning from the previous accident, despite how simple the entire task seemed to be, I made sure to take all the precautions possible to prevent another engine failure from happening.


    Starting with just enough fuel placed below the boiler to get the water to boil with a row of workers ready to pass new blocks of firewood if everything would go all right, all the way to the set of valves for the steam, capable of forcibly shutting the entire machine down from a simple bunker wall twenty meters away made with a thick layer of the earth laid on both sides with a set of hardwood logs.


    Seeing that the fire was slowly starting to lick the belly of the boiler, I turned on the vision tool that I didn''t bother to use the last time, making sure that no part would turn red this time. After the initial success with the atmospheric steam horse and due to how I derived the blueprint for the pressure steam horse from what system provided, I simply turned too careless and two entire lives were lost due to that fact.


    "Okay boys, add some wood."


    Seeing that all the parts of the engine still looked exactly the same with my tool implemented as they looked without it, I gestured for a moment to make sure enough wood would be stored within the flames to keep them going for a while.


    Even though someone could think that this way of adding fuel was highly inefficient and simply stupid when considering the presence of several buckets filled to the brim with water and standing in wait for any emergency shutting down. But while they were placed nearby just for the described emergency, splashing water on the burning wooden pieces would instantaneously release a huge cloud of steam with a relatively low temperature when compared to the belly of the boiler, easily leading to its deformation and even rupturing!


    Considering how the entire steam horse was a closed system, the pressure inside the boiler was exactly the same as the pressure that was supposed to push this insanely huge flying wheel around its own axis, so if even a tinies hole appeared in the tank, not only would it lead to the explosion capable of tearing the entire machine apart, with all the steam that would be released in that very moment, everyone in the direct proximity would boil up in a flash!


    "The wheel is starting to move!"


    Considering how much attention I put to making sure everyone would be safe even if the steam horse would malfunction again, rather than having people watch the entire process, the entire structure was surrounded by small bunkers, from where people only had small peepholes to observe their designated spots, forcing the entire crew to communicate with shouts only.


    "The fire is stable!"


    "The wheel is speeding up!"


    With those two reports, the most dangerous part came. As long as the maximum power of the steam engine would be enough to spin the wheel at a reasonable speed, everything would finally work perfectly, allowing us to move to the other projects, from creating the iron form that would be used to quickly make new clay or even sand forms for the new power units of the steam horse, through the sawing plant all the way to those important improvements to the mines that I couldn''t help but feel the urge to build!


    Keeping a close tab on the state of the engine, I could see how the entire construction was slowly turning visible in my tool, entering the shade of grey and slowly moving towards light pink, dark pink all the way to the light orangeˇ­


    But thanks to all the efforts we made to prevent all the possible problems, even going as far as to add another layer of iron on all the pipes and the boiler itself, once it reached the orange stage, the steam engine was simply unable to move the wheel even faster!


    As the process was now stable, I instructed the workers to keep adding the fuel to keep the fire exactly as it was now, before moving away from the bunker wall and getting closer to the entire machine.


    Using the two days that we wasted to make sure everything would be safe, I moved some of the manpower to add a simple roof to the entire construction, keeping the firemen responsible for keeping the engine hot, safe from the rain. As soon as the operation of this monstrosity would be confirmed to be completely safe, more structures would be added, from the walls encapsulating the entire thing all the way to the small barracks for the workers to keep the engine operating.


    Yet no matter how long I kept my vision tool right in front of my sight, the colour of the most fragile parts of the engine remained light orange, even slowly turning back to the dark pink as the time went by!


    "Everyoneˇ­"


    Bringing up the attention of all the workers around with this simple shout, I waited for a moment to let the tension build up just a bit more, before raising my hands and allowing a smile to appear on my face.


    "... WE DID IT!"


    As my shout finally escaped my lips, everyone could stop themselves from cheering alongside me.


    While most of the workers were away from the area, focusing on other tasks since I wanted to limit the number of people that would be subjected to the danger, when our cheers reached the rest of the nearby places, the entire area joined in, turning what was a bloody mess just two days ago, into a sea of joy once again!


    "Sir, they spotted a ship approaching once again!"


    Before the cheers could turn awkward and slowly die off as everyone would find it hard to be the last one to stop, one of the workers who seemed like he just ran the entire marathon approached me, completely disregarding his safety.


    "Sure, I will go check it out."


    Since the steam horse was now properly working, I couldn''t wait to get my hands on all the materials that could be used to make proper use of this newfound power!

 148 Cheerful reunion

    29th April 1574


    "Mike!"


    As soon as I reached the shore, a familiar voice came from the board of the ship, before a splash of water completely covered it up as at first, a single person jumped out directly to the shallow waters of the Rock River before an entire group followed.


    Since I was busy talking to the former stonemason that was now properly turned into the manager of all the project related to digging and laying up the foundations, I turned my attention towards the ship only when this sudden shout and splash reached my ears, yet before I could notice anything strange, a huge mess of wet cloth and hot skin fell upon me, nearly tackling me down to the ground!


    Recognising the familiar shape, smell and intricate movements as the newly arrived person forced me into a deep hug, I couldn''t help but close my own grip on her back and bring her even closer to my own heart.


    "It''s been a while."


    Allowing myself to finally relax in Elia''s embrace, for the first time since I left her back at the Tarnow to venture into the faraway lands that would allow us to make use of the governor''s gift, I realised how much I missed her soft body tightly pressing against mine, and enveloping me in the sense of safety and emotional warmth.


    With all the challenges that I had to tackle on by one during my stay here, while I enjoyed overcoming the obstacles separating me from what I aimed for, only when Elia''s hands started lightly caressing my hair as she climbed on top of her soles only to bring my head down onto her chest before hugging it with her entire upper body.


    "Come on, let''s not make a scene hereˇ­"


    Even if I enjoyed this moment to no end, there was no way that I would allow the two of us to share such an intimate reunion in the open. And lets not even get me started how eager I was to show off with all the finished projects to her!


    "What, are you ashamed of your wife?"


    With her hands that so far kept me pressed tightly to her collarbone, suddenly pushing me away, I could finally see her cute face now twisted in the grimace of scrutiny.


    "Wait, no, I would neverˇ­"


    "Then it''s okay!"


    As her fingers once again grabbed the marital of my kontus, I found myself falling towards her chest once again, not only unable to resist right now but when imagining what awaited me after the inevitable clash, I realised that I wasn''t even willing to resist at this point!


    Yet just as suddenly as she pulled me towards herself, her hands once again rocked my shoulders, stopping me in the middle of the distance that separated us when she pushed me away just a moment before.


    "I don''t like that grin on your face, so let''s stop for now."


    But looking at her lips pulled me to yet another trap, as I suddenly found myself drawn to them. This time, it was me who grabbed her waist, pulling them towards me and conquering her lips with just a single invasion.


    As the softness of her mouth shoot right through my entire mind, I couldn''t help myself and pushed my tongue inside her jaw, entering a strange dance with her counterpart. With our bodies inevitably drawing closer together, I felt her hands wrapping around my neck, as she locked my head in its current position unwilling to let me out.


    Only when the two of us finally felt satisfied with each other closeness did we part our lips, still locked in the mutual gaze filled with affection as a single strand of our saliva hanged between our mouth.


    "You will never believe how much I missed you."


    With the tranquil moment between the two of us coming to an end when some random workers started shouting some reports between each other, the two of us finally broke free from this enchantment that brought us together. As Elia pushed her head in the space between my shoulder and my neck, I could barely make out the words she silently muttered.


    "Trust me, I don''t need to believe you. If that feeling of yours even came close to how much I lacked your presence here, then I will perfectly know what kind of ordeal you were coming through. Right, how are the matters in Tarnow?"


    As I was the one facing the river, I had no way to ignore the fact that this little reunion of ours drew quite a bit of the attention of the workers swarming on board the ship. Still keeping Elia in my hug, I moved deeper inland, taking over her hand and allowing her to slip under my arm.


    "A few rats attempted to penetrate the brewery to steal the recipe, but we promptly smoked them out. Outside of this, everything goes as usual. The gold is piling up, more and more customers are demanding the beer, its production is expandingˇ­ Would you believe if I told you that Matsu finally gave up on the idea of selling the castle''s garden lands to the merchants and used most of the free space there to expand the brewery?"


    While this news was quite surprising, considering how intricate the brewing business was turning out to be, I couldn''t claim that I never saw that coming. Yet to see her change her mind so soon, was still quite a huge difference when compared to what I expected!


    "Speaking of which, I don''t want you to think I was slacking here. Do you want to tour this place now, or are you too tired after the journeeeyyy.. Agh!"


    Feeling her elbow suddenly sinking in the soft side of my waist, I felt like if the late hour of the day suddenly turned into the deepest part of the night with all the stars that suddenly appeared in front of my eyes.


    "Who do you think I am? How could I be tired after sitting down on my arse for hours in this boat? I want you to show me everythingˇ­"


    As if Elia''s mind was suddenly struck by a sudden idea, her lips curved upwards in a mischievous smile as she used my arm as a support to reach my ear with her mouth.


    "... and after the trip, I will make sure you will massage my bottom properly to make up for that sudden summons!"


    With her mouth tightly pressing against my earlobe, she even went as far as to lick it with yet another act of devilish attempt to lure this innocent young noble to the path astray!


    "Hmm? Didn''t you say that with a wife such as you, I shouldn''t be ashamed of being close to her?"


    With my fighting spirit reignited, I suddenly lowered my centre of mass, reached for her knees and raised her to a proper princess carry, before stealing a short peck from her lips.


    "Your punishment will be to see this entire place from this perspective! So you better behave from now on!"

 149 Tour with Elia

    29th April 1574


    "This one looks awesome, but to be completely honest, it''s already obsolete. Unless we find ourselves in need for some liquid pump, I don''t think we will ever use this design again."


    Holding Elia by her waist, I slowly moved around the place, showcasing everything that we did here ever since my arrival. Since some of the stuff was quite complicated to understand, I decided to go by the order of production rather than the importance, to let her see how this entire place grew from just an open space near the mines to the most industrialised area in the entire world!


    "And how does this even work? Like, I can see that it has something to do with that big furnace at the bottomˇ­ But if it really was as hard to make as I can judge from your proud expression it was, wouldn''t it be easier to just use waterwheel to make this wheel spin?"


    What I thought would be a great shock for my wife, turned out to be nothing but a misfire. To be honest, when she put it in this way, I realised that I might have been a little bit too focused on reaching the industrial grade of power, ignoring the fact that the entire blast furnace could be powered up with said waterwheel in the first place!


    Considering how outside of being the example for the Overlord to prove that I could produce what I claimed I could, its power was simply too small for me to use it in literally anything different than pumping the water or spinning the fans, if not for the pressure to achieve something, creating a simple waterwheel would be a way better option!


    "Ah, I didn''t mean to say it. It''s really awesome!"


    Most likely noticing how her words put me in deep thought, Elia had to misinterpret the expression on my face for disappointment with how she instantly changed her approach, hugging herself even closer to me and showing me a face full of amazement.


    "Dear, don''t bother acting like that. Now that I think about itˇ­ You are completely right! If not for the fact that crafting something else would take way too long given the time constraints that I had for Governor''s visit, then creating this piece might be just a waste of time and resources!"


    Rather than accepting her attempts to placate my mood with her clinginess and fake expression of awe, I stepped out and did what I considered to be a man''s way to go around it. I admitted to making a mistake.


    "Well, since this bit didn''t get the impression I wanted from you, let''s move on. This next building is the blast furnace I mentioned earlier. While in itself, it''s nothing new or surprising, thanks to this steam engine you just saw, we could turn the bellows into fans, which resulted in the faster smelting rate, with the end product being a pig iron of higher quality, capable of reaching the level of bad steel."


    As her entire body pressed against my side with her head resting on my shoulder, the feeling I last had back on the shore where we reunited after quite a long time of not seeing each other, returned, filling me with a warmth that only the familial fire could produce.


    "This rundown shed that looks like a house brought here directly from some kind of slums, is the carpentry plant. Since we ran out of the concrete, I decided there was no point in trying to make it any better, as in the relatively short amount of time we should be able to start building a proper one."


    Even though from the outside it looked quite shabby with all the wood planks, blocks and dust lying everywhere around, by the time most of the people were focused on bringing the mark two steam engine to its finish line, the group that I directed all the way back when I first introduced the concept of this plant to the carpenter managed to finish everything up.


    Despite how bad it looked when walking on the outside, I still brough Elia to its inner part, allowing her to see how the blades and chains that Governor brought with himself from the Sandomir were now spinning at high speed and turning the logs carried by several men at once into orderly planks in a matter of seconds!


    "Woah! That''s actually quite impressing!"


    Even though this was absolutely the worst looking place, that any other noblewoman would consider a direct attack on her dignity if forced to get inside, Elia could actually see how insane the design was. With how working the entire log of wood down to the finished parts of it could take several hours for any normal carpentry workshop, being able to cut it into desired pieces just by moving it through the cutting table meant that this single, shabby shed could outproduce entire regions worth of workshops!


    "Wait, did you say that you want to turn it into a proper plant? What did you mean by that?!"


    Only now realising the implication behind my earlier words, Elia suddenly detached herself from me and moved to my front, grabbing my head between her hands and forcing me to look her straight in the eyes as if she wanted to gauge whether I was cheating on her or not.


    "As I said, this place is too small and slow to satisfy what I have in mind for it, so as soon as we get our hands on the concrete plant, I plan to turn half of the cost into a big manufactory that will breathe in simple logs and breathe out finished products like furniture, bows, floor tiles and so on. But to understand the scale of this project, there is still one thing that you need to see."


    Considering the insane output of the ready-to-sell products that this future plant would produce, I had no other way than to locate it right on the shore. In fact, if everything would go according to my plans, then rather than building separate plants for other production or crafting, I would simply expand the building to either of its sides, connecting it all with a simple set of conveyor belts. In my vision, the end-stage for this entire place would feature a line of buildings by the shore, puking out finished products that would be automatically moved to the lines of barges or even their modernised sisters that I planned to somehow produce, while all the flatlands currently occupied by either my measly projects or just free vegetation, would turn into a complicated labyrinth of smelters, miners and powerplants that would provide everything the end factories would need!


    "Okay then, I''m already impressed. What do you want to show me then?"


    "You just wait!"

 150 Speeding up

    2nd May 1574


    "Sir, we have marked the area. Now all that''s left, is to plant the explosives!"


    With the implementation of the steam engine, influx of the workers and materials brough all the way from Tarnow and the nearby villages by Elia and almost continuous supply of all sorts of tools and parts from the Sandomir, everything suddenly turned from great mountains that we only could slowly scale, to nothing but a small hill that could be jogged through!


    "Good. Proceed just as planned. Meanwhile, how is that belt work going?"


    Since along with everything mentioned previously, Elia brough a few fat pouches filled with all sorts of coins, paying off the miners just as promised could be finally done. After the wait they had to endure without any repayment for the ore that they all saw constantly swallowed by the open mouth of the blast furnace, they could finally see that I never lied to them when I proposed much greater price for their haul than what they could get from the merchants!


    But rather than just keeping them idle, I made sure to consult them about the overall outline of the iron mine, putting a great emphasis on the direction in which the tunnels expanded. Only when we confirmed which area on the surface was far enough from the mine for the underground explosions to not pose any threat to the other shift of miners deep below the ground.


    But rather than focusing solely on the last piece of the groundwork that would allow me to truly start developing this place, I had to oversee all kinds of other projects happening simultaneously!


    With the recent end of the steam engine development, most of the wood produced by the prime carpentry plant was moved to the housing project, in which the parts of the ditch where the future city would stand were filled with simple, unisolated housing that could at least protect everyone from the elements.


    Rather obviously, the entire cage that kept the steam engine in place was covered with a thick set of planks with a special system of ventilation aimed to prevent the workers inside from choking on the smoke. Additionally, with how everything seemed to speed up with the help of this new source of basically an unlimited power, I had to give up to the pressure of the craftsmen now all properly renamed as managers for their respective projects, allowing them to build an administrative building and a simple house for me and Elia, that would provide us with the basic comforts.


    "Sir, we have finished the city hole! What are the next orders?"


    To be quite honest, as the joy and excitement but most importantly, increased resources and workforce at hand speed up all the projects that weighted both on my mind, my shoulders and my pouch for so long, when rather than taking care for a single construction or crafting at once, I had to change to overseeing all kinds of them with reports coming to me basically every quarter of an hour, I felt as if the grip over the entire situation was slowly slipping away from my hands!


    "Yyyˇ­ Go to the planning office and get the outline for the severs. Dig half a meter deep trenches along with the designed lines, but leave the housing area for now. We need to do it step by step."


    "Sir, everything is ready, should we go boom?"


    Turning my head to another messenger, I saw one of the younger workers that had to arrive along with my wife, since I didn''t recall seeing anyone that young in the camp before.


    "The quarry site? Yeah, they can go boom."


    "Sir, the forms are finished, should we start casting, or do we need more of them?"


    "It would be better if we keep some additional ones in case anything goes wrong, so make sure we have at least three of them for each of the parts before starting the cats.


    "My lord! The carpentry team is asking for some people to make use of the new blades and expand their workshop. They claimed they don''t even need a roof, but more cutting tables and men to move the logs around!"


    "That''s only to be expected. Tell them to go get some men that should be now free after the city hole is finished."


    "Mike, your beer."


    After all those reports that happened to suddenly flood me all at once, when Elia showed up in my field of view with a steaming hot cup of some local brew enhanced with a mix of herbs that someone from the future like me had no way of recognising.


    "Thanks."


    With a moment of calmness arriving amongst the storm of all the matters that required my attention, I took the cup from my wife''s hands and took a long sip, allowing the aromatic liquid to flow down my throat and chase away the headache that all the matters thrown on top of my head was inducing in me.


    After cleaning up my lips with a swipe of my hand, I passed the cup back to the hands of my beloved before taking a deep breath only to exhale it right into the cold air of the second day of May.


    Compared to the future, as we were still in the middle of the so-called small arctic age, the temperatures have yet to raise enough to allow everyone to wear comfortable clothes, yet it was already warm enough to allow for the planting of the early vegetables.


    BOOM!


    Before I could take enough time to let this momentary tranquillity heal my soul from all the mental exhaustion of the last few days, the scream of the mother earth being torn apart by a spicy load of gunpowder shown down her throat.


    "It seems they started crushing the rocksˇ­"


    With the first explosive going off and upsetting the balance of the rocks, a large part of the ground vibrated, only to settle down almost instantly. Only when one looked closely at the place where the explosion hole first was, one could see that the surface was kind of jarred as if all the earth got smashed by some uneven tool.


    Yet my mind was already coursing through the next steps that would need to be done to complete the production of the concrete. Since quite a huge reserves of the clay could be found literally everywhere around this place, the two main ingredients for this wondrous products were only waiting for us to use them. All I had to set right now, was a crushing machine that would turn the heavy rocks into a fine powder and a special furnace that could turn it into a proper preheated mix that would later turn into the finished cement for my use!

 151 Dinner in the tiny house

    3rd May 1574


    "Okay boys, just like we did it last time. This time just use the mortar mixed with some stones for the foundation."


    With Elia at my side, heating up the bed in our newly created small, wooden house and supporting me whenever I felt that the number of tasks at hand started to overwhelm me, the rate at which all of the projects were progressing shoot up through the roof.


    If I were to be honest, her presence brought all the benefits of having Governor by my side when it came to pulling me down to earth whenever I started dreaming about far-off future, along with the comfort of having someone who trusted me completely always beside me all the way to the fact that with every moment she spent with me on the site, I realised stronger and stronger that whenever I felt unsure about something, her arms were like safe heaven for my soul.


    "How did it go?"


    For some strange reason, Elia insisted on making the meals for us herself, claiming that she didn''t want her cooking skills that she learned while touring the country on the run from her family to rust and go to waste.


    "They are already building the furnace. If everything will go according to the schedule, we should be able to start producing the concrete tomorrow morning."


    Thanks to the influx of all the workers, resources and money both from my own lands and Sandomir, rather than putting everyone to work all at once, wherever that was possible, I adopted the use double shift, with everyone working for ten hours a day, some from the morning to the afternoon and some working from the afternoon to the twilight. This way, only the darkest hours of the night where only the moon and stars would spare us some of its light were free out of the sight of my men moving stuff around and laying bricks or digging up the ground all over the entire area!


    "Here, have some stew."


    Placing a bowl filled with a steaming hot soup with multiple pieces of meat floating around rare vegetables, Elia poured a portion for herself before moving a platted with a freshly baked breed ordered directly from the villagers that opted to commute to their workplace by the boat from their village rather than decreasing their income by a tiny bit and just living in the housing I provided for them.


    "While it''s nice to see everything growing at a fast rate, how are we standing in terms of money? Is what I brought with me enough for a while?"


    Since I decided against using the funds obtained from the beer trade solely on this current project of mine, we had to make do with just a seventh of the weekly profit. After paying up the workers, suppliers and piling up a small portion of the gold for emergencies, the amount that was left was still mostly invested back into expanding the production of the beer, slowly but steadily multiplying how much this seventh of the total profit amounted to.


    Taking a wooden spoon in my hand, I submerged it into the thick liquid of the soup, before raising it to my mouth and taking a bite of a fresh piece of bread topped with a frugal layer of butter.


    "Great soup by the way!"


    Just one sip was enough to showcase how quickly did Eve adapt her cooking to my tastes, reaching the perfect level of sourness in the soup all the while allowing the pieces of the bread to flow nicely through the throat thanks to the thin layer of butter.


    Looking down on the soup to take another spoon out of it, I realised why this simple sight made me feel strange. In the future, the mean would still be way more expensive than the vegetables, making the plan based filling the basis for any soup, but in the dish arousing my hunger right now, I could only spot several pieces of vegetables with most of the solid elements of the soup based on meat!


    But we couldn''t expect anything else right now. With how greenhouses required rather modern technology to operate, only certain lucky regions in the entire commonwealth could pride themselves with an early haul of the vegetables, making them quite a prized commodity in the last month before they would turn into something that anyone could get from the side of the road without even attracting the attention of its owner!


    "As for this carpentry plant, do you think those three steam horses will be enough? After all, I heard about the accident with the first prototype, and I can''t imagine you lessening the testing period for every single one of them!"


    Just like Elia pointed out, every single steam engine that was produced and finished, had to operate in a temporary cage for an entire day before the fire below its boiler would be extinguished and the engine itself transported to the powerplant, located perfectly between the mines and the shore.


    "Don''t worry. While I plan the building to be massive, most of it will be just conveyors and warehouses. After all, constructing machines capable of completing the entire product by itself wouldn''t be just hard, it would be a waste of resources and manpower. After all, if we make each product exactly the same, its value would plummet!"


    This bit, was the one thing I was sure about even without the use of the system. Working in the marketing department of my company for quite a while, such cheap tricks like limited supply and the product being the only one of its kind were a child play for me!


    Thinking about this, someone said that producing one dress allowed the company to put a price tag reaching tens of thousands on it, while with one more dress available on the market, the furthest it could go was only in hundreds!


    "But why should we limit its capability to just cutting the stuff? While I''m not an expert by myself nor do I understand the depth at which it would all work, if all the products will be handmade, wouldn''t it defeat the purpose of speeding up the work in the first place?"


    As Elia''s word coincided with the time when my spoon finally hit the bottom of my bowl, I took a nearby napkin to clean my mouth before smiling to my dear wife.


    "You see, we can make a simple machine that will put the nail to connect two parts. We can make one that will provide the craftsmen with the exact parts they need. But as long as we make them put those parts together by hand, everything that would come out of the factory will be unique! After all, there is no point in improving the simple work, as it can be done by humans. What''s important, is streamlining everything else!"

 152 Problem with earth

    4rd May 1574


    "Sir, the furnace is hot!"


    Standing quite a far distance away from the quarry site, I could see how the first conveyors we implemented in the entire area were pulling huge blocks of limestone towards the grinding machine, where huge steel jaws were crushing them apart, only to spew them on another conveyor that would take a turn around, lead them to another set of jaws, and so on.


    Only when the pieces would be as small as the concrete-making process required them to be, the conveyor would lead them to the furnace almost exactly the same as the iron blast furnace, with its only difference being that manual loading was completely replaced by the steam-powered conveyor belts!


    Just by powering up one out of twenty rollers on which the belt was moving, the entire thing could be set in the constant motion, pushing the raw stones to the mouth of the furnace, while the charcoal required to sustain the fire underneath the furnace mouth was moved on top of the belt form a nearby warehouse by a set of workers.


    Compared to the iron blast furnace, this thing had one additional part inside. A brick floor, normally storing all the burning clinker to the backside of the burning chamber, but when lifted by a concrete-iron pipe, it would force everything inside the furnace to pour out of its mouth to the forms prepared before lighting the entire furnace up.


    Regretfully, with the current design, constant production that was achieved with smelting the iron ores, was impossible. Whenever half of the furnace was filled up, a special lookout would give the sign to the loaders that busied themselves with putting the huge blocks of the limestone on top of the conveyor belts, because by the time all the fine limestone dust made out of them would reach the furnace, its belly would be already filled!


    "Turn the next set of fans!"


    Even though the temperature required for the proper reaction to start up within the furnace was quite similar to the one required to purify the metal ore into pig iron, the greater the heat we could achieve, the greater the quality of the clinker would be, allowing us to make more durable concrete in the end.


    With all the fans now supplying the insides of the furnace with an ample amount of fresh air, I could see its mouth already spewing out the flames high up in the air, explaining one of the reasons why I didn''t want to load it with the manpower, opting for the first use of the conveyor belts in the world instead.


    "Sir, the testing area is already prepared, that''s why I dared to move my workers to work hereˇ­"


    "Don''t worry, I know."


    Considering how the entire city was laid out according to my own plan, we still had to go through the trouble of checking if the outline I proposed had any problems that we didn''t realise before. No matter how awful that sounds, I was going to put a simple shed all over the testing grounds, connect them all to the main sewage hole in the foundation and get enough men to fill all the places after feeding them some oil food.


    After all, if the hole and later the pipe was too small to cope with the potential use of all the toilets connected to it, as soon as I could somehow import coffee and introduce it to this city, I would end up with quite a shitty problem!


    But even before this place would be put to a test, I had to make sure that another digging project was going as planned!


    "Sir, so far, we didn''t encounter any problemsˇ­ But are those wet holes really necessary?"


    After thinking the entire matter through, I decided that with how small this river was, there was no way to have just some cranes mounted on the factory that would serve to feed the products on top of the boats. Rather than that, creating a something akin to a wet dock where the ships could be kept while the products would move up the portable conveyor belt all the way to their board was something that was at least feasible with the current technology we had.


    "Sadly, but yes. We need to make sure that the ships will be safe while docked. We don''t want them to rock on the waves while we will move our wares on top of them."


    Wet holes were quite a simple invention. After digging up enough space for most of the ships that existed in the current time to fit comfortably in, the place where it connected to the river itself would be covered with the dirt dug out from the hole itself, before the entire place would be dried out, hardened with concrete and a proper, metal gate would close it off. After those steps would be done, the dirt would be loosened or just dug out, allowing the water to fill the stable docking port once again and turning it into a safe heaven for any ship that would come by!


    "Well, the digging is going rather smoothly, but with how much earth we have to move around, I''m worried that we will waste weeks trying to move it aside later on!"


    With how both the wet holes and the foundation area for the enormous carpentery plant were dug out simultaneously, it was no wonder that the manager responsible for this project of mine was worried about the leftover soil!


    After all, if we just kept dumping it around whenever we required the place it was currently left at, in just a short time, more than half of the work in this entire place would turn into moving the soil from one temporary holding place to another!


    "Don''t worry about the earth, I already have a project in mind for how we can use it!"


    While covering the entire future town and the important factories with walls was simply impossible, doing so for the key places and erecting an earthy wall in a place where I wanted to construct a safe spot for all the locals in case of any attacks occurring, would allow me to turn this useless waste that was only taking up the vital space in the area into the first line of defence against the raids of either the neighbouring nobles that were sure to react to all my investment sooner or later, or even when the war with powerful Russia would inevitably start!

 153 Governor insist!

    4th May 1574


    "I''m telling you, this meeting will be far more important than everything you have achieved here so far!"


    Sitting down at the chair inside my own house, Jan was barely holding back his anger when I dared to refuse his request. After all, it was the pinnacle of what we always wanted, to get the crown to sponsor our investments!


    "My lord, I can''t leave right now. There is simply too much work! The carpentry is already in the process of making, the concrete is finally produced, I don''t think there is even a point to mention the fact that not only our steam horses are produced at a rate of one per day, but if everything goes just like I project it will, instead of lacking the infrastructure to finish our projects, we will soon start running out of the raw, base materials like ore or fresh wood!"


    While I was doing everything I could excuse myself from this delegation to the capital that would put a strain over my control of all those vital projects, not even a single of the points that I brough up was made up.


    Even though to build the entire carpentry wasn''t that hard of a task as it limited itself to just filling the hole in the ground with a concrete bit by bit and as soon as only about one-twentieth of its final designated size would be stable, all the walls would be bricked along with several openings in all sides aimed to push the conveyors through them. After finishing the first floor with bricks, the second one would be made out of wood to save the costs, and a temporary roof would be placed above, providing enough space to hold the finished products while allowing the stable base floor to be used fully for the sake of production.


    But while all of that sounded fairly complicated, with just a few papers filled with blueprints for all the sides of the building, everything could be easily finished with just the management of the managers of the project. It was what came next that made me wish to stay here just for a little longer!


    The machinery.


    Building a building wasn''t something that would change or improve anything. It was how the steam power was put to use that would allow to turn this elaborate and oversized building into its proper use, allowing me to finally start earning from the monstrous project of mine, while also allowing to start building the first steam-powered ships that would allow me fast transportation of goods between this detached part of my land and my privately owned grounds.


    From the correct placing of the conveyor belts, through the sewing machines, stationary nailguns, all the way to the cranes and docking portsˇ­ Everything that this place would require to operate properly would have to be not only put on the paper first, tested in the separate area but also remodelled to work on the primitive means of transporting the energy from the centralised powerplant and the factory itself!


    Taking a long breath, Jan sat on the chair supplied by the first generation of the carpentry when they forced me to accept this house for my own. After taking his time to sort his own thoughts in his head, the governor raised his face and looked me in the eyes.


    "Listen. I can''t even begin to imagine how much money, workers and all sorts of resources this place will require to really grow. When comparing how much materials my ships are bringing here on a daily basis, and how much you have already built, I can only assume that your speed of turning this place on its head make you use up most of the goods that I send your way, am I right?"


    Attacked from the unexpected angle, I had no other way than to lower my head in defeat and nod it a few times to answer the question.


    "And that is the reason why you have to come with me. While I don''t want people to associate us with Zabors (*), if we won''t start playing the political game soon, we will be completely deprived of all the means of either influencing the King or profiting of his rule!"


    It was a known fact that in reality, Henry never considered Poland as his final destination. Due to the commonly known poor health of his older brother, the current king of France, historians would agree that rather than trying to rule the country, he simply wasted away the tax money on his own enjoyment, while leaving most of the ruling to his both french and local advisors, the said family of Zabors.


    "So you want to tell me that if I leave everything here with hopes that people that so far only followed my orders will be capable of moving the work forward at the same rate when they won''t receive my guidanceˇ­ Or what can we get from this damned visit if we consider the only real outcome of our trip, being most of the projects either breaking down or completely stalling, while the money I have to pay to the workers will keep draining my coffers?"


    That was, in fact, my greatest worry. The reason I was rushing everything to finish the carpentry was that it would be the first project that could start bringing any real profits capable of supporting every other project of mine in this area while giving me something that I could show off in the capital to buy the favour of the King.


    "Listen. While those are only rumours I heardˇ­ I think your wish to obtain this piece of lands for your family could be achieved in the capital! As long as you manage to convince the king that the crown should invest in your projects, we can get him to grant you some lands, that you could trade for this area here with me!"

 154 Hesitation

    5th May 1574


    "Are you sure you don''t want me to come with you?"


    After a night spent at cuddling, I was quite hesitant whether I was ready to give up on Elia''s warmth only a few days after finally reuniting with her. To be quite frank, back when I was in my modern life, I thought that if I were to ever get a wife, through at least the entirety of the first year of my marriage, I would be unable to think about anything but sleeping with her in the active meaning, yet to my surprise, just being able to hug her as we whispered our way through the part of the night when we were still awake was more than enough for me.


    Whenever I held her close, I felt as if all the worries connected the tight schedule for all my projects, crammed in less than a blink of a human historyˇ­ Simply disappeared. Even though she seemed to be a damned tomboy when I first met her, as our relationship grew stronger and stronger for every second when we grew older together, her entire self was turning more and more gentle.


    It was as if the fire of the relationship made her someone far different than who she was before, driving away all the impurities that her harsh life forced in her. But when looking at myself, I could feel the changes in my entire mind appearing just as steadily as randomly.


    Even though I was never someone to chase after the skirts, it didn''t mean that I wasn''t interested in this topic. Yet from the moment I met Elia, or rather, from the moment we turned out to be quite close in spiritual terms, it was as if all the other females in the world disappeared for me.


    The same thing happened to my drive to focus on my lands alone. Back then, when I had first shy thoughts about developing my city, I thought that after securing some rational income, I would take my time to import all the required materials and do everything to keep my inventions closed away from the rest of the world for as long as it would take me to gain an edge over everyone.


    And here I was, not even two months older than when I moved to this timeline, spreading inventions and worrying over leaving my inventions without guidance!


    "No, I already thought that through. While it''s relatively safe on the roads, especially since we will be travelling with quite a huge escort, I could never forgive myself if something were to happen to you on the road. And let''s not get me started on how much I''m thankful for you overseeing our landsˇ­ To be honest, I don''t think I could ever achieve what we already did without you."


    Pulling Elia into one last hug, I made sure to memorise the feeling of her soft warmth, before abruptly pushing myself away. If I were to stay that close to her for any longer, I would be simply unable to let go of her, not carrying for all the serious reasons that forced me to take this damned decision to let her stay behind!


    "I don''t want to let you goˇ­"


    Hearing her breaking voice I felt my entire determination wavering, slowly coming to the realisation that I wasn''t the only one who would feel anxious after parting with her.


    Despite how much I wanted to be a good husband and partner for her, as soon as I was given the opportunity to realise my own dreams and objectives, I left her in a lonely castle to manage my already existing businesses, only calling for her help when I required something from my lands!


    Thinking about this, I felt an overwhelming disgust towards myself.


    Rather than being someone who I always thought I would be to this one partner I would settle for my entire life, I simply treated her like a damned subordinate, if not even worse - as a tool!


    Even though this entire relationship started as just a simple transaction, there was no way it could continue like that!


    "I''m sorry."


    Overwhelmed by my own realisation, I couldn''t help but utter those words with her last words completely disappearing from my mind under the relentless onslaught of the guilty conscience.


    "Ahˇ­ I''m sorry, I shouldn''t keep you like thatˇ­"


    Misunderstanding the meaning behind my words, Elia let go of her hold and took a few steps back with a clearly dejected look on her face, as if she was trying to force herself to not show how dispirited she was by my departure.


    "No! It''s not like that!"


    Unwilling to let her bear this look on her face nor the thought that provoked it in her mind, I quickly closed the distance between the two of us, once again bringing her into a warm and wholesome embrace.


    "I''m sorry for leaving you back in Tarnow. I wanted to deal with those mines as soon as possible and disregarded how you would feel being left all alone right after our wedding. I behaved like a damned idiot, and now I was about to make the same mistake as I did back then."


    Holding Elia in my arms, I could feel how her body tensed when I first grabbed her as if she didn''t want to feel my touch, wanting to steel her heart instead. Yet as my words flowed out of my mouth, her arms started to relax bit by bit, to the point where I could swear I felt a hint of moisture on my shoulder where her head was resting.


    "I''m sorry that I made you feel like that, putting the worthlessness of this place before your feelings. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me."


    Letting go of Elia''s shoulders, I pushed her lightly and reached for her hands, only to bring them up and place a light kiss on top of her delicate fingers.


    "Mikeˇ­"


    With the tears now openly flowing out of her precious eyes, I was worried for a moment before I saw her lips curling up ever-so-slightly.


    "Yet I want to ask for a favour from you right now. Listen, dearˇ­"


    Hearing this breakout word, that most of then than not was followed by a sentence that went in the completely opposite direction as anything stated before it.


    ''I like you butˇ­''


    ''I did my homework yetˇ­''


    Sentences like those were the ones that most of the times, aimed to put hope in one''s heart only to shatter it with the next part, albeit, in this case, I used it without such thought in my mind.


    "I''m stupid. I''m inexperienced. I''m simple. That''s why, from now on, if you want me to do something, don''t like something I want to do, or have literally anything else you would like to tell me, please, don''t hold it to yourself!"

 185 Change of times

    22nd June 1574


    "BIG NEWS!"


    Just when all the pieces were finally about to come together and turn from a bunch of elaborate parts into a modern rifle, a messenger came directly to the assembly line for the guns.


    "What happened?"


    With no more than a single look at the desperate face of the young man waving a sealed parchment around, I was convinced that I already knew the content written on the paper. What puzzled me, was how the heck did the news managed to arrive so quickly?


    "Here you go, my lord!"


    Taking the piece of the old paper made by the skin rather than created with the wooden dust, I couldn''t help but notice for the first time ever, how big of a difference my investments were bringing to this world.


    What others considered a fully natural and expensive commodity, in all my lands was already replaced with cheap paper produced by nothing but a tiny shed placed right beside the carpentry plant. To make matters even more interesting, I wasn''t the one organising its operation at all!


    It all happened way back when I was explaining the process of making pellets, where one of the craftsmen heard me muttering something about what a waste it was to not use the remaining powder in papermaking. As I had no clue how to do it in the first place, outside of the fact that I knew that the original paper was made with wooden residual products, after answering all the questions that I was able to, I only had to wait for two days for the first prototype sheet of paper to be made.


    Obviously, as it was nothing more than the initial attempt at making paper, by one of the craftsmen that came to this place on their own volition after receiving the invitation from one of their colleagues that were already working here. With how he had to produce some results before receiving any help, the first batch he provided was honestly awful. The threads were too thick, the paper was coarse and too thick to be used with any form of inkˇ­ But it was a great step forward already!


    As the production of steam horses reached the daily output of three, I had no problem supplying two of them to his business and explaining to him how he could use them to make simple press and other mechanical tools.


    And just like that, the very first private investment was created in the mining town! Even though the building where all the production was going on was as big as the shed that was initially mounted on top of my steam paddlers for my own comfort while travelling on the river, from what I heard, the profits from selling the paper both to the local managers and in small quantities as a luxury product in the entire province, this once a small craftsman was already the first man to request some of my building materials!


    "Dear Mike, I''m writing this letter to inform you, that our beloved King made a decision to temporarily return to the Kingdom of France. Due to the death of his brotherˇ­"


    "... as such, I''m worried that our investments might experience quite a lot of problems when trying to obtain external sources of financingˇ­"


    "I wish you great fortune, Jan Bone."


    After skimming through the content on the message, I couldn''t help but just shrug my arms, gnash the parchment into a ball and throw it into the fire that fueled the steam horses. Seeing how the dried-up skin almost instantly turned into ashes, I nodded to the messenger before directing my attention back to the weapon manufacturing process.


    Just like with the problem of a paper factory, rather than being located near all the other projects that we'' developing by the river, it was moved all the way to the other side of the mining town, at the foothold of a small hill where I was planning to build a proper fortress in the near future.


    Despite how King''s escape was still a secret that only a chosen few knew about, it would only take a few days for the news to spread like a wildfire through the entire country. That was also one of the reasons why nearly half of my stock of gunpowder was hastily moved to this place, allowing me to fully focus on weapon production.


    It was only a matter of time before some of the nobles would treat the ensuing chaos as their opportunity to steal a piece of the pie that I was baking here, either by stealing some of my production, raiding the place to kidnap some of the workers and force them to explain the ways in which this entire place was operating or just burn the entire place down for the sake of pulling someone who was doing better than them, down.


    That''s why despite how the news still has yet to reach the ears of common nobles, I already dispatched most of the troops that would usually lie low in Tarnow to protect the areas, establishing simple bunkers all around the place with a simple system of protected fires aimed to be nothing more than a signal that an unwanted party was approaching the premises of this golden land!


    I couldn''t prevent anyone from attempting to do harm to my projects. It was their own decision to do something like this, and with how I failed to reach the stage where I could push some of the major powers into cooperation with me, outside of official backing of Jan Bone, I was left all alone.


    But I wasn''t going to just bank on the goodwill of my neighbours!


    In just a few days, as soon as the test would conclude, those new weapons of mine would replace the inefficient firearms that all of my troops were carrying. As soon as the stockpile of both the weapons and ammunition would reach the minimal point, the recruitment would start, allowing me to bolster my numbers from just below one hundred armed men to up to half a thousand!


    Even though the cost of keeping such a huge force on standby at all times would put a great strain on my finances, I couldn''t keep all my interest to the production alone. In the chaotic time, unless one was ready to defend himself, all his other attempts at increasing his wealth or power would be useless!


    That''s why, if everything would go according to my estimates, within just a single week from now, the house of Tarnow would turn into one of the most powerful military forced in the entire commonwealth!

 186 Governor is back!

    24th June 1574


    "Take aim!"


    With a single sergeant''s order, all the recruits raised their rifles and pointed them at the set of the moving targets. Creating this contraption was quite easy on the surface. Just by making a few ditches, filling them with simple, wooden tracks and covering the top with simple planks and a bit of earth, one could move upright poles with a target hanged down on them with a single move on the operating lever. By connecting all the mechanisms to the power output of a single steam horse, all the targets would suddenly start moving on the predesigned trajectories, allowing my recruits to train how to fight against specific formations.


    "FIRE!"


    With a booming sound of multiple rifles going off at once, nearly a third of the targets were swept from their respective supporting poles, falling heavily to the ground.


    "TAKE AIM!"


    With the sergeant voice suddenly turning way louder to reach recruits ears through the noise of all the rifles clanging as they pushed the rotating lever on the side of their handles, it suddenly became harder to speak to my quest.


    "FIRE!"


    Watching as only about half the initial numbers of the targets were pushed to the ground this time, I couldn''t help but frown. With nearly a hundred rifles firing at once, only twenty of the forty targets were downed during two salvos?


    "No matter how great the rifles are, unless we will be able to get the perfect gunpowder, the accuracy will remain as bad as it is now. That''s why I told you that there is no point in creating a separate plant for making ammunition."


    Turning my sight from the training troops of mine to Jan Bone, I only smiled in response. After all, what was the point of explaining how the real accuracy wasn''t that important if the men would never get the time to reach the level where it would matter? As long as those rifles capable of shooting up to ten bullets before changing the circular magazine could be supplied to a huge mass of people, no enemy would dare to stand against this power!


    It was also crucial that while ordinary rifle that was supplied to all the militaries around the world could shoot more or less at the target as far as one hundred meters (110 yards) away. In this field, looking at those recruits shooting down the moving objectives about two hundred, fifty meters away from them was already a significant improvement!


    But it didn''t change the fact that their combined accuracy worked only due to a huge number of people shooting all at once! In essence, it was not the efficiency of the weapon, but a pure mathematical-statistical chance!


    "You know that I don''t have any funds on hand to invest in gunpowder plant right now. Even if we somehow managed to convince other nobles to allow us to import pure sulfur from the Crown''s mines, it would still require us to find someone interested in organising the production for it."


    Additionally, there was the fact that in terms of gunpowder making, I had absolutely no idea how I should even get to it! While the smokeless gunpowder was produced in modern times with saltpeper, something I knew only due to how as I kind I attempted to make my own, silly explosives, I had no way of knowing how to obtain nitrate in the first place!


    "How aboutˇ­ Letting me handle it? I took my time observing all sorts of elements that you infused in your plants, and that gave me an idea. For now, most of the gunpowder is made by hand, with people mixing the material as precisely as they canˇ­ But it goes without saying that not only the ingredients are not as finely powdered as your machines could make them, nor as precisely mixed. As long as the ratios could be brought to perfection, even if the quality of the gunpowder wouldn''t reach the level you want, it would still be better than what we have on hand right now. Also, I don''t think you are in any position to claim that you don''t trust me nowˇ­"


    Even if others could take Governor''s last sentence as a threat, or at the very least, a warning, I simply shrugged my arms while allowing my mouth to curve upwards. With the fact that I gave up all my machine guns directly into Jan''s ownership despite no one pressuring me to do so in the first place only showed how I valued our relationship and where did I saw myself in it.


    Allowing anyone to control the output of my gunpowder was risky. The baseline for the idea was to locate the plant in the proximity of my lands and regulated by the Bone''s family alone. With this, it would be easy to make sure that even in case of the unfortunate death of my most excellent protector, it would still fall into my hands!


    "Okay then, I will leave it to you. I think I can spare some of the cement mix and concrete blocks for the factoryˇ­ The problem is, it will need to be far away from the town and the fortress due to the high risk of an explosive accident happening. After all, if fires fueling the steam horses were to come in contact with even the tiniest bit of the finished productˇ­"


    Usually, the gunpowder would be prepared in a place that had a complete ban on any sources of fire, from torches through lamps all the way to candles. Yet if we wanted to use steam horses, there was no way to avoid using the fire in the first place! Even if the entire factory could be constructed in the form to minimalise the risk of the accident, there was no way to prevent it completely!


    "Waitˇ­ Fortress? What the heck? Are you building a damned fortress here, right now?!"

 187 Political talk

    24th June 1574


    "Yeah. The city itself won''t have that many defences, so I need a place where all the workers can run away to in case of danger while deterring any possible invasion from ever reaching for this place. As for more mundane reasonsˇ­ While it''s only a matter of time before I will get all the nobles in the country to buy the cement mix off me to lay down the roads across the entire Commonwealth, for the time being, I simply need another way to use it all up, especially with how I aim to expand its production."


    Initially, the main limiting factor behind the scale of production for the cement was not the availability of the raw deposit of the resources in the area, but the horsepower that could be provided with the limited amount of the steam horses.


    Yet with the increasing rate of production of those wonder-machines, not to speak about how much stronger they could be from the moment the steel production would increase to the point where I could produce both the weapons and the steel steam horses at once, there was simply no reason for me to refrain from expanding this particular plant!


    "Okay, while I get the reason behind it, that forces me to ask you a rather sensitive question. Can we find a place where we could speak in private?"


    Despite the loud noise of the guns erupting every few seconds along with the shouts of the veteran soldier of mine that assumed the position of the recruits'' teacher, this area was still open for everyone to visit. If we were going to talk about some crucial topic that should not reach the ears of anyone else, it was understandable that Jan preferred to do so in a place where no one would dare to interrupt us.


    "Sure, follow me."


    With how our relationship was developing, upon arriving here just this morning, Governor requested me to drop the formalities and stop calling him sir. Be it because he realised that it was a matter of time when my power would exceed his, both in economic and military sense or because the way in which he could trust me allowed him to consider me as a loyal and valuable allyˇ­ It didn''t matter.


    As the escape of the king was bound to push this country off its tracks, it was necessary to assess one''s situation and tighten up the bound of any alliance that one would have. If Jan''s intention was to bring me over to his faction, I would have to find a way to convince him that backing up Sobieski from Transylvania would be the best choice!


    After all, with what was currently going on in the country, I could easily guess what Governor wanted to talk about, especially with how he didn''t forget to inform me that the length of his visit was limited by the gathering of the Senate back in the capital!


    "Okay, then. Just like I said, I won''t be surprised if you find this question insensitive, but I still have to ask it. How many soldiers are you going to train?"


    Only after thinking about the situation did I realise that what I expected and what Jan asked for didn''t really differ that much. Rather than asking me about my opinion directly, he just wanted to gauge it by the moves I was making rather than the words that I would say!


    "Well, it''s not that easy of a question, I will give you that."


    Rather than attempting to hide the answer, I openly admitted to the fact that I had no idea myself, before bursting out in a hearty laugh. After a moment that I had to take to calm myself down, I grabbed my chin and started thinking out loud.


    "Five people squads for every ship travelling between border to Tarnow, at least a hundred people in Tarnow and the city we are building here, two hundred for the fortress and its outpostsˇ­ If we ignore the ships'' protectors, I think the total number would round up to five or six hundred."


    While for someone from the modern times that didn''t sound as much, when taking the current era into consideration, the number I came up was devastating.


    Obviously, there were many great nobles that housed even bigger forces, but the size of their estate was often as big as many german princedoms combined! And even with that, outside of war times or when they bolstered their numbers in order to flaunt their strength, not many people held more than two or three hundred men as a stationary force!


    "Huhˇ­"


    Hearing the answer to his question, Jan was given to be flabbergasted. If I were to be completely honest, I doubted that he himself held such a huge force when all garrisons and personal bodyguards combined!


    Yet this situation was given. Most of the armed forces that nobles kept consisted of extremely expensive hussars or another cavalry if they couldn''t afford the most famed Commonwealthian unit. On the other hand, my men would be all from either commoner birth or the lowest nobles without any land.


    Outside of the rifle and ammunition, both produced locally by my own investments, all they really required was a stable wage and food. When added up, even if I were to pay them in the exact same scheme as I paid my workers, with the wage doubling during any form of fighting, then the cost would still be reasonably small!


    "Well, I don''t really know what to sayˇ­ Are you sure you can afford such a massive force?"


    Hearing Jan''s doubt, I could only thank myself internally for excluding the ship protection units from the calculation. With how I intended to push enough ships on the Dunaj river to turn them from mobile units into basically a floating bridge, threw at the length of the river rather than its width, the number of the protectors could easily grow greater than all of my stationary forces combined!


    But while this would pose quite a huge challenge for my treasury to handle such expense, as long as I included the cost of maintaining those troops in the cost that all sorts of merchants would have to pay in order to transport their goods to the customs-free market near Tarnowˇ­


    "We have the Russian empire chugging down our throat to the east, always ready to steal the access point to the Baltic sea from us. With the Germans to the west and Ottomans to the southˇ­ And don''t even get me started at the brewing internal struggle. Unless one is powerful enough to fend for themselves, he will only be eaten by others stronger than him! With how quickly my lands are developing, slowly putting me on par with other great nobles, I don''t have any doubts that in due time, more than a single household will turn their eyes to my wealth!"


    In fact, it was only a matter of time before some of the less wealthy nobles would attempt to coerce my gold from my pockets for their own use. Be it by blocking the routes that my ships would use, accusing me of breaking the law or outright raiding my lands, all those elements of friendly, neighbours life were common in Commonwealth. That''s why, instead of making the common saying that "Pole is smart after the harm" I preferred to prepare beforehand!

 188 Opening the marketplace part 1

    27th June 1574


    "This place is truly marvellous! I never would have guessed that someone could build such a convenient area just for the sake of us, traders!"


    With Jan Bone gone to the senatorial meeting, there was no need for me to stay at the mining town. Considering all the chaos that would envelop the country following the escape of the King, there was no way for the Governor to take care of the gunpowder ingredients problem, leaving the rifle factory a single improvement that I could make.


    But even with the low quality of the propellant, I still decided to make a simple ammunition plant. All that it required was a simple press, that would cut the huge piece of oiled paper into smaller squares, that would be then forced into huge arrays of hollow tubes by another machine. As the operating arms would change, the gunpowder would be poured down the tubes made out of the paper and at the end, a small, round piece of lead would be used to close it down.


    And just like that, the main problem of producing the ammunition for my repeating rifles was finally solved. As per loading the magazine, it was a job that every soldier had to get used to. With how simple the mechanism was, moved by a simple lever that would spin the wheel after a shot was fired, pushing the new bullet into the firing chamber.


    "That was the intention behind this entire project. I even invited several well-known figures from various cities to make sure all the problems arising in any other city would be solved here before the market would be put to use."


    Replying to one of the first guests that visited the river marketplace on the Dunaj, I accepted the praise while explaining the thought behind the outline of the entire logistical process that was the main reason behind how the entire place looked like.


    Rather than lying down the roads for the convenience of the civilians that would use them to walk around the city, everything in Tarnowian marketplace was prepared with moving the merchandise around. The only exception from this rule was a single area of the marketplace, separated from the rest by a huge wall that wouldn''t be torn down before everything hidden behind it would be finished.


    "Speaking of the uses, I can''t help but get curious. When will you officially open the markets? I already attempted to ask around to get this information, but no matter who I asked, their only reply was to wait for the official announcement. Considering how you are doing everything to facilitate the trade in the region, you must surely understand that time is money, especially for us, merchantsˇ­ Sir."


    "We are only waiting for two more things to happen. The shipment of the beer from Tarnow to arrive, and for the construction of the trading-office to be finished. After all, we can''t expect you all to occupy most of the area here by setting the stalls, can we?"


    While the marketplace was already bigger than the entire city of Tarnow, it mostly consisted of warehouses of all types, with only a few buildings like taverns, hotels or brothels. With only three, multi-storey buildings designed for the many workers that would live directly in the area, one could say that as long as some of the warehouses would be turned into shops, not only I could rack up a nice profit from the downpayment alone, but also from all the monthly costs of operating the business on my land!


    But I was simply too greedy for that. There was no way I would waste the opportunities that this place gave only to get a bit money out of it! Rather than doing that, every single product that would be traded in this place had to go through the trading office!


    Akin to modern stock markets, every merchandise arriving in the marketplace would be registered in the office and stored in the warehouses. The owner of the products would decide on the price of his wares, and only when there would be a buyer ready to pay such price to obtain the products, would the transaction happen.


    In other words, instead of scouring the market to find the cheapest product, all the buyers would get access to it as soon as the office workers would put the current prices on the generally accessible board!


    Obviously, while trading here would mean that the price on the board would include a small fee introduced by the workers themselves, it was way smaller than what other markets would demand using their space to trade!


    On the other hand, it was promoting this type of mercantile exchange that was the main point behind this entire system. Just by introducing another product on the market at some point in the future, some merchants were bound to buy it just for the sake of hoping that its price would grow with time!


    "So, if you would be so kind, would you maybe tell me when can we expect you to open the market, sir? While I understand the reasons behind holding it back, I don''t really know how I should judge the time required to finish the matters that you spoke about."


    Seeing how this man insisted on getting the answer, I realised that I wouldn''t be able to get rid of him with half-truths and vague terms. Since that was the case, it was better to just hit him with a sad reality.


    "Most likely, tomorrow morning, but I can''t promise anything. After all, some of the workers need to finish their course to make sure they won''t make any mistakes while judging the prices of the wares."

 189 Opening the marketplace part 2

    27th June 1574


    In the end, my estimates about the time that it would take my workers to finish all the wrap-up work in the trading office was grossly oversized. Rather than taking the rest of the day and the entire night, they managed to finish everything even before the sun managed to set behind the horizon!


    "Good job guys. Just like promised, everyone will receive a bonus in the form of a single red golden per head, or the equivalent in the merit papers! You can go and claim them now, as, after a short break, we will be opening up the entire market!"


    Gesticulating with my hands to add my own emotions to the already joyous atmosphere in the room, I smiled at the small crowd of the people that worked tirelessly in order to finish this project in advance when compared to the set deadline.


    With how only a few of them belonged to the very core of my workforce that took part in the early projects, it only added the importance of flaunting how much I would reward everyone for working as hard as they did. Even if splurging over a hundred red goldens just like that could be considered as nothing but recklessness!


    "Sir, the accountants are ready to start working. Should we follow the initial plan of accepting the registrations alone with the sellout starting tomorrow, or are we going to risk going all-in right off the bat?"


    Due to the fact that Tarnow was only responsible for supplying the beer, the prices for all the other wares were yet to be set. In other words, if we dared to open the market to the buyers the moment we would do so for the sellers, the prices would be all over the place for as long as it would take for them to stabilise!


    "No, even if it would make everyone happier, I don''t want this place to be associated with such fluctuations. After all, stability is far more important than a short-term gain, be it in the form of coins or trust."


    Shrugging my arms, I moved forward, changing from the resting area where the manual workers celebrated the finish of their work on this project to the backstage of the trading office, where all sorts of educated workers were preparing for the grand opening.


    Manning up this building alone was one of the easily most expensive projects of mine. With how most of them were either poor nobles that either lost their lands or didn''t have any hopes of inheriting it in the first place, or the second-rate offspring of the citizens from all over the province, their wages had to be higher than what my manual workers were receiving.


    Even if I honestly considered them to be worth far less than the people that worked honestly in turning my products into such great places like this marketplace, I couldn''t disregard how important they were for the smooth operations for this by far most important projects of mine.


    I wouldn??t lie if I were to say that all the schemes that I implemented in this place were an absolute pinnacle for what I could create based on my personal knowledge. Without relying on the system at all, I recalled all the motivational speeches that my leaders told me back when I was a simple salesman working on the phone for the company. As I climbed the corporate ladder back in modern times, I had to adapt to all forms of the employment that were forced on me, and now I used all of those skills that I once learned, to turn this place into the first seed of the capitalism in this world!


    "For every sale, you will get profits. For every registration, you will get profits. For every obligation, TRUST, RENT or merit paper sale, you will get profit. In short words, the better work you will do, the more you will earn!"


    If I were to limit how much everyone could earn to just a flat, periodical income, they would work only as much as it would be required to not lay them off. That''s why rather than paying them for the hours they would spend in this place, they had to earn their keep by striking the deals!


    As I once worked in this type of wage scheme, I knew how devious it really was. With no one forcing one''s to work hard but the mirage of losing one''s employment and means to feed himself, people tended to act as their own managers, ready to whip their own backs with their imaginary whips!


    "That''s why you need to remember! You are the ones that will make the deals. It''s not the traders, it''s not the buyers. For you, all of them are a source of profit, that will make you richer beyond any reasonable imagination!"


    Suddenly slamming my hand on the nearby desk filled to the brim with simple forms that would help those officials to categorize and register all the incoming products.


    "I want to hear it from you guys. WIll you suck all of those poor fellows dry?!"


    Rather than keeping all the words for myself, it was better to step out of the stage and let the crowd of enthusiastic followers take over. Unless I made them swallow the hype that I was pouring in them, they might fail to feel its proper effect.


    "WE WILL!"


    "HURAY!"


    "LET''S GO!"


    As the entire room erupted with an outcry resembling what an army could produce mere moments before two fronts would clash against each other in a battle for life and death, those accountants of mine raised their fists with faces making them look alike said warriors. The only difference between the two of them right now was that the warriors were most likely going to die for nothing, while they would keep on living and keep producing more and more revenue for my business!


    "Let''s not waste any more time, then! Guards, OPEN THE GATES!"

 190 Trade-in

    27th June 1574


    While it was a far cry from what would happen to most of the shops around the capitalist world of the future during the opening of the well-known shops on Black Friday, the crowd waiting before the gate to this place was still quite immense. When accounting for the fact that the news about lifting the customs and this new trading spot has yet to reach most of the merchants around the world, the fact that the entire front yard of the trading office was filled up to the brim with people meant the world for me.


    "Okay, then. Are you ready for the greatest battle that this nation has seen in its entire history?!"


    Despite the late time of the day, I could see how everyone was filled with energy. Even though any sale could be closed only from tomorrow onwards, just the ability to register an incoming ware was the baseline for those people to earn!


    With the people already storming the insides of the walled-off area, only a simple set of glass doors - one of the most expensive parts in the entire market - was stopping them from pouring inside the massive building of the trade office.


    "Let''s not waste your time, then! Go and earn lots!"


    Swiping my hand at the servants placed by the doors, I saw them removing the locking blocks and allowing the crowd to push the glass doors inwards, instantly filling the reception hall.


    One by one, merchants were approaching small islands made with a single seat surrounded from all sides by simple desks and a sizeable cupboard. While the fact that only the accountant could sit while the transaction was made could be considered an affront to those often big and respectable merchants, but with how they would only spend a few minutes in this place while my workers would stay there for long hours, it was something that they had to deal with themselves.


    On the outside, the process looked reasonably simple. The merchant would wait in the queue to one of the islands, then report the amount, quality and the price of the wares that he brought. From this point on, the accountant would confirm the required size of the warehousing area that those wares would take, before writing a ticket and giving it to the merchants.


    Yet while the accountant''s works was done here, the merchant still had a few steps to go through. With this ticket in hand, he would approach the warehouse specified on the slip of paper, before confirming with its overseer that the cargo would fit in the predetermined cubicle. With that done, the merchant would have to order either his workers or the local pickers to move the wares from his ship or carriage to the warehouse.


    As there was no point for me to sit and observe the madness within the office, I moved to the small room that I decided to steal from the trade office. This was the one type of luxury that I decided to keep for myself no matter where any of the projects were located so that I could do a quick check of all the affairs whenever I was in the neighbourhood.


    Moving to the small room at the very top of the building, I could use a great view from the simple window. Due to it being one of the highest vantage points in the entire area, I could freely observe as more and more boats moved into the line, waiting for the costal cranes to push their products on the shore the moment their owners received their own tickets.


    "Sir, we have the first report!"


    Before I could even drop my stuff on the floor and seat myself at the single desk of this small study, a servant knocked on the doors and entered right away. Declaring his intention, he placed a single sheet of paper filled with fine print before nodding his head in a quick salute and leaving the room.


    With just a single look at the paper, I realised that my guess was right. Due to the time of the year, most of the products that were brought for sale belonged to the category of long-lasting food, tools and weapons. Even though I knew that one of the merchants that was working on this project of mine found a way to display the wares that were inherently different and personal to the public, most of them would be moved by the merchants themselves to the only place in the entire area that was similar to all the other marketplaces around the world.


    Yet with how little I cared about the artistical value of the weapons that I was using, I scanned the names of the few items brought to my attention on this report before moving to the few columns filled with numbers at the very bottom.


    "Forty gold coinsˇ­ Not so bad for the opening alone!"


    Muttering to myself, I made sure that there was no mistakes on the report before putting it away to a particular shelf and moving from the chair to the straightforward, rigid bed standing in the opposite end of the room.


    With the estimated value of the products rounding up to around four thousand red goldens, being able to poach just a single coin out of hundred that the products would be sold for was already a considerable improvement when compared to not only huge taxes that most of the cities enforced on the merchants but also the minimal and maximal prices at which the products could be sold.


    But while the entire income from the operating fee''s that the merchants would pay for me would be moved back into the wages of the workers all over the marketplace, I wasn''t worried about the potential profitability of this place at all.


    To be frank, I could tell that most of the merchants brought their wealth here for one reason alone.


    Tarnowian beer!

 191 Ostross claims

    28th June 1574


    "Sir, an envoy from the Ostros family has arrived!"


    Already back in the castle, I intended to play around with Elia a bit, only to have one of the servants come with an urgent report. Were it any other, smaller family and I would simply force them to wait for my lust to be satisfied, yet there was no playing around with Ostros family.


    Despite being a major family in the current Commonwealth, rather than looking to ally myself with them, so far, I wanted to avoid starting any relationship with this household for a really simple reason. They were the ones that in the original timeline lead the great Tarnowian castle to its downfall!


    Taking it over after the death of my great ancestors, they used it as nothing but another card in their hand to play against other nobles, swiftly causing their own political adversaries to burn not only the castle along with its many treasures but even the city itself!


    Yet as all those events belonged to the time that never happened in my current life, I had to refrain from showing any signs of hostility towards them, especially with how it would escalate anyway with this damned family belonging to the faction that would opt for not only keeping Henry on the throne despite his desertion but later on they would support a damned Habsburg candidate on the Polish throne!


    "It seems that I don''t really have much choice but to go and pay him a visitˇ­"


    After the servant left our chambers, I lifted the featherbed and looked at Elia''s face twisted by her attempt to hold back her giggle. With how she was supposed to attend a meeting with a random group of local noblewomen during which they would discuss the intricacies of new sewing methods brough from the west, it was no wonder she would much rather sneak out of it in order to spend some time with me.


    "I know, I know. Don''t worry, I will keep the bed heated for you."


    Resting her hands on my shoulders and pulling herself up, she graced me with a short peck on my lips before moving to the side and freeing me from the pleasant burden of her warm body.


    Accompanied by her smile as warm as her skin, I hastily pulled some clothes on my back and left the chambers. With just a few more steps, I arrived at the upper-castle courtyard, where the envoys were awaiting my presence.


    "Welcome to Tarnowian Castle! How might I be of service for the great family of Ostros?"


    No matter how much I was earning already from all kinds of projects of mine, no matter who I was backed by, it didn''t change the fact that I was still considered a minor noble when compared to the prowess of the purpure households!


    "Ah, there is no need for such formalities. Please, may we enter the castle? We are tired after the long journeyˇ­"


    "Ah, forgive me my unbecoming attitude, please, come in."


    Turning my body to the side, I pointed my hand at the living quarters of my castle in the universally known gesture. As the envoy himself along with several servants and guardians of his passed by me, I could only swallow my saliva in an attempt to hold back my anger.


    By not following up with "After you, sir brother", they clearly showed how superior they felt as if they were privy to the right of housing that only officially recognised royal envoys could make use off.


    In short words, by going first into my own house, they acted as if just by appearing in my lands they were entitled to living in my place, no matter what my opinion about this topic would be. Even though I still had some hopes that this visit wouldn''t be a spark that would fire the conflict between our households, seeing the looks of contempt that the guardians of the envoy were throwing at everything they passed by, even this hope was starting to die off.


    "Okay then, I will cut the pleasantries and get straight to the point."


    As soon as we arrived in the room that served the function of both accepting the diplomatic missions and as a dining room when a greater situation arouse, the envoy took the seat at the head of the table, spitting me in the face with this action.


    Even simple fact that he decided to speak informally without my prior invitation showed meant that he was already acting as the owner of this entire place! While I knew that in the original timeline they managed to take over the city and all its surrounding thanks to some ages-old claim they had to it, with how I was a direct descendant to my great ancestor, there was no way they would attempt to force those claims on me!


    "Excuse me, sir, but I think that you are overstepping your bounds. I don''t know how people treat their peers in the desolate outskirts of the Great Lithuanian Princedom, but I won''t accept your attitude here, so close to the royal capital!"


    Despite how going against Ostros meant making a great enemy in the times of great chaos, there was only so much that I was willing to accept in terms of rudeness. If I were to allow the envoy to act too much out of the line, my dignity as the noble would suffer!


    And it wasn''t something to be taken lightly!


    "Ah, forgive me then, I was used to some minor nobles knowing their place instead. But before we will turn this meeting into useless squander, let me pass the message from my father. It''s time for you to return the lands that belonged to my mother, and your aunt, to their rightful owners!"

 192 Elias rebuttal

    28th June 1574


    "So that''s why you came barging into my home, to demand me to cede my rightful heritage to you, dear cousin? But please, go on and amuse me, why should I do that?"


    Instead of flat out refusing this man, I prompt him to keep going with his proposal. While I didn''t care about his end of the offer as I never intended to lift my ownership over Tarnow by even smallest degree. Yet I still had to make him give me some time to scan through the system information storage to uncover the details of the blood connection between our families that he spoked about.


    "Ah, I wouldn''t be as arrogant to come here and demand you to give up your rightful land, dear cousin. What I came here with, is a simple offer of the trade!"


    While the young polish noble gestured to one of his servants to bring some formal paper on to the table, I was desperately scrolling through wiki-like pieces of information. Soon enough, by searching through my family members, I managed to find what I was looking for. Yet what I saw also made a colossal fear fall on my shoulders.


    My dear father, Jan Kristof Tarnowski married only in year one thousand five hundred forty-five, meaning that if I wanted to claim his name and heritage rightfully, I had to be born at least a year later. That would be one of the first clues I could have to how old this body of mine was in reality, yet with how fragmented such records was in this day and age, the best I could learn was that I was between twenty and thirty years old!


    "Since my mother, and your aunt, was older than who you claim to be your father and my uncle, it could be debated whether you hold the greatest rights to the Tarnowian lands, yet in our compassion, my great father decided to offer youˇ­ entire thousand red goldens for the villages surrounding this place along with ten thousand red goldens for the city and castle! Additionally, hearing about your exploits in the easter plots of lands, my family is willing to offer an additional twenty thousand red goldens for the city of Ropian and Pilzno, along with villages bound to them. All in all, if you decide to take upon our generous offer, I will add my part to it and offer thirty-five thousand red goldens for all the lands from the Tarnow dominion to the town of Ropian. What do you say about it, dear cousin? I think it''s a really generous offer when we could obtain all of this land just by questioning your bloodline!"


    Just from this long few sentences alone, I could gauge what the intention of this damned cousin of mine was. With both my parents long gone from this world and his claims backed by one of the richest powers in the entire country, unless I could defend myself against their scrutiny, then no matter how stupid their claim would be, it would be hard for me to keep a hold over those lands of mine.


    "I''m sorry, but as your proposition includes the lands that my dearest wife brough to my household, I can''t decide without hearing her opinion first. Hanz, go and fetch my wife."


    Even though I already know how I would answer those bully-like claims, the way in which I wanted to do so was bound to put me at odds with this powerful clan. With how my cooperation with Cheerie family has yet to start properly and the chaos that the lack of the king would bring to those lands, I wanted Elia to know in advance what we would be signing in for before starting this small war.


    "At once, sir!"


    With one of the butlers that attended the meeting instantly springing up into action, it still took a long while for my significant other to reach this place. With how she claimed to hold the fort back in our chambers while waiting for me, I could only be thankful to how quickly she managed to dress up and prepare to show herself in front of a significant noble like this cousin of mine.


    "Dear, honoured guests..."


    Greeting everyone with a slight curtsy, I could see how just a quick glance at our faces was enough for Elia to assess the situation. By the time she sat right beside me, I was sure that she already more or less knew what was going on.


    "Dear, let me fill you in. This is Alexander, a cousin to me, born from my aunt Sophia. He came here with an offer to buy off all our lands from Tarnowian dominion to the east, with both cities of Pilzno and Ropian included. He offered us thirty-five thousand of red goldens while claimingˇ­"


    Before I could even finish my sentence, I felt a slight tug on my arm. Turning my head to the side to take a look at my wife, I saw her grinning and opening her mouth.


    "My love, what is this joke of an offer? How could we sell our lands for less than half of what they bring us in a single year? As for whatever he attempted to threaten you with to stop you from throwing him away from our home, do you think that with our current power we should have any reasons to mind his face?"

 193 Need for allies

    28th June 1574


    "Well, I never intended to accept their laughable offer. I just wanted you to hear it before I would ask them to leave."


    Smiling at Elia, I picked her hand with my own and turned my head to the guests.


    "I think it''s time for you to depart back to your lands. Should I send some of my men to help you find the way, or are you capable of doing it yourself?"


    With how they came to my house to basically threaten me into giving up all my lands for some pitiful amount of gold that - just like Elia pointed out - I could make in way less than a year, I couldn''t be bothered to keep up with the pleasantries. Ignoring the fact that the way in which I told them to get the hell out of my place could be easily taken as an insult and lead to a duel, I turned my head back to my wife, adoring the slight smile on her lips.


    "Youˇ­ Are you sure you can bear the consequences of refusing me?!"


    From the way in which my dear cousin reacted to my refusal, I could tell that it was something that he rarely had to cope with. Most of the nobles would kill for a chance of getting aquatinted with purpure dressed household. Yet, as I aspired to join them on equal terms rather than using their influence to be promoted into their circle, I couldn''t care less about his fragile ego being shattered.


    "Do I need to repeat myself? You are not welcomed in my lands, so get the hell out of here before my men will help you!"


    Before I could even call for the castle guards to come out, someone had to notify them about the bad mood in the room. The moment my words silenced out in the hall, the side doors to the room burst open, with several men armed with my repeating rifles freshly delivered from mining town lined up by the wall, with their weapons lowered but cooked and ready to fire at any given moment.


    "We will find our way out of ourselves."


    Seeing that I wasn''t joking nor was I willing to reconsider his offer, my dear cousin could only gnash his teeth in anger and stand up before leaving the room.


    "Make sure they won''t cause any trouble on their way out. If they dare to act out of line, you are free to shoot for the kill."


    While all the nobles were free from being punished by any crime unless the state trail would prove them to be guilty, it applied to my cousin just as much as it did to me. If his death would start an all-out war between me and Ostros, then so be it! I would gain the chance to test the efficiency of my weapons while sapping their strength and allowing some of my allies to use this opportunity to grow stronger themselves.


    Either way, the chaotic times of interregnum suddenly turned even more chaotic for me, forcing me to focus on something different than my current projects.


    "Dear, would you be so kind as to bring me a paper, something to write and my seal? I need to write a letter."


    No matter which approaches Ostros would take to claim those lands of mine, the best way to secure my position wasn''t to grow in power by myself but to look for allies. My current development would allow me to easily ammas military force capable of repelling any form of invasion. At the same time, the monetary income I had from all the projects of mine was more than enough to buy any favours necessary. Regretfully, it all relied on the fragile baseline of country recognizing or at least ignoring all my actions.


    Just by denouncing the customs privilege, most of the incentives behind the Tarnowian marketplace would be gone, turning all the resources and effort invested in it into waste.


    While the fact that they didn''t do their homework when deciding on the amount of money they offered for the lands, I couldn''t base my plans on the hope that they would keep ignoring my moves when planning their next attack. As long as they managed to convince the senate to move Jan Bone to another province while placing someone from their own family on the seat of Sandomir Governor, everything that I have done so far could go down the drain!


    "Here. What are you going to do?"


    After taking out the items that I requested from a small drawer near the wall of the room, she placed them in front of me and asked.


    "While in a direct clash, we can beat them, we will be powerless if they decide to use their influence to ostracize us. We can''t forget that most of our current power and influence will be born not from production but from trading away what we are producing. That''s why, rather than hoping for the best, I think its better to get busy with the investments involving Cheerie family, don''t you think?"


    The moment I got the writing utensils in my hands, I soaked the goose feather in Ink and started filling the simple paper with rows and rows of letters, forming the message that another great magnate of the country, Michal Cheerie was most likely impatiently waiting for. With how smitten he was by the beer that I presented to him during the wedding festival, I could count on his goodwill when it came to investing my assets near his lands, yet that wasn''t even near being enough to buy his support if it meant going against another great clan.


    That''s why, rather than hoping for the best with selling the beer formula alone, I detailed the way in which he could invest his own money into several businesses of mine, even going as far as offering him five RENT deeds for free!


    "Do you think that Ostros will go for the lengths requiring us to get Michal''s support? Won''t Jan Bone be enough to shield us from their ambitions?"


    Taking the seal from the hand of the servant that just brought it from my chambers, Elia placed it on the table before reaching with her hand forward and lightly caressing my cheek. Unwilling to make any mistakes on the letter that I was writing, I put the feather away and turned my head to the side, gazing deeply into her eyes.


    "I''m not going to take any chances. It was only a matter of time before I would invest in the Wild Steppes and I won''t be able to do anything there without Cheerie family backing. If that''s the case, why not rope him into my faction a bit earlier?"

 194 Forming military

    30th June 1574


    "Sir, we have formed our first independent unit!"


    Just as I was about to depart to Sandomir in order to meet with Jan Bone for the sake of learning how the Senatorial Debate went, a messenger form the mining town came to the castle, shouting his message while waving a thick folder of papers in the air.


    "Speak fast!"


    With how important that news were, I didn''t mind slowing down my departure only to learn more about this matter. After all, if I could know about the progress of this insanely important project of mine in advance, then I would have more chips on the table while talking to the governor!


    "The head unit of sixty-four men finished their shooting regime, and are now fully formed and awaiting orders. As for the body of the unit consisting of the one hundred, ninety-five men, divided into squadrons of sixty-five each, they will be ready and armed for orders within three days. As it stands, for now, only the backguard will require another week to fully prepare for combat!"


    Just like I remodelled the organisation of the work in my projects, I wasn''t willing to use outdated and inefficient military scheme in my own military unit. By mixing the bits of historical knowledge about how modern European and ancient roman military worked, I came up with strange division numbers.


    First, came the head unit, Consisting of the best out of the best. Paid double of what the others earned, armed with multiple guns from the main repeating rifle through the personal weapon of the miniature repeating rifle looking like a slightly modified revolver, all the way to a single item that has yet to be produced, hand grenades.


    Divided into eight groups of seven soldiers and a group commander, they would each be tasked with a single task to fill, while capable of working together when a greater problem appeared to be tackled.


    As for the body unit, it was the true mass of the entire small army of mine. With three heads numbering sixty-five people each, it was divided in exactly the same way as the head unit, with the addition of the middle-rank officer coordinating the actions of the entire unit. Compared to the "elites", it could only operate on the head unit scale, prepared to always fight with either sixty-four other men by their side or the entire body of nearly two hundred.


    The real fun started with the backyard unit though. Numbering only forty-one, it consisted of the higher officer that would wield the command over the entire small army, with four groups five people each tasked with resupplying each of the head units and another four groups of five always travelling with the rest of the cargo and trained to use improved version of the reaper guns!


    "That''s good. Go to the castle''s kitchen and have a proper meal."


    Because no matter how modern this concept appeared to be for others, espionage was a thing for all the civilised societies ever since the value of information was discovered! Considering how much all my projects relied on the improved schemes of the organisation or improved technology, I knew that if any not-major figure in the commonwealth was on the radar for the spies, then it was me!


    Yet with how important that news were to me, I simply ignored everything else, even going as far as grabbing Elia in famed princess-carry and running towards the stables, only to hurry up towards the port where a steam paddler awaited us.


    As soon as we finally appeared in more or less espionage-secure shed on top of the paddler, I nearly tore my contus open to grab the report and dig in its details.


    Just like expected, the development of the new reaper gun was going great. Just by teaching the craftsmen working in the mining town the modus operandi for the first iteration allowed them to take apart all the mechanisms that made it work and improve every and each one of them.


    Exactly as I did with my personal rifle, outside of rifling the barrel to improve both the range and the accuracy along with the heat resistance, the initial uploading system when the magazine would be passed from the top to the bottom of the gun was exchanged with a simple mechanism based on the circular loading scheme with all the bullets attached to a special belt locked on said loading mechanism.


    Thanks to this, all the aspects of the firing, from loading through shooting all the way to changing the bullet were based on a single corb, allowing to decrease the number of operators for the gun to just three, with one person aiming, one person operating the corb and one person providing the ammunition belts!


    But this wasn''t the end of the good news!


    According to the report, the recruitment campaign aimed at filling up the ranks to the maximum decided in the budget that I set for this part of my power was going great! Within just this week that I was away from the mining town, nearly a half of the entire determined number of recruits was found, allowing me to bolster the number of the modern troops serving directly under me to three small armies, albeit with two of them still deep in the trenches, learning how to shoot and move around the modern battlefield.


    Yet just like this project of mine was taking time, so would all the other actions of my potential enemies. In just a few short weeks, anyone who would dare to cross my bottom line, would have to be ready to face the most modern, perfectly equipped and paid- out army in the world!

 195 Formation

    3rd July 1574


    "Attention!"


    While it bothered me to no end to use the modern forms of salute that were clearly imported from the western armies of the future, I just couldn''t help it. With how the military developed around the world, as Poland lacked over one hundred years of its national and cultural development of the military tradition due to being torn apart and occupied by its neighbours, the picture of the advanced military in my head was clearly stolen from the movies and stories I read.


    And it went without saying that those, in turn, were inspired by the western world!


    "Present arms!"


    With the command of the mayor, the highest officer commanding the entire small army, all men lined up in front of me raised their rifles to their shoulders in an orderly manner.


    "Fire!"


    All at once, every single rifle carried by my newly formed troop screamed in its loud yet beautiful voice, sending several gold coins worth of ammunition flying.


    "Double fire!"


    Boom, boom!


    Contrary to what other rifles of the age could do, rather than reloading in order to fulfil the uncommon order, all the weapons spoke again, spewing bits of metal enveloped by fire into the air, before silencing back to their usual state all at once.


    "Hold!"


    With the salvo already done, my men lowered their weapons back to their hips, still standing at attention and looking a little to the side, awaiting next order.


    "That will be enough. Let them have some rest."


    Calmly relaying my order to the officer, I turned around and looked at the governor.


    "What do you think about them? Quite impressive, don''t you think?"


    With how most of the troops of the current age had to either be trained extensively for a prolonged period of time to achieve even such simplistic result as firing at command and orderly following other simple orders, it was already quite an achievement to have them act so disciplined within just a short week of training.


    Obviously, as this showcase was happening during peace, it couldn''t be compared to what would happen in the heat of the battle. Without the bullets whizzing near their heads and melee troops advancing just a few hundreds of steps away from them, even a simple villager could produce such results given enough time. Yet with how current Commonwealth was devolving into a state of chaos already, adding just the slight variable of the Ostros interfering in my business, it was only a matter of time before I could turn those more or less disciplined recruits into a true, battle-hardened troop of veterans!


    "Well, I didn''t expect anything less of youˇ­ I think I''m already past the point when you can surprise me with anything, as I stopped making any guesses as to what other miracles will you come up withˇ­ But looking at them, I can''t help but wonder, can you really pay for all of their equipment?"


    In fact, getting those dresses done all in similar fashion was the greatest expense for this unit outside of their wages that still would have to stack up for several months to reach the cost that I had to pay for those uniforms!


    "Come on, just look around! Do you really think the cost of training, equipping or maintaining them is of any concern for me?"


    Spreading my arms as wide as I did my lips, I gestured at all the buildings going at their full throttle to produce more cement, more iron, more steel than the rest of the country would produce in a year.


    Yet even without knowing those kinds of details, something that I was sure that Governor did, just by looking at how busy those nearby sites were one could gauge the economical prowess of the single owner of it all.


    "Well, that was an unfortunate question indeed."


    Showing a rare, honest smile on his face, Jan turned his eyes to the horizon before suddenly staring back at me.


    "But while they are great and all, I just can''t help but thinkˇ­ Why do you suddenly are in such a rush to raise an army? I remember asking how many troops did you want to recruit just a few days ago, and I can already see the first batch of them ready for the field training! With how deep in the hinterlands of the Commonwealth we are, what kind of enemy do you want to put those men against? After all, I can''t see any fortification that you would use those men to fill up!"


    Hearing this point, I couldn''t help but smile despite quite a huge amount of aggressiveness in Jan''s words. It didn''t take a genius to realise that my sudden move on increasing my military strength didn''t sit well with him, be it due to his fear of losing his protection leverage over me or simply because he didn''t want me to stir up any mess in those chaotic times. Yet the point that he brought was simply too great for me to hold myself back!


    "You see, I honestly believe the age of the huge fortifications, castles and allˇ­ Is over. Like, in most of the sieges, right now the invading army either will attempt to starve the defenders or destroy a part of their embankments as to open a way for the assault to go throughˇ­ But you already saw what the reaper guns are capable of! Even though the improvements we made to their new version are rather minor, what do you think would happen if a huge army suddenly attacked a breach in the walls, where defenders would mount two or three reaper guns?"


    In fact, what I told was also a valid reason to actually build said fortifications! By shifting my focus to more modern warfare based on trenches and fire stations, I would force any enemy to adapt to this way of fighting. But as long as I could leverage my own advantages in a classical siege scenarioˇ­


    Shaking my head, I pushed the thought of the rows of enemies lining up only to get shot by a lazy series from a set of reaper guns. While I would love to bring such point in this discussion, doing so would clearly give out my reasons for forming my own, potent military, potentially alerting Jan to my real, devious plans.


    "You see, rather than building castles, bastions and fortressesˇ­ I want to go with a simpler route. Make every soldier used to carry a big bag filled with sand or earth, load a bunch of short, iron pikes on the supply wagon, and when there will be a time when someone will dare to launch an attack against such forceˇ­ In less than what it takes for a proper cavalry charge to form, my soldiers will move those items to the front of the potential battlefield, stalling the enemy for long enough to make a short work of them with those weapons of theirs."


    Taking a deep breath, I could already imagine how future battles would look for a short period of time.


    Countless rows of cavalry and infantry running at my army, only to stop for just a briefest of moments at this makeshift obstacle. Yet with the introduction of the repetitive guns, this small window was more than enough to deal just as much damage to the enemy as necessary to break their spirit and force them to a retreat!


    It wasn''t about making a perfectly secure and intimidating defensive position. In fact, if an enemy would be determined enough, circumventing or just ignoring it at large would always be an option!


    But what if said enemy saw a small unit of barely three hundred people with nothing but funny rifles and a few carriages filled with what would look like pikes?


    Only a dumb general would let such a great opportunity go to waste!


    A dumb generalˇ­ Or one with enough gut feeling to tell him that what appeared as a joke of a fortification was enough to turn the one-sided attack into a devastating defeat!

 196 Rumours

    5th July 1574


    "How is the training for the new troops going?"


    After a few days of absence, Elia finally joined me back in the military camp set at the periphery of the mining town. With how to spread out all my businesses now were, I had no other choice than to temporarily rely on her to make sure everything was going as planned with one of them while I would personally oversee another one.


    While this fragmentation of my power was already starting to pose quite a lot of challenge to effectively administer so many different places, I had no other choice than to look forward for increasing this problem even more. With the letter of invitation sent to the Cheerie family, as long as they would agree to rather lenient terms, not only I one or two of Matsu''s beer managers would have to go to their own lands and organise the production for this magnate household, but some of the newly schooled managers of mine would travel even further to establish outposts at the verge of the cossack community influence!


    Thanks to the fact that I would be banking mostly on the national trade route connecting the south of the country, or rather, the entire eastern part of the continent to its western counterpart, even if Ostros decided to strike at this exposed and long logistic chain, they would have to bear with the wrath of Cheerio''s, as this side business of mine would be put under their direct protection!


    "It''s good, but not good enough. Without a proper fight, no matter how long I will keep disciplining them and making things hard for them, they will remain greenhorns. That''s one of the reasons why I want to expand to the east. After all, not many fallen nobles would be able to resist the charm of stable and generous pay that I''m willing to give them!"


    Just like I explained to Elia while being able to bolster the number of my troops almost at once with how insanely simple the new weapons were in use when it came to actually put them into any military use, it was an entirely different topic. As most of the recruits hailed from the nearby villages and some of the noble households that have nothing to them outside of their name, even if they could do everything exactly as told during training, I doubted that when the fires of battle would scorch their assess, they would still be of any use!


    "Well, I think you will have the chance to test their loyalty soon enough. While I was back in Tarnow, we received a summons to the royal court. It seems that Ostros moved into offensive after we excused their envoy from our lands."


    While I was prepared that sooner or later they would try something sketchy, for them to direct this fight directly to the royal courtˇ­ Either they were confident in taking me down during some kind of trial, or this was nothing more than a ruse aimed to distract me from the place where they would really attack!


    Summoning one to the capital mostly served only one out of two purposes. Either the ruler wanted to reward or punish them! With how quickly all my lands were developing, if the news about summons were to spread, initially everyone would take it for a good sign, assuming that I was going to get rewarded for my efforts in developing the country and bringing in more and more taxes to the royal coffers.


    But I wasn''t as stupid to believe that Ostros would waste quite a lot of their influence to show how close of a family we were by forcing the royal court to reward me! And if people learned later on, that despite all of their initial assumptions, I was going to be trialled and potentially punished for something, there would be nothing I could do about rumours spreading that all my growth was based on some shady methods!


    "Yeah. To be frank, I heard about the summons even before I officially received them. It''s safe to say that this was the top topic for all the merchants in the grand Tarnowian market!"


    Hearing Elia''s words, I couldn''t help but frown. If they were as swift with spreading the news, it turned the situation to a whole new picture. While spreading the rumours wasn''t as hard as one might think, it was often a single-use strategy if the plan based on said rumours ended up failing. That''s why, if Ostros were as eager as to use it as they appeared to be, they had to be quite confident that they plan was foolproof!


    "Say, what do you think we should do? I can''t really tell whats their aim in spreading those rumoursˇ­"


    If they did it so that everyone would anticipate me being rewarded which considering how I approached my investments, would directly translate to even better opportunities for everyone, hearing about me being punished would do me just as much harm as it would open new possibilities in front of me.


    After all, I could be perfectly sure about the loyalty of the low and middle class in Tarnow, along with everyone in the mining town area. With all my efforts to improve the welfare of the common folk, and the distribution of the cheap beer of mine amongst those who could afford it, I knew that any attack towards me would turn into a burst of loyalty in those subjects of mine, willing to go for great lengths toˇ­


    FUCK!


    "Elia, take all the troops that are ready for combat to Tarnow. You have to make sure that when the news of whatever will happen in the capital will spread, no popular unrest will turn this place chaotic. Leave just a few battle-hardened veterans of ours whose loyalty can''t be questioned to train even more troops here. I think I know what they are up to!"

 197 Devious offer

    7th July 1574


    "... that''s why, despite our beloved King leaving the country, we, the senate of the commonwealth, in our power to temporarily rule those lands in our King''s absence, decided to grant you the title of the Commonwealth econom, along with designating you a new fief in the wild steppes so that your efforts could help this entire area flourish as well!"


    As soon as those words were spoken, a group of servants descended from the stairs while carrying a set of items on a luxuriously decorated pillow. Along with a general-like mace, an attribute of the highest national generals, there were three pieces of paper and a long, intricately ornamented sash.


    "Dear Sirs, this honour is too great for me to just accept it like that. May I be given some time to think about this offer? I''m not sure if I will be capable of shouldering such a responsibility!"


    While it went without saying that the fact that I was actually rewarded for my reason was enough to take me by surprise, I wasn''t naive enough to just accept it without doing proper research. Maybe if it was one of my supporters that provided me with the summons, then I would be more open-minded about this affair, but with how it was the Ostros that organised this event, there was no way for me to be overly cautious!


    "And what there is to consider in this grant? It''s not like we will expect anything great from you in the short term. We all know how hard and expensive it is to develop those lands!"


    Claiming that growing the steppes was hard, was a great understatement. Even when one ignored all the problems connected with how poor this land was both in terms of natural resources and the manpower available for use, there still remained the fact that not only was this place highly endangered by constant Tatar raids, but also by the ambition of both the major nobles that built their fortune around amassing lands along with cossacks that didn''t like the idea of anyone imposing the commonwealthan laws on what they considered to be their own home!


    "Sir''s, if you really invited me here to reward me for all the efforts I put in increasing the wealth of this country, then I think I can safely assume that you properly learned what means I used to do so. As such, I will dare to assume that you also learned that I never take any decision without a proper time to consider all its ups and downs along with confronting my ideas with my dearest wife. While I might look like a fairly successful noble, I dareth not forget that she is the reason that I started all my projects in the first place!"


    "Your wife? Are you really out of your mind to ignore such a great honour bestowment because your wife might not like the idea?!"


    And here it came. With one of the senators that belonged to the Ostros faction standing up and scolding me for my hesitation, I could already tell that accepting this so-called honour would be a bad idea. Even though I didn''t know what the catch was, there was no way I could just go and play into their trap like that!


    "Sir, with all due respect, but just like our dearest God surrounded his mother with the deepest respect, I do the same with the mother of my future children! While I dare not to pry what your relationship with your own wife, if you have one, is, but I dare you to say another word about my beloved one. You can be sure that even the senatorial ornate won''t be of any help for you then!"


    With how they would pressure me to no end to make a decision on the spot were I to play their game, only by turning this summons over its head and making it so that they would be the ones who would wish for my departure could I save myself from their schemes!


    "Let''s stop it for now!"


    Out of nowhere, the president of this meeting, Senator Zamoysky, the figure that would soon turn out to be the most influential person through the entire Kingdom, second only to the next king himself, stood up and stopped both of us before the matters could turn really ugly.


    "We are not going to force anything on you, yet we can''t let you lead us by the nose either. While it is a great honour to contribute to our mother, Commonwealth, I can also see that you might have your own reservations. That''s why you will be given two days to consider this offer before reporting back with your decision. With that said, I announce this meeting to be concluded! Let''s move on to the next issue, sirs."


    And just like that, I accepted the papers without putting my signature on them, while disregarding the insignia that would allow me to officially wield this new position. While the fact that I grabbed the papers caused quite an annoyed look both on Zamoysky and Ostros Senators faces, I couldn''t care less about the bad impression it would leave.


    But rather than keeping everyone waiting for my answer, the moment I entered the room that I was offered to rest during my stay in the capital, I dropped everything and focused on those papers. In just a few moments since I started reading through them, I realised how devious this plan was!


    Ostros never intended to have me accept this honour in the first place!


    The regulations were simply too strict for any sane person to ever even start considering it seriously, not to speak about the fact that if my memory was serving me right, the land that I would be given would directly border the current expansion zone of the Cheerie family, putting me at odds with them!


    But on the other side, refusing such a great honour and responsibility would be the easiest way for the Ostros to ostracise me and make it all the harder to officially join the ranks of the magnates, especially with how they would be sure to keep everyone conscious how I ignored the call of duty!


    In the end, I was too naive to expect that the plan of those damned magnates would be as simple as I initially expected.


    But it didn''t mean that I was completely powerless myself. If they wanted to corner me with this offer in order to get a hook on me that they would later use to keep chipping away at my reputation and ability to make deals with other nobles, then all I had to do was to repay them in exactly the same manner!

 198 Decision

    9th July 1574


    "Dear sirs, while I''m deeply honoured by the offer, I don''t think I''m capable of handling such a responsibility. From the fact that I was acknowledged as a capable governor of my own lands, I dare to speak within the authority granted by said acknowledgement, that if I were to leave my own lands in order to take care of the ones that this great Senate wanted to bestow upon me, rather than increasing the growth in both places, I wouldn''t be able of maintaining the stability of either one."


    Just from the fact that Ostros attempted to push me into this position it was obvious that I had to refuse it, yet doing so without a proper reason could be easily taken as an affront to not only this crafty family but to all the Senators that were kind enough to vote for this proposition in the first place.


    "On the other hand, it goes without saying that our eastern and southern lands require not only a lot of attention but also a lot of funding to properly grow. That''s why I would like to propose the Cheerio family to take on this proposed duty while offering myself to contribute ten thousand red goldens worth each year to help them fulfil this mission!"


    In my current spot, unless I could push this position onto someone else, then this entire meeting would end up not as a ruse, but as me denying the earnest honours given in hopes of using my talents somewhere else. Even if some of the nobles would understand my decision, with how Ostros were given to use it to the best of their capability, it wouldn''t be that long before I would be completely ostracised.


    That''s why I came out with this proposition of mine. While offering entire ten thousand gold coins might sound excessive, I made sure to phrase it in a way that opened quite a lot of possibilities for me!


    Because rather than paying the money like that, as long as Cheerie family would agree to take this title, I would provide them with all sorts of necessities to kickstart the development of the area in question, from huge amounts of concrete, through steam-powered carriages that I could easily produce all the way to the steam horses to power literally anything that they would want to create in that land!


    And as the sole owner and producer of all of those items, I could claim any price I could ever want for them, effectively taking down the initial number of ten thousand to something closer to just a single thousand!


    On the other hand, offering such a generous amount that couldn''t be scoffed at even by the richest households in the country, I secured two different things.


    And second, while the fact that I would still have to provide Cherrie were they to accept my proposition with quite a lot of expensive items stood, it was not only the thing that I wanted to kickstart the circulation of those new, inventive goods of mine, but also a perfect way to rack up favours with them!


    "While we will take your proposition into consideration, it will be the decision of the Senate whether this position will be offered to Cherrie household or anyone else in this regard. For now, since you decided not to take up on the offer, you are free to return to your own duties. I wish you save travels."


    Hearing the dismissal from the mouth of the Zamoysky presiding over the Senate, I simply bowed to the gathered elders while sending a quick glance towards both Jan Bone and the Senator from the Ostros and Cherrie family.


    As expected, Cherrie one was smiling, while Ostros one looked at me as if he wanted to suddenly gain the ability to kill with his sight alone, yet the greater surprise was for me when I looked at someone who I so far, considered my friend and protector.


    There was no sign of happiness on the Sandomir Province Governor''s face. While it was only a quick look that made me unable to assess his emotions in any realistic way, I could swear that I saw a disappointment and some kind of heavy resolution striking through his eyes.


    But while it was just enough to alert me, it wasn''t a clue strong enough to alter the course of my current politic. With this quick moment ending, I straightened up and moved outside of the Throne Room of the Wawel castle, the legendary housing for the King that managed to last through the entire Commonwealth history, years of occupation and all the way to the modern times when it was turned into a popular meeting spot and a museum.


    "How did it go?"


    Despite how usually Elia would stay behind in one of the areas of the ongoing development in order to manage it whenever I was about to be absent, with how important this senate summoning was, I couldn''t help but ask her to follow me there as soon as she would be done with some matters regarding the Tarnowian market that she wanted to finish up.


    "Three problems have appeared. Not great, not terrible. I heard this is about as much as one senate meeting is supposed to create, so if you want something to rack your brains about I can arrange for a summons for you."


    With how deeply infatuated I was with all the fine details of both of my meetings, I couldn''t help but turn a little sarcastic while replying.


    "Auch!"


    Feeling Elia''s elbow digging deep into my side, I was forced to almost instantly reflect of my behaviour. I guess rephrasing the quotes from the popular HOBO series about the meltdown of the nuclear reactor somewhere at the current Commonwealth outskirts wasn''t the greatest idea given how no one else in this timeline would have any clue just what the heck I was speaking about!

 199 Private meeting

    10th July 1574


    "It''s a pleasure meeting you, sir. I hope that your nephew passed the message about our plans for the future in advance."


    Bowing deeply in front of the elderly man that invited me to his place, I pretended not to see the huge variety of the hunting trophies filling the walls of his guest room. While it could be said to be a testimony to this guy hunting capabilities, I could bet that at least half of them were actually bought on the market just for the sake of intimidating anyone who happened to be in this room for the first time like me now.


    "Oh, come on. I''m too old for such pleasantries. We both know that it was you that wanted to meet with me, so cut the crap and speak directly, sir brother. Right now, I''m but a weak, old man rather than the senator representing the might of commonwealth behind him!"


    Despite how one could easily take his words to be on the border between aggressive and offensive, if not for the broad smile on his face and clearly over the top tone of his voice. Yet the message that he included in his words was pretty clear.


    "Just to make sure we are on the same point then, the current head of the Cheerie household agreed to initiate a cooperation with me, where for the price of both the recipe and setting up the local brewery of the Tarnowian beer in the town of Cherrie, my efforts at creating a peaceful outpost near the Cossack lands would be supported by the main house. As for the reasons behind this move, this is the topic for an entirely different talk."


    While I reckoned that this man was far more knowledgable about the affairs of his household that he would let me know it, I had to make sure that we were on the same page when speaking about my interests in the east.


    "Yes, I was informed about this proposition, just as well as I know how you failed to make any moves to turn those words into reality. Should I take this meeting as you finally making your move?"


    Dang!


    This man was quite sharp! But again, it wasn''t that hard to detect the tension between me and Ostros with how they pushed the econom of the country proposal along with my strict refusal to take up this responsibility. With how this man survived in the highest circle of politic that governed the country alongside his former majesty, it was given that he would be quite skilled in terms of the underhanded deals and schemes, making it impossible to play him into my own game without alerting both the senator in front of me and the entire house that he currently represented about my shady intentions.


    I was several decades too young to attempt to play the game of whispers with this old man, so the only way for me to ask for his help was to explain my motives straight away. After all, what I wanted them to do was to pit themselves against one of the major powers in the entire country! Unless I could make it worth for them to back me against Ostros, rather than helping me out, they would be sure to jump on the opportunity and swallow the scraps that would be left after my clash with my cousin!


    "Oho? And what are the concessions that you just spoke about? Did you mean that ten thousand gold coins? Or maybe the items that you would arbitrary price that high?"


    Fuck!


    I was sure that this little word game of mine would go through unnoticed, yet just as expected from this sly, old fox, he realised the true meaning behind those words as well!


    "Guilty as charged!"


    With how all my schemes were laid bare with just a few sentences of this man, I could only admit to it while bursting out with a wry laugh. For the first time since I moved to this timeline, I fully realised that disrespecting the people of this time was the worst mistake that I could commit. Even if they lacked the formal education that I went through, just the sheer life experience of dealing with such schemes and word games made them more than worthy opponent in terms of debating, not to speak how devious they were sure to be when really putting an effort to take down an enemy of theirs!


    "Let me put my thoughts directly on the table then. I would love if the Cheerio family could push one of their members to become the econom of the country. In exchange, I will sell all the products of mine that I can for their production price, along with sharingˇ­"


    Only as I was speaking did I realise just what kind of insane concession I was willing to make just to obtain their support. Swallowing my saliva in order to buy time, I could feel the taxing look of the elder scanning my face as if he wanted to probe just what kind of words made me so scared of myself.


    "Along with sharing ten out of a hundred coins that the Tarnowian marketplace will make. But to make one thing clear, I''m not going to take the risks of transporting those goods on myself. As the trading route goes through the lands of the Ostros family, unless they would be moved under the Cheerio family banner, we would risk the cousin of mineˇ­ stealing it away under some kind of stupid pretence."


    While speaking my lines, I dared to carefully observe the face of the elder, hoping to find some clues that could help me to discover a way in which pushing this man''s button would be effectiveˇ­ Yet without any surprise, this elder face was as calm as an old cat leisuring on top of a damned tree!


    "That''s indeed reasonable. But before I can even guess what will be the response of the head, I need to know the details of why do you want this eastern outpost so much, and what its purpose will be."


    Cupping his hands together, the elder relaxed in his chair. With his eyes still locked to my face, he gave off the vibes of the hardened diplomat that he surely was.


    "In short words, make them rich by trade while directing their potential outside of the country. Use my beer in the foreign lands to advertise the products bought from the cossacks as an exotic luxury, and use the money from said trade to turn this bunch of outcasts into loyal soldiers of the commonwealth. While I get to earn lots, the country receives a powerful force guarding its south-eastern borders to the last drop of blood. Not a bad trade, won''t you think?"

 200 Expected but still shocking

    10th July 1574


    "It sure was a busy day."


    Sitting in front of an extravagantly filled table, stocked with at least four types of dinner along with three sets of different drinks, I couldn''t help but compare the hospitality of this expensive tavern to what I could expect back in my own lands.


    Despite all the development that I caused both in Tarnowian area and at the mining town, it was impossible for me to provide everyone with this kind of food on a daily basis. Even though everyone''s earning and the level of living drastically increased ever since they entered my employment, it didn''t mean that the food became any less scarce!


    "But you went through it all. Now, I will have you take proper rest. Don''t you dare attempt doing anything else. I can''t have you collapsing due to overworking now!"


    Just as quickly I started forming the plans to either increase the output of the farms or at least introduce new kinds of highly potent food that would enrich one''s diet, Elia forced me to drop those ideas and focus on the food.


    Grabbing a silver spoon that came with the set provided by the tavern where we were staying at, I sank it into the thick mass compromised of huge chunks of meat and some vegetables. Yet rather than putting the content on the spoon into my mouth, I just moved it around just like some kid refusing to eat a specific product at the family dinner would.


    "I''m sorry. It''s just that whenever I see one aspect of our life that I didn''t bother to improve yet, I can''t help but have those ideas popping up in my head how could I change it. Like, just look at this food. Even with our spice, it can easily beat almost anything that I could come up withˇ­ Yet we will never reach the level where the meat will be as cheap as for the commoners to enjoy it just like that. And how else can we encourage them to spend their wages back in our investments if we won''t start with food?"


    Despite all my efforts to aim my developments at the items that would either improve the efficiency of the work in all fields or at least allow rich nobles to use them for their own sake, it all boiled down to the single fact. Until I will establish a proper market for my merchandise, all the merit, trust and rent papers will be simply worthless!


    But even if a lot of people knew how useful the steam horses were, with the current chaos in the country and tension between me and the Ostros household, I doubted that anyone would dare to risk doing any business with me, if that could bring the wrath of the Ostros on their heads just as well!


    "Like I said, how about you stop thinking about this, and just enjoy the meal?"


    With her face twisting in annoyance, Elia moved up to the table, sat on the lap and took over the spoon from my hand. As she raised it up from the bowl, her eyes filled with sparkles as she aimed it at my mouth.


    "Say, aaaahˇ­"


    "I''m pregnant."


    Only thanks to my miraculous wits did I manage to at least turn my head to the side before I spewed out all the content from my mouth. That was so like her, to drop such a bomb on me when my mouth was full and without any prior notice, hint or warning!


    "Are you sure?"


    Cleaning my mouth with a swipe of my arm, without caring about dirtying my expensive clothes, I turned my head back to my dearest.


    "Yeah. My time of the month is missing for almost two weeks already."


    Hearing the news, I grabbed Elia by her arms before pulling her out from my lap and standing up myselfˇ­ Only to grab her in a tight hug!


    "God, I''m so happy!"


    I could react in such a relatively calm manner only due to the fact that it wasn''t the first time when we discussed or even brough up this topic. With the earlier mistake that we made when taking her symptoms of anxiety for the first signs of pregnancy, I had the time to condition myself for the opportunity of becoming a father.


    Yet in the end, it didn''t change the fact that as this information sank into deeper parts of my mind, I felt more and more anxious about the entire situation!


    With the kingdom in its current chaotic state, there was no telling where something drastic or tragic would happen, making it all the more important for me to find allies powerful enough to make their presence alone deter any forms of attack on me on my family!


    After all, as soon as the news about Elia''s pregnancy would spread, she would become the main target for any form of attacks towards me! In the end, a noble without a successor meant that his lands would be up for grabbing the moment he would die!


    "Heyˇ­ I heard thatˇ­"


    With her face still tightly pressed against my chest, Elia had some troubles freeing her mouth to the point where she could speak.


    "Yes, dear?"


    Noticing her attempts to say something, I relaxed my arms, allowing her to raise her head and look me in the eyes while licking her lips up.


    "Wellˇ­ I heard that when a female turns pregnantˇ­ Doing it will be safe for only the first few weeksˇ­ And considering how I don''t know the exact dateˇ­"


    As her eyes wandered between my chest and my own pupils with a nice tinge of reddness appearing of her cheeks, her words were more than enough to ignite the spark in me!


    "I think I know what you mean."


    Any further discussion was cut due to how hard it was to speak while having one''s mouth blocked by the lips and tongue of the other party.

 201 Exotic discovery

    11th July 1574


    "I told you, your health is the most important thing right now. I don''t care about small delays like this one, as long as I can make sure you are safe and sound!"


    With all the meetings and matters in the capital concluded, there wasn''t any point in the two of us wasting any more of our time there. After boarding our steam paddler, that just by waiting at the docks still managed to rack quite a bit of attention from all sorts of river-faring folks, I forced my wife to just lie down on the bed inside the reinforced shed of ours.


    While I already promised her that I would accompany her for most of the journey, there were still a few things that I had to deal with before I could seclude myself with her.


    "So, how did it go?"


    Turning to the captain of the ship, I could see how the last few days impacted both his mental and physical strength.


    "Depending on how would we look at it, both great and terrible at the same time."


    Pulling out a small sack from his belt, the middle-aged man started playing with its content while speaking.


    "Great, because just as you expected, quite a lot of people came to inspect this boat and ask how it''s operating. As instructed, both I and some of our crew were honest with explanations, while always directing them towards the Tarnowian market where they could buy one for themselves."


    With his fingers finally achieving whatever he wanted, the man pulled out something that looked like your typical, naval smoking pipe that one could often see in cartoons, before stuffing it with some kind of brown leaves.


    While this sight almost instantly raised my hopes up, just a quick logical analysis of the situation turned my own excitement down. After all, with the tobacco only recently discovered in the mesoamerican colonies of Spain, how could it make its way so far into the European continent so quickly?


    "As for why it went terribleˇ­ Well, I''m not going to lie. We had to defend against seven attempts to forcefully board this ship. If not for those new weapons of yours, we would be overwhelmed. But with how we used them, the rumours about their repetitive fire are bound to spread."


    While I was happy that people turned out to be interested in my steam paddler and in extension, in the steam horse, the fact that the news about my rifles would spread already was quite upsetting. After all, it was the military might that was the driving force behind human technology development, especially when it came to the Europe of the current times!


    How was the gunpowder used when Europeans got their hands on it? To help with mining like I was using it right now? No, they instantly made so many cannons and guns, that the name of this product changed to a damned GUN-powder! Not firework-powder as it was used in China where it came from in the first place, not sparkling powder, not explosive powder, but gunpowder!


    That''s why when I heard that those sailors of mine were forced to defend the ship with the use of my weapons, I couldn''t help but feel how this would come back to bite me right in the ass sooner than I would even want to expect!


    Yet all my thoughts about the current problem disappeared when I saw the captain of the ship reach towards one of the burning torches with a small shard of wood, only to put it close to the thicker end of his pipe.


    With his mouth moving as if he was a fish when he sucked in the air of this strange weed produced smoke, it took him only a moment to release the cloud directly into my face, with a delighted look on his face.


    Wait, this smellˇ­


    While it was different from what I remembered from modernity, it was without any doubt, tobacco!


    "WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE LEAVES FROM?!"


    With all the worries about the future instantly disappearing in the face of this grand discovery, I caught the sailor by his shoulders with a desperate look on my face.


    "Sir? Ah, it''s a novelty sold for a few gold coins per pack on the market. I think the merchant that brought it should still have a bit. Would you like to some of my men to go and buy it?"


    While this offer was quite tempting, I couldn''t allow a bunch of people who had no idea what I wanted to visit a merchant that clearly had the goods from the damned Americas! As long as I would manage to rope him into my side, all his connections and sources could be used not only to bring huge quantities of various crops that could completely change the food habits of the entire continent but with the Spanish conquest of South America as well, I could be able to finally obtain the last and insanely important resource required to basically increase the growth of industrialization by the factor of two or even three!


    Rubber!


    With no means to synthesize it in a chemical fashion, I could only rely on the good old method of taking the raw rubber from the southern American forest, adding some saltpeper into it and voila! A proper rubber that could be used to improve the efficiency and stability of work of almost every single product of mine!


    "Rather than letting others buy what I want, I will go there myself. Lead the way!"


    Even though being able to obtain those exotic resources was bound to be costly, with how rich I was turning thanks to all my projects, there was no way I could miss on this opportunity! If it came to this, I was even willing to create a damned outpost at the black sea shore, build my own steam-powered ship and sail it all the way to the Americas to bring everything that I needed myself!

 202 Obligatory pucharse

    11th July 1574


    "I''m sorry sir, but I will be closing my stall for today. Please, come tomorrow."


    As if this world wanted to play with my feelings, as soon as I reached the place where one of the sailors brought me, the owner of the stall that might hold the American treasures, announced that he was done with his business for today!


    "I don''t think you understand why I came running here. I don''t care whether your business is still open or not, as I came here to most likely buy every single item that you possess. Just tell me the price."


    Even if I knew that this kind of approach was one of the worst I could take when negotiating something, in this scenario, it was most time-effective. After all, even if he put a huge price on his products, the fact that I could use them to cultivate new types of crops was worth any amount of coins for me!


    Especially when it came to two things. Rubber and corn. While the chances of this merchant possessing any quantity of this insanely important products wasˇ­ low to say the least, with how popular corn was among the native American population, there was a huge chance that he had a bit of this grain!


    "Sirˇ­ With all due respect, I can''t agree with that. Selling it in the detail allows me to put the rationally high price on my products, but selling in bulk would require me to dangerously cut into my own profits, making the entire prospects of going so far to acquire those items simply unreasonably dangerous and unprofitable!"


    With how rare it was for the merchants with such merchandise to reach so deep into the continent, it was no wonder that this man was reluctant to part with his wares so easily. At the same time, it was no wonder that when a noble approached him with the intention of buying out his entire stock, he would be hesitant to even consider the option, as he might be worried whether or not I would try to use my influence to forcefully lower the price!


    "Okay then, how about doing it like this. For now, I will give you ten golden coins, and in return, you will give me the right to pick whatever I want from the wares that you have left as long as it will be within the cost of five gold coins. And after the initial business will be set, we will sit down and discuss something that I would like to propose to you."


    Seeing how determined I was to make business with him, the unsurprisingly young merchant only sook his head in defeat before leading me through the streets. With how his entire stall could be turned into a simple pull-cart, he didn''t have any troubles taking it with him, especially after all his wares were already sold.


    After manoeuvring through the several streets we finally reached our destination, one of the many Taverns present in the city. Putting his cart aside, the young merchant leads us into the building only to ask us to wait at one of the free tables.


    Hearing the fearful voice of the sailor that initially guided me towards the merchant and now was following me with one of my rifles hidden under his loose shirt, I couldn''t help but dress a charming smile.


    "Don''t worry about it. While this rifle of ours might be capable of missing the targets at long rangeˇ­ When it comes to brawls like the one that could occur in here, there is no better weapon!"


    Even in the future, the number of snipers that a company would employ was abysmally small when compared to the number of foot soldiers that would be the ones storming the cities and taking the buildings one by one. Just like the tacticians and planners all the way in the future realised, in close-quarter combat, it wasn''t about the perfect accuracy, but about who was capable of sending a greater hail of bullets towards the enemy!


    Yet all our dire expectations turned out to be nothing more than a stupid farce when the merchant returned while caring several sacks on his shoulder.


    "I''m sorry it took me so long, but I don''t really want to move around with greater quantities in the open."


    Putting the bags that he brought directly onto our table, he lined them all up and gestured at each of them while explaining what was inside.


    "This one here is the spicy herb, that when smoked allows one to clear his mind a bit. This one is golden grain, far bigger than the one we are capable of harvesting locally, while this rough powder is made from what the tribal communities of those foreign lands used as currency."


    Whenever the merchant would point at another ware, my eyes would turn even brighter. Seeing how he was about to start going on a rampage with his explanations, I raised my hand to shut him up for a moment.


    "First thing first. Do you have a pipe?"


    It''s been simply too long for me since I last smoked a damned cigarette! While I was more inclined towards electrical ones back in the future, it wasn''t something that I could create just like that in the current times, even if the recipe was actually quite easy to come up with!


    "A pipe? Yeah, but as they all come from the tribal people themselves and are handcrafted, they are quiteˇ­"


    Stopping the merchant once again with just a wave of my hand, I looked him in the eyes.


    "Cuz the crap and give me the tobacco and the pipe. I had the chance to try it once, and I craved it ever since! Surely, you are not going to keep an old man like me waiting?"


    While saying those words, I reached with my hand to my belt. Just this movement alone was enough to alert both the merchant and the sailor standing on the side of the table, yet rather than pulling some kind of weapon, I lifted my money pouch before unwinding the thin, steel chain that kept it closed.


    Pulling out fifteen red goldens I made sure to keep them hidden in my hand as I was passing them to another small pouch. After all, even with that rifle of mine and its smaller version dangling from my side, it would be highly unwise to casually move around about half a year worth of craftsmen earning like that!


    "Here, fifteen, both for all the tobacco I can buy with five, five for agreeing to meet with us and five for the pipe. Now, did I caught enough of your interest to invite you to a talk on my ship?"


    In the end, it wasn''t safe to speak business in a place like this. While our surroundings were relatively safe, there was no telling when someone would enter or bother us by inviting us to drink or even attempting to rob us!

 203 Exotic resources

    11th July 1574


    "Sir, while I''m happy to accept this tradeˇ­"


    With a quick swipe of his hand, the pouch with the payment was instantly replaced with another one that most likely contained the weeds that I wanted so much with a simple, wooden pipe placed on top.


    "... I don''t really think I will be capable of supporting any other requests of yours. While I''m one of the few merchants that are daring enough to provide those exotic goods, doing so is insanely expensive. That''s why, I don''t think creating any stable trading route will be possible, if that''s sir''s intention!"


    As if reading my mind, the man instantly refuted one of my greatest wishes as if it was nothing. While I could see where he was coming from and what kind of troubles he had to face in order to obtain those precious resources, I wasn''t going to give up just like that!


    "Okay then, let me put this in another way. If I could provide you with the fastest costal ship that exists on the entire continent, that is free from the influence of winds and can run nearly without manpower, would you be interested in continuing this talk? I think I don''t need to mention that all kinds of taxes do not bother me, as long as I could create a stable supply of the items I crave!"


    Just like I said when trading from the insanely far kingdom of Spain or Portugal whose so far, were the only providers of the American goods, one had to make multiple stops along the way. Starting with the Dutch straits which were the main choking point that limited the profitability of the baltic trade, all the way through the Hanseatic cities often monopolising the trade in their cities, at the local Spanish cities ending, which were bound to tax any form of trade the moment it turned to a scale massive enough, one could get taxed on the wares he would try to move at least four times before reaching either end of the trade route!


    But in the end, as long as one could do it quickly, then even with all those taxes that were bound to increase the price, the supply could be maintained. And it went without saying that outside of those few products that I could simply plant right on my lands, everything else could be sold as a luxury item!


    "Sirˇ­ Well, as long as the price is not the problem, then sooner or later creating a more or less stable trade route should be possibleˇ­ The problem is, with all due respect, unless the party organising the trade route is proven to have the stabilised foundation of power and funding for the trade, I doubt that anyone would be interested in investing his time, effort and money, along with risking his own life to partake in such endeavour!"


    What this merchant said was also a sad truth. No matter how quickly I was growing, most of the people wouldn''t care about my current position. In this kind of long-time endeavours, all that mattered was the stability!


    A word that in modern times was associated with the devastation of the natural climate, because it was slowly leading to the heating up of Earth''s atmosphere, making it absorb more and more heat from the sun. Greenhouse gassesˇ­


    While I wasn''t there to judge whether this was natural, a periodical occurrence where the climate of the planet was changing, was interested me the most, was whether it would be possible to build a makeshift greenhouse on my lands! With it, growing cacao right beside my own castle might even be possible!


    "Okay then, tell me, can you provide me with cacao fruits, tobacco seeds and corn grains? While I know that planting them and successfully growing them is nearly impossible, I would still love to give it a try."


    Even though I was saying that in my mind I could already picture turning most of the lands around the mining town into a vast area filled with nothing but greenhouses. As for the one element required for the greenhouses - huge amounts of thin glass windows - there wouldn''t be any problem in procuring it! After all, the area around Sandomir and the mining town itself was filled to the brim with the glassmaking factories!


    "While Corn and Tobacco I can sell even right nowˇ­ For the Cacao fruitsˇ­ I''m worried not even single fruit would remain fresh by the time I could bring it to you. They go bad too fast."


    That was one element that I didn''t account for. If that was the case, there was still a way to pay an obscene amount of money to one of the explorers so that he could create several pots with the young cacao trees and attempt to bring them to Spain, from where they would be transported with utmost care to Poland, but it wasn''t something that would bear fruits any time soon.


    "I see. Then let me tell you this. Since those Cacao fruits are going bad rather quickly, let''s do it in old, Polish way. I would like you to put a request for two types of wares. One, I want someone who travels to those new lands and back to the continent to put young cacao trees in a simple container, while making sure to supply it with water, expose it to the sun and water it in regular timing. I will pay fifty red goldens for every single living tree that will make its way back to my lands. As for those who do not want to risk this endeavour, I want them to take the fruits, pull the seeds out from them, ferment it as if they wanted to create a cacao beer, but rather than following with the natural steps, they are to dry it out and then send to Poland. For every bag of those fermented grains, I will pay ten red goldens. Do you think this offer is acceptable?"

 204 Chocolate

    11th July 1574


    "Sir, to pay so much money for something that most likely grows everywhere in those landsˇ­ Is this really wise?"


    While I could understand the hesitation of this simple sailor, it was already the second time where he put his employer and lord decision into doubt! While it irked me quite a lot, especially with how he was rather a new worker for my businesses rather than being one of the core workers that stuck with me ever since my humble beginnings.


    "Trust me, I have my reasons for doing so. While paying so much for those products is indeed quite unreasonable, as long as I will find a way to turn them into something even better, I could easily make this money back with a huge profit. Also, I don''t think we will manage to depart today. Go and arrange for some men to bring the wares back to our ship."


    As we were already reaching the city docks, there was no point for him accompanying me anymore. Since I never carried too much gold on me, most of my disposable treasury was hidden on the ship, hence the attention and dedication of the sailors to protect it from any kind of thievery or uninvited guests.


    The moment I boarded the ship, I could sense the look of the captain on my back. With how I departed from the ship the moment I saw him smoking the pipe, I really wished I could see what kind of face he made when he realised that my sudden action resulted in nothing else but me smoking my own pipe on my way back!


    And at this point, while I was insanely happy that I could finally rejoice in the nicotine rush that calmed my thinking and slowly started routing itself in my body as addiction, I had to pour the still-hot leaves from my pipe back to the waters of the river. After all, I wouldn''t like to introduce my pregnant wife to this toxic smoke!


    "What happened, dear? You were out for quite a long time."


    Despite how she protested against sitting down and resting back when I did my very best to convince that it would be for the best for both her and our child when I came back, she was obediently laying down on our bed!


    "I happened to meet a merchant withˇ­ quite exotic wares. Give me a few moments, I will try to obtain a few more products and I might be able to prepare something good for you!"


    Showing up on the boat mostly for the sake of calming down Elia and procuring my money, I took half of the guards with me and rushed back to the place where the important merchant was staying. Meeting with the thugs hired by the sailor on the way, it took only an additional hour for all of the bags with the products that I exchanged for a hefty sack with golden coins to find their way to the ship.


    While the quality of my product was bound to be inferior, I never intended to feed it to my beloved wife in the first place!


    Leaving all the men carrying to goods to the ship, I hastened my steps towards the still open, food market. While the current time of the year still lacked most of the granary products that would appear only when the first harvests would be done, it didn''t mean that there was any lack of dairy products!


    After obtaining a small jar with clear butter, thick and thin milk and some a small bottle of a thick, fruity syrup. With those products in hand, I barged into the first Tavern that I could find, instantly depriving myself out of a single gold coin for the right to use their kitchen for a while.


    Thinking about this, I couldn''t help but laugh when imagining what kind of thoughts was going through their heads when a noble like me demanded them to rent him a simple kitchen used to prepare cheap food for masses!


    Yet rather than plaguing my head with this thought, I used one of the knives to turn the crude cacao powder into something of a finer and smaller structure, before randomly mixing the ingredients only to obtain something that not only looked too awful to even consider ever eating it, but also had a smell soo sour and repulsive that I had to hurry up and throw it away!


    But in the end, I did manage to achieve what I wanted!


    "Confectioner level one unlocked!"


    "Basic chocolate recipes unlocked"


    "Basic candy recipes unlocked"


    With those three messages appearing in the corner of my sight in quick succession, I once again recalled the fact that I wasn''t your damned simple noble with a modern knowledge! I still had this fucking system to cheat my way through this world!


    But rather than using it to obtain the crown of the country and aim for the world dominationˇ­ I made sure to use the perfect ratios for all the ingredients before turning them into the product that I really wanted to present to Elia!


    A long bar of proper chocolate!


    While it pained me a bit, there was no way I could simply hold this precious piece of deliciousness in my hands, as it would simply melt on my way back to ship. With no other choice, I tore out a few pages from my personal notepad that I created all the way back when the private paper factory was first introduced and wrapped the candy with it.


    While for a moment I had the idea to just leave the ingredients outside of the cacao in the kitchen, but given how there was a small chance that it could be problematic to obtain them back in Tarnow, I still decided to act calmly and bring it all with me.


    The road back to the ship was one of the greatest challenges I have ever faced. With the anticipation of presenting my dearest wife the ultimate form of candy, I couldn''t help but imagine what kind of dreamy expression she would have while tasting the chocolate.


    In fact, even the awful cacao drink that the Spanish court already fell in love with was a drink that only rich could afford. But attempting to improve the taste of the brew made by mashing the cacao grains and boiling them in water, just by adding sugar or vanilla? It didn''t even come close to the precious taste of the milk chocolate in the first place!


    As soon as I finally managed to board the ship and leave all the leftover ingredients right on top of the pile with the wares bought for an exorbitant price from that merchant, I rushed towards the shed.


    Only to be met with a dire surprise.

 205 Candy Play part 1

    11th July 1574


    "How could she just go to sleep like that!"


    Muttering under my breath, I had to watch the volume of my voice, wary of accidentally waking her up. While looking at the time of the day, or rather the early stages of the night, it wasn''t that strange for Elia to already go to rest, especially with how I nagged her to take care of her body, but I couldn''t help but be disappointed!


    After all, nearly all men would enjoy the privilege of being their woman''s first. Be it a first kiss, first intercourse, or the first time when she could enjoy a piece of nicely made chocolate! Yet just when I thought I could get to see a smile of delight on her face, I was met with such an utter disappointment!


    Putting the wrapping with the chocolate to the shelf so that she wouldn''t find it if she were to wake up first, leaving me all alone in the land of Morpheus, I kneeled in front of the bed and just gazed at her calm expression.


    While I wouldn''t dare to forcefully pull Elia away from the dreamland, I couldn''t help myself to play with her a bit. Slowly raising my hand above the bed as to not cause its sudden movement to startle Elia out of her sleep, I pushed it closer and closer, all the way to her cheek.


    Starting with just a single finger, I slowly placed it on her skin. Successively adding the rest of its companions, I swiftly turned from just poking her face into lightly running the outer part of my palm on her delicate jaw.


    As if feeling my presence, Elia''s sleepy hands suddenly rose to her cheek, instantly taking a hold of my hand and locking it under her head as if it was the finest pillow that she could imagine. With my wrist held tightly by her thin fingers and her cheek weighing down on the inner part of my palm, I had no other choice but to remain perfectly still, worried about waking her up.


    But as I kept looking at her calm face while feeling its warmth on my hand, my own eyelids turned heavy, quickly forcing me to place my head on the side of the bed in order to feast on this sight.


    "Mike? Why aren''t you in bed?"


    Chasing away my drowsiness, I suddenly opened my eyes when prompted by Elia''s voice, only to realise that it was far too dark to see anything, even if it was right in front of my very own eyes!


    "Are you awake?"


    While the fact that she was speaking was a testimony in itself that she was awake if her words were nothing more than sleep-talk, I didn''t want her to wake up for such pointless reason!


    "Momentairly, yeah."


    Hearing the answer, I could finally free my hand, only to place it right back on Elia''s cheek.


    "Hold on for a moment, I have a small present for you."


    Taking the paper wrapping out of the now perfectly solidified chocolate, I tore away a small piece of paper only to use it as a holding for when I crushed away a small part of the chocolate from the rest of the bar. Yet my mischievous idea didn''t end there!


    Raising my hand in a slow manner, I put the chocolate piece in my mouth only to bit off a small chunk of it. While keeping the rest tightly secured by a scrap of paper in my fist, I did my very best to slow down the melting of the chocolate while moving back to the bed.


    "Come here, I''m sleepy."


    Sensing the rustling caused by my uncoordinated movements in the darkness, Elia helped me out by directing me with her voice. After finally reaching the bed after a bit of blind crawling around, I made sure put the wrapped piece of chocolate near the pillow, while grabbing Elia by her waist and pulling her closer to me.


    "Hmm?"


    With her eyes not even open, I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was right on the verge of falling back asleep! With the sweet taste of the cacao melting in my mouth and reminding me about my plan, I felt my determination rebuilding, allowing me to pull her entirely into my arms before rubbing my forehead against hers.


    "Sweety, what''s wrong?"


    Feeling how despite the late hour I still sought her attention and at least a little affection, Elia angled her head a bit and reached out with her lips towards mine.


    And that was what I was waiting for!


    The moment our mouth touched, I made sure to pry her lips open, instantly overflowing her mouth with the sweet melt of the chocolate!


    Holding her in my arms, I felt as if a gorilla suddenly replaced her when a powerful jolt twisted her body the moment her tongue came in contact with this miraculous liquid!


    But rather than just letting her get the explanation she obviously wanted, I reached up with one of my hands and kept her head tightly locked between it and my lips, making it clear that this kiss would last for as long as I would wish for it to last!


    Most likely catching the message, rather than trying to wreck herself free from my hold, Elia pushed her arms around my neck and pulled herself even closer, ravaging the insides of my jaw with her glib tongue, attempting to suck every last drop of the sweetness from my mouth!


    "Ah, let''s stopˇ­mhmmˇ­"


    Feeling that there wasn''t even the smallest bit of the precious candy in my mouth, I attempted to free myself from her lips as to gift her the chocolate in the normal way, yet she simply wouldn''t take it!


    Pushing her own body above me, Elia pinned me down to the bed with her own weight while locking her arms behind my neck. With her wet tongue once again venturing inside my mouth, I could feel her still sweet saliva being coated around every part of my jaws as if she wouldn''t believe her own senses telling her that this sweet treasure was already gone!


    "Ah!"


    Feeling that I could very well lose my consciousness from how air-deprived I was, I had no other choice than to reach for her bottom and squeeze it tightly. While Elia''s actions were all aimed at recovering this insane sweetness, it didn''t change the fact that kissing so deeply had its own aftereffect on her!


    Gasping for air the moment my fingers sank in her naked flesh, I instantly turned my head around, reaching with the one free hand of mine to grab the remaining piece of the chocolate.


    But just as I was about to obediently pass it to my lady, I realised that whilst this kind of play was kind of rough, I like it quite a bit!


    Unwinding the paper cover with just a few moves of my fingers, I grabbed the chocolate and grabbed it with my teeth, while reaching with the fingers covered in the small part of the candy that melted towards Elia''s face.


    "What was thaˇ­"

 206 Candy play part 2

    11th July 1574


    With my chocolate covered finger finding its way towards Elia''s opened mouth, she didn''t dare to waste any time on speaking up, instantly getting busy with sucking all the chocolate off my finger.


    As with nearly no light at all that would guide her to the main portion of the candy, I used the fact that pulling my finger closer to my face was akin to pulling her entire head along with it to direct her towards the piece of chocolate standing upright in my mouth.


    Feeling her soft tongue playing around my forefinger was nice, but when I realised what I was actually doing, I shook my head, snapped the piece of chocolate that I held in my mouth away, and used the finger that Elia was so keen of licking to pry her mouth open.


    "Here you go."


    Even if initially I wanted to use this candy as the opening to enjoy myself with her, when I realised that it was actually her very first time eating such a delicious treat, I couldn''t help but detest myself.


    How could I use such an important moment just for the sake of getting some sexual fun with her? With how open she was to enjoying ourselves with me, I could have a go with her almost any time I would want it, so what was the point in turning this nice moment into something purely dedicated to the intimacy?


    "Hmm?"


    Sensing that something changed about my demeanour, Elia actually stopped her lascivious movements and allowed me to guide the piece of chocolate right to her mouth.


    While the feeling of her lips skimming on my fingers as I fed her the candy was insane, I forcefully reined my own desires in. After all, what kind of a man would I be if I were to give up to my carnal desires mere moments after I found my resolution to hold them back?


    "W-what is thisˇ­"


    As I was fighting with my own feelings, Elia didn''t dare to stop chewing on the candy. With her body almost entirely still, the movements of her jaws as she allowed the chocolate to melt in her mouth into sweet, thick liquid were transferred to the rest of her flesh, allowing me to feel whenever there was a change to her actions.


    "It''s chocolate. While I could only make a tiny bit now, as long as we manage to get several pieces working properly, we could have as much of it as we want."


    Moving my upper body up from the bed, I grabbed Elia by her waist, feeling as she instantly locked her legs around my hips. If not for the clothes blocking our nether regions from interacting, one might think that we were in the middle of increasing the number of citizens for the Commonwealth, but in reality, I just couldn''t give up on feeling her closeness as I rose from the bed and approached the shelf where the rest of the candy was stored.


    "Here, that''s all that I could produce for now. I hope you will like it."


    "You never stop surprising me. Whenever I think I finally discovered what you know or what you are up to, you pull something entirely unexpectedˇ­ While it''s quite fun to discover new and new sides to you that no one has yet the chance to see, I wonder, will I ever fully understand you?"


    Surprisingly enough, despite getting her hands on a huge chunk of the chocolate bar, something that could be easily considered the pinnacle candy that the world has to offer, rather than instantly chomping on it and enjoying the taste, Elia actually turned quite a bit philosophical.


    "Well, I don''t really know how to answer such a question. If you want to know something about me, you can just ask. After all, in the physical sense, you already thoroughly checked every single part of my body!"


    With my thighs hitting the edge of the bed, I slowly lowered my hips and sat on it, before taking a turn and gently placing Elia on her side before moving on top of her. To my surprise, while doing so I could feel the sharp edge of the still unpacked piece of candy!


    "You animal!"


    While her words might sound harsh, as they came with a lovable giggle and were followed by a quick peck on my lips, I was completely powerless to oppose her words. After all, I wouldn''t dare to claim that I wasn''t hungry for her closeness!


    "But being serious right now, what else do you have in store for me? Or rather, would you mind telling me where all those insane ideas of yours come from? It''s not like I don''t trust you, after all, I have given my entire self to you, but I have this feeling as if there was still a huge something that you kept hidden from me."


    Despite the fact that I came to her with the candy to improve her mood after forcing her into the confinement of our shed, the mood still turned serious if not to say, dangerous for me right now.


    Was I ready to tell her about my real background? Would she still love and trust me if she were to learn that I wasn''t exactly the person that I claimed to be?


    But as I thought about it, I couldn''t help but realise one thing. What did my love and trust for her amount to if I couldn''t lay bare my circumstances before the only person in the world that I cared so much for?


    With this thought paralyzing my thought, I was about to speak when I felt her delicate fingers suddenly landing on my cheek.


    "Dearˇ­ If you can''t say it yet, then don''t worry about it. From how tense you turned when I said this, I can tell that this isn''t something that you can speak easily about. So how about we will enjoy this candy for now?"


    Despite the lack of lighting in the room, I could see how her nimble fingers of her free hand unwrapped the paper packaging from the chocolate only to bring it closer to her mouth. More than seeing it, I could hear her bite a chunk of the candy away before her hands suddenly pulled my head closer to hers.


    With our lips touching once again, Elia almost instantly pried my mouth open and coiled her chocolate-covered tongue around mine, while pushing the piece of the candy right to the place where our mouth connected.


    Yet rather than enjoying this moment, I couldn''t help but think about my realisation from before.


    If I couldn''t tell her about how I appeared in this place, then who could I ever tell it? After all, I wasn''t some kind of inhuman being that could remain sane while keeping such a huge secret to myself for the rest of my life!


    "N-no. I want you to know everything about me. Just like you laid yourself bare in front of me, it''s only fitting if I do the same. Let it be a testimony of how much I trust and care for you."

 207 Confession part 1

    11th July 1574


    "I don''t know if you ever thought about this, but when looking at the records detailing the lives of some of the greater figures in the historyˇ­ Don''t you think that one could say that they exceeded their own time? Like, as if they were born too early."


    Prompting my body up, I moved from laying to the sitting position, instantly pulling Elia into my arms. With her soft flesh brushing against my lap, she rested her side on my shoulder and looked me deep into the eyes.


    "You got me so excited with that statement of yours, and only for the sake of justifying your own flaunting?"


    While her words sounded harsh, from the fact that the corners of her lips were curled slightly upward, I could tell that she wasn''t annoyed nor angry at all.


    "Please, answer my question. It''s not easy to speak about this topic for meˇ­"


    While I knew that she didn''t mean anything bad with her words, with how worried I was about revealing the deepest truth about me to literally anyone, even such a playful remark was enough to make my confidence in my decision waver.


    "Oh, sorry, I didn''t want to undermine you like that. Yes, I do find out the lives of some people quite interesting. Take your grandfather for example. The war tactics that he implemented are only now gaining traction both in the country and outside of its borders."


    Most likely noticing that her usual, playful approach wouldn''t fit in the current situation, Elia almost instantly adapted to my mood and answered my initial question. Maybe it was something she didn''t even realise she did, or maybe it was her attempt to calm me down a bit, but no matter which option it was, I could still feel her pressing her breasts on my arm.


    "While I won''t ask just how did you learn about this part of my heritage, it shows the point that I was making. Some people just exceeds their own time. Before, I always thought they were simply born a genius, always seeing a few steps in front of what others could seeˇ­ but in my case, it''s both far simpler and way more complicated at the same time."


    Grabbing Elia by her shoulders, I pulled her directly into my embrace, too scared to utter what I was going to say next without the reassurance of keeping her close to me.


    "Before I will explain what I have in mind, I need you to keep in mind that it all happened before I met you. The me that you know was always the same."


    Even if saying such sentence was bound to set Elia into expecting the worst, from how I was only pretending to be a noble all the way to not being a human at all, when thinking about what I was going to say next, letting her have her own assumptions appeared to be the lesser evil in my situation.


    "Well, to not elaborate needlessly, I''m the true example of someone born too early. In a literal sense of what I said."


    Yet rather than seeing hints of being repulsed, scared or angered, I could tell that she had no idea what I spoke about!


    "Ah, let me phrase it differently. In fact, I was originally born aroundˇ­ four centuries from now into the future. It''s not like I came up with all those ideas that I''m implementing in our landsˇ­ But for the most part of my life, I was already surrounded by them!"


    Saying those words felt pulling out some kind of arrow from my body. While painful in itself, as soon as they were out, I felt an overwhelming wave of relief. No matter what Elia''s response would be now, I couldn''t influence it at all.


    "Dearˇ­ Should I understand it that youˇ­ Came here from the future?"


    Hearing her question, I realised that my plight could be said in such a simple way, instead of me attempting to explain it in such a needlessly elaborative way that only made it harder for my dearest to understand it.


    "Yeah, I was going back from a shop one day, aiming to spend my leisure time after work having some fun playingˇ­"


    "PLAYING AROUND?!"


    Just as I was about to explain the moment that moved me from my own reality to this timeline, Elia interfered with my words, suddenly distancing herself from me for as far as she could.


    "No, wait, what?"


    It took me a while to understand what did she meant with those words with how focused on the topic of time travel I was.


    "Listen, there will be all sorts of ways for people to spend their time and have fun. What I was going to do, is to use an insanely complicated machine that I don''t even fully understand how it works, to simulate a world in which I could pretend to be the King, ruling the nation through the ages. While this description is far from perfect, it''s the best way to explain it shortly. As for the real problem at handˇ­ I have no idea how, why or because of what it happened. One moment I was climbing the set of stairs after a long week of working, only to trip on them and find myself in this time and age, with a completely new set of clothes and a bunch of memories that allowed me to recognise who I was and who the people from my group were."


    While I wanted to keep Elia in my embrace in order to reassure myself that she wouldn''t just escape from me, I knew that such an action would bear no effect. If by telling her that news she would decide to end our marriage, or rather, declare that it was never based on the truth and thus invalid in the first place, not even the strongest hold on her shoulders would manage to keep her in place!


    "Wait, working? So in the future, you weren''t but a damned peasant?!"

 208 Confession part 2

    11th July 1574


    "You don''t know it, but you started with the worst type of question that you could. And the answer to it, is yes and no."


    Twisting my lips in an ugly line, I had to stop myself from huge warfare of thoughts that was instantly born in my head. Rather than overcomplicating the situation by giving the elaborate explanation, I decided to go with the simplest answer I could.


    "You see, if we go by the bloodline, then I was still of noble orgin. The family that I was born in traced its origins all the way back to the Tarnowski household. You could say, that right now, I''m one of my own ancestors. As for whether I was a nobleˇ­ You see, in the future where I grew up, there was no such thing as nobility anymore."


    Taking a deep breath, I lightly pushed Elia away, so that rather than speaking towards the emptiness of the room, I could at least face her while explaining this complex situation.


    "While I don''t want to go in details right now, due to the set of warfares, way bloodier than anything that had happened in the Commonwealth history so far, society at large has come through a set ofˇ­ rather drastic changes. As such, in the time when I was born, even if the institution of nobility still existed in some places, it wasn''t something that anyone was ever bothered with. You could say, that in the future, everyone was born equal."


    As much as I hated those words, it was the inevitable truth. Obviously, one could agree to how false this statement was due to all the fine details that made people born in the low-end families nearly incapable of ever reaching the point that some of the lucky bunch was born at, it didn''t change the fact that when speaking about the general concept, it still held true!


    "Wait, how could that be? How could everyone be equal? What about the rulers then? How did countries govern themselves?"


    Just as expected, while I was already happy with how willing Elia was to accept the fact that I wasn''t born in the current age, the changes that happened during the centuries to come wasn''t something that she could swallow just like that.


    "Well, you could say that while people stopped calling themselves a noble and a commoner, outside of naming, nothing really changed that much. The one thing that you could say to be the most important marking of future times, was democracy. But seeing how it looked right before I was moved to this great ageˇ­ It was nothing more than a shadow of the concept behind this word."


    Just thinking about all the corruption, dirty political fights, frauds and all the other stigmas of the modernity was enough to make me once again insanely thankful to whatever force pushed me to move into this timeline. Even if it was way more dangerous and problematic at times, the rules of life were at least what they appeared to be!


    Hearing how innocently Elia believed that in the future anyone had any regard for any of the many great polish inventions, I couldn''t help but let a wry smile surface on my mouth.


    "Once again, it''s not that simple. The world that I lived in was a result of insane number of complex changes that turned in on its head. And by democracyˇ­ I meant the system where every single ruling party, from local leaders, through governors all the way to the parliament and the head of the stateˇ­ Were chosen every five years in the national vote during which every single adult, be it man or woman, could cast a single vote."


    To be honest, I wasn''t quite sure how would Elia receive such a message. On one side, it was in line with the standard of the nobles'' golden liberty that was one of the most important values to the common upper-class members in the current times, yet accepting every single man in the country into said liberty? I could already guess what she would say about it!


    "What?! Commoners has just as big right to vote as the nobility did?! Wait, no, you said there will be no real nobility in the future. So are you going to say that some lowlifes that never bothered to do anything in their life will have as much to say in regards to how the country would work as someone who spent his entire life studying politics? As much to say as the University graduates?!"


    Just like I thought, she instantly brought one of the major concerns behind democracy. To be fair, even I couldn''t understand why someone who studied all kinds of crafts for longer than the current average life expectancy was, would have his vote worth as much as someone who lived his entire life on social help!


    "Let''s not speak about it now, it pains me to even explain it. But you need to realise one thing. There is a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. It was explained as the situation when a single flap of butterfly''s wings now, can cause a devastating storm that would ravage the entire coastline a year from now. It meant to convey that even the smallest change could bring an insanely great effect in the far-off future. And just how it did happen with the society forced into the confines of the three great tyrannies and deprived of the liberty that Commonwealth was known fromˇ­"


    Just as I was about to finish my words, I realised that I stepped on the landmine that I was supposed to avoid. Just how the heck I was supposed to explain her one of the most tragic events from the Polish history now?!


    "What did you mean by that?!"


    Maybe reading my own feelings by how I instantly tensed, or maybe reading between the lines of what I said, Elia instantly caught up on the hook that I unintentionally left in the open.


    "Ehhˇ­ You see, in about two centuriesˇ­ The Commonwealth would be no more."

 209 Distant and near future

    11th July 1574


    "What do you mean by that?!"


    Just like I guessed, hearing about the downfall of the current powerhouse of the entire continent if not the whole world, especially after speaking about the reaches it would achieve, was not taken lightly by Elia.


    "Let me put this in this way. Right now, we are in the opening times of the golden era of the Commonwealth. Despite numerous conflicts that await us, from most of them, we would manage to come out victorious or at least, not as bad as others would want us. But with a few exceptions, we would be plaguedˇ­ By a streak of incompetent rulers."


    Saying those words made me feel exactly the same emotion I did back when I learned about the pinnacle of stupidity and wits to follow up on the ambitions that many of the elected Polish Kings had. Just like later rulers from the Waza''s dynasty, one of them would lay the foundations of recovering the personal union with its mother country of Swedenˇ­ Only to give up before making any real move, and allowing this ambitious country to later turn into Commonwealthian bane!


    "But let''s not speak about the future that I know. Do you remember what I said about the butterfly effects? Even the smallest change can affect the outcome in a great way. That''s why wiser by the knowledge that I have about what would happen next, I want to aim to fix the problems that lead to the downfall of our country before they turn lethal!"


    As I clenched my fists in determination to prove my words true, I felt Elia''s hand suddenly resting on my chin. Raising my eyes only to be met with nothing more than the outline of her face that I could barely make through the darkness, I could see two, slightly brighter points breaking through this barrier of lacking light.


    "Dearˇ­ I can feel how frustrated you are while speaking about it. This alone is enough to convince me that you are telling the truth. After all, it''s impossible for someone to be so emotional over something that has yet to happen unless it had a direct influence over them already."


    Feeling the warmth of her fingers as she caressed my cheek, I realised that her touch alone was enough for all those negative emotions of powerlessness to disappear. After all, everything that I just spoke about, has yet to happen! As long as I could guide both my lands and later the King himself to take proper steps, most of the reasons why this entire great nation would be turned into unofficial slaves for the rest of the world could be destroyed before they would have any real effect!


    This was something that I decided on by myself. If I were to tell her about biological weapons, nukes, how banks robbed entire nations and continents, forcing massive swathes of people to go bankruptˇ­ How could she enjoy the stories about computers, fashion or music if that would be the background for her?


    And to be quite frank, while being someone from modern times, I could put a value to stuff like phones or computers, could Elia do the same? How could she understand the value of games? How could she enjoy the fact that everyone in the future would have access to the entirety of human knowledge with just one or two clicks away on their phones if it was long confirmed that it wasn''t the lack of access to the knowledge that was the reason behind the majority of the human race being simply dumb?


    "I think that''s fairlyˇ­ a reasonable approach, but how about the nearest future? Will Henry return? If not, who will be the next king?"


    Right off the bat, rather than sticking to the stuff that would take tens if not hundreds of years to be achieved, Elia focused on the matters that had direct influence over our lives. After all, as a mother-in-waiting, it was given that she would turn all her attention to the stuff that would directly influence our nearest future!


    "Well, once again I will come back to what I said before. The butterfly effect, you remember? Starting with my presence, it already altered the course of history. As far as I remember, originally, after the death of my father, there would be no heir to this land, turning it into yet another dominion of Ostros family. I don''t know if the fact that they are so keen on recovering those lands is just the fate trying to put the line of events back on its track or just a simple coincidence caused by our blood colligation. That''s why, I have no idea whether or not my actions already changed this part of the future, but if notˇ­"


    Taking a short break here, I took a deep breath to sort my thoughts. It was only now that I thought about the matter with Ostros in this way. Was there some force fighting against me and wishing to put me back in place as to stop me from changing how the history of the world would go?


    Well, if that will turn out to be the case, then I can only say one thing. FUCK THIS KIND OF FATE!


    "If not, then Henry won''t return to the country. He will get too engrossed with governing the affairs of France, finally forcing our noble brothers and sisters to make our move. In the end, there would be two candidates, one of the Habsburg family supported by the Zboros family, and the other one, reason why I was soo happy to implement this trading outpost at the Hungarian borderˇ­ Stephan Bathory!"

 210 Whats in store for now

    12th July 1574


    "Wait, who?"


    It came to me as a no surprise that this man who would write his name with golden letters in the history books of the Polish nation has yet to be known to Elia. After all, with how divided Hungary was right now between Ottoman and Austrian spheres of influence despite their constant drive to regain their freedom, it wasn''t all that strange that some kind of major figure of the Ottoman Kingdom of Transylvania, formerly known as the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom.


    Yet that wouldn''t change the fact that this militaristic figure, a man who took over after the death of the last man from the previous ruling house of the Transylvania, was one of those Kings that kids would remember even after finishing their history classes and going back home.


    "Stephan Bathory. For now, he is a leader of the princedom of Transylvania and is doing his best to recover the rest of his kingdom form some minor uprising. If I remember correctly, it would still take him nearly a year to finish pacifying the entire kingdom, which would nicely correspond with the time when our noble brothers would finally put aside their differences and start looking for a new king."


    Thinking about this, I wasn''t willing to wait an entire year only for the King that I could wholeheartedly support to take the throne. If such need would appear, I would have to use my own resources to help Bathory put down all the last bits of the unrest in Hungarian lands. But if I were to think about it, maybe even uniting the Hungarian crown with the rest of the Commonwealth would be possible?


    After all, the commonwealth itself wasn''t a single state consisting of a single, dominant force like most of the other empire-likes countries did through the continent. Rather than that, it was a mix of two, if not three completely different cultures, that turned friendly enough towards each other to create a joint community aimed to empower everyone by joining hands with everyone!


    "If I never heard about him, do you really think he has any chanceˇ­ Or nevermind. After all, in a senseˇ­ he already won the election, didn''t he?"


    Stopping herself in the middle of her own sentence, Elia covered her mouth with her hand.


    "Not exactlyˇ­ Or rather, not before the conflicted faction would solve their differences with an ample amount of blood. In the end, it would be Stephan''s willingness to act fast that would result with him taking the crown."


    "I don''t think I like the way you tensed upˇ­ Normally, it meant that you had some kind of genius idea popping up in your head, but as we are talking about politics right nowˇ­"


    Truth be told, Elia managed to nail the point of my trouble right now. While I could dream about being capable of influencing such important matters, when it all came to the boiling point, all it would take for others to destroy my entire wealth and power base would be a single, swift strike at the mining town.


    Without the resources stored and constantly produced there, I would have no way of supplying the troops that I was just thinking about deploying. And in order to protect my lands from the attack, I had to keep the troops within the area that had to be defended!


    "Yeah, I don''t think I will be able to meddle that much in the Hungarian affairs. At least, for now!"


    There was no way I would give up on the opportunity of turning Stephan into Commonwealth''s king sooner than it would happen without my interference. To be honest, I didn''t believe in my own ability to manage the Kingdom better than he did!


    Starting with his peaceful approach to the Ottomans, as someone who was placed on the throne with their support, he was the key to keep the south of the nation stable. And with this stability, a lot of opportunities to the trade with the far east would open, allowing me to fix the constant shortage of several exotic goods that could be only procured from the distant lands.


    Additionally, the fact that he was one of the most brilliant tacticians and reformer of both the military and economical aspects of the commonwealth couldn''t be undermined. If I could use my own assets to support the rein of such a great King, I would be down for it any time in the year and my life!


    "I will leave that remark alone for nowˇ­ But what are we going to do next? While what you told me is insane, it won''t change the fact that right now, instead of focusing on the elections and the affairs of the royals, we need to find a way to deal with Ostros!"


    Just like several times before, Elia managed to put me back on the ground with just a single sentence of hers. Without a doubt, dealing with Ostros was one of the main problems that I had to deal with right now, but in light of the fact that they were a major pillar of power for the commonwealth, by dealing with them too harshly, I would only undermine my own efforts to strengthen the country!


    "Let''s drop this topic for now. We should go back to sleep. After all, I want to be mistaken but I think I can hear the crowing of a roaster!"

 211 River ambush

    12th July 1574


    "Sir! Bad news!"


    Barely a moment after we finally managed to depart from the Capital''s docks, a horse messenger approached the shore of the river that we were travelling through.


    "Speak!"


    While I was quite angry that the first moment of rest after the long talk with Elia was interrupted barely after a few hours, way less than I hoped to get, there wasn''t that much choice in the current situation. If one of my men bothered to send a messenger like that instead of waiting for me to get back to Tarnow or mining town, then the situation really had to require my utmost and immediate attention!


    "Sir, Ostros family forces have burned down Ropian! The refugees are now escaping to the city of Pilzno! It was heard that the Ostros forces are following right behind them!"


    Hearing the news, I understood where did the hurry come from.


    "Those rotten bastards!"


    With my first smashing against the wooden wall of the shed, I could feel the bits of wood tear through my skin and nail itself into the flesh of my hand. Yet the notion of what just happened, was way more than enough to pull my thoughts away from such an unimportant matter!


    "Dear, what happened?"


    Altered by my outburst of anger, Elia slowly came out of the shed, holding her belly with both of her hands as if worried that my reaction might have something to do with our current situation.


    Seeing this maternal instinct in her action, I couldn''t stay angry any longer. Yet that didn''t mean I was going to just let those fuckers do what they wished!


    "Men, we need to make haste! Increase the power of the engines, we are going to the mining town!"


    If I wanted to have any way of retaliation against Ostros, I could only do so by bringing the peak of my fire force with me. Even if that meant risking the situation at mining townˇ­


    As I thought about how I was instantly willing to react to this unwarranted aggression, I realised that there was something wrong with the content of this message. Alerted by my own guts, I turned back to the shore, looking at the tired messenger.


    "Man, dock the other ship near the shore, we will get this man onboard. No point in letting him tire himself on the way back."


    Passing the order to one of the sailors, I smiled nicely at the messenger before turning my head back to Elia.


    "I don''t want to jump to the conclusions, but either Ostros really went overboard way sooner than I expected them, or the message we just received is a bust."


    Thinking about this calmly, there was no way that such a powerful family would make their move so soon. It wasn''t even an entire day since I refused the offer of the country econom title, which made it impossible for the main family to make their move, and the messenger to go all the way from there to our current location.


    Just a few moments after I explained the situation and my thoughts to Elia in detail, the other ship that followed the one that I was boarding managed to recover the messenger from the shore. Yet just as he was boarding the deck, an avalanche of screams came from the woods surrounding the shore!


    "KILL!"


    BOOM!


    Almost instantly, half of the sailors that were unlucky to be at the end of the deck facing the shore, fallen on the planks with blood bursting out of their ruptured bodies.


    "AMBUSH!"


    With how attentive I was toward the current situation, it wasn''t anything strange that I managed to be the first one to call out. Just as more and more men poured from withing the woodlands towards the ship, those few men of mine that suffered through the military boot camp were already aiming their rifles at them!


    "FIRE!"


    Even before I could give the orders, five of my soldiers kneeled down behind the elevated side of the boat, pulling their forefingers back on their respective triggers.


    Tac, tac, tac.


    Contrary to the uniform and single salvo that the attackers could create with their old type of guns, those new rifles of mine could shoot continuously! Even though it was nothing compared to the modern automatic firearms of my era, those damned attackers had nothing to compare to!


    As if faced by the orderly unit of elite troops, they were falling one by one as the bullets pushed through their bodies, the bodies of their comrades behind only to end up snapping the thinner trees in half!


    "Men, pull closer to the shore, we need to help them! Elia, back to the shed!"


    Unwilling to risk the health of the most important person to me in this timeline, I wasn''t willing to listen to any of her excuses. Even if future feminists would burn me on the stake for privileging my own gender to be the only one risking our lives in the fight, with the first instances of this unreasonable ideology few hundreds of years away from the current times, I couldn''t care less about them right now!


    "Sir, the currentsˇ­"


    "I DON''T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT CURRENTS! GET US CLOSER!"


    Despite some of the sailors instantly protesting against my order, there was no way I would let just five men of mine fight off against the onslaught of at least a hundred of bandits!


    Banditsˇ­ As if. Even if their clothes didn''t betray their allegiance, just the fact that nearly all of them carried at least some kind of a gun on them was enough to prove that they had to be connected to some kind of major force!


    After all, even a simple gun wasn''t something a typical commoner or bandit could afford so easily!


    Tac, tac.


    By the time my ship managed to get close enough to provide real support to my men stranded on the other ship, only two of those rifles of mine continued to fire. Thankfully, the third one quickly rejoined them, just in time to replace another one that went silent.


    "Sir, we are in an effective range!???


    "Then what are you waiting for? FIRE!"

 212 They have cannon!

    12th July 1574


    When four more rifles joined the fray from the main ship, the attackers clearly lost their wits to continue rushing forward like idiots. Yet just a single look at their moves betrayed that while they had some kind of power backing them, they were clearly not real soldiers!


    At least, not all of them. Maybe it was their survival instinct or just a bit of luck, but some of the aggressors found out the one simple problem that separated our two situations right now.


    With the engine of the ship stalled, it would take a while for it to start running again. Yet to set it up, someone had to go to the lower deck of the ship! And in the heat of the current battle, especially when the enemies learned that they could inflict far more damage by hiding behind the treeline and only showing up whenever someone was trying to move on the deck, there was no way I would even attempt forcing my people to risk their lives pointlessly like that!


    "Sir, what do we do?!"


    As the situation stalled down, there wasn''t really that much that could be done in this moment, yet that didn''t free me from the duty of commanding over my men. With how little of the actual experience even those soldiers of mine had, there was no way I could rely on them to manage on their own!


    "For now, wait. Don''t waste ammunition, shoot only when someone approach!"


    With how this journey was nothing but a diplomatic mission at most, I didn''t bother stocking up a huge amount of bullets or the preloaded magazine belts. Even though we could still fight for quite a while, the longer the fight stalled the worse the situation would be.


    "Mikeˇ­"


    With the gunshots slowly dying off with both sides realising what kind of impasse situation we found ourselves in, Elia crawled on the floor of the shed and peeked through the small crevice between the door of the shed and its frame.


    "Stay down. It''s not over yet."


    While seeing the worry on her cute face pained me to no end, I couldn''t get distracted right now. If I were a normal noble, I would never stomach the dishonor of being attacked by the bandits, forcing me to look for the way to decisively deal with them. But seeing how set they were on attacking us, despite how little of effect it brough, it was fairly obvious that sending my men away from the safety of their current cover would be no different from forcing them to suicide!


    After all, even if I found the way to prevent them from being killed by the numerous bandits that were hiding and waiting for such opportunity, there was a huge chance that even more people was hiding behind the treeline!


    On the other hand, this kind of ambush had no meaning if it was aimed at claiming my life. After all, if I were to be coldhearted enough, then I could just ditch the other boat, set it on fire and hope that most of my men would manage to reach the main boat by swimming to it.


    As I thought about it, I looked at the line of the trees where the enemies were hidingˇ­ Only to spot something that for the last time nailed the possibility of those bandits acting alone. They brought a fucking cannon!


    "Don''t let them shoot this thing!"


    Instantly screaming to the soldiers on my boat, I realised that this kind of stalemate could only last for so long. For now, the main problem was that the men on the other ship were incapable of moving it, while the soldiers on my boat had to focus on preventing the cannon from shooting!


    Just what was the aim of those people?!


    "Fuck it. Captain, get some men to throw the ropes to the other ship! We will haul them away!"


    No matter how hard I thought about it, there were only two possible targets that whoever was behind this attack could hope to achieve. Getting their hands on my rifles or the steam engine powering the boat. Thinking about this, if it was the first case, then those people might not even be employed by Ostros!


    "Yes sir!"


    Thanks to the relatively greater distance from the shore to the boat I was boarded at, as long as they kept their heads low, sailors didn''t need to fear getting hit by a stray bullet. In just a few moments, several ropes were thrown to the other ship, prompting the sailors hiding there to bind it to any possible part of their vessel that would force them to exit their cover.


    As all my men were working, the rifles of both sides tend to speak up every so often. With multiple attempts of the bandits to prepare the cannon for firing it, my men relentlessly forced them away from it with a barrage of shots, instantly provoking the reply from the shore.


    "Sir, we are done!"


    Just like I couldn''t be bothered to hide behind any real obstacle, so did the captain of my ship. Looking at his moves I could tell that rather than acting recklessly as I did, he was moving in a special patter that made it nigh impossible for any aimed shoot to hit him when the accuracy of those old types of rifles was taken into account!


    "Good, push the engines to the maximum. Even if we burn them, as long as we will let the current carry us, sooner or later we will meet with other ships sailing from the mining town!"

 213 Back on the move

    12th July 1574


    "The paddlers are running!"


    With the shout from the captain, I could see the wheels at the side of the boat starting to move. In just a few minutes, the ropes that connected the two boats together tensed up, yet with its bottom already pressed against the bottom of the river, it wasn''t that easy to pull the other ship out!


    "Take care of the cannon. This will be their last chance to use it."


    Reaching to the small locker embedded in the wall of my shed, I pulled out the single rifle that differed from the many others present on both of the ships. With the system willing to make those firearms for me since long ago, I would be an idiot if I didn''t make sure to create at least a single perfect weapon for myself!


    Kneeling down in front of the raised side of the boat, I rested the end of my barrel against the wood and took aim at the cannon. No matter what, it couldn''t be fired even once!


    "Sirˇ­ I''m worried our steam horses won''t manageˇ­"


    Just as if the fate wanted to slap my captain in his face, our ship suddenly shook, making it hard for me to keep aim at my targetˇ­ Only for a loud crack to be heard from the belly of our vessel!


    A single glance at the paddlers was enough to confirm that while successful at pulling out the other ship from the shallow waters, it seemed like it wouldn''t be useful for anything else until repaired!


    "Men, pull on the ropes yourselves! We need to get them deeper into the river!"


    While the distance from the middle of the river to its shore wasn''t that great, it was just enough for the difference in the accuracy of my rifles and the ones possessed by bandits to show its meaning. As long as we could enter the river stream, then the river itself would carry us to safety!


    "Sirˇ­ They brought another cannon!"


    Pulling my eyes from the target that I observed, I saw a bunch of men pulling on the ropes and pushing a small carriage with a moderately big cannon on top.


    "Fuckˇ­ Keep your eyes on the new cannon, I will take care of the old one!"


    Turning my eyes back to the simple scope on my rifle, it didn''t take long for the first enemy to attempt approaching the cannon with a small package in his hands.


    Seeing the chance, I relaxed my hand, breathed the fresh air in and took aim.


    Breathe outˇ­ Pull the finger in monotone movement, so that you won''t know when the shoot would be fired.


    BOOM!


    As soon as my rifle spoke out, the package in the enemy''s hands exploded in a small fireball! Those dumbfucks actually forgot to load the cannon before bringing it out!


    Most likely noticing that the majority of my soldiers focused their attention on the new threat, there were several other attempts to approach the main cannon, all promptly held back by the bullets produced by my rifle.


    It was the first time when I felt so exhilarated and depressed at the same time. Whenever I pulled my finger to the back of the trigger chamber, life would be taken. While it was a life that threatened the safety of me, Elia and my people, it was a life nevertheless, one that could otherwise be used to further the development of the country!


    "Sir, we are reaching a safe distance!"


    Fully focused on the scope of my rifle, with the regular shockwaves shaking my body as more and more gunpowder exploded near my face whenever I would pull the trigger, I failed to realise that there was no need to be so careful anymore. Despite the cannons being easily able to shoot as far as we were away from them, the chances of a single or two shots landing perfectly at one of my ships were too small to be even considered seriously!


    "Good. Keep an eye on the cannons. While they shouldn''t pose any troubles now, I don''t want them to fire anyway."


    Moving up from my previous position, I could finally send a calm look towards the other ship. As the two paddlers were drifting away towards the centre of the river, it was only a matter of time before the local current would push us north, allowing us a moment of respite.


    "How is the situation on the other ship?"


    With the shoots from the shore finally dying off as the chance of accurately hitting anything from that distance was too small to be worth wasting the gunpowder on it, I could, at last, assess the situation.


    "Seven injured, four dead. Sadly, the messenger we attempted to pick up died as well!"


    Hearing the news, I couldn''t help but click my tongue. After all this fighting, the only chance at uncovering who was behind this attack was gone. Not only I didn''t get anything out of this clash, I even lost some of my men!


    While the hurdle of understanding that people died because they served me was still hard to handle, with how I wasn''t directly responsible for their deaths, it wasn''t as bad as when the faulty steam horse erupted back in the mining town.


    "Get some of the unwounded sailors to swim to the other ship. We need to restart its steam horses as soon as possible. Even if the current can carry us to the safety if thoseˇ­ bandits managed to find a way to procure a cannon, I can''t really imagine them giving up after just the first clash!"

 214 New ideas

    12th July 1574


    "We managed to restart the engines, sir!"


    Thanks to the multiple ropes connecting the ships, it wasn''t that hard to pull them closer and actually bind them tightly one to the another. With that done and the paddlers of the other ship finally spinning again, we could stop relying on the current alone and push forward.


    In just a few minutes, the most dangerous part of this encounter was finished. With both the current and the relentless swinging of the paddlers only serving to increase our speed, there was no human way for the bandits to catch up with us, especially if they were to attempt carrying the cannons with them.


    "Just what the hell was thatˇ­"


    Sitting down at the table in my shed, I could finally let out a breath of relief. Just a quick count that I ordered as soon as the wounded were taken care off, revealed that my men used up almost the entire stock of their ammunition! If the fight were to continue for even a few minutes longer, we would be powerless to stop the enemy from boarding the ship, forcing me to abandon it and salvage what I could on the single paddler that would be left.


    "Dearˇ­ Is everything okay?"


    Seeing how distressed by this situation I was, Elia instantly locked me down on the chair by sitting on my lap and entangling her arms behind my neck.


    "Yeah, we should be safe for nowˇ­ I just can''t crack just what they wanted to achieve by this attack. I doubt they were simple bandits, as they wouldn''t have access to such expensive stuff like cannons. On the other hand, if they wanted to steal the steam horse of the ships, they could have done it by attacking any other ship that travels those waters!"


    No matter how much I hoped to crack this case, the reason for the attack remained a mystery for me. At this point, I even doubted that those people were sponsored by Ostros. After all, for such a huge and powerful clan, it would be a shame to use such underhandedˇ­ Or rather, such ineffective means!


    "What about those bandits that attempted to board the boats back in the docks? Maybe their aim wasn''t the ships or us in particular, but our weapons? I could easily imagine how anyone would go mad when given the chance to break it apart and understand the means by which they are working. After all, as long as we are the only ones that have them, no one will be able to stand against us!"


    Caressing my cheek, Elia spoke her mind freely. With her head leaned to the back and her neck exposed, I couldn''t stop myself from reaching for it with my lips. Only after her slight moan alerted me that this mischief was turning painful, did I managed to pull myself back and look into her dreamy eyes.


    "That''s actually a valid point. But it doesn''t explain the problem of the messenger. If he was working with them, then he wouldn''t know about the tension between us and the ostros. And if he didn''t work with themˇ­"


    While I couldn''t rule out the possibility of both of those events aimed only at confusing me about the current situation, I couldn''t help but follow my gut feeling.


    "I guess we won''t learn anything else before we get back to the mining town. Additionally, with how the problems are escalating already, I think I will have to intensify the recruitment campaign. Do you think we can afford to double its speed?"


    Even with me being at the very centre of all the projects, I wasn''t capable of keeping tabs of all the fine details concerning them. That''s why, while Matsu governed over the beer business, I had Elia take care of the Tarnowian market as well as the overall finances of our family.


    "It will be quite a stretch, but we should somehow manage. Rather than worrying about gold, I think you should take care of the supply of gunpowder. If all the fighting so far is going to consume as much of ammunition as the recent battle did, then no matter how great our weapons will be, we simply won''t have anything to shoot out of them!"


    Just as I was about to get excited with the prospects of building an even stronger force that would be capable of repelling every and all attack aimed at my lands and wealth, Elia had to nail some reality back into my head.


    Exactly as she said, no matter which part of my lands, I didn''t have any access to the sulfur mines. Without the sulfur, creating my own gunpowder would be impossible, that''s why I had to look for a way to ally someone who had access to this vital resource!


    If my memory wasn''t cheating me, the lands directly to the east from the mining town belonged to the Zamoyski household, meaning that as long as I could win the favours of this man, then not only my position at the court of the new king would be stabilised, but also the most lacking resource could be finally mined on an industrial scale!


    "That''s yet another problem that will have to be solved. To be honest, I think we can solve it on the way to the mining town!"


    While it would still require us to leave our ships at Sandomir and take an entire day trip to the city of Zamosc, as long as I could enter a political alliance with this family, it would be more than worth it!


    Only when I thought about it for a little longer, did I realise that this plan wasn''t actually the best that I could do. Rather than going there empty-handed, what if I brough steam horses mark two, steam paddlers and those new rifles of mine in form of gifts, aimed at convincing the Zamoyski family that it was worth to become allies with me?

 215 Steam-powered vehicle

    14th July 1574


    "The ships have arrived, sir!"


    Sitting down in one of the city taverns, I was having a quality time with Elia awaiting the news that just arrived.


    "Good. Do they have everything that I asked for?"


    Twisting my head from the lovely, Elia''s face in front of me to take a look at the messenger, I saw him pulling something out from under his coat. Instantly alarmed, I was ready to react at any moment, only to see him pull out a piece of parchment and pass it down to me.


    "Sir, the managers asked me to pass this list to you. It should contain all the answers that sir might ask!"


    Taking the scroll to my hand, I quickly rolled it out on the table and scanned the content. Just like expected, providing any amount of new rifles or steam engines wasn''t a problem at all, but poaching the ships that were currently stationed in the mining town''s dock was the hard part.


    Even though the hardest part has yet to come with taking all this stuff on land to the Zamosc city, it turned out that bringing them by the river to Sandomir would be the greatest hurdle.


    In the end, I couldn''t let the memory of this strange look on Governor''s face from back in the royal palace out of my head. Luckily, from what I knew, when I went back to my own lands, he had to remain in the capital due to the overwhelming amount of all sorts of work that the senators had to handle, yet I couldn''t count on him remaining there forever!


    After all, moving such a huge amount of resources only to placate the feeling of another powerful family could be clearly taken as the shift of alliances on my side! Even though I hoped to kind of force Jan to joining the faction that I wanted to create with Zamoyski family, I had no way of guaranteeing that it would happen. That''s why, in order to avoid clashing with my current protector, I really wanted to move all the gifts out of Sandomir before he would go back!


    Obviously, there was no way to hide such a huge transfer of resources and manufactured goods through such a big city. I knew that the moment that Jan would be back to his home, he would learn about my actions, yet there was this little, annoying but useful truth about human interactions. It''s far easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission!


    "I see that those steel plates have arrived. Let''s not waste any more time then."


    With how relatively delicate the steam horses were, there was no way that I would transport them on our insanely tragic roads with a simple carriage!


    But without the proper tools like springs or many other parts that were necessary to create a proper amortization for the carriages, I had no other way than to rely on the old and effective design!


    "Sir, we have gathered all the materials. Can we begin?"


    Looking at the several craftsmen that just recently joined the ranks of the mining town pioneers, I nodded my head. There was no point for me to explain anything, as before any of the newly recruited craftsmen would even touch their tools, they were forced to learn how to read the blueprints of mine.


    In just a few moments, the thin sheets of metal separated. The moment the tiny rope that held them together was cut, they turned out to be a set of thin, curved leaves rather than a long, flat piece of steel!


    After grouping each of the pieces into a set of three, each set composed of the varying sizes of the steel pieces, they were bound tightly together with another piece of tiny rope, before a set of nails would connect one of their ends to the base of the carriage.


    While using twine to connect moving elements was something that I abhorred, with how this would be the first time anyone would ever use such design, I still decided to go with it. After all, if something were to break, it would only take a moment for my men to fix it, as opposed to using a refined and complicated design that would require intentionally manufactured parts to be delivered in order to fix it!


    As soon as all four points where the axis of the carriage would be normally mounted were fixed with those bound pieces of steel, another set of workers would bring the axis itself, and fit it through the small circles mounted at the bottom end of those leaf springs, effectively creating the first type of vehicle suspension in the history of humankind!


    At least, that''s what my guts told me because being just a simple weeb back in my modern timeline, I never would have bothered to check whether something like this wasn''t invented in advance!


    Yet the best part has yet to happen!


    After everything was set in done, and the wheels were mounted once again on the axis, a small mechanism was added to both the rear and front of each carriage. While increasing the complexity of the vehicle by an insane amount, in itself, either of those bits was as simple as it could get!


    Starting with the part mounted on the back of the single carriage that would overcome this modification, was nothing else but an additional, huge wheel, connected to a simple axis reaching all the way to the inner part o the carriage. In essence, as long as a steam horse would be placed in the trunk, by connecting the output of the engine with the input of said wheel, the very first, self-powered land vessel would be created!


    Yet even with a means to push the carriage forward, it would be all for nothing if there would be no way to steer where it was supposed to be going!


    And that''s where the part at the top of the carriage came into use. Consisting of two separate wheels placed horizontally on the protruding axis, a set of chains would then connect to the front wheels of the carriage. Thanks to the opposite directions of movement between those two upper wheels, the steering of the carriage was finally possible!


    While this invention was nothing but a test, the fact that all the other carriages were mounted with the leaf springs was already a huge step forward in terms of safety and comfort of using them. Even though I had no guts to change all the carriages into self-driving type, it didn''t change the fact that wasting nearly a third of the space in my convoy for the horse food and the rations for the escort caused a huge pain in my head!


    Yet when all the carriages were finally put back in their proper orientation, when all the horses were bound to their respective coaches, I couldn''t help but smile openly.


    Zamoyski family, here comes the future!

 216 Arriving at Zamosc

    15th July 1574


    "We will have to leave our troops here. I don''t want them to misunderstand the reason behind our visit."


    After everything that happened during our travel on the Vistula river, I wasn''t stupid enough to leave the land under my direct control without a proper guard. With fifteen carriages in total, an entire contingent of sixty-four men picked from the first unit that managed to finish its entire training was summoned from the mining town to accompany me and Elia on our way to Zamosc.


    "Should we tell them to set camp outside of the city?"


    Standing in front of the steering wheel for the first automobile that appeared on the face of the earth in this timeline, Elia didn''t dare to turn her head away from the road. Even though its quality was far better than what one could find in almost any other corner of the country warranting a far smoother ride than what we experienced so far, this fact was also connected to way more people present on the said road!


    With how slow we had to move, despite there still being a few kilometres (few miles) before we would reach the city itself, I had to put a man to lift and lower the rod that connected the axis of the powering wheel to the steam engine.


    As for the vehicle itself, it proved to work surprisingly well. Obviously, we had to make entire four stops on the way to fix some minor problems on the way, but when considering the fact that it was its virgin journey, it still fared far better than I assumed it would.


    "Well, I think it would be better to just send someone to announce our arrival first, and then just ask them to tell us what they want us to do. Elemo!"


    Shouting from the bottom of my lungs, it didn''t take long for one of the few riders that accompanied my caravan to reach the side of the steam-powered vehicle.


    "Yes, sir?"


    Leisurely saluting to me by raising his hand in what others would consider nothing more than a simple greeting, I could see that his usual negative and silent demeanour shifted to more passive-positive one. Maybe due to the constant challenges connected to developing the country and seeing the fruits that my projects were bringing, maybe due to his constantly increasing pay that would soon overcome what most of the minor nobles could make from their land, or maybe due to the fact that the situation around my family was slowly heating up with my looming clash with Ostros, but Elemo seemed to find a new source of energy that powered his vitality.


    "Go to the city and announce our arrival to the Zamoyski family. Ask them whether we should enter the city with our troops or let them camp outside while announcing that we will be bringing several carriages full of gifts."


    Yet just as I lost my track of his figure, I realised how I forgot to ask him to pass yet another message to the city. That there would be quite an unusual craft appearing and most likely scaring people off!


    After all, this automated carriage was yet another gift that I prepared for the meeting with my possible new allies. As long as they could see the inherent value in using pure machinery to power the movement of a vessel like that, be it in terms of economic gains when those machines could replace the expensive horses, or even in the military, with how it could easily be developed into a mobile fortress of sorts!


    As my thoughts and worried continued to shroud my mind, we finally appeared before the gates of the city. With Elemo awaiting us there, it took only a few moments before my troops left their firearms on the carriages and were moved to one of the emptied-out taverns within the city itself.


    In any other scenario, if a great noble were to visit another great noble and met with such treatment, it would be a proper basis for a clan war between the two of them, yet with how I appeared in this city unannounced with a strong force behind me, it was given that the city owners would take proper precautions if my real intentions were not what I claimed them to be!


    Yet as my troops disappeared inside one of the nearby buildings, I could feel how the attention of all the citizens and the guards that lead the way towards the palace in the middle of the entire city was drawn towards this vehicle, that by throwing continuous clouds of black smoke into the air, was apparently offering some kind of sacrifice to God so that he was sending the angels to push it towards its destination!


    By the time we arrived at the central square, it would be hard to say whether people were more interested in the vehicle or the group that actually brough it to the city!


    "Just what kind of monstrosity is this, sir brother!"


    To my surprise, one of the owners of this place, madam Kristine, actually went outside of the palace and greeted me from the steps leading to the main entrance!


    Seeing this great honour, I quickly helped Elia out of the carriage while making sure that the connecting axis was pulled out of the mechanism and the flames below the steam horse extinguished.


    Approaching the steps with my wife by my side, I lowered my head to the respectable level before stepping forward, grabbing the extended hand of the madam and placing a courteous kiss on top of its palm.


    "Dear sister, seeing how you came to greet us outside, I can only assume that your dear to our heart husband still remains at the Capital, helping our wise senators to save this country from ruin. As such, I brought those few, unworthy gifts, as to break the boredom of your daily routine, while hoping that I could find you in mood great enough to listen to my troubles."


    While it was rather uncommon for a noble to explain the reasons for his visit so quickly, I didn''t have any other choice. With no proper announcement prior to the visit, the wife of the current Commonwealth chancellor had no way of judging what my intentions were. That''s why, rather than creating a fertile ground for suspicion and wariness to grow, I broke the etiquette and instantly explained the real reasons behind my visit.


    "Oh, sir brother, your galant manners are embarrassing me. If you wouldn''t mind, let me guide you and your beautiful wife towards the guests'' room, so that you could take on some rest, while I will prepare the suitable place for us to have a proper discussion about the topics that you brough with yourself today!"

 217 Three proposals

    15th July 1574


    "So let me get this straight, you don''t want any money for those generousˇ­ gifts?"


    After finally ditching all the unnecessary attention of the servants and the lesser nobles living in Zamoyski court, we could finally sit down in one of the chambers and have an open discussion.


    "Those are gifts. Who do you take me to expect me to call a price on them? Rather than that, I want those items to serve as the proof of the words that I have for you and your family."


    Relaxing in a comfortable chair that most likely was worth its weight in gold, I looked at the middle-aged woman sitting across the table. With her features putting her at most in the middle tier in terms of female beauty, one could wonder how the heck one of the most powerful nobles in the entire country ended up marrying her.


    Yet the family that she came from, Radilis (Radziwi?owie, attempt to pronounce it biatch) was the one powerhouse that in the history I knew, held the seat of the absolutely most powerful family in the entire eastern part of the Commonwealth! They were so great that despite never reaching the seat of a king, they were called the princes of Lithuania!


    "Oh? And what kind of important news are you bringing, for them to warrant your personal presence?"


    Hearing my reply, Kristina leaned forward over the table. Just as she pointed out indirectly, it wasn''t common for the head of the house to go through the lengths of personally visiting another household just to share the news or pass some information!


    "While most of my words will make sense only after I would explain how do my gifts work, let me fix one of your misunderstandings. I didn''t come here to pass some news, as in the current state of the country, what was important yesterday, is already worthless and outdated today. I came here with all those gifts, to propose an alliance."


    Rather than beating around the bush, I decided that being frank would be the best approach. Even though I knew that the country wouldn''t suffer from any invasion during the interregnum as all the neighbours with the exception to the Ottomans attempted to place their heir on Commonwealth throne, the internal situation would quickly deteriorate to the point of the quasi-civil war. In my original timeline, only due to the quick wits of the Zamoyski family and the Batory himself did Commonwealth manage to avoid spilling brotherly blood, yet just like my inventions and actions could influence its future in a positive way, I couldn''t be certain that it wouldn''t do so negatively just as well!


    "Alliance, huh? That''s quite a bit proposition to be discussed over a simple tea with just a wife of the house head!"


    "I know that. That''s why, rather than insisting on you deciding for the entire family right away, I just want to present the stance of the Tarnowski family over three topics, so that when sir Jan would finally return, you could provide him with a full explanation of my intention."


    Putting my hands on the table with their palms directed towards the table, I signalled that the time for the empty words was over. Now, the talks would enter the real stage.


    "That''s fair. Tell me then, what would you like to propose, and what are you expecting in return?"


    Seeing that the female across the table didn''t oppose my idea, I tightened my grip on Elia''s hand. What I was going to say, could easily be considered a thought bordering treason, so attempting to coax a huge family into supporting it was rather dangerous. Yet while I was sure that no matter what, no one could singlehandedly defeat me in the battle, I more than required their help in order to ender the next step of industrialization along with fully improving and nearly automating the production of the gunpowder!


    "Let''s start with the most important part. As you most likely know, the lands of your family are rich with a certain type of black rocks. While I don''t want to rent your land or anything like that, as long as your family find itˇ­ profitable to create mines specialised in producing this kind of rocks, I would be sure to provide all the tools that allowed me to decrease the price of iron by a factor of nearly five."


    Reaching to the inner pocket of my kontus, I pulled out a paper containing the list of tools that I was willing to rent to the Zamoyski family along with their respective prices and the entire agreement signed on paper with my signature already on it.


    "For the next part, it''s the expansion of what I just said. If we could reach the agreement with those mines, I would invest by myself into creating two kinds of roads connecting the mines, this city, Sandomir and the mining town that is nearing the end of its construction. Obviously, to speed up the matters regarding the trade or the price of those black rocks, I''m willing to offer your family a sizeable mansion in the said city free of charge. And that leaves us with the last and most important topic."


    Putting another batch of paper filled with the details regarding the topic I just spoke about, I swallowed my saliva before taking a deep breath and looking at the noble female in front of me.


    "I do honestly believe that by leaving the country, King Henry abandoned his duty. With not even a single promise of his fulfilled so far, we only saw him waste away the royal funds at whores and feasts. In this situation, I believe that for the good of our country and ourselves, we need to find a more suited candidate, someone who could from one side help to reform this poor country, while on the other side, wouldn''t use its power for his own interests alone. I do believe we should invite Stephan Bathory from the princedom of Transylvania and crown him as our new king!"

 218 Military applicance

    15th July 1574


    "Now I understand why you wanted to talk in private. This matter is indeed ratherˇ­ sensitive."


    After hearing to the last part of my words, Kristina leaned back in her chair while sending me a taxing look. Considering how we were speaking about one of the most important questions that currently troubled the country, it was no wonder she was taking her time to consider how should she reply to me.


    "I know, but it''s not like we do not stand to lose anything by putting it off. Be it as our own respective households, or as the whole country. Right now, we are putting all the necessary reforms that Henry promised to push through because the matter of who''s supposed to be the next King is at the front. Unless we want the entire country to be paralyzed for only God knows how long, we need to act ourselves."


    Rather than attempting to push her towards a certain decision, I softly explained my reasoning behind such a hard stance on the topic. After all, there was no way I could just explain that I perfectly knew what would happen if the current trend continued!


    "Trust me, I perfectly know what you mean. It might come as a little surprise, but our men in the east brought some reports claiming that some of the grand boyars in the Muscovy are arming up. That''s the main reason why I didn''t chase you off the moment you mentioned the last part of your aim hereˇ­"


    After I heard those words, saying that I was surprised would be a gross understatement. From what I remembered, with how Russian royal family was aiming to take the Commonwealth throne by themselves, it didn''t make any sense for the Tsar to allow any sorts of provocative measures right as the interregnum begun!


    At first, I wanted to brush it off as the matter of delay in the information, yet when looking at the dates, there was no way that the Muscovy didn''t receive the news yet. After all, when an entire country was at stake, people tend to do their best to pass the important information to their lieges!


    "You are quite surprised, I see. But that will only make it simpler for both of us. Tell me, do those funny inventions of yours, have any military appliance?"


    While Kristina''s previous sentence was enough to put me on edge, her last question was the best thing that I could hear! After all, outside of everything that the steam engine could be used, just those rifles of mine already held an insane value on the battlefield, especially with how expensive it would be to even attempt replicating them without proper, industrious background!


    "To be honest, I didn''t expect you to ask thisˇ­ kind of question. Or rather, I didn''t dare to hope for it!"


    "It''s nice to hear that. Before I will ask you to show it to me though, would you mind explaining in a few words what you could offerˇ­ in regards to increasing one''s force? Also, if your proposition turns out to be compelling enoughˇ­ What would you ask for in exchange for your goods or ideas?"


    Word by word, Kristina was making the situation better and better for me. At this point, I wasn''t capable of hiding my cheerful smile anymore.


    "Okay then, let''s start with purely military tools. I assume you do realise all kinds of drawbacks that come with our current weapons?"


    Since she wanted to learn about the capabilities of my babies, there was no better way for me to start than with the rifles. While some might think that explaining the idea behind making a steam-powered tank would allow me to make a better impression on Kristina, when the push would come to the shove, I had no prototype that I could present.


    "Yeah. Unless we are fighting some kind of cultured war, aimed more at prestige rather than the real military gains, then after the first salvoˇ­ They are as useless as it can getˇ­ and let''s not even get me started at how useless they are during the rain!"


    To be honest, this statement was quite surprising for me. Thinking about it, when asking about the drawbacks of the current weaponry of the age, I expected them to point out at the small details that would be the pinnacle of what they would imagine being able to be improved, yet she actually managed to pinpoint two of the crucial parts!


    It was quite sad that unless I could come up with a way to create a proper fire initiator, solving the problem of the faulty shoots during the rain wouldn''t be that easy!


    "While I have to disappoint you on the second aspect, I think I have not only good news in regards to the first one but also when speaking about all kinds of other matters. But to not put it off for too long, as there is no point in keeping the tension, let me tell you that. Think about literally any aspect of the weapons that we currently have, and I''m quite positive that the ones that I brought, are better!"


    Firing myself up to this point, there was no way anyone would be capable of stopping me. Unless it came to explaining the reaper guns idea, I was going to set myself free of any limits in terms of bragging!


    "But rather than swarming you with all the details, let me pick the most important part that I find useful with the improved design. My rifles can shoot up to twelve shots in quick succession!"

 219 Showcasing the rifle

    15th July 1574


    "Wait, what?"


    While our discussion took on a rather comfortable, informal approach, for the Kristine to react with such short, meaningless statement, it was a huge sign that she couldn''t really believe what I just said.


    "Like I said before any reloading will be necessary, a man holding my rifle can shoot up to twelve times. When his rounds are all gone, all he needs to do is take the magazine, a part that holds the shots, out, and replace it with another one. But fear not, while the possible speed of shooting is increased, its accuracy and range are also overwhelmingly better than those of the simple carabines that our army is equipped with now."


    The moment I started bragging about my own inventions, it would take a great man to stop me from doing so!


    A great man, or my wife in person.


    "Mike, stop. It''s not something one can believe without seeing."


    With Elia''s delicate hands pulling on my sides with surprising strength, I had no other way than to stop talking and focus my attention back at her.


    "What? It''s not like I lied or overestimated its capabilities!"


    Seeing her slightly irritated expression, I was instantly forced into defensive. Who could''ve known that for someone like me, who didn''t feel anything when an insane amount of bandits were doing their bests to claim my wealth and life, would be so scared of even the slightest sign of displeasure from my dearest wife!


    "Okay, okay. Let''s stop this before you will start arguing for no reason. I can''t deny it, you made me interested in them already, so I would love to go and have a look at what they are truly capable of. As for the other end of the dealˇ­?"


    While the sentence that Kristina spoke was broken, the tone at which she paused it was enough for me to understand that it was, in fact, a question.


    "Just like I said before. I need your help in building two kinds of roads, one of which might draw a particularly huge amount of attention. Yet don''t get me wrong, I can pay for its entire costs myself, but I will need your family to set up a net of patrols that would prevent anyone from taking it apart."


    Sending a look to the Kristina, I attempted to assess how did she absorb this first request of mine, yet just like her husband back in the capital, I couldn''t read a thing from her expression.


    While the impression I made while describing the rifles of mine might be great, the concessions that Zamoyski household would have to agree to get their hands on it weren''t small either. Just the fact that it would be my initiative to start an extremely costly process of opening new mines could be quite worrying, not to speak about something as insanely grand like building a new road, or rather two roads!


    That''s why it was so important for me to bring Kristina to the open, where the prowess of my rifles could be physically proven to her. After all, words were words, and the actions were actions!


    "I think this will be a good idea as well. I''m sorry to say that, but hearing your incredible recounts about the prowess of your weapons, I find it hard to imagine it, not to speak about believing your words."


    If not for the fact that as she spoke those words, Kristina bowed her head, even with how laid-back I was about all this noble etiquette nonsense, I would have to take it as a direct insult!


    Yet rather than acting upon this moment, I swallowed my pride and followed the host back to the big corridor and all the way to the main hall. With how enormous this place was when compared to either my Tarnowian palace or even Elia''s home back in Pilzno, I couldn''t even be surprised when I saw all my carriages parked directly on the expensive tiles of the main hall of this building!


    "So, would you be so kind as to show those magical weapons of yours to me?"


    Stopping right in front of the row of carriages, Kristina turned around and faced me with a charming smile that elevated her beauty ranking from the weak three to a strong four.


    "Sure thing. Would you be so kind as to prepare some targets for me?"


    As I was asking, I already moved towards the automated carriage. Just by sorting through my luggage there, I quickly found several rifles, safely hidden in the secret compartment. While at this point I could pull out my personal rifle that was far better than all the others that were crafted by the machines rather than my system, I still decided against it.


    After all, if I were to show-off my real weapon, then when the trade would begin, Zamoyski would nearly instantly develop justified hate to me for duping low-quality product in exchange for such huge concessions on their end!


    "That''s how it looks. As you can see, this round part located between the barrel and the handle is where the ammunition is stored."


    While holding one of the crude rifles far away from my body with its barrel aimed at the floor, I pointed my hand at the specific parts that I was talking about. Even though I had no doubt that Kristina could easily uncover the general details of the design herself, as the proud owner of the product, I felt obliged to properly introduce all of them.


    "As for how it works, let me show you."


    With a row of empty, clay cups lined up on the table roughly fifty meters away from our position, I made sure that no one was standing near enough to get potentially hurt before raising my weapon and quickly taking aim.


    Bang!


    Without any real effort from my end, the first cup flew away from the table. Yet while this wasn''t enough to convince anyone about the real shooting speed of this gun, I still took my time to point the barrel downward again, before turning myself back to the audience.


    "As you can see, my finger still blocks the trigger in the half-pressed condition. Look what happens when I fully release it."


    Positioning myself so that everyone could see the process, I relaxed my finger, allowing the small spring to push the trigger back to its resting position. Yet as this small piece of metal moved, the entire mechanism came to life, with a set of simple gears moving the cylindrical magazine around, and placing the next bullet right inside the firing chamber.


    "And that''s how it looks when you want to fire it for real."


    Noticing that everyone already saw what they were supposed to, I turned back towards the target, raised the muzzle and took aim.


    Bangˇ­ Bangˇ­ Bang. Bang. Bang. Babababang!

 220 Sales pitch

    15th July 1574


    "Whatˇ­ Just what is this thingˇ­ No, how much does it cost, and how many of those rifles can you sell?!"


    I didn''t need to wait for the proper reaction almost at all. The moment Kristina managed to wash off the shock of what she just witnessed from her face, she opened her mouth, yet in the end, it was an inconspicuous attendant of hers that managed to best her.


    "Excuse me?"


    Not sure how I should react to this outburst from someone no greater than a simple servant, I sent a quick glance at the host of this meeting, only to see her put a wry smile on her face.


    "Sir brother, meet Onfar Maget, one of our dear friends and commanders of our personal army. To be quite honest, in terms of military, I value his opinion far higher than my own."


    As Kristina introduced the man to me, I lost all my qualms holding me back from properly respecting him. Stepping forward two steps, I pushed my hand forward, offering him a proper greeting.


    "Mike of Tarnow."


    "Onfar Maget."


    Just a single look in his eyes was enough to tell me that there wasn''t any point for the lengthy introductions. Most likely, this man already knew a fair bit about my exploits, given how close Zamoyski family lands were to both of the areas in which I operated. At the same time, while I had no memory of such a man existing, with how he was a respected retained on the Zamoyski court, just his position alone was enough to win him some of my respect.


    "Let''s cut to the chase then. Answering your questions one by one, the cost of a single rifleˇ­ Quite honestly, I''m not even sure how should I price it. If I ever were to put it on the open market, I think it would be no less than twenty, thirty ducats, but obviously, as long as my requests would be fulfilled, the price for your familyˇ­"


    In fact, this was one of the very basic things that I simply forgot to think about. The material and labour cost of making such a weapon was simple to calculate. From the raw ore, through some tiny amount of costs for turning it into steel, all the way to forming the barrels and assembling the parts, the cost of making a single weapon would reach up to two red goldens at most!


    Yet that didn''t mean I could ever sell those weapons as cheaply. With how nearly every single weapon that was in use in the current age being a product made by hand by a skilled craftsman, if I were to simply charge double the costs, then I could already feel the pressure from the entire country laid on my shoulders.


    After all, with such a profitable business, everyone would rush to learn my secrets, be it by diplomacy or force. That''s why, rather than giving a reasonably fair price, I had no other way than to artificially spike it up!


    "As for you, I think I could sell them for ten red goldens each. But!"


    "That''s one of the other reasons that I was willing to tackle only if your family showed an interest in those weapons of mine. As you just saw, those rifles are great and allˇ­ But I don''t really have any stable and reliable way to obtain gunpowder for its ammunition!"


    Now that the worst part about those weapons was made known for those people, I simply smiled and backed out from my imaginary spotlight, waiting for the response of Kristina. It was one of the most important reasons why I picked this family to ally with.


    They had rich sulfur resources on their own!


    "Gunpowderˇ­ I see so that''s what you meant back in the chamber. If we equipped every soldier of ours with this kind of weapon, just a single fight, while easily won, would prove to be insanely costlyˇ­"


    As the basic material for creating the gunpowder consisted of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeper, as long as those three materials could be produced on an industrial scale, making any amount of gunpowder wouldn''t be a problem.


    Starting with charcoal, it was the easiest step. As long as I would manage to create coal mines with the help of Zamoyski household, I could replace all the usage of charcoal with this more efficient, mined fuel, shifting all the produced charcoal to the production of the gunpowder.


    When it came to the sulfur, this was another reason why I hoped to create a positive relationship with this family, as their lands stretched all the way to one of the only places in the entire commonwealth where it could be mined!


    As for the last element, nitrate or in other words, saltpeper, this was something that I could solve entirely by myself. As long as the mining town would finally turn into a proper city, just by directing its severs to a specially prepared grounds that would be constantly sprinkled with the charcoal dust, by washing the residual fields with water and boiling said water out, I could procure literally any given amounts of this element!


    At this point, I couldn''t help but thank myself for being a rowdy kid back in modern times. If not for the fact that just as any other boy I had a period when I turned interested in creating my own explosives, or rather, if not for the fact that I went for the extra step of actually attempting to make it, I wouldn''t know even this basic recipe!


    "Listen up, brothers and sisters. Just like I proposed that I would invest both my money and my tools in creating the mines of this black rock that I value so much, I can do the same with the sulfur. As long as we come to an agreement regarding all the deals that I came here to propose, increasing the output of the existing mines by tenfold won''t pose even a tinies shred of a problem for me!"


    As I spoke those words, I could see the looks of ridicule appearing on the faces of the people that were just amazed at the insane weapon I created. At this point, I couldn''t help but notice that even if I were to show them a damned atomic bomb and detonate it in their garden, they would still think that I''m incapable of creating a simple car!


    "While it''s nice to hear such propositionˇ­ Increasing the mine output by ten timesˇ­ Even our family doesn''t have that many free workers nor money to invest in their pay! How can you claim to be able to achieve it?"


    Just as mentioned, despite being amazed by my weapon, Onfar couldn''t help but put my own words into doubt. Yet I wasn''t someone who could be downed by such a silly attempt!


    "How do I know it? Well, it''s fairly obvious. The mines that I took over while they were in similar sate to those of yours, are now providing more than fifty times as much ore as they used to!"

 221 You sell what the client wants

    15th July 1574


    "I know how unbelievable my words sound. Don''t worry about it. To be quite honest, if not for your interest in military affairs, this entire show would start with a completely different thing."


    Seeing how even after my bold claim the crowd didn''t seem to be convinced, I had to quickly step into the spotlight again to get their attention on myself. After all, outside of the quick few shots with my rifle, the people here had no idea about all the incredible inventions that I put to use in my own lands!


    "While I want to speak about the economy-related stuff now, I''m not the kind of monster who would tease you and then leave you hanging just like that. Please, wait a moment."


    Looking at Onfary, I nodded my head while speaking only to move back to the auto-carriage. After rummaging through my luggage once again, I pulled out another rifle along with two more magazines.


    "Look."


    Putting the rifle back on the floor as to free my hands, I raised the weapon that I used just a moment ago to showcase its might. With a simple yet decisive tap to its side, I pushed the pin in the middle of the cylindrical magazine in, effectively freeing the ammo container. Despite a few more bullets still ready to fire from it, I had to showcase the reloading process to let everyone understand just how insane this piece of wood and metal was.


    With the previous casing falling to the ground, I picked the full magazine from the side of the carriage and locked the hole in its middle against the special, long pin on the rifle. After making sure that the angle of the magazine was correct, I pushed it forward, effectively reloading the entire mechanism. With just a simple tap at the safety switch, the gun was cooked and ready to fire once again!


    "Here, you can check how it feels to shoot so fast yourself."


    After grabbing the rifle by its barrel and handle and aiming its muzzle at the ground, I passed it directly to Onfary. Being the military expert he was announced to be, only by testing the prowess of such weapon himself would he be able to formulate any thoughts about it.


    "As for you, dear sister, let''s move on to the next topic. I bet you are curious about just what kind of machinery is mounted on this carriage, don''t you?"


    With how I drove this steam carriage directly to the main plaza of the city, it was bound to gather more than enough attention to let me gently switch the topic from the war to the economy.


    "Well, some of my retainers are claiming that you are borrowing the power from hell and I should call for the priest, while others are arguing that it''s bound to be something blessed by God himselfˇ­ But hearing how you call it machinery, I assume there is some underlying principle behind its inner workings. Am I right?


    "Yes, you are perfectly right. Basically, this entire mechanism consists of various switches and hand-controlled parts, that are connected to the core unit, that we called a steam horse. Without going into details, it''s a machine that holds water inside of it. By heating the water, we turn it into steam, that forces the inner parts of the steam horse to move, allowing us to make use of this movement. But what you can see right in front of you right now, is nothing more than a silly attempt at creating a makeshift vehicle by combining two completely incompatible parts. This core unit, said steam-horse, is the truly important asset."


    Patting my hands against the planks of the carriage, I pointed my hand at the centrally mounted cage with the steam horse belly inside and a small burning chamber beneath it. This last part was added as the simple way to separate the powering fire from the wood of the carriage itself because otherwise powering the steam engine would require burning the damned vessel first!


    "Can''t you explain what thisˇ­ core unit as you called it, do? I mean, in words that we could understand?"


    Yet despite my utmost efforts to lecture them about the prowess of the steam engine with details, Kristina quickly drowned my enthusiasm.


    "Ehˇ­ In short words, by burning wood or charcoal under it, we can make it move. By using its movement, we can make it do the work that otherwise would require human or animals, with the simple difference that this thing will never tire itself down, and can output far greater strength than even the greatest horse or pulling cattle."


    Just like my manager back in modern times said, no matter what product you have on hand, you need to sell it as the thing that your client wants the most. And if your client doesn''t desire anything, it''s your job to change that mindset of his!


    If they wanted a simple explanation, then I was bound to give it to them. Yet even after doing so, I could still see hints of confusion on the crowd''s face. In fact, most of the people with the few exceptions, were more interested in the shoots that Onfar was currently firing!


    "To put it into the right perspective, we can use it to pull heavy mining carts, full with ore, out of the mining hole. We can use it to break apart huge pieces of rocks or make them do any type of repetitive work that requires a lot of energy. That''s how I managed to increase the output of my mines, and how I intend to do the same for yours if we come to an agreement."


    To be frank, convincing others about the economical importance of the steam engine was a bit too much of it. If even this simplistic way of explaining it wouldn''t be enough to convince them, then I would be at a loss of what else could I do to get their attention!


    "I think I know what you want to tell us. I can already picture many uses for such usefulˇ­ machine. Tell me, how much would buying one cost? What about ten of them? Or a hundred?"

 222 Sweet and sour end to the talks

    15th July 1574


    "I''m sorry, but those steam horses of mineˇ­ Are not for sale."


    All the way back in times when I was only starting to think about the means on industrialising the country, I could think about selling the engines to someone else in order to obtain more money for my other projects. Yet right now, the situation changed.


    From the beer business that was already bringing me close to the level of grand noble households in terms of income, through the Tarnowian marketplace that outside increasing the outflow of the beer to an unimaginable degree while allowing me to easily and cheaply obtain all sorts of resources, all the way to those rifles of mine that could bring me even more profit than both of those projects alone, I had absolutely no need to earn even more.


    Rather than that, what I had to aim for, was the influence.


    "But you just saidˇ­"


    Hearing how quickly and decisively I refused to even consider the price for the steam engines, Kristina could only widen her eyes and attempt to protest, yet before she could even finish her sentence, I already cut her off.


    "I know what I said. I''m willing to rent those steam engines or even permanently locate them in any place I will consider profitable. From the sulfur and blackstone mines, through the possible forms of industry or even projects that you would create yourself, I won''t have anything against supporting you guys with those steam machines of mine, yet rather than exchanging them for gold that is already of no value for me, I will keep the ownership of them, while receiving a percentage of the profits from those projects as my remuneration for renting them to you."


    If I were to just sell the engines off, while the amount of gold that I could ask for would be immense and most likely big enough for me to rent enough mercenaries to carve out a small country for myself, doing so would only prove to be a pain in the ass. That''s why, rather than selling them off, I would rather bind the powers that I would decide to cooperate with me!


    After all, industrialization didn''t end on the steam engines alone. From how I was already going out of my way to set the fertile ground for the sake of building a proper train, and with the loose thoughts of using the steel to make a completely new type of steam horses in the first place, as long as I managed to bound a single powerful household to my cause, by keeping them at the receiving end of all the benefits of industrialization, creating a proper and modern conglomerate would be only a matter of time!


    While initially quite happy with Kristina coming up with what could be said to be the idea if not for the tank then for the armoured car at the very least, it was the other part of her sentence that got me thinking.


    So far during our meeting, as I spoke with her or her retainers, I only considered them to be the representatives of the Zamoyski family. As I currently faced the issue of the brewing conflict with Ostros, I was fully focused on binding the fate of my household with the future powerhouse of the country, yet by focusing my sight like that, I failed to take Kristina original family into account!


    "I''m sorry, I forgot to account for that. What would you say if I were to gift your father, Nicolaus the Black a set of let''s sayˇ­ A thousand of my rifles? Creating bullets for them is fairly easy, so as long as he employs several tens of people to do so, he could easily create a considerable stockpile of them. While I know that it might sound like a bribe, please, treat it as my personal investment in the security of our eastern borders."


    Giving such a huge statement and gift at the same time could be considered reckless for some, yet with how my actions influenced the history, I couldn''t rule out the possibility that Muscovites wouldn''t wait with their attack for the war where the future king would have to deal with the rebellious city of Gdansk.


    "That would be much appreciatedˇ­ As for the rest of what we spoke about, while I can''t make the decision by myself, I would like to draft a letter to my dear husband, detailing the content of our negotiations here. As long as he would agree with my opinion, I don''t see any reason why we shouldn''t cooperate!"


    As if a great boulder was finally taken off my soul, I could release all the air that I accumulated in my lungs during the span of those strange negotiations. With what Kristina said, as long as I could convince Jan Zamoyski himself to accept the deal, no matter what Ostros would want to do against me, they wouldn''t dare to go against their rival just for the sake of a single, punny town!


    But as I was about to rejoice in my head, I saw someone bursting through the doors of the mansion and instantly falling onto his knee when he saw his lady.


    "My lady! They attacked!"


    As soon as those words left his mouth, this clearly exhausted to the limit man staggered before falling to the side.


    "They attackedˇ­ As many as droplets of water in the seaˇ­ No one has seen such an apocalypse beforeˇ­"

 223 War brewing

    15th July 1574


    "MEDIC!"


    Seeing the state of the man, Kristina didn''t even bother trying to ask him any questions, instantly gesturing at her men. In a flash, several servants came up with a makeshift stretcher before placing the deadly exhausted man on them and carrying him closer to their lady.


    "My lady, your father is requesting royal reinforcements. Only the combined power of the entire countryˇ­"


    "Do not speak. Rest now, and you will tell us everything later. Oh, do you have any letters on you?"


    While I didn''t want to take this man''s words on the face value, either someone was playing a game of shadows with me, or my actions really brought upon the so-called butterfly effect. After all, in my original timeline, with how Russian''s wanted to place their own ruler on the Commonwealth throne, they didn''t dare to spark any flames of war before the king was finally decided!


    "Yesˇ­ In my horseˇ­"


    Those were the last word that we heard from the messenger before he was taken away somewhere deeper into the mansion. Yet it didn''t mean that it was the end for the troubles for me now!


    "Sir Mikeˇ­ If this man''s words come true, will you be willing to do me the favour of informing the capital of the situation? If the forces of the enemy are truly as great as this man mentioned them to be, then without noble assembly, we won''t have any chance at defending our lands!"


    Noble assembly, one of the traditions that allowed Commonwealth to wield a surprisingly huge military force despite how undisciplined and most often than not, weak it was in its core. Due to the immense population of the nobility when compared to the other European nations, when the Senate called for the noble assembly, every able man of the noble lineage was bound by the law to appear at the gathering place, along with the force befitting his economical status.


    Yet while by itself it could buy us some time to stall the invasion, without a clear leading role for the entire country, even said the noble assembly would be powerless to stop the war from destroying the country!


    "My lady, I would do so even without you asking. As such, could I ask for the favour of being present while you will read the content of the message from your father?"


    While the words of the messenger held some value, I would never trust them as much as to move all my resources and focus towards war. In fact, I never intended to rely on the noble assembly to turn this war around, as if the Muscovites were following the future Zhukov, then unless I could somehow break the morale of the entire army in a single, decisive victory, then the war would turn into a prolonged period of madness that would bring ruin to both sides!


    "I will allow that. Men, fetch the letter and bring it to me."


    Yet even after Kristina got it in her hands, rather than reading it out loud, she skimmed through the content with her own eyes before passing this piece of paper to me with her normally smooth forehead now scarred by a long wrinkle.


    Taking the paper to my hands, I quickly scanned it.


    "... overwhelming advantage in terms of numbersˇ­"


    "... estimated to bring nearly two hundreds of thousands of peopleˇ­"


    "... like locusts, eating anything and everything on their pathˇ­"


    Seeing that this messenger was not exaggerating at all, I realised that this event was kind of too big to be caused by my own actions alone. There was no way that such a huge army would be assembled in just those few months that I lived in this timeline if there wasn''t someone pulling the strings from behind!


    Did that mean that I wasn''t the only one who was transported through the time? Was this entire life of mine nothing else but ultra-detailed and realistic experience of the world Universalis five, game?!


    "Fuckˇ­ That''s not goodˇ­ No, we don''t have time to waste. Given the circumstances, I hope you can help me get as much gunpowder as you can, as I will be recreating the weapons that I deemed to be too brutal and lethal to be used in any real scale wars. By the time I will get back from the capital, I hope to see a huge pile of fine gunpowder in my storage back in the mining town, west of the Sandomir. In exchange, I will supply as many rifles as my workers will be capable of producing, along with the infamous reaper guns!"


    Given the nature of the war that apparently already started and was ongoing for as long as it took this messenger to reach the hinterlands of the country all the way from Commonwealth eastern borders, only by creating a new and more efficient model of machine guns could I hope to make any real impact on its outcome.


    After all, nothing was more discouraging for the simple folks to charge ahead, that the sights of entire swaths full of their comrades falling apart after the wave upon wave of bullets would shred them to pieces!


    "Elia, you will be returning back to Tarn¨®w. Take all the profits front he marketplace and send recruit as many able-bodied men as the money would allow in the long term. El, you take the fastest horse of ours and travel to the mining town. Pass them the news to focus all their efforts on multiplying the production of the guns and their parts. Ask some of the craftsmen to open my drawer and pull the blueprint for the reaper guns from it. If they can improve it then great, if not, ask them to just produce what they can. Both of you, take five men with you each, I don''t want to risk anyone harming you on the way. I myself will be going to the capital!"

 224 Insane news

    15th July 1574


    "I don''t like what''s going on right now. El, hold your horses, you are going with us."


    With how the initial route that all three of us along with our respective escort would have to take, there was no point in separating right away. Yet despite that, prompted by the direness of the situation that could be concluded from the content of the letter, El was actually willing to murder his horses only to get back to his destination a few moments earlier than if he were to travel with us!


    "What do you mean, you don''t like it? As if anyone actually liked the warˇ­"


    Looking to the side where Elia was sitting, I could see how my words made her quite agitated. Yet it seemed that she misunderstood what I really meant with them.


    "Dearˇ­ I didn''t mean war. It''s obvious that I don''t like itˇ­ What I meant with my previous sentence, is how we are basing our actions on just a single shred of paper alone. What if that messenger was bogus just like the one that warned us about Ropian being attacked? What are the chances that a major family like Ostros would go out of their way to attack such a small town only to be branded as traitors and be squashed with the combined might of the rest of the country?"


    In the end, I decided to ignore the warning of that dubious messenger. Even if my actions could influence the way in which the history would play out, I couldn''t believe that easily that such a huge regional power would decide to bet its entire strength and influence only for the sake of conquering a single or two cities!


    "So that''s what you meantˇ­ Well, to be quite honest, I''m both surprised and not with that war. It was given that sooner or later the conflict would start, but I thought that they would rather vie for the throne as soon as it would be confirmed to be vacant rather than trying to take it by force. I guess they didn''t learn their history lesson."


    Shrugging her arms, Elia looked away, focusing her sight at the east, as if in an attempt to pry through the vast distance that separated us from the potential front lines.


    "As for thatˇ­ I can''t be as sure as it didn''t really happen. In the end, it gives us a great opportunity. Considering how Jan of Sandomir changed his behaviour when I announced that I was going to build up my own force, now I have the legitimate reason to do it. As for whether this war is real or not, it doesn''t change the fact that we will be left with the most powerful units in the entire world. So even if both the invasion of Ostros and the Russian is nothing more than a ploy to put us in some kind of disadvantageous position by making us overreact, by the time it will all be unraveled back to the normal situation, we will end up stronger than ever before, while our enemies will be left in the dust that our movements will create!"


    "I truly hope that will be the case, but please, do not underestimate others. The fact that you are one of a kind type of genius doesn''t make everyone else stupid."


    For the first time since we got married, I could see Elia sending me a look of disapproval. Maybe it was because I got too emotional, or maybe because of the stress of the current situation weighed down on her, or maybe even because she was worried about her hometown of Pilzno. Either way, all my motivation instantly went down the drain, as I approached her and brought her into my arms.


    "I''m sorry, I won''t act carelessly. That was just my silly attempt to push the worried out of my head for a moment."


    As my words entered Elia''s ear, I could feel her body relaxing for a moment, before a shout from the shore broke this tranquil moment.


    "MIKE! FINALLY FOUND YOU!"


    Pushing Elia to the side in worry that this shout was just a stupid act of one of my enemies who couldn''t hold themselves back from announcing their attack before actually executing it, I turned my head to the direction where the voice came from.


    "Waitˇ­ Is thatˇ­ Kalen?!"


    Along the shore of the river that our paddler was using, I saw a man on a horse with two more mounts following behind him. Just this alone was enough to put me on edge, so when I saw him actually jump off the horse directly to the water as he started swimming desperately towards the boat, I didn''t dare to hold myself back.


    "Reverse the engines! We have a new passenger!"


    In a few moments, the ship came to a complete halt, only for the sailors to reconnect the paddlers to the engines in the opposite drive in order to fight against the current and allow Kalen to reach the side of the boat.


    "Pull him in!"


    Seeing this failed inquisitor so desperate to reach me, I couldn''t help but feel a tingle of great worry being born deep in my guts. Not only he wasted a lot of time looking for me with how I was constantly changing my position on the map, he even brought three horses with him, only reinforcing my worries with how great his haste had to be!


    "Mikeˇ­ They attackedˇ­ We sent the messengers, but no help cameˇ­"


    Not wasting any time, as soon as my men pulled Kalen out of the water, he dropped to his knees and fought about his own need to take a proper breath only to give me this insane report.


    "Don''t tell meˇ­ Are Ostros that stupid?!"


    So far, I couldn''t believe that such a huge family would dare to take this step. Yet if that was really the case, then I had to reevaluate everything that I took for granted in this timeline! If even such a great noble household could drop all sense of reason and go at war with me only for the sake of getting their hands on some minor cities, then this Russian invasion suddenly turned far more real!


    "They took the town of Ropianˇ­ We fought, but they brought some kind of strange cannonsˇ­ We sent the call for help, but no one from Tarnow cameˇ­ During your absence, Al managed to pull out the troops and loyal people from Pilzno and headed for Tarnow with me, only to find it besieged as well! We don''t have much time before it will fall!"

 225 Comming back to ones senses

    15th July 1574


    "Fuckˇ­ It can''t be happening all at onceˇ­"


    Hearing Kalen''s words, for the first time since I was moved to this timeline, I realised what pressure of being a lord meant. Should I prioritise the safety of the entire country over my own lands and subjects? Or should I just ignore the greater picture for now and make sure to secure my own power base?


    Even if I were to go with the second option, should I ignore Tarnow and protect the main source of my power, the mining town? Or maybe pull all available troops away and rush to help lift the siege? How about splitting the forces to both have someone protect industrial areas and have something to fight with?


    Overwhelmed with the insane number of possible choices that I had to choose from while knowing that every single decision of mine would result in the cost in human life, I could only rest my bottom against the railing on the boat as I immersed myself in thoughts.


    "Dear, is everything okay?"


    Noticing my plight, Elia almost instantly moved to my side, hugging my arm and trying to force me into looking her in the eyes. Regretfully both for her and me at the same time, with all the order that I took for granted collapsing all at once, gathering back my quick wits and modern thinking wasn''t something that I could just snap my fingers and do.


    "Mike, snap out of it!"


    Taking an entirely different approach, seeing the state that I was in, Kalen ignored his own exhaustion that was written on his face and actually dared to slap me right through my face!


    Shocked by this developed and purely physical abuse, I couldn''t stop myself from raising my stunned gaze while holding my own cheek, only to be met with Kalen''s serious stare.


    "You do not have the right to act like that! If you can''t decide on the course of the action, then just pick a commander that will do it for you. There is nothing wrong with doing so, and it would allow you to focus on finding the ways to turn your funny toys into tools that your soldiers could use! Decide!"


    Maybe due to it being the first time when someone dared to treat me like that in this timeline, or maybe with how similar it was to some of myˇ­ more personal supervisors back in my original life, I somehow managed to get right back into my business mindset. After all, war was no different than moving one''s assets and subordinates around to prevent your competition from achieving their targets!


    "Give me a map."


    With my voice back to its normal, commanding tone, I could see the relief on both Elia''s and Kalen''s faces. Little did they know, that what I was about to decide would put both of them in the situation that a madman would be jealous of.


    "Yes, sir!"


    Yet even before the loyal sailor of mine could return I already looked back at Kalen with a mix of self-satisfaction and pity.


    "I''m glad that you took the time and effort to find me personally. Hearing the news from anyone else I would ignore them. But sadly, I can''t let you rest. As soon as we will get to the Sandomir, both you and El will have to travel east, as far as you deem necessary to confirm the rumours. Once you will be able to bring enough evidence or witnesses to convince anyone daring to put the war into doubt, head back to the Sandomir and then to Capital. We will need any help we can get."


    In the end, even if Ostros aggression was confirmed, I couldn''t say the same about the war with Russia. While I had no doubt that if one of the Polish major noble households could go against the entire country in their bid for power, then Commonwealth major rival would have the guts to do the same unless I could provide sufficient evidence that the war was actually already ongoing, some of those old fuckers at Senate would be sure to put that into doubt.


    "On the other side, Elia, dear. I hope you won''t mind the two of us going down the annals of history as a pair of bloodthirsty demons."


    With the plan already formulating in my head, I looked back at my Fiancee, trying to gauge whether such a title would bother her. Yet even if she were to be against it, there wasn''t that much that I could do to prevent others from calling the two of us like that, if what I had in my head were to come into fruition.


    "As long as it will let you regain what we already lost, and protect what still remains in our hands, I''m down."


    Contrary to my worries, there wasn''t even a hint of hesitation on the face of my beloved. Maybe it was the effect of seeing the reaper guns in actions? If that was to be the case, then she surely wouldn''t mind watching them tear through the lines of those who dared to antagonise us either!


    "Wait a moment, while I''m all happy that you are back to your senses, mind telling me what rumours are we supposed to check? Did something huge happened while I was away?"


    Seeing the look of curiosity on Kalen''s face, I only now realised how his earlier, quite disrespectful actions came only from how he thought I was unwilling to go and defend my own lands. If that was the case, then it was no wonder that he got so angry!


    "You see, there is a huge chance that Muscovites attackedˇ­ No, swarmed Commonwealth borders and are burning our lands already."

 226 Painful question

    15th July 1574


    "Ohˇ­ So that''s why you were so depressed back thenˇ­"


    Suddenly limping out as if a huge burden appeared on top of his shoulders, Kalen even had to go as far as to grab the railing of the boat to prevent himself from staggering and falling over.


    "Do you need me to slap you back?"


    Seeing the chance to use my own comeback as a way to fix back the desperate mood of everyone on the ship, I replied with a smug smirk.


    "No, that won''t be necessary. Go on."


    While useless in the greater scale of things, this small exchange managed to achieve the intended effect. Right now, the men around us were focused more on our slight bickering rather than the reality of how hard times were ahead of us.


    "Okay then, rather than trying to tackle this entire, messy situation at once, let''s list out what problems do we have to face. By splitting them into four categories, of those important and urgent, those that are important but not urgent, those that are urgent but not important and those that fail to meet either requirement."


    Since I was going against the brutal approach of the current age, the best way to face it was to use the methods of future times. Just this small trick of Eisenhower matrix would allow us to realise what we really had to focus on, letting us to not divert our attention towards the stuff that could wait or was not important at all in the first place.


    "Starting with stuff that''s both urgent and important, it''s recovering Tarnow and securing Mining Town. With how the war might be already ongoing, whether the reinforcements will come at a certain time or a week later, it won''t really make any difference. Then, we have matters important, but not urgent at all."


    While it pained me to decide whether the lives of some people in my country were more important than the others, when the push came to shove, supporting my own subjects had to go first. With how I had no idea what kind of thing pushed Ostros to go against me, I couldn''t rule out the fact that they would attempt to ostracize me in order to push their blame on my shoulders. If that would be the case, then I could only count on those already loyal to me, as no more fresh manpower would bother to join the case of an alleged traitor.


    "That''s where we should place the potential war with Muscovy. No matter how hasty we are, unless we confirm that the message that Zamoyski household received is true and legitimate, attempting to raise the army could create a lot of enemies amongst the nobility. That''s also where your job will come."


    Moving my eyes on top of El''s and Kalen''s faces, I made sure that they understood the weight of the mission that I gave to them. Only after their nodded their heads in confirmation to my silent question, did I dare to move on.


    As obvious as it could be if I were to simply give up on my current main source of income, even if my projects from the mining town would allow me to keep my financial stability, just the fact that someone dared to raise his hand against my own land would turn us into eternal enemies. After all, as someone from the relatively peaceful, modern times, I watched enough war movies to know in advance how I would treat anyone who would dare to do harm to my hometown!


    "That''s all nice and dandy, but what about the mining town itself? I wouldn''t be that surprised if attacks on Pilzno and Tarnow were just a diversion aimed at paralysing our economical prowess. After all, even Ostros can''t be that stupid to miss this point!"


    Once again, Elia managed to catch me by a surprise. With how her own hometown most likely already succumbed to the attacks of those damned Ostros, I thought that she would be all for focusing all of our efforts on recovering our lands, yet she still managed to keep her head cool enough to not miss this important point!


    "While I really do value your input, I already have a solution to this problem. Despite wasting quite a lot of resources to implement it and most likely scrapping it as soon as those problematic times will be over, I don''t think we need to worry about wasting some of our spare steel or iron. As for Tarnowˇ­"


    To be quite frank, I would love if I could just get my soldiers, pack them on the boats and drop them off somewhere near the enemy camp, only to storm it out and kill anyone who dared to disrespect my right of ownership.


    Yet as sad as gladdening it was, there was no way for me to act so recklessly. Even if I were to simply ignore all the problem regarding supplies of all kind, securing the roads to transport it, moving all the troops, finding a safe spot for them to landˇ­


    The more I thought about the simplest of the problems, the greater my realisation was of the real scale of the war. After all, I didn''t have oil-powered trucks to carry the supplies for my entire army on a single trunk!


    Yet even without caring about all those auxiliary matters, there was still an important question that had to be asked in advance, as to prevent my people from freaking out when the situation that I was worried about would turn into reality.


    "Guysˇ­ While I would love to just come in, grab my troops and get outˇ­ We need to debate how we should act if Governor will refuse us the right to pass through his lands. Or rather, to put it simply, what are we going to do if Jan turns out to be yet another traitor?"

 227 Betrayal part 1

    16th July 1574


    With how we departed from Zamosc in the early afternoon, even if we strained ourselves and risked crashing the ship against the rocks at the bottom of the small river that we were using to travel, we couldn''t reach Sandomir earlier than in the early stage of the night. With that being the case and my personal doubts about whether Jan would still welcome me as his friend rather than as his enemy, I decided it would be for the best to at least take a good rest before reaching the city.


    In the end, if everything were to go awry from this point on, this could very well be the last night that I could spend together with Elia!


    Yet as the morning came, we couldn''t let ourselves just cuddle our day through. As much as reaching Sandomir filled me with worry, it was something that I had to do. Without the safe passage through this part of the Vistula, and alerting him about the potential war in the east, even if I were to reach Mining Town in one piece, I wouldn''t be capable of bringing my own troops, and especially the heavy equipment that I was going to procure, with me.


    "Okay guys, I know this might sound bad, but I need you all to be ready for everything. I wouldn''t overexaggerate if I were to say that the current times are what God''s apostles most likely meant by the apocalypse!"


    No matter how much I would abhor myself later of for bringing a religion, something that the people of this age were very susceptible for, into my motivational speech before we would rush towards Sandomir, it was something that had to be done. Unless I could make them perceive themselves as potential martyrs, they would most likely hesitate to potentially go against the immense force of the Governor.


    Yet as I thought about it, I simply didn''t have any other choice. If my current investments were to all go down the drain with Jan siding against me, all three cities of mine in the south lost and the mining town remaining the only part of my wealth that would have the means to defend itself, then no matter how much strength I would bring to the table, I would be ultimately considered a traitor anyway.


    Not because I ever dared to go against the country. Not because I stirred some troubles in any place. All because one of the magnates decided to aim for my lands and managed to poach someone that I considered an ally into his own faction!


    "Yet as hard as it will be on us, we must press on. Our brothers and sister in the east are being murdered, raped and skinned alive, while Ostros dare to use this dear country of ours as their private folwark!*" (A/N it''s basically noble''s living mansion with the attached territory, personal space)


    Looking at the faces of my men as we were slowly closing in to the border of the city, I made sure to look into the eyes of each and every single one of them.


    To be frank, while this speech of mine didn''t hold any legislative power, as long as even a single subordinate were to survive the incoming ordeal, some of the ideas passed in such speech would reach the ears of the wider audience. While it was way too late for the revolutionary movements to start, even if I were to die and not achieve anything in this strange transmigrated life of mine, I could at least set the spark of the growth that could result in the polish nation forming way faster than other European cultures turned into national communities!


    Yes as I was about to continue my speech, I saw that the eyes of my men moved from my face towards the distance where the Sandomier was. Guessing what that meant, I turned my head around only to see a huge cloud of dust rising beside the city gates.


    "Men! For the last time, I really hope that our friend and protector, governor Jan, didn''t decide to side with the traitors, yet it''s not something that I can guarantee. And since that''s the reason, we have no other choice than to be prepared to fight for our lives if that''s what God has in store for us!"


    Finishing off my short speech on that note, I picked up my personal rifle and checked out whether all the bullets were properly locked in their sockets on the magazine. Attaching yet another cylindrical mag to my belt, I turned my head to Elia.


    "May this day be just one of the moments we will remember with pride while spending our leisure elder years."


    Smiling at my wife, I couldn''t help but notice how she looked at me with a defiant stare before picking one of the rifles herself. Seeing the resolve behind her pupils, I could only sigh and turn back towards the city before moving towards the front of the ship. Now all that was left, was for me to await the arrival of the visitors.


    "Stand down and stop your ship!"


    As soon as the cavalry arrived, one of its officers pushed his horse forward, shouting his order.


    "Who are you and why are you stopping us?!"


    Resting my front leg on the railing of the boat, I made sure that my rifle resting on my locked arms would be perfectly visible to the soldier.


    "Mike of Tarnow, you are accused of treason against the country and the senate of the commonwealth! Drop your weapons and follow us to the city, so that we could bring you to your trial!"


    Just as I was worried, it seemed that rather than taking the blame for their actions, Ostros somehow manage to push their own version of the events. Yet even knowing that this was the case, I wouldn''t just step down and rest my fate in the hands of my enemies. After all, it didn''t take a genius to realise that the moment I obediently turned myself in, all the chances at ever saving my subjects and lands would be gone.


    "And who is the one accusing me of the treason?! Step forth if you dare!"


    As I shouted those words back at the soldier, I moved from a relaxed position to one that allowed me to quickly take aim and get rid of anyone who would dare to start the attack.


    "I do."


    Yet rather than the attack commencing, a silhouette moved past the soldiers, freezing my blood the moment I recognised its face.


    "So you still decided to side with the traitorsˇ­"


    Despite the fair distance of nearly sixty meters, I still believed that my hateful gaze managed to reach Jan''s eyes. If he was the one pushing for my end, then all that was left in store for me in this life, was to fight for what was right!


    "Mike, please, don''t tread on this path any further! I really don''t want to make an enemy out of you!"

 228 Betrayal part 2

    16th July 1574


    "You still have the guts to spew such bullshit after already picking a side? To think that I once considered you an honourable man who held his homeland in high regard!"


    With Jan openly coming out to denounce me, I couldn''t hold my emotions back. While I felt that his allegiances started to change all the way back when I refused the position of the country''s econom, but back then, I just thought that he was disappointed with what he took for the lack of ambition.


    Who could''ve known that this guess of mine would turn out to be a great underestimation?!


    "Insulting me won''t get you anywhere. I don''t know why you did what you did, but your recklessness ends here. I''m asking one last time, lay down your weapons and surrender. Your crimes will be judged by the senate and I will guarantee your safety all the way there, that''s the least I can do when taking our relationship into account."


    Hearing those words, I snapped. Rather than aiming my rifle at this haughty noble, my face twisted in an unsightly manner as I looked at him as if he was some kind of pest.


    "You say you value our relationship? Then at least stop giving me that crap and openly admit that you are fucking traitor! But fear not, even if you somehow manage to kill me here, as soon as my men return with the news from the east, everyone in my developing area will raise up against you!"


    At this point, I couldn''t care less about this man. At one moment he was speaking about what kind of great relationship we use to have, only to call me a traitor in the very next sentence. Even the fact that I could see some carriages rushing from the city towards his position with the very reaper guns that I offered to him, wouldn''t stop me from fighting till the end!


    After all, being the very inventor of those guns, I know their drawbacks and faults better than anyone else!


    Yet just as I was about to turn to my men and order to put the engine on the reverse run as to move us near the opposite shore so that the range advantage of my rifles could be used, I saw something that I didn''t expect. A face of honest surprise of this former friend and protector of mine!


    "News from the east? Just what kind of scheme are you trying to come up with right now? On the account of all your inventions so far, I will let you flaunt your wits one last time!"


    While it was obvious that this was nothing more than a move aimed at stalling for time with how it would still take a bit of time before the reaper guns would arrive at the scene, I could tell with almost perfect certainty that mentioning east somehow managed to catch Jan off-guard.


    Yet rather than preparing for the combat, I realised that something was insanely wrong!


    And if the eastern war wasn''t a part of Ostros plan, then should I consider it as something that was likely a truth?


    With how complicated this issue is, I didn''t even realise when I rested my side against the ship''s railing while putting my hand on my chin as I immersed myself in deep thoughts.


    If we assumed that the invasion really did happen, then there were only two possibilities. Either Ostros knew about it in advance and picked the right moment to make their move, indicating that rather than trying to topple me, they were actually set on carving their own country from the falling state of the commonwealth.


    On the other hand, if they didn''t know shit about it, then their aggression, both in a political and military sense, would be the act of the treason against the common cause!


    Yet before I could figure out which of the possibilities were the truth, the time that I had to immerse myself in my own thoughts ran out. With the two carriages mounted with reaper guns on top of them arriving at the scene, Governor just received the ultimate card he could use to force my surrender.


    "Mike, your time is over. Surrender now orˇ­"


    "Can you stop for a moment? Can''t you see that I''m trying to figure out just what the fuck is going on? Wait, can you actually tell me just what am I even accused of?"


    Despite how tense the current situation was, I knew that if I allowed myself to think about literally anything other than the current situation, I would lose my only chance to find the crux of the matter.


    "Wait, what? Eh, have it your way. You are accused of selling your weapons to the enemies of the state and instigating those people to revolt against the Senate in order to abolish our golden liberty andˇ­ ughˇ­ Now that I said that out loud, I realise how stupid that soundsˇ­"


    Hearing what Jan just said, I understood two things at once. First, the enemy that was hidden behind all the forces that were already on the move, was far smarter than I actually expected. Rather than coming up with some utter bullshit, he actually took something that I considered on my own accord, mixed what I actually planned to do by installing Batory on the throne, and just spiced things up a bit by adding an element that would turn any noble against me.


    With how everyone interested could easily learn that I was the first one to use those reaper guns, with how Jan was one of the firsts to learn about my new rifle, it only made sense that this story had the elements that involved those moves of mine. Since I saw Jan''s reaction to the prowess of those guns, it was given that he wouldn''t hesitate to stop someone daring to sell it to the enemies of the state!


    Yet even with how dire that kid of enemy would make my current situation, there was one aspect to him that was even worse. Actually, this kind of social technique of manipulating information wasn''t something that people of this day and age knew how to use. One had to dabble in the propaganda of media for quite a lot before learning how to use such tricks to create a believable lie, or rather, fake news.


    And that could mean only one thing.


    I wasn''t the only one who moved from modern times to this timeline!


    Did that mean, that this great clan of Ostros that I would otherwise respect, was actually lead by a player that was out for my blood?!

 229 Mikes scheme

    16th July 1574


    As devastating this realisation was, there was no way for me to confirm this. After all, it was nothing more than just a hunch! Yet with that notion at the back of my mind, I had to make sure that all the movements I would make would be aimed at someone no less than a potent enemy!


    "Hey, Jan, can you come on board for a moment? Or no, can we have a talk somewhere where both your and my people will see the two of us, but won''t be able to hear what we will be talking about?"


    Rather than trying to convince everyone that I wasn''t the traitor that they took me to be, it would be far more efficient to just talk this through with Jan in a calm and composed manner. In the end, I wasn''t even sure if it would be a good idea to clean my name so soon, as long as I could get him to protect my lands and pass the message to my workers to ramp up the weapons production!


    "What, you want to have a duel? If that''s your intention, then be my guest! Men, move away!"


    Seeing how either he greatly misunderstood my intentions or was witty enough to comprehend them perfectly, I could only smile as I turned on my feet to my men.


    "Bring us closer to the shore."


    Even though swimming those fewteen meters that separated us from the land wouldn''t be a challenge for me, if anything were to go wrong, swimming back would be the real problem, especially under constant fire of Jan''s troops!


    Seeing how the paddlers of the boat once again started moving in the proper direction, I waited for a moment for the ship to reach as close to the land as it could without risking any damage to its hull. Only when sailors finally reversed the engine to lose the momentum did I gather my wits and jumped from the ship directly into the water.


    Just a moment later, I finally reached the dry land, instantly turning it wet from all the water that was flowing down from my body and clothes to the ground.


    "Okay then, what did you want to speak about?"


    Clearly trying to ignore the fact that I was still soaked with water, Jan didn''t bother himself with offering me any sort of blanket or anything like that. After all, no matter what he said, he still most likely considered me to have something to do with treason, even if the officially given cause was nothing short of bullshit.


    "First thing first, we can''t clear my name yet. Rather than that, you need to help me build the legend of my exploits and make me the worst, demonic traitor that ever existed to date. While I will go and lift the siege of Tarnow myself, I will leave it in your hands to keep it safe from those Ostros bastards."


    Considering how Jan was surprised by my mentions of the east, I could only assume that telling him to only reinforce the rumours about me being a traitor where my demeanour clearly hinted that I wasn''t one would make him listen closely to my next words.


    Word by word, I finally reached the huge reveal. Considering how tense the situation was already, only adding the fuel to the fire by hinting at the invasion without actually explaining it could be considered a risky move, yet I still decided to go with it!


    And I didn''t have to wait for the results of my daring approach for long!


    "Invasion?!"


    Shouting out loud, Jan instantly collected himself upon realising that if anyone were to get a hold of that news, the entirety of my plan would instantly go down the drain.


    "Invasion? Russian one at that? Is that the reason why you were so troubled back on the ship?"


    Finally catching up to the speed, Jan looked as if he just swallowed something sour. In fact, I could understand why he looked like this. No matter what, in the past as far as one could remember, the rivalry between Muscovites and Commonwealth, sparked by their shared claim to the Russian part of the Grand Princedom of Lithuania, kept going. Even if most of the time Commonwealth managed to keep its ground, it didn''t mean that the wars with its eastern neighbour weren''t exhausting.


    "It''s not just an invasion. Here, read this. It''s a latter I was tasked by Kristina from Zamosc to pass on to the capital."


    As I passed this barely holding together piece of paper to the governor''s hands, I could see how just this fact alone forced the expression on his face to change drastically.


    "So you went to visit Zamoyski family recently? What for?"


    Despite clearly glancing over the letter, Jan was still more interesting with an irrelevant detail of my story. Yet considering my current position and how much I had to rely on his silent support to save both my own lands and the country at a whole, I didn''t have any way to voice my protest.


    "If you were to visit the mining area''s now, you would realise that the treeline that initially reached the buildingsˇ­ Is now barely visible from the middle of the arena. Heck, that was the case when I went there the last time! As most of the wood is used to create charcoal, if we keep going like that, this furniture manufactory of mine won''t get any wood for itself. That''s why, I had to find a way to obtain another resource that those lands lack, that could replace charcoal as the main fuel for the economy."


    This was never supposed to be a secret. While coal was already well-known fire fuel in the world, it never reached the level of common usage anywhere else than in England. That''s why, revealing that I was intending to use it as the proper fuel rather than relying on charcoal was not something that would give me any form of an advantage other than the fact that being the first to start producing it when everyone else would catch up to the level of steam horses, they would have to rely on me!


    "Wait, I don''t get this. If you are looking for an alternate source of fuel to wood and charcoal, wouldn''t it be only harder to get it all the way from Zamoyski family lands? Even if they have that coal or something, just the costs of bringing it to the mining town would be far more than enough to hire more people to just bring more and more wood!"


    Hearing Jan''s words, I couldn''t help but smile. As great of a man and administrator he was, he couldn''t comprehend the basic principle of industrialization. It was true that I could just gnash my teeth and start hiring even more people just to obtain enough wood to supply all my projects. It was also true that it would be far cheaper than setting a carriage route, not to speak about creating the world''s first train line. Yet there was one, a single advantage that coal had over those falsely cheaper options.


    "You see, after putting the initial investment in coal, it will cost me nearly nothing to obtain it. That''s why, rather than constantly paying more and more only to bring wood to the place where it''s needed, I will build a steam horse-based vehicle that will connect the iron mining site with coal mining site, allowing for a free and quick flow of the resources between those two!"


    Some people said that it wasn''t the firearms or numerical advantage that allowed the whites to conquer entire northern America, but the existence of train. It was their ability to move men and resources through the vast distances of land in a quick manner that proved to be a deciding factor in regards to settling that continent!


    And just a single look at the map of Commonwealth would prove that its situation was almost exactly the same. If not for this invasion happening right now, if only I would get enough time to create just a few train lines that would connect the furthest ends of the country with each other, then no army and no country would be capable of ever posing any threat to this land!


    "I''m not gonna lie, you already bought me with that steam horse-powered vehicle. Seeing how insane effects it can bring with simple machines, I don''t even want to imagine what you would be capable of creating in terms of logisticˇ­ But rather than that, now I''m finally certain that those rumours about your treason were just a bunch of lies. Yet, as much as I would love to believe in you myself, I need something that will allow me to convince other great nobles. Could you maybe draw the blueprint of that steam-powered vehicle for me? With my word and your contribution, no one would dare to claim you went against the will of the country!"


    Watching how the Governor''s face changed as he spoke was truly an amazing experience. Whenever he would finish his sentence, his voice would turn louder along with his excitement, only to be toned down as soon as he realised that he should prevent others from hearing him.


    "Yeah, just bring me a piece of paper and something to write and I will do it in a moment. Just keep in mind, I can only produce a rough draft as there are still a lot of details to fix. But let me ask this, why do you need said proof in the first place? Wouldn''t it be better to just bait everyone by dangling my treason in front of their eyes?"


    As much as it irked me to be branded a traitor, as long as I could use this to not only save my own lands but also the country as a whole, I didn''t mind sticking with it for a few more days, weeks or even months!


    "No. While I won''t tell a word about your plan to normal nobles or Ostros, if we want to bring a real force to the east, we need the help of other magnates. And you should know better what it means to antagonise them!"

 230 Gathering the supplies

    17th July 1574 night


    "Move those boxes out of the way, we need to load the reaper guns on the ships!"


    With Jan''s help finally granted, reaching back to the mining town wasn''t a problem at all. Freeing me from the burden of coming up with some kind of believable lie that could be used to explain why he did let me through on himself, Governor only asked me to set the entire area for the production of weaponry.


    Yet as much as I would want it to happen, without the proper source of the gunpowder to provide the ammunition for all those weapons, they would be nothing more than just a fancy and expensive sticks!


    "Sir, we will only get to finish a handful of those guns you ordered before the scheduled departure. Wouldn''t it be better to just focus on the things we got used to making?"


    It was true that nearly half of the resources that were previously intended for the repetitive rifles of mine had to be moved over to the makeshift assembly line where the new generation of the reaper guns was in making,


    "It doesn''t matter. We still need those reaper guns, and their assembly line to produce them for the other armies. Even if we don''t get to use them, others will."


    While the matter regarding the potential payment for all the guns that my place would provide was never settled as it would require me to meet with all the interested parties in the first place, as long as my other businesses would be properly protected, I could even just wave my hand and ignore all the losses. At this point, rather than worrying about the money, I had to make sure that the country would remain intact for me to slowly take it over!


    "Are you really sure it''s okay?"


    Turning my head to the side, I saw Elia looking at the entire proceedings with worry. With how considerably early in the night we still were, packing all the stuff on the boats shouldn''t be that hard, yet actually moving all the way back to the Tarnowian trading centre through the night would be a bit challenging.


    "We don''t really have any other choice, do we?"


    With how it was already an entire day since we received the message about the siege of Tarnow, if we dared to waste even more time, then rather than saving it from the ruin, we could very well arrive on the place only to see it burning down!


    "I know this but stillˇ­ It won''t be like it happened with Peterˇ­ We will be going against the major powers int the entire country while being branded as the traitors ourselves! Wouldn''t it be wiser to just head for the capital?"


    As much as I would like to just do what Elia advised me now, with the possibility of the entire attack being orchestrated by yet another man from the future, I couldn''t allow them to get their hands on my beer and steam machines.


    Yet what worried me the most, was how clever the entire ploy was constructed. Using the time when I was away to convince my greatest supporter of my guiltˇ­ If my enemy could time this kind of action so perfectly, then the chances were that he already made sure to secure his bottom in case I would go to the capital to protest!


    "Trust me, I wish to believe that doing so would yield any results. But in our current situation, as we were attacked with force if we fail to respond in the same way, what would become of our reputation? Even if we would be in the right in stopping ourselves from coming to our people rescue, what would happen to Tarnow after it would get burned down? How long it would take to rebuild its power and wealth?"


    Despite how the heavy investments oriented around the mined products were the most important part of my current powerbase, the importance of the Tarnowian beer couldn''t be undermined. With how most of its breweries were located near the castle, the chances were that they managed to salvage most of their expensive stuff back behind the fortifications, yet just the break in the supply chain would already heavily influence the market price of the beer!


    As much as happy I was with how popular this idea of beer turned out to be, by cutting me from the money it generated, Ostros effectively put me on the clock before all my money would run out!


    That''s why, while talking with Jan, I asked him for a paper and something to write. With just a few strokes of my hand, I made sure that as soon as the siege on the city and castle alike would be lifted, all the rights to oversee the castle during the time before my judgment would come, would rest in Jan''s hands!


    This was the only reason to make sure that the market chain that provided my investments with money wouldn''t be stopped. After all, no matter how loyal my workers were, they keep their faith in me due to how generous I was. The moment the money would stop flowing their way, I could very well just take all the gold that I had on me and attempt to start over somewhere else!


    "So no matter what, we are going for a warˇ­"


    Hearing my words, that was the only reaction that Elia could have. As much as the two of us were fed up with all sorts of pointless conflicts, as the situation with Peter proved, forced into the current situation, we wouldn''t shy away from the gauntlet thrown our way!


    "Yes. After all, as soon as we mop up the enemies from around Tarnow, we will be going on the trip to the east!"

 231 Before the attack

    17th July 1574


    "We will drop the people off the ships about six kilometres before reaching the marketplace and make our way there on foot. Only when the signal will be given will the ships reach the shore and support us from the coast. Is that clear?"


    Standing in front of the small crowd of people neatly packed on the board of one of my paddlers, I could see some of the people relaying the orders back to the next boat in the long line of transports that were rushing south.


    With the leading ship and every third of the boats armed with torches on the long sticks, avoiding any crashes should be possible, especially with how relatively short distance we had to cover.


    "As soon as we recover or at least confirm that the marketplace is free from the enemy troops, we will begin unloading all the cargo. Not even a single ship can hold a single weapon, a single piece of ammunition or a pack with food. After all, there is no point in moving anything back to Sandomir."


    With one of my men bringing up a simple map and putting it at the small, holding rack, I picked up the torch and held it close enough to showcase the marked points without actually letting the paper that the map was made with set on fire.


    "Our first target is to secure the market, yet we only need to do so to make the unloading of the boats easier. As such, we won''t really care whether there will be any enemies that will manage to escape. Truth be told, I would even be happy if they managed to reach Tarnow before us, so that the enemies would have enough time to form up rather than intensifying the siege. After all, with the advantage that our weapons give us, there is no point fighting a prolonged battle."


    Moving my torch that also served as the pointing device to the part of the map highlighting the area around the city, I brought the attention of the officers gathered on the deck to the small hill and river that separated the Tarnowian castle hill from the proper town.


    "This is where we will strike first. The river, as small as it is, will give us some sort of cover from potential cavalry flanking, while the hill will shield us from any form of artillery strike that the sieging forces might have on them. As for the other flank at the front itself, we will use the bags."


    In the end, when it came to modern firearms, outside of the range advantage that my rifles had, the fact that they could be loaded on a sitting and even lying position would force certain decisions on our enemies.


    After all, in the current time, if the fight was a cultured one, then two lines of men would stand in front of each other, shoot a volley each, and then go to attack with their bayonets, sabres and all different kinds of cold weapons. Yet this wasn''t the scenario that I pictured in my head!


    Yet rather than giving him the chance to do so, I already came up with the proper countermeasures!


    "Remember guys. It''s not our point to enter a long and drawn-out fight. We don''t want to decimate our enemies either completely. As much as I hate them for branding us as traitors only to strike in the source of our gold, it doesn''t change the fact that they are still soldiers. And as you might already know from our earlier talks, we need every man we could get to repel the Russian invasion later. That''s why, as soon as the enemy will start to panic and scatter, all we want is to take back the city, destroy their sieging encampments and make sure no one will be able to lay the siege on Tarnow without starting everything from scratch!"


    As much as artillery and firearms changed the world of sieges, so did the fortifications that were built to counteract them. Back in the older, medieval ages sieges were all about either starving the enemy or putting a hole big enough in their walls to attempt charge. Yet in the current times, it was all about the attacking side reaching the point where defending the city no longer had any sense.


    After all, no one wanted to die heroic death just for the sake of his home and family being robbed, killed and burned down to the ground!


    "As for our deployments, I will hold all of you personally responsible for all your men preparing and carrying their own bags. I know it will be annoying to carry them all this distance, but in the off-chance that our enemy will manage to react a bit faster than we expect, those bags will be our trump card over their attempt to scatter our counterattack before it even begins!"


    Feeling one of the sailors tapping me on the shoulder, I realised that the time for motivational or organisational speeches was over. Shaking my head to get rid of all the lingering doubts and hesitation, I raised my face back to the officers in front of me.


    "This day, and today''s battle, will decide not only the fate of our lands and wealth but also the fate of the entire country. I won''t feed you bullcrap about being heroes. We are not. But don''t forget. What we are fighting for is not as small as the common skirmishes between neighbours. What we are fighting for, is our families, our lands, and most importantly, our freedom!"


    Shouting those words was as embarrassing as it could get. Yet, by seeing the heated looks on my officer''s faces despite almost complete lack of lighting in the area, I had to admit that contrary to my expectations, those words still achieved what I hoped they would. After all, without years of watching television series and dramas about last stands and heroic battles, telling those men that they would be responsible for the future of the entire country was bound to have a far more significant effect than doing the same to someone who understood just what kind of bullcrap those words in fact were!


    Yet as much as I would like to revel in this moment of achievement and authentic leadership, there was simply no time to do so. As I couldn''t control the course of the ships at the same time as giving a speech to my men, it was all up to sailors to inform me when we would reach close enough to the shore for the troops to start jumping out.


    And feeling yet another tap on my shoulder, I realised that the time to start the war finally came.


    "Men! I wish you all the best, and I hope we will return to the mining town with the same number as we departed with! Without further ado, let''s go!"


    Despite being a noble and having the chance just to oversee the entire conflict from a safe spot, I threw it all back to my head and after grabbing the railing of the boat, jumped out directly to the shallow waters of the local river.


    It was time to start the bloodshed!

 232 Lining up

    17th July 1574


    After all of my troops outside of the people required on the ships to protect them from potential raids finally moved on the dry land, the worst part of the entire event was in front of us. With only a single shovel per entire squad of twenty people, filling up the bags with dirt dug out directly from the ground, finishing this one vital part of our war preparations took way longer than I would like to.


    At this point, one might ask, why didn''t we take more shovels? Or why wouldn''t we fill those bags directly on the site where the fighting would take place?


    As smart as those questions would be, the reality was unforgiving. With all the troops that I had to gather on the limited number of ships that I could use, all the ammo, weapons and rations, there simply wasn''t enough space to fit additional shipful of shovels!


    And with that said, trying to fill all the bags with cavalry potentially trying to get to our flank while under constant fire of the enemy troops that wouldn''t just stupidly wait for us to finish whatever we were doing, we had no other choice than to prepare beforehand.


    Yet even with how long it took for this part to be finished when it finally was over, the mentally worst part came. As easy as walking on the roads through the nights could sound, for my people who never went through the hellish training known from the modern militaries, doing so while weighted by their rifle, provisions, a bag full of sand and ammunition, could easily turn into a nightmare. When one added the fact that the last day was filled with rain, turning the so-called roads into nothing more than muddy paths, travelling turned out to be even harder than expected.


    Seeing as everything was happening way slower than I hoped and even expected it would, I couldn''t help but recall the popular saying from back on earth.


    "All plans survive until the first meeting with enemy or obstacle."


    If not for the fact that outside of playing World Universalis I also had my chance to dip my hands a bit into the absolute war series, then coping up with the insanely slow pace of my troops would get me crazy.


    Yet there was simply nothing that I could do about it!


    But despite how slow we were, it took us only about an hour or just a bit more to reach the outskirts of the market, from where we could already see the buildings that were finished just a few weeks ago.


    Just like this market turned out to be a great success, it only required a single week to get going, and another one to gain its deserved fame. With the modern way of operating aking to that of a stock market of the future, a lot of merchants saw the allure in it, not to speak about the ability to buy this famed beer of mine from here!


    Yet as much as I expected this entire place to be overrun with enemies when I finally could see what was going near the buildings, I couldn''t help but be flabbergasted!


    "Al, get some met to scout the situation. If there are no hostilities so far, then I don''t want to upset the status quo without a reason."


    While the port in the marketplace was vital for all my plans, if my action of using it would lead to the devastation of this place, I would have no other choice than to withdraw and think about another plan!


    Thinking about this, there could be only three reasons for the current situation. First, Ostros didn''t want to upset the balance of the market, as they hoped to take control over it. That would mean that the troops camping outside were placed in the area only to deter the local garrison from stirring up any trouble, as there was no way for an untrained militia with the normal type of current-day guns to cope with the onslaught of battle-hardened soldiers.


    On the other hand, the merchants themselves might be responsible for creating this status quo. As much as the middle class was bullied in the entire country with the entire focus of the society placed on the nobility, one couldn''t be too cautious when dealing with them. Just as I came up with the plan that every ship of mine that transported goods from the border to the marketplace would be outfitted with a unit of my soldiers, since I never had the time to implement this time, I could say with an honest dose of certainty, that outside of being wealthy beyond any imagination, this place was brimming with veteran mercenaries that the merchants brough with them!


    "Sir, we brough the news. It appears that there is some kind of deal and blockade between the market and the units. From what we learned, as long as they stay within the building''s area and limit their actions to sending ships, they were guaranteed safety!"


    And that report was enough to assure me that the third and the worst possibility, wasn''t thankfully the case. If the city was in fact already filled with Ostros troops, awaiting my arrival only to spring the trap right up my ass, then even with those great weapons of mine, taking this place back would be a nightmare!


    "Okay then, we will follow the original plan. Get in the open and get to work!"


    As stupid as it may seem for anyone watching us, as soon as my order was relayed to the other units that already used the time that we had to waste while waiting for the report to spread around the entire enemy encampment.


    Yet as much as the moonless night gave us the advantage in terms of the time it would take the enemies to notice our movements, by the time only about a half of my troops prepared their positions, alarm bells finally started going off between the dark tents.


    In just a few moments, the opposing force managed to assemble, showcasing just how insanely well-trained and organised they were. But even with that incredible edge that they had over my measly trained troops, the time they had to take to form, was just enough for my men to finish their own preparations!


    Moving to the very front of the curved line that enclosed the enemy between my reinforced line of men and the line of the marketplace buildings, I crossed my arms on my chest and stared in the distance, just barely outside of the effective range of the enemy weapons.


    "What are you going to do now?"


    Whispering to myself, I took my sweet time to locate the enemy field commander, placing himself in a very similar position to my own. As our eyes met, despite the darkness of the night and the distance that separated us, I could bet that he was asking the exact same reason as I just did!


    "Men, advance!"

 233 Fire at will!

    17th July 1574 late night/very early morning


    As stupid as it might seem to attack the moment the firing positions were finally ready, I had to somehow bait my opponent into attacking. With the edge that my weapons gave us over the enemy force, rather than allowing my men to get into the danger zone of hostile fire, I could simply place them at the very edge of their own effective range, forcing the enemy commander to respond to this action in any way.


    "Men! On me!"


    Not even bothering to draw my own weapon, I started moving forward. Step by step, the entire line of my men continued to close on our enemies. Looking at the other side of the soon-to-be battlefield, I could see that contrary to my own orders, they actually closed their ranks and formed in a half-circle formation, using the line of the buildings as the protection for their rear, just as much as I wanted to use it as an anvil on which my troops would smash them apart.


    "Stop!"


    Before any of my men would dare to step into the lethal or even dangerous range of the enemy muskets, I ordered a full stop.


    "Take aim!"


    I could already feel the exhilaration of the war. As if some kind of ancient warcry synchronised with my soul, I could see how the entire battle would play out. Despite it being physically impossible, I could swear I was capable of seeing the look of irritation mixed with contempt on the face of the enemy commander.


    Who would make their troops fire at that distance?


    "Fire!"


    All at once, my men spewed fire towards the enemy encampment. With the accuracy of my rifles, shooting at the group of men trying to stick as close together as they could was easy even for those barely trained men of mine.


    As soon as the flash of our shoots disappeared and my eyes once again accommodated themselves to the darkness of the night, I could see several silhouettes of the enemy troops failing to the ground, with several more of them wobbling on their feet.


    Just as ordered.


    The reaping this time wasn''t as great as one could predict when taking all the benefits of my weapon, situation and formation into account. Yet it wasn''t the imperfection of my troops'' aim, but explicit orders for more than half of them to actually aim way above the heads of the enemies!


    If I were to the full extend of my hand so early, it might scare the enemies off, prompting them to seek refugee amongst the buildings. But right now, I could portray the enemy commander shaking his head with disdain, silently judging the stupid, nervous me!


    "Reload!"


    Despite my rifles no longer using the scheme of muzzle-loading, all men in my line put the backs of their weapons on the ground and started messing around their rifles, as if attempting to load it in the traditional way. So far, so good.


    "Line up!"


    "March forth!"


    Watching the movements of the opposing force, I couldn''t help but feel a little jealous. If only I could get my hands on such a disciplined unit, then the entire world would lie down at my feet!


    Without even a moment of hesitation, all of the enemy men moved up from their half-kneeling position, fixed their weapons in the set position and started marching forward. Completely disregarding their friends who have fallen, at one moment the enemies were waiting for the orders, and at the very next one, they were already reaching the effective firing distance of their rifles!


    "Retreat!"


    Seeing that everything was unfolding according to my plan, I shouted the simple order. In the current situation, if I dared to use anything even a bit more complicated, then despite all the time spent on training back at the mining town, my men would be doomed to make some mistakes that would quickly escalate and turn my entire formation into chaos.


    Yet thankfully, my men somehow managed to follow this simple order.


    Retreating back to the firing positions they prepared beforehand, they quickly laid down directly on the ground, resting the muzzles of their rifles against the bags filled with earth.


    "Halt!"


    Seeing my actions, I could tell how puzzled the enemy commander was. Were we so fast with our reloading that we managed to do it in the short window we had between shooting and the retreat order? I could bet that my counterpart on the other end of the battlefield knew some rumours about the new weapons, but I was just as certain that the details never reached his ears.


    "Take aim!"


    Finally, the enemy commander came to a decision. In fact, it took him only a few seconds to make it, yet with the adrenaline flowing through my veins in some kind of insane amounts, the time stretched itself for me, making every passing second seem like an hour.


    "Fire!"


    With how close the enemy troops now were, I didn''t dare to stand in front. Hiding behind one of the trees that just happened to be beside me, I could hear the havoc that the enemy bullets made in the nearby scrub.


    "Keep steady!"


    Shouting my own words, I made sure they were loud enough to reach the enemy commander''s ears. While not sure what kind of idea he had about my guns, I hoped that my order would only reinforce what I guessed his own guess was.


    With both sides idle in this moment, I felt as if something strange was going on with my mind and body alike. This was the deciding moment of the battle. Would the enemy retreat to reload? Would he dare to press forth for the bayonet charge? In this one, incredibly short and tense moment, I felt as if the fate was wobbling on a thin line, unable to decide which side it would fall on.


    Yet this moment passed as quickly as it appeared.


    "On bayonetsˇ­ charge!"


    With his decision finally dooming his troops, the enemy commander shouted. Freed from the constraints of this strange euphory that took over my mind just a moment ago, I only smiled to myself before stepping in front of my entire line, raising my hand towards the enemy troops and shouting.


    "Fire at will!"

 234 First Victory

    17th July 1574 late night/very early morning


    As soon as my rifles spoke in the language known only to them, nothing really changed. Yes, several soldiers of the opposing troop fell to the ground only to remain there motionless, some more tripped and attempted to move back up to the line.


    Those people were not some novices that could be scattered with a single salvo, but battle-hardened veterans! Even with some of their brothers-in-arms falling, it would pose quite a huge challenge for me to find even a single man out of them who would even bat an eye!


    Seeing how the enemies bravely marched on in a uniform and orderly step, I almost regretted what was about to happen.


    Boom!


    For now, the second salvo still sounded rather uniform, yet it already lasted for longer than just a fraction of a second, indicating that some of my men already started lagging behind the rest.


    Yet it didn''t matter at all.


    Seeing how more and more of the enemy troops were falling to the ground, I felt the urge to avert my eyes from this massacre, yet decided against doing so. While it pained me to see fellow brethren of mine die like dogs right in front of my eyes, there was virtually nothing I could do about it. Watching as they were dying, was the minimum that I could offer them.


    Click. Boom. Click. Boom.


    After only two salvos, the sounds of respective guns firing and reloading no longer meshed into a single avalanche of sounds, allowing me to connect the voice of each respective rifle with another body falling down in a pool of blood.


    Standing in front of my men, I couldn''t help but think what the other side was thinking. Even the greatest and bravest warrior, capable of marching to his death without even a flinch, always had this thought in the back of his mind.


    Maybe not me. Maybe not today. Maybe this irritating guy on the left. There is so many of us, so what are the chances of the reaper inviting me for a dance today?


    Yet this kind of thinking could only last for so long.


    Even though their initial impetus allowed them to carry on despite the growing casualty rate, by the time they passed through half of the distance that initially separated us, enemy commander finally came to terms with the desperate reality.


    "BREAK UP AND CHARGE!"


    As brilliant in this situation as this command was, it was already too late. With the continuous fire of my men, the moment a single soldier dared to leave the tight group, he would fall down to the ground penetrated by several bullets. Yet as nice as it was to see my men keeping enemy in check, I couldn''t allow for such frivolous behaviour!


    "Shoot to kill only! Don''t waste your ammunition! It''s expensive!"


    It was the magazine reloading time that worried me!


    Just a single look at how long the enemy commander managed to keep the cohesion of his unit was enough to tell me that the moment he would see even an illusion of opportunity, he wouldn''t hesitate even for a second to throw all his forces at it!


    Yet soon, my worries turned out to be meaningless. Before the enemy could make this last step, this last jump towards the reinforced line of my men, their morale finally broke. Starting with a single faint-hearted or rational man, the rest of the survivors swiftly followed suit, ditching their weapons directly on the ground and dashing towards the illusory safety of the building.


    But even there, they couldn''t rest, as, from the moment the outcome of the battle was decided, I knew that while counting on my garrison in the marketplace would be futile, the same couldn''t be said about the private forces of the merchants!


    With the cracking of the shoots appearing behind their backs, the spirit of the soldiers that still kept pressing forward completely dissipated, making them stop in their tracks and drop their weapons. Seeing how they did it all at once, I could tell that those brave men didn''t dare to put their honour at risk, but were instead fulfilling the orders of their commander!


    "Hold your fire!"


    Seeing how those enemies of mine orderly dropped their weapon, I realised that there was no point in continuing our fight. If they were disciplined enough to listen even to the order to surrender, the chances that they would suddenly pick their weapons if the onslaught stopped, were small enough to be ignored.


    "We want toˇ­ surrenderˇ­"


    Before my men would suddenly feel the urge to fire just a single shot more, I stepped forward, seeing how the enemy commander did the same. In just a few moments, we finally met perfectly in the middle between the survivors of his unit and my own line of men.


    "Lieutenant Herman Midit, in the service of the Ostros family. I wish to formally surrender."


    Lowering his head ever so slightly while gritting his teeth in the powerless fury, the enemy commander clearly had a tough nut to crack by giving up. Just from his name alone, I could tell the fact that rather than being a proper polish noble, he was actually a damned mercenary!


    And as happy as the realisation that I have yet to spill the blood of my countrymen, the fact that Ostros actually dared to employ foreign units for this strife meant that the entire situation might be way worse than I expected!


    "Crown Lieutenant, Mike Tarnowski. I hereby accept your surrender. Fear not, I will get my men to prepare a holding place for you, and I won''t see any problems with the remainder of your unit paying your way out under the promise of staying away from the conflict. Can you accept those terms?"

 235 State of the Tarnowian Marketplace

    17th July 1574 late night/very early morning


    After dealing with the mercenaries, it was finally time to go to the marketplace and send the signal to the ships so that our supplies could arrive. Yet as if nothing could go my way beside shedding the blood and wasting my now limited funds on the money we had to use to do so, rather than welcoming us back to the city that was inf act, my personal property, the moment I stepped inside the firing range of the buildings, I heard someone''s loud voice calling me to stop!


    "Dot not make a single step further! I don''t care who sent you, but this place is off-limits for all the war parties!"


    While initially, I thought that with such spontaneous reaction it might be a bit problematic to enter the city, but hearing the familiar voice from the building, I couldn''t help but smirk.


    "Pavlo, is that you?"


    While I would never claim to know every single retained or my by the name, this shrew, little guy was someone who I just couldn''t forget, no matter what. Despite serving as your everyday militiaman and guard of this city, he was, in fact, the boss of the underworld organisation that settled in there as soon as the entire place started operating!


    Even despite knowing about this, I never bothered to eradicate them, as thanks to exchanging just a few letters, our cooperation actually turned way more beneficial to the operations of the marketplace than I was initially worried it would be harmful.


    From stopping various bandit groups around the place from ever reaching with their greedy hands for my market, all the way to pursuing any smaller banditry that was stupid enough to attempt establishing here without adhering to the rules set by Pavloˇ­


    Just like in that bad joke, when they gave a new policeman a job, but due to the mistake in the books, he failed to receive his salary for several months straight. And when they finally asked him why didn''t he ask someone for it, he just responded that he thought that since he got a gun, he was supposed to take care of himself from now onˇ­


    As silly as that joke was, Pavlo was a perfect example that it was still well-grounded within the bounds of reality!


    "Wait, is that you, sir Mike?!"


    It was no wonder that due to the distance that separated us and the lack of the light that would at least help him discern what he was talking about, just the fact that I knew his name was enough for him to guess my identity.


    "And who do you think would bring such insane guns to deal with damned mercenaries without losing a single man? They are not that greatly trained in the first place, I will have you know!"


    "You know this isn???t necessary at allˇ­"


    As much as I wanted to ignore this fact, doing so would only mean my silent approval of this kind of behaviour. Despite the situation we were already in, there was no way I would let him do as he wants!


    "As they say, a God guards the back of the careful man! Welcome to the Tarnowian marketplace, my lord. How can we be of your service?"


    From the moment the two of us finally met face to face, I could tell that Pavlo relaxed, as if all this time ever since I first called out to him, he was worried whether or not this was some kind of clever plot aimed at luring him out.


    "It''s nice to know that at least you didn''t believe in this bull of crap about my treasonˇ­ Anyway, I need you to prepare the river port, quite a lot of my ships will be landing there with supplies."


    As much as I would like to question him out about just how in the hell did the stalemate between that mercenary force and the marketplace develop, with how limited time we had to finish all of our preparations, I simply couldn''t spare all that time!


    Obviously, there was no way for us to finish everything and move all the way back to the outskirts of Tarnow before the sun would set the face of the earth alight again. The best I currently hoped for, was that by the time the enemy forces would notice our arrival, we would already have our firing stations set up, upgraded reaper guns stationed on the elevated positions and everyone ready to start firing!


    Yet as hopeful as I was about the incoming battle, I had no other choice but to accept the fact that my initial plan was already in shambles. With how slow everything was going on when compared to the initial idea, there was simply no way for me to use the cover of the night in order to take the position that I wanted beforehand.


    "Sir, we are ready to send the signal."


    As soon as we approached the shore of the river, I could see that Pavlo did actually a good job. Rather than just waiting for the next orders, he already went out of his way to send some men to set the fire under the steam engines, providing the power for all the cranes that were now just waiting for their use.


    Right now, all I had to do, was to finally let my men launch an experimental projectile that I came up with on our way there. Consisting of several layers of copper casing, it would continue to burn even after reaching up the skies!


    "Seeing how everything is going well, let''s not waste any more timeˇ­ Set the flare!"

 236 Making decision

    17th July 1574 late night/very early morning


    "It''s lit!"


    All it took for my men to become agitated was a single flare taking off to the skies. This alone was enough to prove and explain why in the future, when the privately own company would launch its space probe for the very first time into space, the live stream from that event would be watched by such a huge following!


    It lied on man''s nature to seek a way to reach the stars. Maybe it was something ingrained into our souls ever since we learned how to use some basic tools, maybe it was nothing but a basic survival instinct forcing us to constantly expand and seek new habitats.


    Yet rather than enjoying this tranquil moment of peace during which both the merchants staying in the town and those of my troops that could enter along with me were all watching the flight of the flare, I already directed my thoughts towards the strategy of the upcoming battle.


    After all, there was no realistic way to avoid fighting with the forces that besieged Tarnow. The only question was, how do we go about this fight?


    With how long it took to even reach Tarnowian marketplace, it would be impossible for us to reach the spot that I initially designed for my battleplans under the cover of the night. By the time we would be barely halfway through the open fields of the area, the bright sun of the day would scream into the eyes of the enemy commander about our approach!


    In fact, I knew I didn''t need to be as cautious as I currently was. No matter how big of a force the enemy could present, it could never match the capabilities of neither my new rifles nor the improves reaper guns.


    Yet even if I could just cast all of their lives away, there was still the problem of possible casualties. And not only those in my army!


    In the end, the more people of Ostros I killed during that siege, the harder it would later get to denounce their claims of me being a traitor! That''s why, rather than allowing them to sweep me into the gears of this self-fulfilling prophecy - or rather, accusation - I had to find a way to break the spirit of the enemy forces without culling half of their numbers!


    "What are you thinking so hard about?"


    With no place safe for my family anymore, I decidedˇ­ Or rather, I was informed about the decision that I allegedly made regarding Elia''s whereabouts. Apparently, after a long night of thinking about this topic, I decided that it would be for the best to keep her close to me. While I saw some problems with how some of my decisions were made without actually my voice ever-present during the debate over them, yet when faced with a daring grin on Elia''s face, I couldn''t really say that much against it.


    "How should we play that battle out. I''m worried that enclosing all the mercenaries might be as good as a blessing as much as a curse."


    Sadly, this option was closed for me already. After all, with how close and important point the marketplace was for the Tarnow and the Castle itself, there was no way Ostros didn''t keep the consistent communication with the troops stationed there. Even if I were to free some of the mercenaries to let them be found out, the chances that they would actually bother trying to deliver the news were as small as my chances of ever becoming the first, married pope.


    "If that''s the problem you have, why not push it on their side? It''s not like they can continue the siege while having unknown forces to their side. With how close we are to the city right now, they can''t risk being sandwiched between a sortie from the castle or even the city, and our forces attacking from the marketplace!"


    As ignorant as Elia was when it came to military, her wits alone often made up for her lack of experience, making her come up with some kind of brilliant ideas like the one she shared just now.


    "Wait, that''s actually not that bad of an ideaˇ­ But the problem is, what if Ostros would just enclose us here, and wait for the reinforcement from the senate? It''s not like they would let us speakˇ­ And for every moment that we stall in here, the potential losses to the east are closer and closer to completely immobilizing the entire country as a whole!"


    Just like with everything else, when it came to conquest, there was a certain level of critical mass that a country could handle. Occupying most of its land lead to the unrest amongst the population, militaryˇ­ ''reprivatisation'' of the edible and valuable assetsˇ­ But just as much as conquering and occupying lands was risky to the aggressor, so it was for those lands owners. After all, what kind of ruler would ever let his lands be occupied without a response?


    Yet the problem was, Commonwealth currently had no King. Seeing how muscovites apparently made their move, it was quite possible that they aimed to place their own candidate on the throne, pushing aside their greatest rival by mutilating its way of governing itself!


    "You speak as if that was something bad, but when you think about it, doesn''t playing on the time works for us the best? While I know that it''s bad that we can''t immediately go and relieve the frontlines, what is the faster way to get the entire senate to listen to you, than forcing them to come to you by being falsely accused of treason and occupying a vital spot required to actually attempt any siege on your lands?"


    Maybe it wasn''t the case of her military wits, but her overall logical thinking. For someone who spent a huge chunk of her life on the road, constantly trying to figure out what her next step should be and what would be its aim, it was no wonder that she was capable of connecting the dots that I didn''t even realise the existence off.


    "That''s actuallyˇ­ both great and terrible idea. Starting from the butt side, you do realise that if the word will get out, then no matter what else we would ever do in our lives, we would be known as those who put our own good name and wealth above that of a country?"


    As much as I started to like the idea of acting entirely pragmatic, it would have its own downsides. That''s why I had to make sure I had Elia''s consent before going forth with her idea!


    "Yeah, I do realise that. But on the other hand, why is this a good idea?"


    Shrugging her arms at the motion of bad fame that could be attributed to us, Elia focused on what was really important.


    "We could get far better termsˇ­ We would be in an insanely great situation by doing that!"


    Just as I smiled at Elia, I saw some light moving in the relatively close distance.


    "It seems like our luggage has finally arrived."

 237 Into the fire part 1

    17th July 1574 morning


    The reconquest of the Tarnowian lands was implemented with a total of three small armies, yet when my troops finally reached the outskirts of the city proper, only a bit less than two hundred men remained.


    "Are you sure it is a good idea?"


    Looking behind, as if that could change anything at this point, Pavlo spoke with a worried expression. Thinking about this over again, but now actually facing all the forces that dared to lay siege to my lands, maybe leaving most of my army back near the marketplace wasn''t the brightest ideaˇ­


    "Yes, I am."


    Even if I had doubts, I couldn''t just let them show on my face, or even worse, I couldn''t dare to admit to them. Right now, all that mattered, was that the plan to lift the siege off the Tarnow would be finally enacted!


    "Everyone, move forth!"


    Not bothering to even hide our appearances, my troops moved forward, pulling two, heavy guns along with them. Yet it was the items that all of the foot troops were carrying that would matter in this fight!


    "Are you sure it''s not enough to just fire and retreat?"


    As great of a worker as Pavlo was back in the city, he wasn''t suited for the fields of open combat at all. Freaking out even before the real battle would start was a sign that he would never make a good frontline soldierˇ­ But that didn''t mean he didn''t have his own uses!


    "Yes, I''m sure. Just let my men do their job."


    As much as I hated the fact that not all of my troops could get enough of their training, at least I could hope that the very first of the armies that I trained, showed enough discipline and fighting spirit to use them in this drastic gamble of mine.


    Even though there were only about two hundred of us and from what I could already see, nearly two thousand troops that laid siege to the city, I didn''t consider my position as a lost one!


    Rather than that, while the reports about the movements in the enemy camp started flooding my command centre, I was focusing on the process of installation of the simple blockade.


    The entire battle line was as simple as it could get. The bags filled with earth and sand were placed as to secure their position, while a simple set of wooden poles were erected few meters in front of them, with a barbered wire connecting all of the poles together.


    With the small forest behind our backs, we were just outside of the effective range of our enemies. But as much as it was true for our rifles just as well, this wasn''t the case for the two field guns that we brought with us!


    "Sir, all units are ready and waiting for the signal!"


    All of this hard work, gone just like thatˇ­


    "Sir, the guns areˇ­"


    "Fire!"


    Not daring to waste even a single moment, I interrupted the report and over shouted it with an order of mine. After all, there was only one report that was stopping me from sending that order through earlier!


    At once, two of the field guns started shooting. While still not proper Gatling guns without their rotating set of barrels, thanks to the several improvements, not only was the problem of overheating solved by a mechanism that allowed to manually change the barrels in use, a magazine that fed the bullets to the firing mechanism allowed for far longer, continuous fire!


    But in the case of the current situation, it was their supreme range that mattered the most!


    As soon as the jaws of the guns started screaming their lethal chant, the bodies hidden behind the encampment near the city walls started falling.


    In the same, battle in which the first iteration of the reaper guns took the lives of Peter''s troops, men were falling down one by one, as if a deathly reaper swung his scythe, claiming the lives as it went.


    "Form up!"


    Faced with the fire at a distance too great to respond with their own, enemy troops had no other choice than to react somehow to the sudden attack. Yet as disciplined their troops were, the moment one unit would properly group up and start forming for the counterattack, the muzzles of the reaper guns mark two would turn towards them, sending even the entire groups of men down at once!


    "Keep firing! Prepare your hand rifles!"


    As bloody carnage as the machine guns created in the enemy line, their sheer numerical superiority was enough to allow them to push some of their troops forward. Even though the bodies were littering the entire place from their camp all the way to the furthest point that Ostros troops managed to get, more and more soldiers were rushing towards this meatgrinder, as if giving up their life for the traitors was their ultimate desire.


    "Just what the hell is wrong with themˇ­"


    Seeing this insane bloodshed, I wasn''t even allowed a quick moment of reflection, as the enemy ranks moved even closer towards my reinforced camp.


    "Fire at will!"


    This time, I wasn''t playing tricks with the enemy, allowing them to enter deeply into the firing range of my men, before actually allowing any fire from my side. Rather than, I hoped that the instant and powerful reply would be enough to press them back!


    Yet even there, my hopes turned out to be futile. Even despite the intense and continuous fire of both my hand weapon and the reaper guns, enemies were closing in, steadily shortening the distance between two forces while ignoring all the casualty that this reckless and stupid charge caused.


    And then they met the barbed wire.

 238 Retreating

    17th July 1574 early afternoon


    It was only a matter of time before Ostros forces would overcome the advantage of my weapons and reach the barbed wire. Yet as I watched them pressing forward while using any means possible to shield themselves from the onslaught of my rifles, not even stopping themselves from using the bodies of their fallen comrades in the form of shields!


    Yet while this small ploy of theirs managed to buy them a few more steps towards the wired line, they quickly had to move on to looking for another trick. Maybe it was caused by the fact how relatively well-trained this first army of mine was, or maybe thanks to them overcoming their blood baptism earlier, while the enemies were still closing towards the first line of defence, the rate of their progress slowed down considerably.


    But it lasted only for so long. After nearly a quarter of an hour of the continuous fighting, the first group of Ostros soldiers reached the bared wire.


    And they stopped.


    Because this kind of punny fence wasn''t capable of stopping fully armed, and at times, armoured men!


    Yet it was far more than enough to stop them in place for a moment. It didn''t matter whether they would slash the wire with their swords, cut the fence itself to the pieces, or even if they push the entire thing down! All that mattered, was the fact that they had to stop to do even a single of those activities!


    "Everyone! Fire at once!"


    Now came the crucial moment.


    While the casualties on the enemy side were mounting for a long time already, as long as the enemies would manage to break through the condensed lines of fire that my men were creating just now, it would be the end of my small army.


    Crushed by an overwhelming numerical advantage. Was I willing to let such shameful records to stain the paragraph dedicated to my person in future history books?!


    NO!


    "Everyone, empty out!"


    This order was something that was the most beloved exercise of all my men, regardless of their rank or length of service. Yet I wasn''t surprised by that fact at all.


    After all, who wouldn''t want to joyfully pull the trigger of their rifle all the way to the back, allowing the automated mechanisms to do the work and wreak havoc wherever the muzzle of the gun was pointed at?


    With the enemies just a few meters away, still struggling to get past either the dead bodies of their friends or through the barbered wire, an insanely loud salvo, simply couldn''t have anyone missing their shots!


    One by one, twice in the span of three second, the entire group of people that were currently closest to the barbered worse, would be pushed away several meters.


    "I want to go homeˇ­"


    Hearing this small sobbing coming somewhere from my flank, I had to fight the urge to order one of my officers to silence the faint-hearted soldier. As much as fearing the death could be excused in the war, cowardice in the face of the enemy was akin to a betrayal!


    "Everyone!"


    Seeing how quickly the entire situation was deteriorating, I realised that there was no point in wasting our time in this place anymore. While the kill number was great, it didn''t even come close to what we would have to do in order to clean up the area from all the Ostros scum!


    "Fall back!"


    Rather than pressing forward, as soon as the order was given, all my men orderly reloaded their weapons before placing the makeshift explosives in various parts of the reaper gun mark two and moving back to the line of a small forest.


    BOOM!


    In just a few moments, a huge eruption forced everyone''s attention towards my now empty camp, where the silly remnants of the complicated machinery that allowed the operation of my machine guns, were now scattered apart as nothing more than a bunch of useless scraps!


    Yet even after the enemy forces finally formed the pursuit unit, nothing really happened!


    With my forces retreating without even a hint of hesitation all the way back to the Marketplace, by the time when the chase unit finally found our exact location, we were already fortifying the outskirts of the marketplace!


    After returning from the battlefield and refiling our supplies, I realised that a small ploy of mine, an offer to the merchants to rent their bodyguards, hauled a rather nice group!


    Yet rather than dealing with them myself, I simply set Pavlo to organise them, while moving back to the headquarters tent in order to figure out the next steps of my plan.


    "The probing attack went as expected. The one surprising thing is the incredibly huge lethality ratio for the enemy soldiers. From what we learned, even after receiving what others would consider being a fatal hit, those monsters kept attacking, until the very last bit of energy was drained out of their bodies. We suspect and use of witchcraft!"


    As much as I hated to even take the option of some magic interfering in this fight, I wasn''t really allowed to do so. If I had a system of my own, then what if my theory of other people from the modern times wreaking havoc in this place was true? What if it was just an effect of someone else''s system?


    That''s why, rather than taking the shortcut of just thinking about the stuff logically, I continued to just walk around the map table in circles, trying to force those few of my remaining grey cells in my brain into coming up with a brilliant idea that would allow me to break out of the current pinch!


    Yet just as I was about to make some hasty decisions that would most likely result in the first few of my men dying in battle, good news finally arrived!


    "Sir, they are moving out with their full force! We expect them to arrive here in single day time!"

 239 Calm before the storm

    17th July 1574


    "Hurry up, we are really close!"


    After the frantic retreat from the battlefield, it didn''t take us long to reach back the marketplace. As slow as one has to move when traversing the forest, cutting the path and setting the traps during our first journey made it far easier to shake off any form of immediate pursue.


    Raising my eyes, I could see that during our absence, the two small armies that were left back at the marketplace, wasn''t idle either. As little as they could do with the sparse building materials and the wish to keep the general outline of the place unchanged, the effect of their work was still impressive.


    Thinking about it, I had to admit that engineering works were surprisingly my biggest advantage in this very moment. Due to how most of my troops was recruited from the workforce of my projects, most of them were used to handling both the heavy, physical labour and capable of using materials like concrete for a great effect!


    Looking back at the history of the militaries around the world, Romans used to train their troops first, then teach them how to build their fortified camps. On the other hand, I created perfect labourers first, and then turned them into soldiers!


    "Don''t waste any time, get to the city and take positions!"


    As huge as our distance advantage over Ostros troops was, I wasn''t willing to just waste time going willy-nilly in the fake sphere of safety around the town. Only when all the fortifications would be manned, rifles prepared to shoot, soldiers fed and guns reloaded, then and only then I could finally relax!


    Yet just like reports from before, even after all my men moved beyond the makeshift barricades created by clunks of rubbish and furniture glued together with a bit of concrete, even after I got to have a peaceful dinner with Elia, the enemies were still nowhere to be seen!


    "I wonder what takes them so longˇ­ It''s not like those traps of ours were that hard to uncoverˇ­"


    Sitting at the chair inside my private chamber at the top of the administrative centre of the marketplace, I stared at the window that allowed me to peek at the line of trees from beyond which the enemy troops were supposed to appear any moment now.


    "Maybe they went around the entire forest? As shitty as it would feel to have our enemies move faster than we would like by using the roads that we built, we still have to consider that possibility."


    Resting in my place before the start of the real battle could be worse only if Elia wasn''t there. As much as I hated the fact that I had to bring most likely a pregnant wife of mine to the battlefield, with how the entire country was currently focused on our movements, leaving her anywhere else than beside me, would only put her in even greater danger!


    "Even if they do so, with the way it meanders through all sorts of obstacles, it will still take them a fair bit of time."


    Knock.


    "Come in!"


    In moments like that, as much as I would love to just sit and relax with Elia, I had to be ready for the response at any given time. After all, the enemy wouldn''t wait for me to finish my food!


    "Sir, they have finally appeared! The scouts report that they appear to move majority of their troops from the Tarnow to us!"


    And just like that, the peacefulness of this afternoon was broken.


    "Elia, I will be going then. Keep the fort here for me, okay?"


    Even if Ostros troops would be attacking the fortifications at this very moment, I wouldn''t dare to leave my wife here without a parting kiss!


    Leaning over the table, I grabbed her little chin, before pulling her face a bit closer. As our lips pressed against each other, I could feel Elia''s breath smothering over my face, as she kept her eyes open and directed into my own gaze.


    "Be safe."


    After our lips finally parted, my dearest pressed on my shoulders, forcing me to straighten up before softly whispering.


    "I will."


    Finally moving out of the room, it took me only a few moments to reach the building''s balcony, giving me a clear view of everything around. And as soon as I scanned the entire area in search of the enemies, I had the feeling of just grabbing the messenger and smashing his head against the wall.


    "And just where the heck are they? What''s the point of notifying me if they are not even in sight?!"


    Seeing the instant burst of fear on the face of the young soldier, I relaxed my arms and rested my weight against the balcony railing.


    "S-sirˇ­ Y-you can see the c-cloud of smoke in the d-distance!"


    Still unable to get over the fact that I myself shouted at him, the messenger reached to the side with his arm, pointing at a certain place with his extended finger. Following his arms with my eyes, I looked to the south-east, quickly locating a cloud of dust lingering just slightly above the line of the horizon. With the uneven ground around this area, it could only mean the enemy troops!


    "Okay, I see now. Go and order everyone to prepare. All reapers nests are to be stocked with munitions and people, all smaller openings with rifles and troops. All that''s left for us now, is to await the enemy charge!"

 240 Stalling for time

    19th July 1574


    "Just what the hell are they waiting forˇ­"


    Standing on top of the makeshift wall that separated the city from the road that it was supposed to use, I observed the movements of the enemy. With Ostros troops daring to show their heads outside of the cover of the trees only due to a slip or other accident, I had no way of retaliating against their siegeˇ­


    Or at least, that''s what I hoped they would believe after giving them over two days to prepare their camp. Yet even while I could still order my troops to shoot at them, as the height advantage gave us just enough reach to put the entirety of the enemy forces within our effective shooting range, the fact that they were all hiding behind the trees right at the very edge of our range, meant that unless they would finally start their damned attack, we would be powerless to actually force them out.


    "If this goes onˇ­ Or even worse, if they wait for the other nobles to assemble, only to force them into the attack before we could talk with themˇ­"


    Resting her body weight on my arm, Elia looked in the opposite direction to where my eyes were directed as if hoping to see some new force lingering on the edge of our visibility.


    "I guess you are right about this. Since that''s the case, there is no use for waiting."


    Freeing my arm from Elia''s embrace, I slapped both of my cheeks with the palms of my hands in order to clear my thoughts, before kissing my wife''s cheek and smiling.


    "I hope you will watch my valiant endeavours."


    Barely holding my own giggle as I said those cringe words, I heard Elia''s soft laughter as she couldn''t hold her own reaction to my whiteknighting back.


    "I will, I will. Just make sure to come back safely."


    Being sent off with such a vibrant smileˇ­


    Walking down on the makeshift staircase, I arrived at one of the clearings in the marketplace. With how I could only figure out the need for so much buildings, there were a lof of empty spots like this one, littered all over the place. Originally, with its square shape and perfect position in terms of logistic, they were aimed to be sold to the highest bidder, as soon as the renome of this place would grow high enough.


    Yet just like always, the times of war lead to the basic change in everything.


    Rather than being filled with supplies, building materials and workers striving hard to turn all of those wares into a proper building, this empty plaza was now brimming with people, orderly separated into groups corresponded to their official assignment.


    "First army, attention!"


    "Listen up, folks! All we are going to do is to get the earthbags out, set the firing positions fifty meters away from the fortified line and cover it with barber fence. The aim of this escapade is not to engage the enemy, but to force them to come out of their hiding. Obviously, we can''t do so without exchanging the fire, but do NOT!!!"


    As soon as I shouted the negation, I waited for a few moments to make sure the soldiers were paying their utmost attention to what I was speaking.


    "DO NOT SHOOT before the order to do so will be given. We can''t let them know what the exact effective range of our weapons is, so I will only let you guys shoot, after I myself will fire the first shoot. Understood?!"


    Using one of the crates that used to carry supplies, I climbed on its top to make sure I was perfectly visible for all the two hundred soldiers gathered on the plaza.


    "YES SIR!"


    When those loyal troops of mine responded, I felt as if some of the heavy gunners noticed an attack and allowed his nerves to get better of him, releasing a salvo into the air. Yet in the end, it was just an afterthought that appeared in my mind when I both heard and saw the enthusiastic reaction of my people.


    "You guysˇ­"


    Looking down on the courageous men of mineˇ­ No, they weren''t courageous. Most of them lived in the society where nobles had everything. Most of them lived in the world where by letting the nobles take care of their defences, they were forced to work their bottoms out to provide for said nobles.


    Yet the fight from before, when we smashed apart Ostros forces, forcing them to pull out from the siege, proven to them that with those new weapons of mine, or even with those tactics that I implemented, the ages-old roles in the society finally could change!


    They were not courageous. I could see it in their eyes. Rather than having their spirits lifted by my little speech, I could see the bloodlust twisting their faces. Just a single taste of holding this insane power, the right to decide with just a small move of their fingers, whether those mighty mercenaries and noblemen of the opposing force would die or liveˇ­


    Rather than being courageous, they were drunk on the power that siding with me offered them!


    "With that said, let''s not waste any more time! Get your bags and shovels, and let''s go!"


    In just a few moments, what looked like your everyday crowd that one could see in any city, turned into a perfectly organised unit. With each team standing by while their commanding officer went to fetch the utensils I requested them to carry, it took all of them only a few minutes before the entire force was ready to march out.


    And with all of that, I could only hope that those valiant screams of my men reached the ears of the enemy forces. After all, it wouldn''t be that nice to start provoking them into the reckless attack without a proper heads-up!

 241 To advance or to not advance

    19th July 1574


    One by one, the teams made up with small groups of my men were coming out from behind the fortifications. As if taking a fun, little stroll rather than going on to potentially battle with enemy forces, one could describe their speed as a leisurely one.


    But it couldn''t be helped. With each soldier burdened by the weight of two bags, shovels, fence parts, rifle, ammunition for himself and all the other items required to let my men fare nicely through the battle.


    Yet while I really wanted to focus on the sight of my troops coming out from behind their covers and starting to form on the huge plain separating the marketplace from the forest where the enemy forces were hidden, I had to keep my eyes glued to the line of trees as to prevent enemies from getting us with a surprise attack.


    After all, this deployment of mine was never intended as the real introduction for the full-scale battle!


    But no matter how worried I was, waiting for the response of the enemy force, they didn''t bother hindering the movements of my troops at all! All this time that my people took to set up their firing positions and secure it with a fence, were not hindered by our opponents in the slightest!


    "This is strangeˇ­ If we keep doing thatˇ­"


    Muttering under my nose, I fixed the belt that held my private rifle on my side, before scanning the entire area. Just a single look at the line of the trees was enough for me to spot several lookouts of the enemy, yet no matter how long my men were taking to finish the last bit of their field fortification, nothing was happening!


    "Sir, we are done and ready!"


    With one of the officers immediately jumping to me with his report the moment all the work was finalised, I could either think of something else or just wait for the inevitable even if delayed reaction of the Ostros troops.


    Wait, waiting?


    What the heck was I even considering?


    In the war, taking even the worst course of action was still better than just idling away, because it allowed one to hold the initiative in one''s hands!


    "Everyone! The last team from every unit will leave their positions and bring back enough bags for the rest of their units to create another holding point! Everyone else, dig up the earth from behind your covers and use it to strengthen the barrier!"


    If the enemy was willing to give us enough time to prepare, then there was no need to stick with a barrier made out of bags of earth. With enough time, we could turn the entire forward barricade into a proper trench!


    What''s more, by the time this groundwork would finish, we could set another barrier at the front, getting even closer to the end of effective firing range of the enemies in the forestˇ­ but by doing so, we would create a barrier that would hinder the enemy accuracy at the same time as allowing my men to fire with even more precision!


    "It seems they are at least at the level of those mercenariesˇ­ or just below them."


    Just from watching how strangely chaotic at first, but orderly in just a few moments, the moves right at the entrance to the clearing were more than enough for me to gauge the combat ability of the enemy troops.


    It seemed that if we were to fight with them in the current setting, then even with the encampment, even with the superior weapons of mine, their numbers and discipline would be just enough to overwhelm my first army and push them against the walls of the marketplace fortifications!


    But that could happen only if we took both the second and third army out of the picture!


    The field fortifications that my men made were, after all, nothing more than just a bait! By closing the distance between us and the enemies, I basically pushed the effective range of my people all the way to the treeline! While their shoots could easily reach it front the concrete fortifications behind them, with how I wanted to keep the real range of my rifles a secret for as long as I could, all that mattered, for now, was how would my enemy interpret those moves of mine!


    "Sir, marketplace spotted a detachment of their cavalry trying to flank us! What should we do?!"


    With how far our enemies allowed us to peer into the future battlefield before my own senses kicked in, stalling the advance and allowing my soldiers to prepare their covers, there was a tiny spot between our line and the fortifications of the city, that remained completely unmanned and unprotectedˇ­ Or at least, that''s what one would think without the prior knowledge about my reaper guns!


    "Pass the news to the city. I want two reapers to guard those choking points. Also, notify our flanks to add some cover against the fire from the marketplace. We don''t want to engage in friendly fire."


    Diverting my attention from the frontline only for a moment to deal with the messenger was enough to let the enemy troops finish forming up, prepare themselves for the fight and start advancing. From their uniform marching speed and exactly the same posture, I could tell that they were damned veterans, putting another load on my soul.


    After all, I couldn''t save them if they were to go against me, while the loss of every single soldier of theirs would mean less capable fighters to defend the country!


    Yet what I could do about it? In this very moment, as the rhythmic sound of the enemy troops hitting the ground with their feet sounded like a set of war-drums that gods would send to this place to celebrate the carnage that was about to ensue.


    And as pained as it made me, I couldn''t let them advance even a single step further, as that would put my own men at the risk.


    "Open fire!"

 242 Innovative tactic

    19th July 1574


    As if the scenario from back during the first real fight of my army could only repeat itself, as soon as the ranks of enemy troops formed up, they presented their weapons and started marching forward.


    Despite most of the footmen wearing whatever they found to their liking rather than using similar uniforms, their ranks didn''t look any less as impressive than the formations of the mercenaries that I fought with just a few days ago. Even if it lacked the spirit of uniformity that made all the armies look stronger just by making everyone look the same, just the fact that such a huge group of men could achieve similar dressing results despite having completely free reight over how they would dress up, only enhanced the feeling that at least the frontline troops that were attacking right now, consisted purely of veterans that knew what parts of their body they should protect with another layer of armour!


    "Open fire!"


    As soon as I shouted this command, I could hear the lesser officers responsible for each group within the first army, repeating it before taking aim and engaging in the combat themselves. Soon, the entire field formation of mine started firing, quickly reaping the lives of the attackers.


    But as soon as someone would look at the bigger picture, then despite how many men were dying and falling injured with each second, something was different when compared to both of the previous battles.


    "Slow, down! Shoot only if you have a killing shot! Save the ammunition!"


    As complicated as this next order was, it was one of two things that I informed my troops about even before we left the safety of the concrete barricades of the market. Outside of normal fighting that they were already used to, they only had to remember two of the commands, one of which, being to slow the rate of their fire!


    "Sir, at this rateˇ­"


    It only took a few moments for the first officer to appear at my side, with his face twisted in worry. Even all the way back in the city, they couldn''t understand the idea of handicapping themselves for the sake of making the enemy think that our strength was already sapped even before the battle started. But in the end, their confusion and hesitation was what could convince the enemy that the situation was something real, rather than a cleverly set trap!


    Which it obviously was!


    "It''s okay. Keep firing for now."


    Calmly responding to my subordinate, I didn''t even bother to look in his side, with my eyes completely glued to the lines of the enemy forces. And they were getting closer with each passing second!


    Despite a huge number of their brothers-in-arms falling to the ground for every step that they made forward, as long as one could detach himself mentally from the picture and ignore the losses, then their advance was actually just as costly as normal line warfare would be in terms of casualty rate!


    In the battle, there were are sorts of distances for the hot weapon to be used at. Starting at the stupid fire, when even if bullet managed to luckily hit something, it would be simply too slow to even penetrate through simple clothing, through the effective firing range when doing salvos with the entire line would yield some kind of real result, all the way to the real effective range, where soldiers could actually aim for specific opponents, all the way to point-blank range, where aiming or salvos no longer held any meaning.


    And the enemy troops just approached this second-to-last distance!


    "Take aim!"


    With their frontline stopping and raising their so-far idle weapons, I knew this entire fight would be settled within a few, coming seconds, even if everyone else but me would fail to notice it in advance.


    "Take cover!"


    As useful as those earthy ramparts made with bags filled with earth were when a continuous fight ensued, at the distance that currently separated both forces, even peeking just enough to locate the enemy, meant that there was a slight chance that the bullet would reach the head''s owner!


    And with that being the case, I didn''t dare to break my own order myself!


    Ignoring how it could look like to all those nobles drunk on their own position and the false sense of security coming from their fake honour, I dived right into the embrace of the earth, squeezing my body as close to its surface as I would when pressing my hips against Elia''s crotch during our fun times.


    "Fire!"


    Just as my head managed to slam against the hard face of the ground, the enemy officer finally gave the order.


    BOOM!


    With the thunderous sound of hundreds of rifles going off at the same time, I realised another thing about the current type of warfare. As stupid as it was to march in tight lines against those rifles of mine, this was the only way in which the enemy could ensure that at least a small part of the bullets would be effective!


    Yet as if there weren''t enough surprises for today, rather than taking their time to reload or even risking it all with a bayonet charge, the enemy officer managed to actually catch me off guard!


    "Second line, fire!"


    Boom!


    Once again, a hail of bullets went mostly over our heads or sank into the cold embrace of the earth within the bags that protected us from the harm. In most of the cases at the very least, that is!


    "AARGH!"


    "MY HAND!"


    "HELP ME!"


    As much as I tried to ignore the screams of the enemies constantly ripped apart by the slow fire of my men when it was my troops that resounded with those screams, I was no longer able of ignoring it.


    Just a single look to the side, revealed that those earthen fortifications were either faulty, or at least some of my men failed to used them properly, putting their bodies unintentionally at harm''s way.


    And even if only a few of my men got injured, with even fewer of them actually losing their lives against this salvo, I knew that with how little of training and real battle experience my men had, even those few losses would be enough to tilt their morale out o balance!


    "Third line, advance and fire!"

 243 Frantic retrea

    19th July 1574


    "Everyone, respond with fire! Front units, crawl to the back!"


    With this new tactic of the enemy turning out to be insanely effective against the type of warfare that I hoped to lead here, I had no other choice but to start retreating my troops out of the harm''s way. After all, it didn''t matter how great my weapons were if I didn''t have living people that could wield them for me!


    "Next line, advance and fire!"


    As if my orders didn''t manage to reach the ears of the enemy officer, or maybe because he couldn''t be bothered with my reaction to his own moves, rather than altering his tactic to face against this new approach of mine, he continued to push his men forward in small leaps, giving only short windows between each salvo during which my men could actually retreat rather than hugging the earth in hopes of avoiding the bullets.


    At this point, the natural topography of the area came into the equation, forcing me to realise that I didn''t prepare for this fight as much as I could. Even with the entire marketplace completely locked away from the rest of the world, with its backside protected by the wide flow of the local river, and the circular border fully maintained and fortified with concrete and hard barricades, it was still vulnerable to any form of an artillery attack.


    While I could hope that those damned enemies of mine didn''t bring any artillery pieces along with them, with how it was only a hope of mine rather than a concrete guess based on their movements, I had to tread carefully, tracking the possibility of their long-distance retaliation at any given moment.


    "Sir, they are overwhelming us! We need to start the free fire!"


    Before long, my lane started to erode slowly. With the small casualties mounting up, it was only a matter of time before my line would be broken, putting us at the mercy of the consecutive volleys from the enemy side, topped up with the incoming cavalry attack, that still lingered at the top of my mind.


    "I guess we don''t have any other choice. All men, organised retreat!"


    Retreat. An order that most of the hetmans (generals) of the commonwealth would consider something shameful ever to issue, while the ones that actually achieved something on the battlefield before, always considered as just yet another military manoeuvre.


    After all, moving back at the predestined defensive location sounded far better than telling my men to save their assess and run behind another set of covers!


    "Next line, advance and fire!"


    "Rear units, fire at will!"


    As much as this entire retreat was something that was but a part of the greater plan, in order to implement it into the real-life situation successfully, I had to create a window of opportunity for my men, if I didn''t want them to just die to a few more hails of bullets from the Ostros troops!


    BOOM!


    TRATATATA!


    "EVERYONE, RETREAT! IN JUMPS!"


    There was no way that all of my men would manage to move through the entire open field that separated them from the safety of the marketplace walls in one go. If they even dared to attempt doing so, I would just let all or at least, most of my men experience what shooting in the back means!


    And that''s where the other order of the two that I issued back in the city came into play.


    When retreating, one''s army drops everything they are doing in order to move to another, easier to defend the position. Yet by retreating in jumps, they would make use of the inevitable gaps in the enemy salvos, to move forward just a few meters at a time, hugging the earth whenever an enemy volley would approach them, shooting at the enemy back while standing up, rushing a few more meters towards the safety and repeating the entire process over and over again!


    "Drop the scheme, give chase!"


    With how the last battle with Ostros troops only employed my first army alone, I hoped that by using them as the advance force, I could trick the enemy into thinking that it was my entire strength, with just a few of new recruits keeping the fort back in the marketplace.


    That''s also why I wasn''t surprised when the enemy decided to drop their unusually effective tactic and start chasing after my men!


    "Rear units, stalling fire, front units, keep running!"


    Standing in the perfect middle between the two waves of my retreating soldiers, I had to keep tabs on everything that was going on. While most of the people in my position would rather choose to command over the entire battle from behind the safety of the concrete fortifications, I knew that with how little training those troops of mine had, unless I was willing to put myself in the harm''s way just for the sake of reinforcing their morale, then this fight would be lost from the very beginning!


    "Sir, the enemies entered their lethal range! The cavalry is closing in; we need to hurry!"


    As magical as the effects of this organised retreat were, there still was a time limit for how long I could implement this strange tactic. With the threat of the cavalry charge looming o0vevr my troops, I could only gnash my teeth while issuing another command.


    "Everyone, the time is up! RUN!"


    As if a new spirit entered the bodies of my exhausted men, people that were feigning weakness and tiredness so far, suddenly sprung back up into action, dropping strange, small packages wherever they were at the moment of me issuing the order, and madly jumping towards the safety of the fortifications!


    "CHARGE!"

 244 Enemy charge

    19th July 1574


    "Charge!"


    With this shout coming from the side of the battlefield, I was barely capable of hearing it from all the shooting, falling, thumping and the new, distinctive sound that just entered the chaotic universe of the battle.


    The sound of a huge number of horses galloping, made it seem like everything that happened in this place so far, was just a child''s play, when compared to what was about to happen now.


    "TO THE WALLS!"


    As much as I would love to count on my reaper gunners to stop the charge before this thin and lethal blade could reach the underbelly of my troops, I didn''t dare to believe in their complete capabilities either. As the history of my nation in its early twentieth-century war with the bolsheviks proved, with enough numbers and determination, even a real machine gun wouldn''t be able to destroy the enemy, cavalry charge, not to speak about its wannabe version that I came up with myself!


    "Fiiiix Bayoneetesˇ­"


    Hearing the new shout coming from the behind, I realised that we were now locked between two major forces, hoping to squash my men between them and the walls of the city that were supposed to be our help yet would turn into the device of our doom.


    "CHARGE!!!"


    "HURRA! SLAWA!"


    Just from this single warcry I finally realised just where the heck did Ostros managed to find such a huge number of veteran warriors. Because, in the entire commonwealth, only a single group was using Slawa as their warcry!


    "Don''t stop! Keep running; we will return fire backˇ­ CITY GUNS, FIRE!"


    Using the fact that we were already near enough the city for the troops hidden inside to hear my orders properly, I still went for a little trick, hoping that the initial part of my order would put enemy troops into even more confident spot, only to break this fake illusion the very next moment!


    "YES, SIR!"


    With a powerful soundwave of my troops orderly responding to my orders, I couldn''t help myself but turn around.


    And just like in this one, world war two movie, I realised that all my actions so far finally managed to lead the situation to exactly what I hoped to see!


    TRAAAAAAA!


    With the sound of my several reaper guns firing all at once, I couldn''t turn my eyes away from the sight of countless men dying as if a deathly reaper swung its scythe over their heads. Rather than falling to the ground like they would do in the classic example of the modern-day warfare, with some people dying or getting injured, falling down on the ground and getting replaced by another soldier from the row behind, here, entire lines of people were just collapsing!


    "Men! Do not get distracted! Get back to the safety of the walls!"


    The cavalry was coming!


    "First army! Against the horsesˇ­ FIRE!"


    With the last four reaper guns suddenly covering the gap between my lines and the walls of the marketplace with fire, they managed to tempter the enemy charge a bit, slowing their advance by creating a barricade of the dead horses and soldiers, pilling up against each other.


    And I wasn''t willing to let this kind of chance just go away like that!


    TRATATATA!


    With the voices of my personal rifles joining the choir, I could see the entire horsemen unit getting devastated in the manner of seconds. This was the reason why I never bothered to invest in the creation of my own cavalry. As great and useful as it was, even in terms of modern warfare, putting it to a reckless charge like this one, was simply stupid!


    There was no way for a tightly formed unit of cavalrymen to handle themselves against a concentrated fire like the one I was serving them right now. As great as the horsemen were in terms of both logistic, communication and strategic flanking, using the horses to carry them to the battlefield, was the greatest flaw of the current-day cavalry when one pitted it against the modern firearms of mine!


    "Hold your fire and continue the retreat!"


    Seeing how this biggest threat to the integrity of my troops was finally pacified, with four of the reaper guns tracking their shoots towards the escaping leftovers of the Ostros horsemen, I realised that I allowed my attention to be focused on a single spot for way too long.


    And this was exactly the reason why the enemy forces allowed itself to enter right into my trap, yet this momentary lapse of my concentration was what allowed them to regain their footing, even if only for a bit!


    "Take aim!"


    Hearing the command coming from the nearby enemy troops, I realised that my order to retreat was too late. While my men were busy dealing with the threat to our flank, the main, foot force of Ostros managed to scale over the earthworks and reach the lethal range of their weapons.


    "Everyone! HUG THE FUCKING GROUND!"


    Shouting from the bottom of my lungs, I didn''t dare to stay upright myself. As much as my dignity of the officer would be hurt by this movement, I wasn''t stupid enough to put such hollow aspects before my own damned safety!


    "FIRE!"


    As much as I hated to admit it, at this point, the enemy troops proved the superiority of their discipline. Despite the process of taking aim and properly firing was far longer than what one would take to just drop like dead to the ground, as soon as the enemy order came into action, I had to powerlessly watch as countless men of mine fell to the ground, just a few steps away from the safety of fortifications of the marketplace.


    "SUPPRESSING FIRE!"


    Unable to do anything for the men that already fallen, I had to swallow the grief that appeared when I saw so many people that I personally knew go and meet their death, in order to do my best for the sake of those who remained alive!

 245 Baiting the enemy

    19th July 1574


    As devastating as it was to watch my men fall to the ground never to stand up again, I had to follow my duties as the commanding officer in this battle, and prevent those who were still alive, from sharing the fate of their fallen brothers-in-arms.


    "Suppressing fire!''


    Being just a few steps away from the fortifications of the marketplace, I didn''t need to worry about my order being lost in the chaos of battle. While there was a slight lag between me issuing the next direction and the people actually following it, as soon as the window was opened for the remnants of my first army, I didn''t dare to waste even a single second.


    After all, even mark two reaper guns required a time to reload as soon as their magazine would empty out!


    "Retreat to the city! I repeat, retreat to the city!"


    Even though this marketplace was not a city in any form of meaning, if I was stupid enough to get more precise for the sake of doing so, I doubted I could handle the cost of my men lives that would come bound in the package.


    "Sir, you need to get to safety too!"


    Only when one of the officers approached me personally, did I realise that from being in the comfort and relative safety of the middle of the ranks, I somehow moved to the very front line of the ongoing battle!


    With the front troops already safely hidden behind the fortifications and joining in the shooting fray, only the rear units and I myself remained in the open.


    "I don''t give a single fuck! Until all of my men get into safety, I''m not leaving!''


    With some strange force taking over my mind, I couldn''t force my body to move an inch, despite the rational side of my brain whispering to my soul how stupid it was to put myself in the harm''s way if there was no tangible benefit of doing so.


    Yet the sight of the dying eyes of my men, who were unlucky enough to not drop to the ground before the enemy volley harvested their lives, almost instantly chased this bout of rationality away.


    Slap.


    Just as I was about to order this officer of mine to retreat as well, I felt a sting on my cheek. Raising my head in disbelief to the place of my head that felt as if it was burning with fire, I looked down on the posture of the officer in front of me, who held his right hand raised to his left side.


    "Sir! With all due respect, but if you die here for no reason, then all their deaths, all their efforts, will be fucking meaningless! Sir, I don''t know where all those great ideas of yours are coming from, but I saw enough in my life to understand how much of an impact it will have on our lives and country. That''s why you can''t die heˇ­"


    Splatter.


    "KILL!"


    As terrifying as it was to hear such a powerful shout from the advancing enemy troops, as my eyes were glued to the repulsive internal matter of this bold officer of mine, flowing right down on my shoulder right now, I finally realised what it meant to be in the middle of a fucking war!


    "Retreat! City, keep them suppressed!"


    In fact, suppressing fire was no different than what those people in the safety of the marketplace''s fortification were doing, but with my order in the air, rather than doing it as a side job, all the reaper guns focused on this task alone.


    After all, the point of suppressing fire wasn''t to kill the enemies, but make them unable and unwilling to even peek out of their hiding spot, so that other unit could fulfil any task they had in almost complete safety!


    "MOVE!"


    As bad as it felt, I had no other choice but to push the dead body of my loyal subordinate aside, as I jumped towards the fortification. With the sound of my early machine guns spewing fire at the enemies that could dare to even aim their weapons at me, I ran towards the small opening in the fortification line, diving into its safety as soon as I reached the appropriate distance to do so.


    The moment I finally crawled through the hole far enough for my hands to stick on the other side, several hands grabbed my wrists and helped me to get back to the surface.


    "What''s the situation?"


    As costly as this entire manoeuvre was, if I could manage to achieve what I hoped for with it, then even the price of several men of mine, wouldn''t be too great. After all, people were dying. That was just how the war worked, so rather than troubling and despairing over the loss of life, I had to make sure to make the best use of the sacrifice my soldiers made!


    "Just as planned, it seems that the majority of the enemy troops entered the open field. We estimate that in just two minutes, the majority of their forces will reach the line of mines."


    Not bothering to straighten himself up as he reported, one of the common soldiers carefully peeked from behind the cover to confirm the situation on the battlefield.


    "Good, keep me informed."


    While fighting from within the city, there was no point in reaching any specific place. No matter what would happen, my orders would quickly spread through the entire line, so commanding the entire battle from a random spot of our fortifications was just as good if not better than doing so from the highest point in the area. After all, even if my view would be better, the time that it would take for my orders to reach my men would put all the advantages of the elevated observation spot away.


    "Sir, the core of their troopsˇ­ Advanced past the line of mines!"

 246 Springing the trap

    19th July 1574


    As lethal and dangerous as word ''mine'' sounded, in the current day and age, it was just a way for the sieging troops to undo the walls of the fortification, by detonating a huge explosion in the tunnel dug under the target.


    On the other hand, what this soldier of mine was referring to right now, was nothing else but those small and funny packages that my soldiers dropped on the ground as soon as the retreat order was issued!


    "Okay then, pass the news to everyone, when the first mine detonates, everyone is to aim for the other mines! Try to activate them with rifles, but if it''s impossible, ask the reaper nests to do it for you!"


    Not even bothering to look out from behind my cover, I just sat on the cold concrete roof of the building, allowing its roof wall to shield me from any potential harm. After all, I couldn''t expect for commanding to be so draining!


    BOOM!


    Just a few moments later, an ear-shattering explosion shoot the air of the area, even going as far as making me feel as if the foundation of the building that I was sitting on somehow were shaken!


    Yet just as planned, this first explosion was but a single occurrence of the incoming storm of death!


    One by one, more and more mines of mine were set off, exploding into a majestic ball of violent flames that consumed anything that was in their direct sphere of influence, badly burning and repelling anyone unlucky to be close enough.


    From what was continuously reported to me, while the frontline troops of the attackers belonged to the absolute elite, their main force still consisted of conscripts, that made the bulk of their troops. After all, it didn''t take a hero to ravage the lands or shoot at the enemies, so I could guess that Ostros planned to break my defences and formation with their elite troops recruited from the Cossack lands, and then just swarm the survivors with their regular troops!


    "How is this looking right now?"


    Since the explosions were already going off, it was only a matter of time before the fight would enter the most desperate stage for both of the sides. After all, those mines were only aimed at breaking the spirit of the bulk of Ostros troops, so that the later moves of mine could completely cage them away from the safety of the forest, forcing them to either enter the shower of the bullets or charge at the perfectly fortified border of the marketplace!


    "We are running out of the bombs, sir. Reaper guns are covering the hole in the enemy formation with their fire, stopping enemies from escaping!"


    As the number of the holes in the enemy lines continued to grow, more and more machine guns of mine focused at cutting the already engaged troops from the reinforcements still coming from the forest, allowing the rest of my men manning the fortifications to just deal with the enemy in a calm and composed manner.


    One by one, the rifles of my soldiers were singing their praise to the God Almighty, bringing more and more souls for his last trial. Yet I could see that this kind of carnage was taking a toll on my soldiers. While the troops from the first army, who experienced the onslaught of the enemy wrath on their own skin, often losing at least a single friend from their unit in the battle, clearly used this chance to take revenge for their fallen comrades, it wasn''t the case for neither my second or third army.


    Despite their casualty rate at all times low, I could see how more and more of them simply put away their guns to vomit to the side, before picking the weapon back and getting back to this bloody work of theirs.


    Yet as I finally cast a glance to the battlefield, I realised that something was really wrong. Even though this bloody plan of mine seemed to work wonders, with the curtain of the reaper guns constantly tightening and pushing the enemies closer and closer to the lines of fortification, I couldn''t help but realise that even with all the dead bodies lying on the ground and piling up, even with both the troops that were enclosed in the fire and those that were lucky enough to escape from this invisible encirclement before it closed on them, there simply wasn''t enough troops!


    Recalling the images of what I saw back at Tarnow, even after the initial carnage caused by my first army there, there should be at least several thousand more enemies to go through, but looking at the field below the fortification line, I could guess that the total number of enemies that were still fighting or fallen to the ground already could reach only a half of what I saw back at Tarnow at most!


    Realising what did that situation meant, I felt all my mercy and compassion for my enemies suddenly disappearing. With the new motivation entering my mind, I suddenly picked up my rifle that still hung from my side, before resting its barrel on top of the small wall that shielded me from the enemy fire and taking aim.


    Pull.


    As soon as my forefinger retracted the trigger far enough, this beautiful weapon of mine lighted up from the flashes of the fire, before a figure that I was aiming for on the ground, dropped dead.


    "Retreat!"


    It didn''t take long for yet another officer to spring up and start attempting to reorganise the enemy forces before they would be simply massacred, yet in just a mere few seconds, the muzzle of my rifle moved a bit to the side, before laying that brave officer to the rest along with three more soldiers unlucky enough to stand by his side.


    "Kill them all. Stop only if they surrender all."


    Unwilling to let too many prisoners of war inside the marketplace, I made sure that this order could only be heard by some of the closest soldiers around me. Even though it would take only a few moments before it would circulate among the entire fortification line, I hoped that before it would be enforced, at least half of the enemies remaining below the fortification line would end up dying or getting mortally wounded!

 247 Pax

    19th July 1574


    "They are breaking!"


    As informal as it was for a report, considering how those words came from one of the first army soldiers who already saw a fair bit of combat in the last few weeks of his life, I didn''t dare to disregard them.


    And it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my own observation yielded exactly the same results!


    With the lines of enemy troops long broken and mixed together, most of the invading army was stuck between the constantly firing line of fortifications on one side, while the distance at which they could remain constantly decreased with the muzzles of my reaper guns slowly reaching the limit of how low they could be lowered.


    Deprived of any means of retaliation, enemy soldiers could only desperately climb to their hopes, either trying to escape through the hail of bullets that cut them off from the forest, only to be shot down by one of the more vengeful soldiers of mine in the rare case of someone actually managing to go past the curtain of bullets.


    On the other hand, those closer to the marketplace fortification than the illusionary safety of the open fields continued their attempts at scaling the defences, only to be shot down like if they were some kind of wild wolves, by my men hidden behind their covers.


    In the end, at such close distance, there was absolutely no advantage to my rifles over the muzzle-loaded one that my enemies were equipped with. In most of the skirmishes, only a handful of meters separated a soldier of mine from the warrior of Ostros. Yet even if the accuracy was already equalled at this point, the actual greatest advantage of my rifles came into the equation.


    Their rate of fire.


    While my soldiers were sitting down on the fortification behind covers while reloading once in a while, during the fighting, they didn''t even need to properly aim, as just hovering their barrel towards the general direction of the enemy was just enough to pull the trigger all the way up to the base, allowing the gun to empty out its entire magazine, before said soldier would go and reload his rifle away.


    Considering how all kinds of armies required sizeable storage of gunpowder to supply their troops, I wasn''t all that worried about the consumption of the ammunition, that was quickly reaching the point where any further fighting would simply stop me from engaging in any other battle.


    Yet when given such a great opportunity to sap the manpower and overall strength of my enemies, I couldn''t just let go of it because of such a silly reason! In the end, the more enemies I killed right now, the easier it would be to recover Tarnow, resupply there and start the perilous journey to the east!


    "PAX! PAX MEN!"


    "Hold your fire!"


    Seeing how allowing the uncertainty to seep even deeper into the bones of my people, I simply realised that allowing this momentary break in this war was the best choice I had right now. If the Ostros troops were to continue their attack, my people would instantly see me as a compassionate man, willing to stop the carnage when the situation arose, while my enemies would take the mask of unemotional monsters, willing to invite more and more death into Commonwealth lands, just for the sake of achieving their convoluted aims!


    Yet as much as I was worried about the potential specific abilities of my enemy after seeing to what point they were capable to push their people during our first fight, I could only admit that I was either mistaken or that strange force didn''t work without its caster in the proximity, because just like my soldiers who stopped shooting, the enemy troops simply sat down on the ground, using their firing sticks not as weapons but as support for their tired bodies!


    "Pax!"


    Only now, after the battlefield calmed down a bit, I finally managed to find the position of that courageous man, who singlehandedly managed to stall the entire fight.


    And to my surprise, it was damned Kalen, in most likely stolen robes of a monk, marching through the field littered by corpses with nothing but a huge cross in front of his head! For a moment there, I thought that my eyes were deceiving me, as I couldn''t find any logical explanations to how he was capable of entering the battlefield while the curtain fire was still cutting away the huge group of enemy soldiers from the open fields that separated them from the forest, nor how his voice was capable of breaking through the insane noise of battle, yet seeing how he somehow managed to achieve whatever was his aim, I could only rest my back against the nearby wall before taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down.


    "Invite the monk inˇ­ Or rather, call him to the gate."


    As happy as I was to see him all healthy and alive, his appearance was important from a different reason. Keeping the last task that I gave to him, depending on what he would say, the entire course of my future actions would be affected!


    Yet rather than keeping me waiting, Kalen most likely knew what kind of importance the news that he most likely was bringing would have for me, so by the time when I approached the small standing point above the gate, he was already waiting there for me.


    "Mikeˇ­ The news at the Bathory place was true. Muscovites really did attack!"

 248 Ceasefire

    "Everyone! Ceasefire!"


    As much as I was expecting this message, there was still a small part of my brain that hoped it would all turn out to be just a silly scheme aimed at derailing my reputation amongst fellow nobles. It was this assumption that pushed me into dealing with Ostros in such a brutal way, yet now that the invasion was finally confirmed, there was no way for me to keep sapping the national manpower, especially with how disciplined the enemy troops were!


    "I want to talk with the commander of the rebel troops! Announce the ceasefire properly."


    While in the future, people would consider a white flag to be a symbol of shameful surrender, in the historical reality, it was rarely used in this way. Even if there were few causes when someone announced their surrender by waving a makeshift, white flag, most of the time, it was used when either party wished to meditate rather than continue the clash.


    "Sir, here you go!"


    With one of the subordinates of mine instantly tearing his white shirt off his back and sewing it to a random piece of wood that he grabbed of the barricade, I took the makeshift flag in my hand and stood above the cover.


    "Everyone, ceasefire!"


    No matter how many times I would shout it, there was no way to stop the fighting just like that. Even with Kalen shouting Pax like a madman, even with the officers relaying my order through the line, it still took about half a minute for all the shots to finally stop.


    While I would love to go to the enemy lines immediately and discuss the reality that they were most likely ignorant about, doing so would be akin to suicide. While heroic tales of the past ages often liked to flaunt how honourable the people of the past times were, it went without saying that there was bound to be someone who lost his precious friends or family during the battle, who wouldn''t bother with the white flag, when the opportunity to get his revenge on me for all those people that he lost today!


    Yet as I kept the flag in my hand, some of my soldiers quickly cleared out a small entrance in one of the makeshift barricades, even going as far as to bring some stray horses from somewhere in the town!


    "Sir, good luck!"


    As one of the non-combat subordinates of mine helped me to one of the horses, I could see several members of the first army, still wearing their combat-torn clothes. Yet rather than using the ceasefire to tend to their potential wounds or refill their supplies, they were already mounting the other horses and surrounding me with a tight formation!


    "You guysˇ­ I''m really happy that I entrusted our future and the future of this entire country to you... "


    Seeing their strange enthusiasm, I couldn''t stop myself from getting emotional for a moment, before shedding all those spare emotions aside and pushing the entire formation forward.


    "I''m the current commanding officer of this army. Seeing how you came to discuss termsˇ­ Should I take it that you are willing to surrender?"


    After travelling on the horseback through the corpse-littered battlefield, it didn''t take me any effort to recognise the opposing side officer when the entire group came out from behind the cover of the trees. Compared to the soldiers that surrounded him and wore the marks of the heavy fighting, this guy was dressed in the finest robes I have ever seen in my life in this timeline, not sullied by even a speck of dust, despite him camping in a damned forest!


    "Surrender? While I could consider accepting yours, this is no time for this kind of little games. In short words, I just got a confirmation that the news that I hoped to be false, were actually true. In other words, while we are killing each other here only because your master was hungry for my prosperous lands, the muscovites are burning down the entire east of our country!"


    Just a single look at the face of the officer that stood in the middle of the group of enemies, was enough for me to confirm that there was no point trying to reason with him. From the pride clearly written in his mocking smile, through the clear contempt he had for the common folk that surrounded him, he was the perfect picture of the worst kind of Polish noble you could ever find.


    Willing to sacrifice everything and everyone except for himself in order to get a better status, higher position or more lands. Just this alone was making it hard for me to not order my troops to clear his subordinates so that I could slap him in the face.


    Yet even while knowing all of that, I still went on when explaining the matter as if I was standing with someone who actually cared about what I was speaking. And that was because, rather than talking to the officer himself, I hoped that it would be his soldiers that would hear what is going on!


    "Invasion from the east? Are you mad? Or are you really stupid enough to think I would ever believe such simple lie?"


    Once again showing the contempt on his face in the open, the enemy officer looked at me as if he was looking at the worm, crawling at his feet.


    "In this situation, I think it won''t be you deciding whether it''s a lie or not."


    With my eyes wandering to the side for a moment, I allowed one corner of my lips to rise in an irreverent smirk.


    "And who do you think will decide that then? Did the battle made you lost your ability to recognise who is in the damned charge?!"


    Hearing my response, the officer''s head flared in red, with his insulted pride instantly pumping his face full of blood.


    "If you ask me who will judge the current situationˇ­"


    Rather than replying to his insults, I rested my hand on the horse''s neck, before jumping off the saddle and gesturing to my men to follow my example.


    "They will."


    With my extended hand pointing at the small cloud of dust already visible in the distance on the other side of the local river, I continued to smile at the enemy officer with the brightest grin that I could produce!

 249 Approaching the new army

    19th July 1574


    "Everyone, ready your weapons, but refrain from shooting unless I order otherwise!"


    After leaving the furious officer behind us, I lead the entire group and our horses to the river itself, before signalling for my steam paddlers to approach us. With my forces in the city still prepared to resume fighting at any given time, I didn''t need to worry about the enemies assaulting us at all.


    In the end, despite how cocky the Ostros appointed officer was, he couldn''t change the reality of the battlefield. To be frank, after I witnessed the tragedy that transpired for so many people on my own soil, rather than turning mute to their desperate screams, I pushed one of my escorts to notify the city. Rather than turning around to the human''s suffering, I ordered them to provide as much medical care as they were capable off!


    Yet what others could take as a sign of compassion and thus weakness, was, in fact, a perfectly calculated move. From how I spoke loudly and openly about the invasion from the east, through how I decided to lay my fate in the hands of approaching army from the west, all the way to providing medics and at least basic medical supplies, it was all aimed at the small chance of coaxing some of the wounded and survivors into actually joining my camp!


    Even though I was perfectly conscious of the fact that no matter what, it would take a long time before I would allow them to actually fight for my cause if that was their will in the first place, preparing for the future was a part of a ruler''s responsibilities, no matter how small and unimportant land was under my governance!


    Yet after wasting quite a lot of time required to force the horses on top of the paddlers and into chasing them back on the stable ground on the other side of the river, by the time my group once again mounted our mounts, the enemy front guard was already in plain sight.


    "I will repeat that once again, do not shoot unless I give you a direct order."


    With everything that happened today, I knew that most of my troops were most likely trigger-happy, so rather than counting on a single order being enough to stop them from overreacting, I preferred to keep nailing it down to their heads!


    "Stop where you are!"


    It didn''t take long after we finally got back on horseback for the approaching front guard of the army to finally enter the speakable distance. Yet rather than allowing us to approach the distance where talking would be actually comfortable, they forced us to remain at the very edge of what they must take for the range of our weapons.


    "I''m Mike of the Leliwa Coat of Arms, owner of the Tarnowian, Pilznian and Ropian lands. I hereby proclaim that I will let my actions be judged and my fate decided by the Commonwealth Senate! As such, I ask for the right of hearing with the commanding officers of the army, as the news that I''m bringing are dire and urgent!"


    "You dare to ask for a hearing, you damned rebel? How about you come with us so that we could judge you ourselves!"


    Seeing how the soldiers of the front guard responded to my words, I really wished to know just from which noble house did they came from. Yet in the current situation, there was no way for me to know that.


    "Who is the best shooter amongst you all?"


    Turning my head back to the people around me, I looked at the half-familiar faces in wait, before one of the younger-looking soldiers hesitantly raised his hand.


    "Sirˇ­ I don''t want to be pridefulˇ­"


    "Good, I like your attitude. Do you still have your shots?"


    Rather than putting down a youth that dared to be confident in his shooting abilities, seeing that no one protested as he volunteered, I decided that he might be just as good pick as anyone else. In fact, if I really cared that much about accuracy, I would use my own rifle and take the shoot myself!


    In reality, though, all I required from the youth, was to not miss by some kind of huge margin!


    "Listen up. I want you to shoot down one of their horses. Don''t aim for the people, just the mount. I think they are feeling a bit too comfortable standing there. When you are done, make sure to raise your rifle and send two more into the skies."


    While some might consider it a waste, to just shoot at the heavens in the current situation, where if the approaching front guard were to attack, every single bullet would count!


    Yet rather than thinking about what would happen if they were to attack, I preferred to do my best to prevent them from doing so!


    "What happened? Now that you have real soldiers against you, you are not in such a hurry to rebel? Surrender now orˇ­"


    BAM!


    Most likely infuriated with the attitude that this damned soldier had towards me and all of my people in extension, the youth made a good choice by aiming his rifle at that specific soldier''s horse!


    Seeing how the poor mount almost instantly stood on its hind legs before falling to the side along with the soldier in its saddle, I watched with delight as the same youth raised his weapon as ordered and fired two more shots at one of the nearby clouds.


    "As a noble of the major household, you have no right to refuse my requests, you commoner! Go and fetch someone worthy of talking with me before I tell my men to not miss on purpose next time!"


    "Okay, okay, that will be enough. I will talk with you, so how about we both get a bit closer, away from the prying ears of the common soldiers?"


    Almost instantly, the moment I spoke those words, a small commotion appeared in the lines of the front guard of the approaching army before a new figure appeared from behind the cavalry''s back, before shouting back to me.


    It seemed that the real negotiations were about to start soon!

 250 Change of mind

    19th July 1574


    "It''s been a while since we last met."


    With both of our escorts standing down a few hundreds of meters away, I could finally recognise the man responsible for causing the commotion in his own ranks just a moment ago.


    "It sure was, but I don''t think we have the time to speak pleasantries right now. As I mentioned, I bring the news both urgent and dire."


    Knowing the forms of the current etiquette, even while talking with someone who he perceived as a rebel, Peter Zboros would still take his time before we would start talking about anything of importance.


    "Alleged rebel, approaching the punitive army himself? You sure have some guts, I have to admit that."


    Rather than allowing me to actually speak my mind, Peter only swung his head to the sides with a look of disappointment deep inside his eyes. Seeing him like that, I couldn''t help but realise that the way in which I treated him before, wasn''t really fair.


    Knowing how his family would lose the power to another clan, I was fully willing to use my connection to him only for the sake of exploiting the situation. Yet in all my scheming, I simply failed to notice him as a man, who in his own way, was trying to serve the country.


    And in the current situation, if our forces were to clash, even if I could hope for a somewhat positive outcome, the loss of the forces that Commonwealth could muster would be devastating.


    Obviously, the invasion would at some point, stop. Either the enemy would satisfy what he wanted to achieve, forcing a humiliating peace treaty, or the country would rise up to the challenge and repel the enemy. And with all of the devastating events that brought this once powerful country to its knees, still far in the future, I had no doubts that if necessary, the locals would still dare to defy the monster from the east.


    Yet in the current situation, allowing any further bloodshed would be counterproductive to everyone.


    "Sir, with all due respect, but when I meant, we don''t have time for this, I really meant it."


    Shaking all of the idle thoughts from my head, I slapped my cheeks twice before looking at Peter again. Even if my words wouldn''t do the work, I hoped that at least my voice and the determination in my eyes would be enough to convince him of my intentions.


    "Right as we are speaking, an immensely powerful Muscovite army is burning our entire eastern border. Initially, I thought that this entire plot to make me a rebel was just another distraction from the real opponent, yet the news that I achieved at Zomyski household... "


    Despite how I wanted to just let it all out of me, finally get rid of this brand of the alleged traitor, I just couldn''t. If by any chance, I were to force the conflict with Ostros to be finished right now, that would only delay the country''s response to the threat from the east!


    "I???m not going to bother proving that I never betrayed the country. Right now, we need to gather all the forces and all the ace cards as we can. Rather than shedding the blood here, let''s do it where the country needs us to do it."


    Only after I said those words, did I realise how pompous did my entire speech sound. What I was doing, trying to make myself another national hero?


    With this thought appearing in my head, all the flowers I felt in my soul from the spirited sentences of mine, disappeared. In one instant, one single memory took over my entire mind.


    "Poland does not need martyrs. It needs loyal sons who do their best to achieve the best results out of the situation at hand!"


    Those two sentences I once heard from my father. Then from my history teacher. Then from many other people.


    This one sentence that summed up the entirety of the polish national spirit of the later ages. With how low this once great country fallen, we could only reminiscent the courage in the great failures, rather than the brilliancy of the victories!


    "What? Muscovites have attacked us?!"


    As my mind was heating up in the strange aura of denial, Peter was only now starting to comprehend the meaning behind my last sentences.


    With the spirit of cold pragmatic approach, I raised my slightly lowered head and looked straight into the eyes of the great noble in front of me.


    "Whether I''m a rebel or not, it doesn''t matter. What I''m fighting against are false charges started by the invasion on my lands, not the country. And whoever is right in my own conflict, can be proven by who is willing to go for greater lengths when defending our country!"


    No matter what I said right now, I could already see the plan forming in my head. In the current situation, Peter has no choice but to somehow react to my words. With how I initially announced my willingness and even initiative to subject myself to the will of the senate, he would be forced to either send his own people to confirm it, but no matter what would be the outcome of his own investigation, he would have to start to prepare.


    And that would mean, that as long as I was willing to comply with his orders, I could force Ostros to lift up the siege, gather their troops and go to the front!


    Rather than dealing with my enemy myself, I could force them to sacrifice their troops in the real conflict, while using the situation to rebuild my power and influence, all the way the point where no matter what they would try to achieve, they would be powerless in the face of my power!


    As it was turning out, this devastating war, amongst all of its tragedy, would be the time of the greatest chances and the highest risk!


    And I was fully willing to go all in!

 251 We have terms

    19th July 1574


    "I think I like your idea. Yet the question stands, are you willing to fully put yourself under the judgment and protection of the senate, while abandoning the right to decide of your fate with your own personal force? Are you that bold, naive, scheming or just stupid to put so much trust in the justice of the high nobles?"


    For some reason, as I talked with Peter, I couldn''t help but notice how he appeared to be worried about me, even when he was supposed to take me, prisoner. Yet just as I agreed with the point of how naive it was to surrender my fate to a bunch of random high nobles, in the current situation, it was simply the best course of action that I would take.


    "Sir, with all due respect, but I already passed the news about everything that''s going on to Jan Bone, the governor of the Sandomir province and city itself. With your approval, I would like him to take my lands and production into his custody, so that the chain of production that can generate an insane amount of supplies that we will need for war, won''t be broken. Is that all right with you?"


    This was the most crucial point about my entire plan. As long as I could put Bone on the governing seat of both southern lands with Tarnow as their crown and the entirety of my mining town, then as long as Jan wouldn''t betray me himself, I could freely focus on dealing with other matters like the invasion from the east, or scheming traitors from the eastern south!


    "I think that''s a fair proposition. I already heard the news that you two barely managed to avoid clashing with each other. I guess now I can guess the full story behind what happened during that chanced meeting."


    Nodding his head to his own thoughts, Peter looked like he lost himself in his thoughts, before suddenly raising his head and sending a deadly, inspecting stare at my face before opening his mouth and speaking up.


    "The question is, are you willing to surrender your weapons whilst in the camp? If your words about the invasion will turn out to be true, I will make sure that every single piece will be returned to your soldiers!"


    Hearing this part, I was so overwhelmed by the naivety of this simple scheme that I couldn''t stop myself from openly smirking at this proposition.


    "Sir, with all due respect, but if you want to prevent us from causing trouble while in the camp, then all I can do is to surrender my stock of ammunition so that while my soldiers will be able to protect themselves in case of any sneaky troublemakers, they won''t be able to pose a threat to the integrity of the entire army. Is that okay with you, sir?"


    "Wellˇ­ While that''s not what I wanted, I think I will be able to make do with it. So, what are you going to do now, with the terms more or less settled?"


    Finally changing the topic from my rifles to something more concrete and actually important, I couldn''t help but look at Peter with silent thank you expressed by my eyes. After all, with how simple and intuitive the design of my rifles was, as long as someone else would get their hand on it, the secret of its productions would become common knowledge in a matter of days!


    And what was the better way to make some crazy amount of money if not war?


    Being the sole producer of my semi-automatic rifles, as long as I was willing to make a huge deal with the country itself, all my financial troubles caused both by the Ostros attack, break in the chain of the supply along with the costs of rebuilding everything that was either destroyed or altered during our fighting, would be gone!


    Even without overpricing those rifles of mine, just by following the basic costs on the market, and doubling the end price of my rifle in order to keep it as a luxury innovative rather than a common weapon, I could elevate all my lands to unimaginable heights!


    And to be completely honest, I didn''t doubt that as soon as the decision-makers would see what my rifle could achieve, making a deal with me and supplying those weapons to the front line, would become their greatest priority!


    "For now, let''s all get back to our respective camps. I will pass the message to my officers and prepare to pack up, while I hope you can confirm with everyone else in that army of yours to acknowledge the terms we agreed upon. If everything ends up going smoothly, then as soon as I receive a message that the terms were commonly accepted, I will march my troops out of the marketplace, give up on the remaining stockpile of my amuniotion outside of the basics that my people need to fend for themselves, and garrison them in the part of the campsite that you guys will pick for me. Sounds like a plan?"


    Moving two steps closer, I extended my arm towards the high noble, only for him to hesitate for a short moment before repeating my actions and grabbing my hand in his tight grasp.


    "It does. Let''s not waste the time then, as I''m sadly worried that your information might end up being truthful. And we both know the importance of time in that sad situation."


    After shaking our hands and nodding to each other, the two of us finally got back on our horses before once again nodding our heads and riding off to our respective escorts.


    "Sir, how did it go? Are we going to fight the punitive army?"


    As soon as my men surrounded me in order to make sure no stray shot would be capable of harming me, the highest officer that happened to join us on this trip, asked.


    "It doesn''t seem like it. While I don''t want to raise any flags, it seems that rather than fighting with them, we will fight alongside the punitive army!"

 252 Opposite ends

    21st July 1574


    "Are you sure it was a good idea?"


    Sitting in front of the fireplace with a small sausage nailed on top of a pointy stick, I watched the drops of fat appear on its surface only to fall down into the flames and turn into smoke with a quick whizzing sound.


    "It''s not like we had anything better we could do. If I dared to face against the punitive army, that alone would make me a rebel, even if everything prior to that was nothing but a bunch of lies."


    Seeing that my sausage was finally in the perfect state, I raised the stake in my hand while grabbing a freshly baked bun to my other hand. Tearing the small piece of bread almost in half, I allowed the stick to slide down to the ground before I could grasp it near the sausage enough to be able to precisely control its position.


    Grabbing the meat by clasping the two parts of the bread on it, I finally removed it from the stick before putting it away and adding several layers of different vegetables and seasonings.


    "Here, I hope you will like it."


    With one of my hand passing the prepared grilled sausage in dressing to my dearest, I was already moving my hands in order to get the next one going.


    "But don''t you find it strange? Rather than being placed in the middle of the camp, they ordered us to stay at its outskirts, on the directly opposite end to where Ostros moved. Even if the siege is lifted and our people are regaining the control of our lands as we speak, do you really think that after everything they did, they would let us go just like that?"


    In reality, this matter was even deeper than Elia mentioned. If it was proven that I wasn''t the rebel that Ostros claimed I was, then rather than me being freed from the accusations and the matter being over, the focus of everyone involved would switch to Ostros themselves! Even from the purely economical point of view, I could demand an insane amount of compensation for everything they did, to the point where their budding economic potential would just disappear from the face of the earth. Yet it would be the political backlash that would be a gamechanger in this exact situation.


    After all, with the accusations on my name gone, all the reasons for their invasion and overall, stirring up trouble, they would face the responsibility for putting the part of the country in chaotic state just as the eastern invasion began. Even if what could be considered to be their private uprising would be proven to have no ties with the east, just from the losses that Commonwealth was bound to suffer during the course of its war, the resentment towards Ostro household would surely put them out of the political, economical and religious circles for ages to come!


    "Woah, it''s really yum!"


    "I''m glad you like it."


    After moving my intrusive body away and letting my dearest eat in peace, I once again focused on the tip of my stake, keenly watching how my sausage was slowly getting ready to be consumed.


    "As for your previous questionˇ­ I don''t find it strange at all. Imagine yourself being in Peter''s shoes. You make a pretty nice deal with someone while watching over their incredible growth. Then out of nowhere, you learn that said person apparently rebelled for no reason, but when you finally gather an army to put him down, rather than fighting, he approaches you and put himself at his mercy. When you look at it like that, isn''t this rebelling part the one element that doesn''t fit the consistency of the narrative?"


    Slowly turning my stick around in order to make sure my sausage would be evenly roasted, I sent a glance towards Elia''s face, almost completely covered in all sorts of sauces. Even with how worried I was about the current situation when seeing this kind of thing, I just couldn''t stop myself from grinning like a madman!


    "Stop laughing! It''s really hard to eat it like this!"


    With her face covering in blush, the one thing Elia managed to do, was to get the tomato sauce suddenly disappear from her cheek! Yet as I was laughing silently, my mind was still plagued with what would happen next.


    Should I expect a sneak, night attack? Or maybe the water sources that this camp secured would get poisoned? Yet even before I could focus on figuring out what kind of dangers I should be wary off, I had to find out just what the hell the Ostros were after!


    If everything they did so far was just a gamble during which they hoped to dispose me completely before any sort of reaction would appear, then rather than resting easy due to how stupid they would be in that case, I would be in a complete loss, as I had no way of predicting the movements of a complete idiot!


    Surprisingly, it would be the best for current me if Ostros turned out to be a clan of incredibly efficient schemers, capable of turning any situation around, as that would mean that at last for as long as the war in the east would last, I could just forget about the entire case!


    "Anyway, you asked if it isn''t strange, and I told you I don''t think so. Even if Peter didn''t put all of his eggs in one basket by completely siding with me, putting the two of us, or rather, our soldiers that just stopped spilling each other''s blood is the most sensible course of action for him! After all, what''s the best way to stop the fight if not by pushing both parties interested in bloodshed to the opposite end of the fighting area?"

 253 Moving ou

    24th July 1574


    "Pack your stuff and move out!"


    With the same command resounding through the entire camp of the whole united army, the commotion was inevitable. Yet despite how short my troops had to train, just as the teachers from the long-gone Roman empire taught me back when I was in the school in my original timeline, setting and moving the camp was one of the priority tasks that every single soldier of mine had to know by his soul before even getting his hands on my weapons!


    After all, in the real world, warfare wasn''t about the fighting prowess of the troops. Obviously, the more men one had, not to speak about their discipline and quality of weapons, the better his army would be on the surfaceˇ­ But when everything came down to reality, it was the logistical capability that decided who would win the war!


    In fact, the more disciplined one''s troops were, the easier it was to supply them, while not having to worry about the provisions being stolen by the army, and resupplied according to the communists'' law of the stronger fists getting the better stuff.


    "Make sure you packed all of your belongings. Try not to break any parts of the tents while packing them up!"


    In comparison to the entire army, my personal camp was doing rather nicely. Rather than causing chaos in every single place with people smashing against each other in rush to get as many provisions for the road as they could, every single team instantly split the tasks between their members, resulting in four people taking care of taking down their shared tent, two more people queuing up to get the dry rations for the first day of the travel and with the last two men making sure that everything was going smoothly and helping out whenever a need arouse.


    "Damnˇ­ It''s a feast for the eyes to observe your peopleˇ­ If only our entire army could work like thatˇ­"


    Standing beside me, Peter commented on the ongoing process of packing up, while intentionally putting his back towards the pitiful sight appearing everywhere else.


    "Trust me, you can''t afford to do so. It''s not like it''s their training alone."


    Shrugging my arms, I cast my sight towards the pile of resources that was currently in the process of being split between today''s rations and the provisions for the future. With how procuring food would turn to be more and more challenging with each passing day due to how enormous our army was, I knew that without paying my personal attention to providing for my men, the longer the campaign would last, the harder it would get to feed them, especially with how the entire eastern frontier was apparently burning down!


    Yet as much as it already sounded like a pain in my ass, when I thought about how much I would have to pay for the increasing price of the food along the way, just to make sure that my troops would be well feedˇ­


    After Peter finally confirmed the news about the invasion with his own means, I knew that I had to start working on him in order to ensure that one more powerful backer would enter the court during my trail after the war. That''s why, rather than just rolling my eyes and dismiss him with some kind of half-assed reply, I paid him my full attention to the point where I actually turned myself towards him, rather than watching over the process of packing up!


    "If you want to have disciplined troops, then you can''t rely on people you recruit on the spot. Without the stable, standing army, without the people that could call a war their profession, you will never be able to achieve this standard. Just like you said, maintaining them is far cheaper than maintaining a freshly formed army, but with how you need to do it for every single day, rather than only during the times of need, the costs are piling up. In fact, with how every single soldier of mine is recruited from the workers of my projects, whenever I look at them, I feel both pride at what they already managed to achieve, but also the pain of knowing how much more they could do if they stayed as workers."


    In fact, when I spoke those words, I wasn''t even lying. With how I left my development officers back at the mining town with plans for several other projects I hoped they would manage to implement during my absence, I knew that I had to restart the beer business as soon as possible, otherwise the constantly growing industrial area of mine would soon start stalling due to the lack of money to pay for the workforce!


    That was another reason why I was so eager to sell those weapons of mine to the country, as it would give me this huge leeway in terms of cash flow, allowing me to push the development even further!


    "To be honest, I never looked at this in this wayˇ­ Anyway, as we will be travelling east, do you think it would be possible to finalize the transaction we spoke about before in Sandomir? With how close your rented land is to the city, I think it will be the best moment to do so, won''t you agree?"


    With Peter himself finally moving his sight away from the mess of the army camp, I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was really serious with this proposition of his. Yet just like I did before when we were speaking about this, I had to crush his hopes.


    "I''m sorry, but before I see the money, I won''t provide a single weapon to your forces. With how Commonwealth allowed Ostros to ravage my lands, I don''t see any reasons why I should put my people at risk while helping this country out. Force the Ostros to cough up the money, while making sure they won''t get even a single piece, and we might continue this topic.???

 254 Unexpected riches

    28th July 1574


    "Mike! It''s been a while!"


    It took us an entire four days in order to cover the distance that I was capable of passing within a day while with just a small detachment of people. By the time I could finally recognise the layout of the area around me, indicating that we were slowly approaching the city of Sandomir, the scouts have reported that Jan''s private army was already camping under the city, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the army.


    From that point onwards, everything started to happen in really quick succession. The messengers from both armies were sent, successfully establishing the communication link between the two camps. Within the next few hours, Jan was already done with discussing the general outlook at the strategy with the rest of the noble commanders, finally finding some time to have a calm talk with me.


    "Jan, I''m glad you are already prepared for the war. Do you have any news from the mining town? I left them with quite a bit of work, so I would love to know what is their rate of progress."


    Knowing that the war was already ongoing even before a single army was formed on Commonwealth side, there was no way that the commanders would dare to waste the time by camping here, so rather than going to the city by myself, I knew that unless something unpredictable happened, I would have to rely on the second-hand news.


    "Noting detailed. My people passed me some messages directed to you, and ever since I confirmed your version of the story with Zamoyski household, I didn''t dare to break the taboo of breaking your seals. I hope you will find the answers you seek in those letters."


    Reaching towards one of the bags attached to his saddle, Jan quickly broke the thin leather strap that was holding the bag in place, before throwing it towards me. After almost failing to catch it in the air due to a misstep of Helga, I finally brought it to my chest before untying the knot that closed its opening and pulling one piece of paper at a time.


    "... new source of gunpowder, a makeshift ammunition plan was created. Thanks to the paper factory employing seven new engines in their old plant and fourteen in the modernised one, the cloth used for the casing previously was replaced with hard, oiled cartoon after the testing proved its quality."


    If just the first report I randomly picked up from the bag was already so nice, then I didn''t even want to have any expectations for what would come next!


    "Thanks to the successful implementation of the steel plant logistics, the manufacturing of the mark seven personal rifles increased by twelve percent. The current output equals to nearly two thousand barrel pieces. As soon as the improvements to the plants producing other plants will be implemented, we are expecting the total daily output of the guns to reach seven hundred pieces."


    "Oh, since I heard some news about what''s going on in that mining town of yoursˇ­ I think you should know about one thing first before you will get puzzled by it yourself. The thing is, you surely want to know where did the money for all the increased production came from."


    Riding beside me so far in silence, Jan finally broke his stupor, stopping me from reading through more of the reports. And the problem he raised was something that was actually bothering me even before I learned about all the improvements that the development officers of mine implemented in the area!


    "Well, with Ostros attack on my lands, the entire business for the beer kind of stalled, so it''s actually pretty surprising that those people of mine still have the money to keep their pace."


    As there was no point in denying it, I could only shrug my arms and admit this fact. Even if this momentary break in the supply of the Tarnowian beer would ultimately end up rising it price and improving my income, it didn''t change the fact that for now, I didn''t have any reliable source of income that I could rely on.


    Unlessˇ­


    "Yeah, I''m not sure if you still remember, but you invested quite a lot in that wood factory of yours. Do you still recall what I told you about this merchant friend of mine? Seeing how the situation in the commonwealth started to deteriorate with the news of the war spreading, rather than trying to sell that furniture that your plant started to produce recently to the locals, I asked him to sell it abroad."


    Suddenly turning his head, so far directed straight forward, to me, Jan taxed me with his eyes while not even trying to his accomplished smile.


    "I will have you know, just the first shipment brough you over seventeen thousand golden pieces of raw income. Fifty-five thousand for the merchandise alone, fifteen thousand for the use of the ships that were just floating on the river and stacking up. And no, you don''t need to worry, every single ship of yours returned, and was operated solely by your people."


    Hearing the news, I couldn''t stop my hands from shaking.


    Seventy thousand gold pieces?


    After running the numbers through my headˇ­ Even if I ignored how inaccurate this number would be, then according to the prices from the modern world, where the gold was far more abundant and overall cheap when compared to its worth today, that would still amount to more than fucking fifteen million dollars!


    For a single shipment? How was that possible?!


    "I can see on your face that you can''t believe it eitherˇ­ But well, didn''t I say you that he is quite skilled at his job? Also, he asked me to tell you that this furniture of yoursˇ­ Is age breaking!"

 255 We can go back?

    28th July 1574


    "What do you mean we can visit the mining town? Aren''t we kinda in aa hurry?"


    Just when I thought that we would get some more carriages filled with food and supplies, Jan just came and announced that there would be no problem with me inspecting the progress that my mining town made myself!?


    "Oh? You really believed that we could do it as fast? I''m sorry but as great as our armies are, we are nowhere close to the level that your people can achieve when it comes to organisation and logistics. Best case scenario, it will take us at least two days to pack up, get everything set and done and finally depart! So yeah, there won''t be any problems for you to go and visit this great mining town of yours! By the way, on the side note I always wondered, why do you call it this place a mining town? It''s not like there is any town in place there, so how come this name came to your mind?"


    As we rode on the road that would lead us directly to my mining town already, Jan finally let go of the limits of his curiosity, asking me a question that I knew that puzzled him for a long time already.


    "You see, all my projects have just a simple thing in common. NO matter if they were about increasing the profitability of what my people are producing, the speed at which they can do so, or the quality of the produced content, whenever any project is opened or developed, there is just a single thing that is kept in mind during its creation."


    Taking a moment to let the suspense build-up, I took a few breaths before raising my head again and looking at the governor with a smirk on my face.


    "Come one, stop with that silly acting of yours. If you didn''t want to tell me, you wouldn''t start the topic, so save me the dramatic explanation and just do tell!"


    Contrary to my expectation, someone finally caught up on this small ploy that I Was using almost every single time when speaking about the achievements that my lands borough forth. Shaking my head with a slight disappointment I turned my expression back into a genuine smile before answering.


    "Future. No matter what my people are doing, there is always the question, hows it would look like in the future\u003e?? How could we use it in the future? In what way, the future will be improved by creating this particular thing? That''s how the ideas to improve the iron extraction, smelting and casting came. That''s why I invested so much of my resources into the production of steel. Even when speaking about this wood manufacturing plant... I was developing it with the moment where my beer alone won''t be sufficient to pay for all my projects alone in mind!"


    "Well, I''m not going to lie, that makes quite a bit of sense. I just wish I could have as great foresight as you haveˇ­ If I had it, maybe this entire war with muscovites could be prevented, rather than forcing the entire nation to mobilize its forces to push them backˇ­"


    As we spoke in this manner, the distance between the Sandomir and the mining town of mine was finally shortened to the point where I could see the first layer of the buildings growing out from beyond the line of the horizon. Yet, to be honest, even seeing the familiar architectonical style, still wasn''t capable of pushing the feeling of strangeness aside from when I first realised that something just wasn''t right!


    "Don''t look so surprised! I know you already read in those reports of your that this place of yours kept growing even during your absence. And don''t even try to tell me that you didn''t know that the speed at which this place grows, only continue to increase with more people and p[rojects that are active! "


    This was a valid point on Jan''s side. Even though the time that I was away from my mining town wasn''t that long, I knew that as long as some projects that I left the blueprints for as I was leaving it would be finished, then the speed at which this entire town would expand, would skyrocket.


    Yet just like they said, knowing something by logical projection, and seeing it on your own eyes, were two completely different matters!


    "Oh boyˇ­"


    After the entire town finally entered my sight, I finally realised just what the heck Jan had in mind while speaking about the ever-increasing speed tat which this town was growing.


    The place that used to be just a free, open land left over after clearing the parts of the forest, was now brimming with just as much people, as there were workers in the neuter mining town as I was leaving this place. Yet limiting my observation to the number of people present was completely dishonest in giving thep[roper honours to the development that took place there!


    This formerly empty plot of land was now all perfectly evened out, giving testimony to just how hard my people worked during my absence. Yet setting this groundworks aside, an almost entire patch of lands that connected this newly created clearing to the rest of the developed area, was now filled with plants, huts, and buildings that I could only describe as shared housing for the innumerable workers that [populated this place!


    "Sir, it is soo good to see you in good health!"


    Even before I could manage to get myself into the proper part of the town, a huge group of people departed from the town on their own horses, approaching the group formed by me, governor and the minimal amount of escorts required top make sure our journey would be safe.


    Hmmˇ­ Frank, was it?"


    Taking my sweet time to recognise the face of the officer that approached me, as soon as I recalled his name, stored in the faraway corner of my mind, I made sure to spell it out loud, kn0owing just how much this work''s officer of mine would value this movement in the future.


    "Tell me, just how the heck did you guys manage to turn this place from already prosperous but small development area to this monstrosity capable of rivalling the capital itself?!"


    Speaking those words, I wasn''t exaggerating by any means. Even though the image that was now forced into my eyes was still nothing when compared to the brilliancy that Krakow would reach in my initial timeline, just about four hundred years from now, when compared to the current state of that town, it was already way bigger, despite all the buildings being built far closer together than it was allowed back at the current capital!


    "Sir, it''s mostly thanks to this one blueprint that you left to us before you departed. And yeah, we can''t diminish the value of the help that governor offered to us as soon as you left for the Tarnow. If not for his help, we wouldn''t be able to properly facilitate the possibilities created by that "prototrain" project of yours, sir!"


    Taking a quick look around the city, I finally realised that whilst the buildings were mostly built side by side, there was one small element that somehow managed to escape my attention so far.


    And it was the every-present metal tracks, insanely similar to the ones that we used to increase the production of the mines! Yet this time, rather than using the wood as the basic material for the tracks, my workers finally reached the level of using the iron slabs for the train tracks!

 256 Matsu and Mansion

    28th July 1574


    "So, how did you get here in the first place? When I learned about Tarnow being put under siege, I was almost completely certain that you would be cooped up in the castle!"


    Standing in front of the thin yet still somehow busty girl, I couldn''t help but sigh the air out of my lungs with relief. To think that one of the sources of my greatest worry would be all safe and sound felt as if a huge burden was taken off my back.


    "It''s quite simple. With nothing to do in Tarnow about two days before the invasion started, I moved some of our brewery and construction workers along with several managers to the mining town, hoping to diversify the production. I''m not going to lie, the news about the possible invasion scared me a bit, but the main point of my actions was to avoid our main cash product being completely lost during the course of the enemy aggression. I''m sorry for overstepping my bounds!"


    Bowing her head for the first time since I could remember, Matsu looked like someone completely else without her usual dose of unruliness. Yet rather than focusing on this unusual sight for my eyes, I put my attention to what her words entailed.


    "It''s okay. From the moment I made you a Chief Executive Officer, all the decisions regarding the beer production were completely in your hands, unless I were to intervene personally. And let''s be honest, while I managed to salvage the situation, I don''t think we would be able to resume the production in Tarnow fast enough to cover our expenses. Speaking of which, what is the progress of setting up the breweries in this place?"


    In the end, it all came to numbers. While I was happy that this first real development officer of mine was already capable of thinking for herself, I was still quite curious what was the scale of her actions, especially with how she claimed that she was worried she was doing more than she was allowed to!


    "While we had some casualties due to the constant raids of the Ostros mobile forces, most of the workers managed to make it safely to the mining town. The worst part isˇ­ That I lost two managers. I''m deeply sorry for that."


    Once again bowing her head, this time Matsu at least gave me the proper reason for being like that. While every single life mattered, in reality, the monetary worth of a single manager was that of nearly a hundred workers!


    The time required to teach them all the important stuff, their talent alone, and all the other aspects that came into play even when picking the candidates for the managers, made them immensely valuable assets to my side. Just a single look at what kind of miracle those managers of mine dared to perform during my absence in the mining town was enough to prove that point!


    With how this single piece of architecture domineered over the rest of the entire housing area, it didn''t take a genius to realise it was most likely the place that those first few managers of mine were so proud off. As a project that they took care of by themselves from the very first few lines of the blueprint paper all the way to the finishing touches, I was quite curious what the finished product would entail!


    Also, this new mansion of mine gave me the opportunity to switch the topic before the atmosphere would turn a bit too dense and sad for my comfort, so banking on it was the first thing that I did the moment this topic appeared!


    "It''s just as you guessed, sir. With how even I was forbidden entry inside before you would get the chance to see it on your own eyes, I won''t be able to tell you what was done inside to let you prepare mentallyˇ­ But just from the incredibly satisfied faces of the managers responsible for it, I can only advice you, sir, to raise your expectations beyond what you would initially think to be possible!"


    Slowly starting to feel the hype of discovering the achievement of my underlings, I only nodded in response to Matsu''s words, before tightening my hold on Elia''s face. As happy as I was to get the chance to be presented a damned mansion, with how I was about to go to war either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I knew that this mansion would be a place for a battle far more fearsome than what I went through back in the marketplace!


    "Welcome, sir. It''s God''s mercy to see you in good health!"


    As soon as I approached the doors, the old carpenter, the same who was initially responsible for the entire wood manufactory, bowed deeply before me and Elia.


    "Raise up. This is something that you waited for a long time, so let''s not spoil the fun with unnecessary ceremonials!"


    Helping the old man up, I raised my eyes towards the huge entryway to the mansion. Just a quick glance around the place was already enough to confirm several of my guesses. In the end, with how my managers fully focused themselves on the mansion alone, the water exchange station built right beside the enormous building was already a huge giveaway of one of the semi-palace appliances!


    "Anyway, let''s not waste any more time. We are pressured by the time of the army departure, so it''s best if we can enjoy living in this place for as long as we can, rather than just standing outside. Soˇ­ Can we?"


    Directing those words to the main architect of this place, I could see the corner of his lips skyrocketing, putting a huge smile on his face.


    "After you, sir!"

 257 Dealing with affairs

    28th July 1574


    "Everyone! I''m Mike Leliwa of Tarnow, the owner of allˇ­ or rather, most of the projects, buildings and manufactories that you guys are all working on. While I can''t call myself a lord of this lands as this honour goes to the respectable sir Jan, the governor of this province, I''m still the highest instance in terms of decision making for this entire place. And first thing first, I wish to congratulate everyone!"


    Standing at the huge balcony facing the outside of the town, I glanced down at the huge crowd gathered behind the Town''s walls. Despite this entire place being already ready for use, with the strict social norms of the time forcing my dear subjects to hold the opening of this new pearl city of the commonwealth, I had to abide by those rules as well, and postpone the grand opening and housing auctions for the tomorrow, forcing everyone but the highest managers to listen to my words from behind the walls.


    "When I first set my foot in this place, I never imagined that we could turn it into such a thriving community in such a short period of time. Yet as great contribution the first settlers of this place made, I will never dare to deny all the hard work that everyone else put to shape this place to how it looks today!"


    With how I was already on the verge of straining my lungs from all the shoutings I had to do in order to make sure that at least a small part of the audience would hear me, I knew that all the most important points had to be brough right at the beginning. What''s more, just like I acted back during the coronation ceremony, I knew that in reality, only selected few would be actually interested in my flowery words if they wouldn''t directly affect their lives!


    "That''s why, as soon as the next transport of the gold that I earned by selling the wares produced in our wood factory will arriveˇ­"


    As important as hastening my words was, I just couldn''t stop myself from making a short break to let the tension build a bit. Additionally, doing so would have some chance of pulling the attention of the audience back to my words, rather than the incredibly interesting shapes of the clouds above their heads!


    "... every single manager will receive five red goldens of bonus, unwarranted pay. Every single supervisor will receive two red goldens of bonus, unwarranted pay, and every single of you, simple workers, will be rewarded with half of the red-golden for your great efforts!"


    As if a meteor struck the earth right in front of everyone, the formerly passive crowd, as soon as the information managed to thoroughly penetrate its entirety due to everyone whispering the message further and further away to those that failed to hear me, turned mad.


    "But that''s not all!"


    After waiting for long enough for the crowd to calm itself a bit, I picked up where I left, moving on to the next topic.


    "As soon as the sun will rise tomorrow, the auctions for the housing within the city will be held, allowing anyone lacking the merit papers to buy them. There is a limited number of the tickets that will be added to the auction from my side, so everyone is welcomed to offer their papers for the sale!"


    In the end, my speech didn''t last as long as I was worried it would take me to finish it. Just the first message alone was enough to buy me the eternal loyalty of those already loyal people, while the part about the auction was done purely for the sake of not letting this great yet empty city rot away. After all, what was the point of building it, if it would remain uninhabited?


    "Sir, we have some additional important news for you. During the absence, those few military officers that you left, managed to create two fully trained armies and two more that have yet to go through the entire disciplining process. If that will be your wish, they could join the rest of your troops and support your military efforts of defending the country."


    As soon as I got back to the main hall of this impressive mansion to deal with other matter at hand with the managers waiting there, another set of good news hit me, improving my mood a few moments before I would have to finally swallow the pill and have an important discussion with Elia.


    "Great. What about the equipment? Do we have enough rifles and ammunition to supply them? How about the reaper mark two guns?"


    While increasing my numbers was already great, rather than going with the eastern tactics of throwing quantity substituting the quality, I preferred to keep my forces as perfectly equipped as it was humanly possible. After all, what force would ever dare to press the attack against an army, where for every ten men, a reaper gun was assigned?


    "While the production of the personal weapons is going according to the plan, due to several technical problems of crafting the fine parts of the reaper guns, we only managed to finish the initially scheduled number of them. Due to that, if you decide to use those newly formed troops during your campaign, sir, the number of reaper guns in each army will have to be decreased. My deepest apologies, but no matter how long and hard we tried to fix those few problems, they just kept coming back right at us!"


    In the end, dealing with all the other affairs took me way longer than I expected, just as if my managers knew how the speech alone was shorter than I imagined and unanimously decided to use that time for their own purposes. By the time I finally get to enter my sleeping chamber with Elia supporting me by the side, the sun was already about to completely hide its face beyond the line of the horizon.


    "Eliaˇ­"


    Moving up and sitting on the edge of the bed, I finally had to face the greatest challenge of them all. Convincing my still slightly tomboyish and energetic wife, to stay back while I would go to the war.


    "I know what you want to say. And as much as it pains meˇ­"

 258 Departure

    30th July 1574


    "I guess it wasn''t that bad, wasn''t it?"


    Sitting atop my trusted Helga, I watched my five armies march out of the now dismantled camp, along with the long line of carriages holding most of the necessary supplies. Yet contrary to what one might think, rather than carrying food stocks and barrels with beer and freshwater, most of those wagons were filled to the brim with my weapons and ammunition for it!


    "Well, playing around with small fries as we did so far was still acceptable, but bringing her to the battlefield? One that I''m not even sure if we can claim for our victory? No way."


    Not even looking at the governor as I spoke, I raised my hand in response to the salute of my passing soldiers. With my eyes focused on my ranks, and his most likely aimed at the carriages filled to the brim with the weapons and ammunition that I sold to the main army, we both just sat on our horses in silence, waiting for at least half of the army to move out.


    "To be honest, it was a bit harder than I expected."


    Obviously, I wasn''t stupid enough to reveal to anyone that my wife was already confirmed to be pregnant. Doing so would only invite trouble to my doorstep, and with me being all the way on the other end of the vast country of Commonwealth, there was nothing I could do to prevent harm from coming to Elia.


    This was also one of the reasons why out of four armies that were prepared for me in the city, I only took the two that went through the complete training, leaving the two groups of relative newbies back and tasking them with completing their disciplinary period.


    In the end, if the war would turn out in the way that I was worried it would, then rather than using up all my forces at once, having a place with continuously growing fresh troops awaiting my command and ready to depart at any given time, was far more responsible in a strategical sense!


    "You say? Well, seeing how she accompanied you on most of your journeys, I''m not that surprised. Rather than that, I kind of expected to have a sleepless night while staying back at your mansion!"


    Suddenly bursting out in a hearty laugh, Jan finally dropped his surveillance of the weapon-filled carriages, allowing his eyes to wander back on my face.


    "But still, it''s a good thing she didn''t take it that badly. I will speak from my own experience here, but if you didn''t force her to stay back now, you would never be able to free yourself from her demands. Women should be held at a short leash!"


    "Anyway, as long as it works, it works. No point talking about it right now. On the other side, I can''t stop thinking about how pitiful it is that we can use my boats. While lending them to the crown to transport supplies on the baltic could be advantageous, we are still not at the point when proposing such a thing would be accepted easily. After all, I''m not as blind as to not notice those stares, filled with suspicions, that the other generals are sending at me when they think I won''t be able to notice themˇ­"


    Without the King in place to put those ambitious nobles in their places, even this unitary army of the Commonwealth was bound to have more than just a single commander. Sadly, even though I knew how this would most likely end if this kind of stupid command chain were to be preserved during the times of combat, I could only hope that the proposition I asked Jan to push forth would be ultimately accepted.


    "Anyway, it just appeared in my mind. Any progress with that offer of mine? As suspicious as they must be of me, I doubt even a single of the generals is stupid enough to deny that my type of army works in a way different way than the rest of this clusterfuck of troops."


    Pointing at the other formations that were slowly entering the short road of mine that connected to the main trade route leading east, with my chin, I could see a look of disappointment surfacing on Jan''s face.


    "I hope you didn''t really expect for this proposition to go through. Allowing you to detach yourself from the main army and operate independentlyˇ­ With how they still think that you might really be the real traitor, there is no way they would ever allow that!"


    Exhaling the air out of my lungs, I forced a look of disappointment on my face as well, while giggling within my soul. With how poorly this entire campaign was organised, there was no way all the parts of the army would reach the set rallying point at Smolensk. In fact, I even had my doubts whether this grand city, called the gatehouse to both Lithuania and Russia, was in fact, still in the Commonwealth hands!


    "Yeah, I never expected them to accept that. Yet."


    Just as I added this last word, as if I wanted to foreshadow some of my plans to Jan, a horseman appeared from the mass of the people in the distance, quickly making his way towards our position.


    "Report, sirs!"


    Despite travelling on the horseback, the perspiration all over the man''s face betrayed that reaching our place wasn''t as easy as it would appear to be.


    "Speak up!"


    Once again cursing the formalities in my mind, I allowed the man to talk. While I knew that military required the drill of command and response to be in place, but just looking at the messenger I could tell that the news that he was bringing were too important to waste time on such unnecessary formalities!


    "Sirs, the Ostros armyˇ­ They made their move!"

 259 Chargning at the traitors

    30th July 1574


    "Fuck!''


    Forcing my dear Helga to move even faster than, I gripped the rifle in my hand even harder than before.


    To think that those bastards would dare to make their intentions clear right fucking now! Yet this alone was also proof that I wasn''t the only one meddling with the history! So far, I could still attribute their aggressive expansion on my lands to their wish to consolidate their power and create a proper dominion within Commonwealth borders, but to think that they would dare to openly move out from the main camp and march down to the mining town!


    Thankfully, as near to my place the main camp was, it would still take them at least three to four hours to move their main forces to my city, meaning, that even with the delay of the message, as long as I hurried my troops, then those barely trained troops at the mining town should still have a chance at holding the aggression back!


    "As much as I pity your current situation, isn''t this a good thing?"


    Riding beside me, outside of all the mobile troops that my own forces could muster and put on the horseback, Jan with the entire cavalry of the united army didn''t seem to be stressed by the situation at all.


    "What the fuck do you mean?"


    Hearing Jan''s words, all the rage and worry boiling within my soul got even closer to erupting. Just what the fuck could he mean by that?


    "You know, since he dared to go against you openly, now you won''t have to worry about being branded a traitor? Isn''t that a good thing? Not only you will get to deal with them right away rather than worrying about their potential schemes during the war, but you will also most likely get your freedom of actions while at the front!"


    As much as I agreed with the points that Jan brought about Ostros revealing their true faces being a good thing strategically wise, there were two more aspects of this matter that made it really awful.


    "First thing first, it''s not my situation, but ours. Without the rear help of my mining town, half of the production of ammunition and weapons for the army will be gone, not to speak about the ongoing investment in that land and constant training of new, modernised troops. But even if I were to push that matter aside, how could I enjoy the notion of a damned great noble attacking the barely protected industry area, one where my dear wife is staying?"


    Forcing Elia to stay back and hold the fort was necessary due to how worried I was about her health. No matter her character, there was simply no way for me to bring her to a battlefield while she was in a blessed state!


    Yet as if the fate or some kind of grandmaster of this world wanted to make things hard for me, just when I thought that I managed to finally pull the danger out of Elia''s way, those damned bastards spit in the face of all my efforts and made this unpredictable and completely idiotic move!


    Maybe they were really involved in the eastern invasion then? If I were to take this guess for true, then I could find some strategic purpose in their actions, yet even then, it would be nothing more than a fuckfest of stupidity from their side!


    "We will reach the outskirts soon, everyone, prepare for the battle!"


    As my thoughts went into disarray with me trying to make any sense of what was going on, this huge cavalry group created by literally every single man capable of riding the horse that could be found within the entire army, started to prepare themselves both mentally and physically for what was about to come.


    Right now, we could already hear the shouts and firing from where the city was, indicating that even after hurrying all the way here, we were still to late to rout the Ostros troops before they would reach the populated areas of the town!


    "Pull your weapons!"


    Despite being the most involved person in the entire battle, I wasn''t the one to command the attack. It wasn''t even Jan, nor one of the other prominent nobles that was leading the charge! Rather than that, one of the apparently famous riders, known from all his exploits during the previous wars, was now commanding this enormous force of nearly six thousand horsemen, yet rather than endorsing himself in some tactics, he simply ordered everyone to charge straight at the enemy, even before our potential target would enter our line of sight!


    Yet as fishy as this entire affair sounded to me, I didn''t really have the time nor mental capability to bother myself thinking about it all. Right now, I could only hope that my barely trained two armies that remained in the city were somehow capable of holding off the attack so that this mass of cavalry that was coming to their rescue wouldn''t end up destroying the entire place that they were supposed to protect!


    "CHARGE!"


    The same moment that the enemies came to the sight of the front line of the horsemen, the noble leading all of us raised his sabre high above his ground, and swung it forward in the simple gesture that even an idiot would understand!


    Thanks to how well trained my Helga was, I didn''t even need to hold her reins, as I knew she was perfectly capable of following the entire mass of people forward. But rather than banking on this fact to pull both my firearm and my sabre, I allowed my steel to rest in its scabbard while busying both of my hands with my supreme rifle alone!


    With two magazines hanging out from my belt and eighteen shoots in every single one of them, I preferred to kill as many damned traitors from afar, before being forced to actually swing my metal around!

 260 Twist during the battle

    30th July 1574


    "Kill!"


    With this single shout resounding in the air, the two forces finally clashed. Despite every single soldier being worth his weight in gold for the commonwealth, I could see countless men falling down from their horses, cut down by the hail of bullets produced by those of the Ostros troops that were quick enough on the uptake to turn around and face a new threat.


    Yet at the same time, neither my own people nor my allies remained idle.


    BAM!


    In one moment, those who were rich enough to have an early type of pistol for themselves brought their muzzles towards the line of the enemies. In this single moment, before the two groups clashed against each other, both sides exchanged this early, shock of fire.


    Bang, bang, bang, bangˇ­


    While others already switched to their close combat weapons, I continued to rain fire on any enemy that was unlucky enough to stand in my way. With the process of reloading requiring only to relax the finger and allow the small spring to push the trigger back ot its natural position, by the time my compatriots could score one or two kills, I was already slowing Helga down in order to buy myself some time to exchange the magazine!


    Click.


    The used barrel that no longer had any use for me, fell down from the notch on my rifle, instantly getting trampled into the mud by the several horses following strictly behind me. In this short moment during which I was defenceless, several soldiers of mine kept my perimeter clear with their weapons, disregarding their own safety in the process.


    Pull.


    Instantly snapping the thin line that held the next cylinder with ammunition to my belt, I raised it towards my rifle.


    Clack.


    With the sound of the pin locking the thin barrel into place, I once again raised the muzzle of my weapon, right when my soldiers ran out of their own ammo.


    Bang, bang, bang, bangˇ­


    Once again, anyone who was born under the unlucky star, resulting in our path crossing in this moment, would fall to the ground under the massive momentum of the heavy bullet shot at a way too close distance.


    "Jump away!"


    With the last bullet leaving the chamber of my rifle, the commander of the rescue force ordered a planned retreat. But it wasn''t something that one could be shamed for in the later times while recounting the events.


    Considering how the number of the Ostros forces was way too small to achieve something like this, I had to drop my suddenly appearing dreams of beating the historical record of number of charges within a single battle. Yet as long as this place could be properly defended, I wouldn''t mind losing that chance at all!


    "Retreat!"


    I hit Helga''s sides in response to the command. Even if it wasn''t the right moment to do so in my book, rather than trying to prove it on the field and destroying the discipline of the entire unit, just following the orders would for once be a more reasonable choice.


    "Halt!"


    Pulling the reins, I stood up in the stirrups, aiming to take a slightly better look at the situation. Yet as successful as our initial charge was in culling the number of the opponents, the two armies of mine were slowly getting pushed back from their makeshift line of defence.


    "Get back into the formation!"


    Shouting the orders one by one with a voice that somehow was capable of cutting right through the noise of the battle, the noble commander once again rode to the very front of the formation.


    Following his example, I swept the empty magazine of mine to the side, replacing it with the last fresh one that I brough with myself, before lining up in the second row.


    "Reload!"


    It was perfectly clear to anyone watching that my forces in the city were slowly pushed back. But nevertheless, the commander still decided that wasting at least half a minute just to reload was more important than preventing Ostros troops from actually entering the inner part of the city!


    ''This guyˇ­''


    I suddenly understood what was going on. Just a single look at the commander''s face, even though I could only see his profile, was enough for me to put two and two together. Because rather than being some kind of random noble, he was one of the men that actually accompanied Ostros envoy all the way back when they visited Tarnow!


    Everything suddenly came to a stop. Locked in this single moment of time, I continued to stare at the face of the commander, now dressed with an ever-so-slight hint of an accomplished grin.


    "Lineeeˇ­. Forward!"


    I didn''t even need to rely on any of my intentions to Helga, as this loyal mount of mine orderly followed the rest of the formation as soon as the order was given. In just a few moments, the entire cavalry group that remained on the horseback during the first charge, started the quick trod, saving the impact of the charge for just the last few steps before we would once again clash with the enemies.


    "Sir? What''s wrong?"


    One of my soldiers seemed to notice something from the way in which the muzzle of my rifle started to hover dangerously close the direction of our commander.


    "This manˇ­"


    The noise of the battle was making it hard to talk, especially during the charge, but I still somehow managed to speak with the soldier on my side.


    "... is most likely in Ostros service."


    Considering the fact that he was officially the commander of the relief force, I knew he couldn''t openly side with the traitors. Yet that didn''t mean he would be unable to stir up some serious trouble. As long as he prompted the entire army in a particular way, then rather than helping this mining town of mine, he could make all the men enter a looting spree!


    And no matter how stupid that would be from the point of view of a simple soldier to ransack a city that didn''t produce anything of value that was small enough to be stuffed into a pouch, by the time the soldiers would learn about this fact, it would be far too late!


    Was this Ostros plan all along? To sacrifice their army, already heavily burdened by the casualties sustained during their fighting with me, for the sake of crippling my production capabilities?


    But there was no time to act right now. With a deafening sound, the two forces clashed once again. Pulling my finger on the trigger, I send another series of bullets in the traitors'' way, but in the grand scheme of thing, it wouldn''t influence the outcome of the entire battle.


    Because it was already won.


    The two charges that we made, were enough to cull out the number of the attackers to the point where rather than pushing forward into the open arms of inevitable death, most of the survivors decided that ditching the battle and running for their lives was a far more logical option.


    But that didn''t mean, that the relief force would allow them to do so!


    "Don''t chase! The main army will root them!"


    Ostros'' paid commander of the relief force instantly ordered, most likely noticing the situation just as well. Kicking Helga''s sides, I directed her towards the commander with my arm already wielding my trusty sabre, as I couldn''t help but see the dangerous sparks glistering i the commander''s eyes.


    "Sir?"


    Just as I realised the true intention of this entire ruse, so did my soldiers realise my own. A single look at their faces betrayed that even though they were scared of the consequences of the events that most likely would ensue in just a moment, they were determined enough o pull through them.


    "Get ready for the real battle."


    Despite the main Ostros forces already in scrambles, I could see the victorious smile on the commander''s face, as he raised his arm to harness the attention of the troops. Pushing Helga to her limits, I didn''t give him any chances.


    "Make sure you know what orders are you giving."


    Holding my rifle in the resting position, I just so happened to have its muzzle locked right on the noble''s abdomen. With a sabre in my left hand, I was already close enough to make sure that even if he wouldn''t fail for the empty threat of my empty rifle, then I would still be able to cut him down with this sharp steel of mine.


    "What do you mean? Are you rebelling after all?"


    At first, the man''s face froze, with his eyes already half-open as he was about to give the order. But rather than giving others the time necessary to understand how sketchy his current behaviour was, he instantly turned his expression into a tense one, looking at me as if I was the true traitor finally willing to play my cards in the open.


    "Rebelling? It''s funny to hear that from the mouth of Ostro''s mercenary! Tell me, how did it feel to cut down your own compatriots? Did you really thought I wouldn''t notice that?"

 261 Conflict at the barricades finished

    30th July 1574


    Maybe it was thanks to the noise in the surrounding starting to die down along with the battle, but as soon as I said my sentence, the people that just so happened to be around in this exact moment instantly tuned in to the conversation.


    "Those are some heavy accusations. Do you have anything to prove them?"


    Even before the commander of the entire army could respond to my charges in any way or form, Jan already appeared by my side. While his response could be taken as the lack of trust in my previous words, a single look at his face was enough to tell me that he was ready to get back to fighting at a moment''s notice.


    "He was one of the escorts of the Ostros envoys when they first visited me in my lands, initially asking and then attempting to threaten me into selling my lands to them. I was ready for them to snap and start fighting with my men back then, so I made sure to remember their faces. If not for the long time that passed ever since then, I would have missed this point!"


    With my rifle still pointed at the commander''s guts, I calmly waited at his reaction. In the end, I didn''t really have any ingrained hate for the people working for my enemies. Like someone said in a certain business - it''s all just a business. People staking their chances in order to achieve something, while others like the noble in front of me simply had to earn their keep.


    But as much as I didn''t really care about that man himself, it was his actions that were of huge importance for me. As long as I could foil Ostros likely plan to sacrifice their already exhausted force for turning my powerbase into a land of ruin, I wouldn''t even care if that commander would get away scot-free!


    "While the battle might be already won, the fighting isn''t over yet. With how protective you are of your lands, don''t you think we should focus on wrapping this up first, before throwing those baseless accusations of yours?"


    Rather than directly replying to my words, the commander brough his hand up and pointed at the fleeing reminders of the Ostros army. The intent behind his gesture was clear, yet I wasn''t going to let him sweep me into his thinking.


    "First, second, third army soldiers! Gather on me!"


    Despite how only a certain portion of those groups was capable of riding on the horseback, in just a few, tense moments after I shouted my order, more than two hundred people appeared beside me. Maybe thanks to the officers actually guiding them, or maybe due to their own keen sense of observation, I didn''t even need to tell them about the current situation for this makeshift group to instantly pick on their arms, ready to start the carnage at the moment notice.


    "Get to the city. Order the trainees to slaughter every single enemy that managed to get inside. On the other hand, if even a single soldier from this so-called army attempts to enterˇ­"


    "... slaughter without mercy."


    In one instant, those brave soldiers of mine saluted to signal that they received an order before hitting the sides of their horses and riding towards the makeshift blockade that the initial defenders of this place set in the short window of time they had before they were attacked by the initial wave of Ostros troops.


    "Now, what will be your order, I wonder?"


    This entire order of mine was aimed only at sending the message to the commander in front of me. Now, if he were to order this mixed army, filled with bloodlust remaining from the battle, to station themselves in my own land, then everyone would instantly know that my claims that he was an Ostros spy were perfectly on the spot.


    "Chase after the escaping traitors. Don''t even dare to approach the city."


    Seeing this covert enemy of mine gritting his teeth as he gave that order was the greatest sight that I could see so far. Yet rather than following the rest of the army, I turned my head to the governor, gesturing at him to get a bit closer.


    "I will get to the city, to assess the damage and make sure that my wife is safe. Can you keep an eye on this bastard while I will be away?"


    Leaving this place, or rather, the entire army without any form of oversight could very well spell the doom for me. Even if its commander would have to refrain from directly going against the city, be it by letting the soldiers loose in its proximity or by raiding the villages nearby just for the sake of killing the families of my workers, I was sure that he would find a way to do harm to my city. That''s why despite how much I hoped I could have my greatest protector by my side to ensure the complete safety of the city,


    "It''s okay. While using your word alone might pose a challenge to take him down from the commanding position, especially with how you were recently considered to be a traitor, I don''t think leaving him to his own devices would be reasonable either. Take your time in the city, and when you are done, get back to the main army. I will make sure he won''t be able to randomly disappear from the army during your absence."


    Rather than pulling out the rest of my troops from the entire army, I simply passed an order to one of the remaining officers from the fourth and fifth armies that were capable of joining the mobile army. Even though Governor had his own troops mixed in this detachment, I didn''t want to completely abandon him to his own devices, especially with how powerful my men could be at close distance combat with their rifles.


    Tickling Helga''s sides once again with the hells of my shoes, I prompted her to move towards the barricade. Passing through the opening in the ramparts created by the survivors from the troops stationed within the city, I could hear the Ostros spy, still pretending to be your normal commander, passing the orders to the entire army. Looking to the back, I confirmed that they really started moving away from the direct proximity of the built-up zone, and only then did I dare to actually pay attention to the state of the city.


    Surprisingly enough, it wasn''t that bad. Despite how the local forces of mine had to come up with both the plan for the defence of this place and enact it with their own hands, the industrialization level of this place allowed them to progress rather quickly. Just by taking apart certain parts of the rails that were used to direct the carts from the main line to the specific buildings was enough to create the basis for the blockade, stopping anyone from passing through the opening between two separate buildings.


    At this point, I couldn''t help but thank in my heart to all the efforts that all the workers in this place put to develop this place during my absence. If the attack were to happen back when the area was still relatively open and sparsely occupied with buildings, I could tell that the scale of the devastation would be on a whole different level!


    "Sir, eight army, first group officer, reports for the duty!"


    The system of becoming an officer in my army was fairly simple. When one was trained to be a regular soldier, as long as he obtained the recommendation from his current superior, he could stay behind rather than advancing as the proper soldier, so that after going through the process once again, he could become the head of his own group or the training officer. How far one could advance in the ranks, depended solely on how well he did during the training, with the upper limit of three courses per head.


    "What is the scale of the loses?"


    A moderate setback was inevitable. Using the prototrain tracks as the backbone for the makeshift fortifications would make them most likely unusable in their initial tasks, forcing the workers to melt them back before the tracks could be repaired. But as long as the damage was limited to this kind of problems, fixing it all would take a few days at most!


    "The smelting area is perfectly fine, the wood factory received some damage due to the stray bullets destroying some of the machinery, various small business and housing got attacked by the enemies that managed to slip by our defence line. While it''s not precise, the development officers think it will take a week or two to fix everything back at a normal pace, or about three days if we focus all our workforce at the rebuilding alone."


    Just from how concise this man''s report was, I could see that he was either pretty talented or already went through the maximal number of the training courses. Taking a single look around myself, I could confirm that form what I could see, this report of his didn''t stray away far from the reality, as it could happen in any other army of that time, more focused at pleasing the commander rather than giving him the proper information.


    "Pass the news to the officers for me. Focus half of our forces at rebuilding, the rest needs to work as usual. Increase everyone''s pay by twenty out of a hundred, and hasten the recruitment effort. In a month from now, I want to have five more armies ready to march. As for me, I will be going back to the mansion now. I hope I will find at least a few groups, protecting my wife there!"

 262 Am I going to die?

    30th July 1574


    "Elia! Are you okay?!"


    Nearly knocking the huge doors out of their frame with my kick, I entered the mansion in haste. From the fact that the gate to this grandest building in the entire area was still standing, one could assume that no enemy managed to slip inside this place, yet with how easily I managed to pry open the doors, especially with how the news of the attack finally ending has yet to circulate through the entire place, rather than calming down, I could feel my heart raising all the way up in my throat.


    "..."


    With no answer coming to calm my nerves, I made sure that the ammo I got from one of the soldiers that was smart enough to bring more supplies to me as soon as he saw me, I reloaded my ammunition, discarding the empty magazines right on the floor, unable to care about reusing them. After all, while soldiers were supposed to keep all of them in their bags so that rather than recreating the entire thing, our manufacturing plants could limit themselves to producing more ammunition in general, I was a damned commander of my entire army and direct owner of all of their equipment! In a moment like this, I simply couldn''t be bothered to care about stuff that at best, could be worth less than a few silvers!


    "ELIA?! WHERE ARE YOU?!"


    Shouting her name like that wouldn''t yield the most obvious results. Rather than hoping to make her come out, I wanted to achieve two other purposes by doing so. First, was to alert all the possible enemies hiding within this enormous building, that the reinforcements finally were here. By doing so, I could hope that they would be smart enough to realise that lingering here wasn''t as potentially profitable anymore! After all, what use would one have from the robbed riches, if he wouldn''t live to enjoy them?


    As for the other aim of mine, I just wanted to make sure that if Elia was hiding somewhere around the mansion, then she would at least hear my voice and remain hidden for as long as it would take me to make sure this place is safe!


    "Sir! Manual detachment from the eight army reports on duty!"


    After a moment of footsteps, the main hall of the building instantly became busy with people all uniformly dressed in the clothes provided by one of the private investments of the other nobles that was set in the area, indicating that the force I requested to make sure this mansion would turn safe finally arrived.


    "Search every nook and cranny of this place. Any enemy, kill on the spot. If my wife will be in danger, protect her at all costs."


    As much as I wanted to kill every single damned enemy that dared to set foot in my lands, I knew that in such a dire situation as this could end up being, I couldn''t afford such direct approach. If the worst came to beˇ­


    BANG!


    "Eliaˇ­"


    In this one moment, all other thoughts disappeared from my head. I didn''t care about the war, about the revenge, about the future. All I could think about right in this very moment was whether my wife was safe!


    "FIND THEM!"


    At this point, I couldn''t forgive myself from what turned out to be a great oversight. By allowing others to complete this entire place without even a shred of supervision, I had no chance to prepare any kind of safe-room, where my wife or other retainers could hide in the cause of danger. And what was absolutely the worst, was that even if such room existed in this place, I highly doubted that in just the past few days, the creators of this place would find the time to actually give Elia a proper tour!


    "Sir, on the second floor!"


    Hearing the news, I instantly rushed towards the stairs, but as soon as I set my foot on the first one, another noise of a rifle shooting resounded. In this one instant, I suddenly felt something both insanely cold and chillingly cold appearing on my cheek.


    Raising my eyes, I looked towards the upper part of the mansion, only to spot several, loosely dressed soldiers of Ostros, aiming their weapons at me!


    ''Thank Godˇ­''


    With how there was not even a single sight of them keeping any hostages, I could only feel an insane relief spreading through my body, before my instincts or something entirely else that I could name, tensed a part of my muscles, instantly pushing me off the stairs to the side.


    BANG!


    As if the enemy waited there only for me, right when I moved to dodge their attack, another salvo ensued! At least, those enemies didn''t have repetitive rifles that were already common in the arsenal of my troops, culling their ability to fire to a single shoot!


    "KILL THEM!"


    While I could feel something penetrating my body in two different places, the euphory of knowing that Elia was most likely safe along with the adrenaline rush caused by appearing in the direct line of fire, blocked all the pain from overwhelming my mind. With the last bit of air remaining in my lungs, I made sure to alert all my troops, sending them directly against the enemy upstairs!


    Bang, bang, bangˇ­


    As I fell to the ground, I could already hear the sound of my rifles pouring fire on the enemies, instantly reaping their lives away, and clearing the upper floor from any danger.


    "PROTECT THE LORD!"


    What a funny way to call meˇ­ While it was undoubtedly true that I wonder nearly ninety percent of everything that was in the area, outside of several small businesses opened by crafty merchants and craftsmen that sensed the opportunity, there was still one thing that I lacked possession in here.


    The land.


    But that didn''t matter at all at this moment. With the adrenaline rush quickly clearing up from my veins, I could finally feel what being shoot it felt like.


    Devastating.


    That was the only word that I could come up with, as I felt my consciousness slowly slipping away. Using the remaining strength that I had, I prompted my head up, taking a look at the state of my body.


    Broken leg, already missing a huge chunk of the muscle flesh from it. But despite how gore it was to look at, it wasn''t the worst part about my injuries. Yet even with that, I could only praise the Lord for the fact that the shot that went through my belly, rather than ripping half of my insidious out, only turned my side into a bloody mess.


    "MEDIC! BRING US A GODDAMN MEDIC!"


    As my vision was starting to blur, I could still see the silhouettes of my men rushing towards me, and attempting to stop the bleeding with some random cloth they found, either by ripping their own uniforms into parts or just grabbing anything that could be used as a temporary bandage.


    But that wouldn''t be enough.


    It didn''t take a genius, historian or a medic to know that just bandaging my wounds wouldn''t be enough, especially with how the cloth used to do so was most likely already dirty enough to be more dangerous than the wound itself in the long term!


    Yet as if something was changing in my mind, the weaker my handle over my mind was, the clearer my thoughts were. How could I stop myself from dying right now?


    "MAKE SPACE!"


    In just a few moments, the constant ringing of the ongoing fight finally stopped, replaced by the shouts of someone in a clear rush. While my vision was already fading away, I could still make out general shapes of the things, allowing me to recognise one of the men who entered to be the same officer that I praised in my mind about his report.


    "Fuckˇ­ While the bleeding is stoppedˇ­ Quick, bring me some booze, hot iron, bread and spider''s web! At once!"


    While I could be happy that at least this man knew anything about the basic of the medicine of the current times, the memory of how my wound looked like made me certain that if I didn''t do anything, I would still end up dying right in this spot!


    Yet for some reason, despite my eyes already not providing me with any information, as soon as I heard someone running and people screaming orders, my hand involuntarily reached upwards, grabbing something moist and soft.


    In one moment, I saw a strange option, right in my already blackened out window.


    "Purify the medicine?"


    "Yes/No"


    Medicine? What kind of fucking medicine could I purify in the current times?


    But rather than allowing my mind to linger on such stupid questions, I realised that if I didn''t risk it all, I might not have another chance to realise how stupid I was!


    That''s why, despite knowing how risky it was to use the option that the system provided for me, I decided that it was time to go all in!


    "Pater noster, qui es in caelisˇ­"


    With the last bit of my remaining strength, I started chanting one of the oldest, catholic prayers, while focusing all my mental strength on pushing the imaginary option.


    "Yes."

 263 Miracle

    30th July 1574


    "... heretic!"


    "Nobody leaves!"


    "Close the mansion!"


    A plethora of voices surrounded me as I slowly started to regain my consciousness. With the clear noises of argument and the tumping sound of someone locking the main gate with the huge slab of wood, my vision was steadily coming back, along with the wave of pain. Whether my life was still in danger or not, I would be stupid to expect the lack of pain upon waking up.


    "Aghˇ­"


    A groan of pain managed to squeeze out through my lips, alerting everyone that I was once again conscious. Opening my eyes, I could see Elia''s concerned face, with tears still trickling down her eyes.


    "Mikeˇ­ Are youˇ­"


    Despite all the commotion earlier on clearly indicating that my use of the system didn''t go unnoticed, at this particular moment, I couldn''t be bothered with such details. Using nearly all the strength I had in my body, I raised my hand towards Elia''s cheek. Sadly, before I could achieve this fairly simple task, my body once again reminded my that I was in a rather critical state, cutting the supply of the energy to my arm, and making this hand of mine fall down.


    Grab.


    Noticing my attempt, Elia caught my fingers and pressed it against her face. Not even for a moment did her stare left my eyes, as if she was worried that during a potential lapse of her attention, I would just die on her hands, or more precisely, her lap.


    "Iˇ­ I know youˇ­"


    Despite being in the state that I was currently in, I still had to make sure that the matter concerning my use of the system would be covered, even if only for the next few days that I required to recover to a level where I could talk for myself.


    "Shhˇ­ Don''t speak. You need to rest now."


    With my head resting on top of Elia''s lap, I could feel the warmth of her stomach on my hair, as she placed her finger on my lips. Yet as tempting this offer was, I simply couldn''t allow myself to ignore the reality around me.


    If I were to just let the others take care of me, my chances of survival itself would be halved. Even despite how respectful I was towards the folk herbal medicine, just the sheer amount of unnecessary moving me around, attempting to fix my leg and all the other things that my subordinates were bound to do, would most likely result in either my entire limb getting amputated, if not my life being put to even greater danger than it was when I was shot!


    On the other hand, if I allowed Elia to get even more stressed out with the entire situation, then the time where she would collapse just as well would come in just a few moments. In the end, just like always, if I wanted something to be dealt with properly, I had to do it myself.


    "Medicˇ­ Where isˇ­"


    "Dear, let me help you. BRING ME THE FUCKING MEDIC RIGHT AWAY!"


    As funny as it was to hear this relatively calm and usually composed girl suddenly erupt like that, the sight of her tears still flowing out on her cheeks made it impossible for me to enjoy this moment. But as much as I wanted to just reach towards her and bring her into my embrace in order to let her know that everything would be okay, the sheer pain of my injuries made me unable to move even by a tiny little bit.


    "I''m coming!"


    At this moment, I had no strength nor time to wonder just why the heck did he leave my side in the first place. Even though I perfectly knew that I was only one out of many injured people that required medical attention as soon as possible, being the damned lord of this place still made me feel entitled to some special service!


    "Dear, I know you want to speak, but I just can''t let you do so."


    Suddenly lowering her upper body above me, Elia nearly pressed her ear against my lips before adding.


    ???Just whisper what you need to say, save your strength."


    As easy as it might be in her imagination for me to solve the entire situation with just a snap of my fingers, the truth was, I didn''t really have any idea what I should do. What was this item in my hand? Some kind of disinfecting solution? Penicillin? Painkiller? Regeneration stimulant?


    "Tell the medic to open my hand, take whatever it''s in there and spread it on my wounds, before changing the bandages to clean ones. When he will be working on my leg, make him set my bone properly, but only after I will get some booze."


    Whispering those words right into Elia''s ear, in the next moment, I could hear her repeating them directly and openly to the officer that was serving as the one available medic. But rather than waiting for my next instructions, this officer of mine instantly fallen to his knees on my side, before prying the tightened fingers of my hand open!


    "What is this thingˇ­?"


    Only after he picked it up high enough for me to see it, I could finally realise that one of my earlier guesses was correct. As little as I knew about stuff like modern medicine, this small pocket made with cloth, filled with very fine, white dust, couldn''t be confused with anything else!


    "Eliaˇ­"


    With how I already knew she wouldn''t let me speak out anything out loud, I could only call for her lightly, almost instantly making her kowtow over my head, once again lending me her ear.


    "Make him spread this powder on my wounds. In fact, let him use only half of it, then repeat the process when my bandages will be changed for the next time. Also, don''t let anyone leave the mansion before I will properly wake up."


    As little of my strength, I was using to pass those whispers of mine to Elia''s ear, I could already feel my consciousness once again slipping away. While I knew that many nobles or even simple, commoner soldiers of the time would be able to keep going with this kind of injuries, with my modern mind occupying this noble body, even this small amount of painˇ­


    Okay, nevermind. This wasn''t a small amount of pain. Every passing second felt like if some devils were trying to tear my body apart. Yet that didn''t change the fact that when compared to other people of this age, I could easily be called a weakling! But as much as I could hate this fact, rather than cursing at my own weakness, I had to make sure to use the remaining time before my consciousness would slip away to its greatest effect!


    "It will all be done. But what I should tell everyone if the news spread before you will find a way to deal with them?"


    Rather than moving up and passing my orders, Elia stayed in her position, moving her head ever so slightly to put her lips closer to my ear.


    "Just call it a miracle or something. Simple folk will believe, nobles won''t dare to dispute."


    In the current situation, if the news about this strange occurrence were to spread, I could already see Ostros using this as the casus beli for all of their actions. After all, if they managed to successfully put me in the shoes of some kind of heretic contracting the demons to serve him, then this ultra-Christian times would obviously result in my condemnation!


    "I have the orders from the Lord. First off, lock down the entire mansion. Anyone who dares to step outside without my personal approval is to be put to his death."


    Hearing my wife instantly assuming the position of the leader while I personally was unable to do so, was truly a heart-warming experience. Yet as much as I hoped that it would change in the future, there was only one person that I could fully entrust managing this complicated situation with.


    "Yes, dear?"


    Using the lingering bits of my strength, I managed to tuck on Elia''s robes, once again bringing her attention back to my lips.


    "Send someone to fetch Jan here. Let him deal with the current situation for us."


    This friendly governor of the entire province was the best bet for the safety of both me, Elia and this entire place altogether. He wasn''t as stupid as to believe in the version that we would be initially passing were the crowds learn about the manifestation of my system, yet with the current state of the Commonwealth, I was sure that he wouldn''t risk losing the prowess of my mind just because I was capable of doing something that he couldn''t understand!


    After all, this entire location was filled with wonders that were previously unimaginable and indiscernible from magic for those who failed to learn how did they operate. Considering how many times I had to explain him how certain stuff worked in order for him to actually accept it as reality rather than some kind of weird tricks aimed at winning him to my side, I was sure that he would just assume that this was just another trick of mine, that I would explain to him as soon as I would be once again capable of speaking comfortably.


    "Dear, it will be done. But now, shut up, and let the medics do their damned job!"

 264 Coming Clean

    31st July 1574


    "To think that you would end up in such a state right before going to warˇ­" Sitting beside my bed, Jan only shook his head before spitting into a specially designed pot lying nearby. "Those Ostros bastards will surely pay for it!"


    Seeing this greatest backer of mine getting so agitated in this situation was both good and bad news. While the fact that he turned so emotional after seeing me getting hurt was actually not bad at all, proving that all the possible doubts about my betrayal that he had before, were now all gone. But on the other hand, if he were to act out of his rightful anger alone, then rather than cornering our enemies and winning by landslide, he would be sure to rush into the action, hoping to take his revenge for my injuries just like that!


    "As much as I want to get their heads and use their skulls as my beer cups, we are in no position to openly wage war against them right now. Unless you are capable of convincing all the commanders that this army should aim to clear their rebellion first, all we can do right now is to go to the east, while I will work on getting more troops ready, so that while you will be defending the country from the external invasion, I will do the same from an internal one."


    As much as I wanted to shrug my arms here, with how nearly my entire body was covered in bandages and stabilising sticks, I should be happy that I could at least move my head around. With how little time I had to recover from my injuries, I knew that it would still take me at least two weeks before I could do anything outside from how far I could currently reach with my hands, but that wouldn''t stop me from properly managing my people and lands!


    "Mike, as much as I appreciate everything that you did for the country already, from alerting us about the war, through creating those great weapons and selling them at a low price to the army, I still can be considered to be your superior. And using my authority right here, let me tell you this."


    Suddenly raising up from the edge of the bed on which Jan was sitting, he started pacing around the chamber. Despite leaving his last sentence open, indicating that he still had something to say, his mouth didn''t move. Rather than that, he actually brough his hand to the chin, taking up the pose of someone who was thinking really hard about something.


    "Jan, listen...:"


    Unwilling to just let him waste time like that, I attempted to say something, only to be almost instantly silenced by a threatening look from the governor. Getting this obvious message, I could only close my mouth and wait for the true lord of this place to find the proper words required to relay what he had in his mind.


    Finally stopping his relentless march around my room, Jan stood still and looked at me with a serious look on his face.


    "Raising one''s hands against you should be considered treason. At this point, it doesn''t matter at all to me where all those brilliant ideas are coming to your brain, but in the current situation, only an idiot would deny the fact that those projects of yours are the lifeline for the commonwealth, especially during the times of both interregnum and the war!"


    It took Governor a long time to get over with those two sentences, but as soon as he said them, I could understand why it was the case. With the type of personality that he had, praising someone so openly was not easy, and going even further and admitting that I was one of the most important people for the country growth and prosperity, if not the most important was akin to social nuke going on in this very room!


    "You knowˇ­??


    Initially, I was simply flabbergasted. It wasn''t that easy to accept such praise, especially with all the potential responsibilities that would be bound to me if I were to admit that, but in the current situation of mine, doing so was actually my best choice. Especially with how, intentionally or not, Jan just put himself in quite a precarious position!


    "When you said that you don''t really care where does my genius come from, did you meant it?"


    Even before I could start planning my way to get back at Ostros and preferably take over their lands as to use them to further develop different aspects of the country, I still had to deal with the potential repercussion of my usage of the system!


    With how quickly the order to lock down the entire mansion was enforced, for now, only a single person that was present within the building while I used this strange power of mine was allowed outside, and only for the sake of passing both the urgent invitation to the governor and requesting huge amount of supplies, paper, drawing utensils and all the other stuff that Elia considered to be important.


    Thanks to that, if any rumours were to start circulating in the area, we would know who would be responsible for sharing them, putting even greater pressure the unlucky butler that somehow managed to survive Ostros onslaught, to keep his mouth perfectly shut.


    Yet, it was only a matter of time before all the secrets would somehow leak to the public. We couldn''t keep all those soldiers locked down in the mansion without any interaction with the world forever. Even those short interactions when workers were bringing fresh supplies bore the risk of someone accidentally slipping on their tongue, and starting the most dangerous mayhem that I would most likely ever experience.


    And this was the main reason, why Governor''s claim about his lack of interest in the source of my knowledge, was capable of making me both as happy and as serious.


    "Janˇ­ I need you to sit down."


    Surprised by my sudden change of tone, Governor raised his eyebrows. Yer rather than questioning the intent behind my request, he obediently grabbed one of the chairs that were lying around the room, before putting it in front of my bed and sitting down on it.


    "What?"


    Seeing how frank Jan turned out to be in this moment, I could breathe with relief. Rather than ridiculing me for this sudden change of mind, he actually turned fully serious, focusing on the matter at hand rather than small interpersonal bickering.


    "Do you remember the last time when I told you how observing the naturally occurring processes that surround us were my initial source of inspiration to dig deeper into the possibility of using those natural forces to our own advantage?"


    Rather than outrightly telling him about the existence of the system or my knowledge about the future times, I decided that leading him towards the answer as slowly as steadily would be the better way to go about it.


    "Yeah, as I''m alive, I remember. That short talk with you back then made a really big impression on me, to the point that I still do remember most of what was said back then."


    As much as I should be happy with what he said since it would allow him to understand what I was going to say next, this situation also had another side to itself. The fact that he remembered most of what I said, meant that what I would say right now, might leave a huge scar on the trust that he had towards me.


    "Then you can forget most of it. While I can''t say it was a lie, I never was the one to come up with any of the designs that you praised me so much for. But right now, rather than explaining myself, I need you to promise to me that you will listen all the way to the end of my story, without daring to interrupt me at any moment, unless you want me to elaborate on something a bit more. If you start making assumptions based only at the fragment of the entire truth, then I will appear as some kind of heretic, or worse, a demon if not a satan himself!"


    Announcing the reality even before explaining it was quite risky, as I was already forcing the governor into expecting a lot of bad stuff, potentially shifting his perception of what I would say into something else than what he would understand from my words otherwise, yet I could tell that allowing him to interrupt me halfway, would bear even worse results.


    "Iˇ­ You have my word. On my Nobility, I do promise!"


    Despite how I was only able to move my head, thanks to the place where Governor was sitting, I could keenly observe the changes occurring on his face as he listened to my words. While this momentary hesitation that appeared in his eyes as he was about to swear this oath made me worried a bit, I wouldn''t get an any better chance to finally come clean with anyone else but my wife.


    "Iˇ­ I lived a single day, that happened four centuries in the future."

 265 Disasterous future

    31st July 1574


    "As strange as it sounds, this single dayˇ­ Or rather, the way in which I experienced it, is the source of all the information, knowledge and inventions that I have brought to this world. So let me elaborate on it a bit."


    Rather than going all-in and attempting to explain the existence of the system which I wasn''t really sure about myself, I decided that simplifying the entire matter to just the visions of the future would work better. Just like previously I told him that I learned everything I know by observing the nature, even though it was a lie, it still served as a proper way to teach him about the intricacies of the science.


    That''s why, going about the things in the way that I decided, even if it was a lie, would still serve the purpose I had to achieve!


    "While the time that I spent in the future accounts only to a single day, I wasn''t myself when I experienced those strange times. I saw all the memories, all the thoughts, whims, wishes and plans of the person who was truly living in that time. In that one day, I assimilated all the knowledge that that random person had. And just like you would be able to construct a simple firearm if you were to be moved back to the times before it was invented as its currently common knowledge how it works, the stuff that I''m implementing in those landsˇ­ Was common knowledge for that person whose life I experienced in that dream!"


    Going about the topic in this way, was far easier than actually explaining that I came from the future myself. Outside of all the problems regarding my real personality and what happened to the initial owner of the current body of mine, it added additional layer of safety, as in the current situation, I could bet that Jan would think of me as some demon possessing a body of an innocent noble!


    "I''m sorry, but I don''t really understand. Do you want to tell me that you know about everything that will happen in the future?!"


    Just as expected, even someone as smart as the governor wasn''t capable of simply accepting everything that I said. After all, he saw me getting surprised about certain effects, he experienced with his own eyes how poorly I reacted to the entire Ostros betrayal were I to know about it in advance. Yet explaining the butterfly effect to himˇ­ Even I wasn''t certain that I could do so!


    "Both yes, and no. Just as you might guess, I didn''t know that Ostros would betray the country. I didn''t know that Muscovites would attack. In the history of Commonwealth I know, nothing of this happened. Oh, and if you ask me how can I know about this stuff, then you need to understand one additional thing. In the future, everyone, no matter poor or rich, would be forced to go through an extensive and long period of general education. That''s how I know a little about everything, while not being an expert in any of the topics."


    "Do you want to say, that you won''t need to be a noble to receive education?!"


    And here it came. As much as I wanted to come up with some kind of a lie that would be easier to swallow for the governor, I simply couldn''t figure out any feasible way to do so! I already pointed out that there were still both rich and poor people, so I couldn''t lie my way out by claiming that everyone could afford the education. Right now, I could only give him the truth, as painful as it would be to him.


    "You see, in the future I saw, there was no nobles in the society. Rather than splitting the people between those of high and low birth, it was all dwindled down to whether someone was born rich or poor."


    Saying those words, I could feel my own voice wavering as if I could already see the furious reaction governor rejecting such an unimaginable future. Because right now, the entire society of the commonwealth, as well as most of the other nations around the world, was based on this very distinction alone.


    Those who fought either in the past or in the current days for the country were granted lands and titles. Those who busied themselves with producing food or other wares could only live off the small profits they could earn from their work. The very concept of abolishing the nobility system had to be unimaginable for some living in the times where the feudal system was at its peak!


    "Okay, let''s say that I believe you so far. But you still didn''t answer my previous question. If you saw the future, how could you be surprised by anything that is happening? And if the future that you saw is no longer applicable to our own times, why should we bother with anything else that happened in that dream of yours?"


    At this point, the governor managed to take me by surprise. Even without understanding the butterfly effect, he was capable of putting the current situation into greater scale, putting all the knowledge that I had about history into doubt!


    "You see, in the future, I saw, people were so knowledgable and smart, that they managed to create machines capable of simulating the reality. Obviously, it was flawed and based on incredibly complicated calculations, failing to provide the truth of the world, it was still enough to be used as an entertainment. And the person who I became for that one night, was really interested in the history to the point, where rather than learning about the events that transpired, he actually studied the reasons why those things happened in the first place."


    Speaking so much, I could feel my energy slowly draining up. But as tired as I was, I couldn''t just stop here!


    "In the future, the one principle that everyone took for granted, was logic. Something is always caused by something else. If an apple falls down from the tree, there has to be some reason for that. If a country attacks another one, then there is an underlying reason for that as well. This is the truth why I was so surprised about the currently ongoing events. As for the very question that I was avoiding so farˇ­"


    At this point, I simply couldn''t continue. I had to take a moment to rest, and let my body produce a bit more energy so that I could continue speaking a bit later!


    "Come on, right when you reached the most important pointˇ­ Ah, forgive meˇ­"


    Just as the governor started his rant about my break, he finally looked directly into my exhausted face, realising in what kind of state I was in. Only after wasting nearly five minutes just to regain my breath, did I picked up where I left before.


    "My actions do influence the future. I think that even if I were to live my life in peace, enjoying the fruits of the labour of my serfs, I would still in a smaller or greater way, change the future to something different than what I saw in that God-sent dream of mine. But knowing what is about to happen to the commonwealth, to the country that both I myself, the Tarnowian noble, and the person whose life I sawˇ­ I just couldn''t rest easy. I had to do something!"


    At this moment, I felt all the regrets that were born in my soul back when I was attending the school, return. The regret that we, as the country and nation, wasted so many opportunities, that we, as the Polish nation, were given by the fate, but wasted so tragically!


    "What happened? Even if your actions already altered the course of history, you said that you don''t know how big scale it would affect the future. Tell me, what happened to make your expression so depressed!"


    Due to how immersed I was in this moment in the tragic past of my country that I knew, I failed to control both my emotions and how they appeared on my face. But how could I keep myself calm when thinking about how the country would be literally split into pieces? How could I ignore the fact that once the greatest country in Europe would fall so low, that even in the modern future the entire polish nation would be silently considered to be the economical slaves of the rest of the world?


    "Right now, we are at our peak. But almost every single event that would happen in the years to come, would bring commonwealth closer and closer to its collapseˇ­ Only for the neighbouring powers that grew due to our negligence to split this great country apart, enslave our people and do their best to make them forget about every great deed that we achieved in the past. But even those one hundred, twenty-three years of slaveryˇ­ Even more than a century of missing from the world maps wasn''t the worst that was about to hit us. You could say, that from this funny law we have here, liberum veto, was first taken as legal and ruling occurrence, commonwealth started collapsing. It will all start about eighty years from now, and the ages of disgrace, during which we will have to start regarding our glorious failures as the greatest achievements, would continue all the way to the times, where the person whose memories I saw, lived in."


    Ending my lecture, I could see my vision wavering, indicating that such long speech seriously has eaten away at the freshly regained strength of my body. But there was still one more thing that I had to say, in order for this entire talk to bear any fruit.


    "Before I won''t be able to speak anything further, you need to know one more thing. When I was shot yesterday and was about to lose my consciousness, I could only pray to the God almighty in hopes that he would let me keep my life. It was also at that moment when I couldn''t see anything around me, when the same feeling as when I woke up from that dream of mine, returned."


    Unable to even tilt my head to the side, I could only wait for Governor''s reaction to everything that I said so far.


    "Oh, God."


    That was all he could say, overwhelmed by the tragic news about the potential future of our beloved country.

 266 Opportunity

    3rd August 1574


    "I wish you luck in the war. I''m leaving first three armies of mine under your command, along with all their base and expanded equipment. Use them wisely."


    For some reason, despite only a few days passing ever since I received my injuries, the rate at which they were healing was astonishing. Despite knowing that going out of my way to the skeletal gate of the projected wall that would surround the entirety of the currently developed area might set my healing back for quite a while, it was something that I simply had to do.


    "Don''t worry too much about it. I already sent some letters to the capital, so that by the time you will heal to the point of being able to comfortably move, you should be set as the commander of the punitive army against Ostros. Also, despite what I said a long time ago... "


    Rather than finishing his sentence, Jan pulled a simple piece of paper marked with his seal out of his breast pocket before passing it to me.


    "This is the land ownership deed, for all the areas from Sandomir, through those mines all the way the Rak village. With this, you will officially join the circle of the high nobles, while preventing anyone from interfering with those lands. Also, during my absence, I set you as the highest protector of the Sandomir, but knowing your character and aims, I guess you won''t really bother yourself with already developed areas."


    Sending me a funny look, Jan passed another piece of paper to me, before grabbing my hand lightly, and barely even shaking it, as if worried that any more energetic move would pose a threat to my already fragile health.


    "Don''t worry about it. I will make sure to establish a stable route to the frontlines so that our forces won''t need to worry about food or gunpowder. Once again, good luck and gest lost already. I have enough of your face after staring at it for the past few days!"


    Sending my protector off in a jokingly manner, I couldn''t help but feel a target being instantly painted on my back. Even with all his reassurances and actions, without Jan in place to curb any attempts at stealing or even destroying my wealth, I only had myself and my retainers to count on.


    Yet, there was nothing I could do about the current situation. With my body already on the verge of collapsing from the strain of standing straight for just a few minutes, there was no way I could personally oversee the punitive action against Ostros. At least, not yet.


    "Let''s go back."


    Ordering with a weak voice, in one instant, I could feel Al''s and Elemo''s hands grabbing me under my shoulders and placing me on a stretcher. With the sky now nearly completely filling my vision, I could go back with my thoughts to how the talks with Governor went through a few days back.


    "It''s really hard to believe this entire storyˇ­ Or it would be, if not for everything that you introduced to your lands already."


    "While I have the stray thought of promoting you as the next king-elect for the times when the parliament will finally decide to not wait for Henry anymore, but I don''t think it would work well for you. Being able to develop lands, and being able to govern them, are two completely different matters."


    "For now, let''s just focus on stabilizing the country, pushing Muscovites back and clearing up Ostros rebellion. As much as I would love to do more, we can''t change the world within a week."


    Contrary to my expectations, despite how unrealistic my entire story sounded, Jan was able not only to act as if he believed in it, but also came up with several rational proposals and ideas. And as much as I didn''t want to agree with some of them, I wasn''t in the state to argue with him.


    For now, we agreed to focus on expanding my power as a noble, so that my ideas, when brough to the parliament, would hold greater meaning and weight than if I were to keep being just a small, landed noble and rentier. In fact, it was the main reason behind the cession of the local lands where the mining town was located!


    "Sir, now that you are a proper lord of this place, don''t you think you should officially set the location of a new town?"


    As I was buried in my thoughts, Elemo voice managed to wake me up from my usual immersion.


    "Locate the town, you sayˇ­"


    Only after digesting his words for a moment, did I manage to realise just what the heck did he meant with those words of his.


    For those not well-versed in the current law, only the direct owners of the land on which a new settlement was to be located and the King himself had the right to announce the location. But to be frank, what did even locating a town meant in the first place?


    It was something pretty simple. Unless a town, city or even a simple village was properly located, it would lack any law protection given to the citizens or the villagers. In short words, it would be considered as nothing more than an occupied patch of land, under the law that the nearest settled location operated on. That meant, that unless I were to locate the mining town of mine, as in to put its name on the commonwealth''s map, every worker, every trader and every officer living in the town, would be considered as the villager from the village that just so happened to be the closest to this place!


    "That''s actually a good idea. The only question is, which law should we impose in the city? It''s not like Polish, German or Lubecan laws could be applied to the way in which everything works hereˇ­ At least, thanks to the fact that I''m now de jure regent of the Jan''s governance over the Sandomir, I''m free to choose any locating law I wantˇ­"


    As soon as I spoke those words, I realised that the current situation gave me another opportunity!


    For someone from the future like me, the reasons behind the fall of the commonwealth were fairly obvious. Outside of the stuff that I was unable to change like the geography of the country and nearly complete lack of geographical protection from both major rivals to the east and west, it was the diminishing of the middle class that proved to be one of the major flaws to the commonwealth society!


    With the lesser nobles taking over the position of the middle class in the country, those who were born without the title, but were capable of creating their own wealth and futureˇ­ Had no way to actually influence the course in which the country would go!


    That quickly lead to the situation where those who felt entitled to the privileges but failing to provide anything in return to the country, while those who actually could contribute and were willing to, were kept away from the circle of power.


    And wasn''t the situation that I had on hand, a perfect way to put the founding stone for the great construction that would change it?


    "Elemo, Alˇ­ Bring me to my chambers and call all of the high ranking officers in there as well. Rather than using any other law that already exists and has proved to be unusable for us, we will codify our own set of rules!"


    From the way the stretcher on which I was carried shook the moment I said those words, I could tell how disturbed my retainers were by my words!


    "Sirˇ­ With all due respect, but so far, only your development plants proved to be successful. As much as we are not willing to take the glory that sir deserve for those things alone, don''t you think that attempting to create a new law from the scratchˇ­ Rather than proving too challenging, might be a little bit too intrusive for the old folks at the senate? Like, what if this will be one thing they won''t agree to swallow, putting them against us?"


    While it was nice to hear that rather than portraying themselves as nobles who served under me, Al already considered my side as something he fully and utterly belonged to, it didn''t change how right his point was.


    But while I didn''t really want to go against the entirety of the country with my reforms, I would never get the chance to do so otherwise!


    "While that''s true, they can''t really do anything about it right now. Didn''t you hear those golden words, that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission?"

 267 Lawmaking part 1

    3rd August 1574


    "You must all be wondering, why have I called you here."


    Seeing how undisturbed the faces of the small crowd gathered in my chamber were, I realised that I would never get to realise the dream of mine of saying those words to the people who would understand the joke. Rather than catching up, those high ranking development and army officers of mine focused themselves, waiting for the news that I was about to tell them.


    "Ah, don''t be so tense. While the matter at hand is important, it is by no means urgent. But while it''s importance warrants calling you all here, I''m not going to waste the time on introductions anymore. In short words, I have the rights and means to officially locate the town, but to do so, I need a comprehensive set of laws on which this place will operate."


    Despite lying on the bed and not even being able to look at most of the people gathered in the room, I could still tell how excited they got from those simple words of mine. But rather than understanding what I really had on mind, they were bound to debate whether we would use Magdeburgian, Lubecan, German or maybe Krakowian locating law, without realising that I was about to drop an entirely new bomb on their heads!


    "Before you will start debating on which set of the common laws would suit this place the most, I need to make an additional announcement. Starting from the moment the location of the town will be official, all my private assets ranging from the employment deals with the workers, through the ownership of the land and buildings all the way to the profits generated by every single factory within its borders, will be donated to the newly created entity, the town''s hall."


    With the silence that suddenly covered the entire room, I could tell that even by announcing that I would be coming up with a completely new set of law, I couldn''t surprise the people more than by saying what I just said.


    But in reality, this was the only way to create a sustainable area that would keep promoting the new model of society across the entire country. I didn''t know how long I have to live in this place and timeline. With how I couldn''t even guess what was the reason for me to appear in this times, I had no way of deducing what would be the breaking point that would force me back to my original timeline!


    As such, rather than focusing on amassing power directly in my hands, I decided it was a way better idea to set the foundations of something that future socialists and anarchists would hate to the bone while banking on it in every single day of their life.


    A corporation.


    "Sirˇ­ With all due respect, but would you be as kind as to elaborate on what you mean by that?"


    It didn''t take long for one of the development officers that I never really had the chance to talk with to speak up and ask the question that was bound to bother everyone in the room.


    Gesturing at Al beside me, I banked on his help to change my position from lying flat to sitting on the bed with my back resting against the wall. With my leg still completely covered in stabilizing contraption, the space that I took in the room was quite big, but at least this position allowed me to see the reactions of the crowd to my words.


    "Anno domini one thousand, five hundred, seventy-four. Third day of the August. The location of the city of New Tarnow is set, with the set of Tarnowian location laws regulating the rules of its governance."


    Just like before, when the people in the room heard me dropping another bomb on their heads, rather than instantly going to whisper and chat about its meaning, they just turned silent. Even if I didn''t interact with every single one of them on a daily basis, I was sure that the legends about my love for keeping my listeners tense was already circulating through the entire town.


    "On the lands of any city located under the Tarnowian law, all men shant be equal in the face of the law. As the aim of those modern laws is to improve the standing on all those living under it, ignorance will be considered to be the greatest transgression, and won''t be a reason to be excused from breaking the law!"


    As I was not a lawyer myself, I could only use the experience I had from writing the rules for various chatting servers when coming up with the general rules, before I would rely on those officers of mine at filling the rest of the Tarnowian Laws Card.


    "As it stands, there will be a distinction of three groups of people within the borders of the city located under this law. Citizens, Aspirants and Visitors, with the privileges and duties of each of them, specified below. You can stop writing now."


    Figuring out how to counteract the constantly growing problem of the shrinking power of the middle class took me a long time. It wasn''t that simple to just abandon the idea of the golden liberty that was the most important paradigm for the current political and societal system of commonwealth governance. But in this current effort of mine, I could at least rely on the wisdom of the descendants of this land, who would strive and create the very first constitution in entire Europe, and the second one in the world!


    "Dear sirs, I know that you must be wondering what will be the rule that will set apart the real citizens from both the visitors and the aspirants. Or rather, who will be those aspirants in the first place? Let me explain you, my line of thought, before giving you the answer to that question though."


    I hoped that by this time, the people gathered in my room would already start actively asking questions, pointing out problems and proposing their own stuff. Sadly, it seemed as if my reputation was simply too overwhelming for them, making this bunch unable to make the first step towards this achievement.


    "The main line of distinction will be ownership of either a business or a house within the borders of the city or the areas specified as its development stages. Now you should understand why I was so keen at finishing the residential areas in the main part of the city first, but never stopped the construction of the massive living quarters for the workers. The idea behind this rule is to promote people to investing either in settling within the city, or starting their own businesses in the areas that the town hall will specify."


    The greatest problem with the society of the Commonwealth, had two faces. Firstly, the nobility was above the law. As long as one was willing to act humble and either pay the compensation or spend a short time in the tower, then he would be free to do whatever he wanted unless it would involve another noble. But as bad as it sounded, it was actually the other point that brough the end to the commonwealth.


    There was no drive to improve.


    With the lesser nobles taking over the position of the middle-class in the country, there was no reward in the society for striving to get richer without being a noble oneself. While town''s folk could aim to become rich and use their influence to sit in the town''s assembly, all the important positions would still be filled with noble sons of the country.


    That''s why, by giving a reasonable and concrete way for reaching for greater social status to the people, that was aligned with the interest of anyone attempting to develop one''s lands, I could not only ensure that more and more people would flock to any land that would operate under the Tarnowian Location Law but with the growth of the importance and potential of those places, it would be only a matter of time before a citizen of my towns would be equal in power and status to a noble!


    "As for both the city and the development stages, it''s fairly simple. The city itself consists of the lands that are already operating on a stable basis. All people living and working there will be required to pay the tax of one out of ten of their income towards the Town''s monthly treasury, with that money being used exclusively on improving the town itself and paying for its operating costs. As for the development staging areasˇ­"


    At this point, rather than making a stop in my lecture to keep the situation tense, I had to take a momentary break to calm down my own excitement. Just my sheer imagination of what face the people in front of me would make upon hearing the next sentence of mine, was enough to bring me to the brink of collapsing from the joy!


    "For as long as one''s business will be approved and aligned with the Town''s Hall guidelines, then it will be completely free from tax, and might even receive a loan from the Town''s treasury on favourable terms. But if you think that this is all, then you couldn''t be more mistaken. Even after the development stage will turn into an official part of the city, there will be a period of five years, during which the everyone living there will be free from the land monthly fee!"


    With how I moved the ownership of all the city lands from my own possession to the city itself, any building, business or house would be required to pay a small monthly fee calculated from the average price of the buildings in that specific area or district. This could be considered to be the basic tax for all the people living in the city, be it citizens or the aspirants.


    "And with all of that said, let''s move on to what the privileges of the citizens will be!"

 268 Henrys Reveal

    3rd August 1574


    "First of all, to not put you in a tough spot. Every single development officer will be granted a preferential treatment during the sale of the inner city houses, allowing all of you guys to become the proper citizens in one instant. As for the rest of the workers, as long as they will continue to pay their respective rents for the shared housing, they will get the right to own their parts of the shared house, earning themselves the citizenship as well!"


    The main idea behind the laws that I wanted to introduce was to prompt everyone to focus on working as hard as they could, with the promise of a better life just within their reach. For the people that were mostly locked to remain in the same social class as they were born with, openly giving them the chance to advance was already unheard off, yet when the fact that I was actively promoting the ongoing recrutation for both the army and the workers all the timeˇ­


    Back in the future, my history teacher told me about the common occurrence when serfs risked everything just to escape inside the city, as even being beggars there still made them immune to the influence of the nobles. This right to the limited self-governance was what made most of the late medieval cities prosper, constantly bringing fresh blood that could replenish those centres of crime and plague.


    It was yet another aspect that I thought about before even the idea of locating the city was brought to me.


    Up until the early twentieth century, most of the cities were capable of increasing in size not due to the number of babies being born inside making up for the people dying, but only due to the constant flood of new souls flocking to the chance at better life they saw in the cities.


    "Sirˇ­ If I mayˇ­"


    Finally, after a long time during which I could either talk with the best of my intentions or at least move on to thinking about the topic when my throat wouldn''t be able to stand up to the task anymore, one of the officers moved to the front of the crowd with a look of uncertainty at his face.


    "You may speak."


    Rather than monologuing for the rest of the day, I would be far happier to actually have some kind of interaction with those people, especially if it came to explaining their doubts. After all, I couldn''t even guess what they might be worried about, with how different our priorities in life were!


    "Sir, while I really want to believe that such an approach would result in the unstoppable growth of this placeˇ­ I have two things that I do not understand. First thing first, about the internal stability of this place. For now, with the great majority of the projects financed and managed by us, under your name, nearly all means of production lie within the means of the wealth that you wish to give to the city, sir. But in the solution that was just proposed, there will be no organic way for the guilds to form!"


    Yet as great as it sounded in general, to have some kind of counterweight for the overwhelming influence of the nobility, establishing the guilds would only lead to even greater differences between simple workers and those who spent their lifetime mastering certain crafts. And just a single look at the pace at which this city was changing should be enough for a reason why I wasn''t so positive about establishing organisations capable of monopolising entire sectors of the market, even if it was something that every other major city did!


    "I understand this problem pretty well, but compared to what you might think, it''s solution is simpler than you should be guessing it is. There won''t be any laws giving preferential treatments to the guilds in the first place!"


    For the people of this age, those words of mine had to be a bomb akin to the ones I dropped before. But this time, I could see the unrest appearing on the faces of many of my officers. Yet, rather than being surprised, I could only shake my head with resignation. After all, most of them, before coming to the this city of mine, actually belonged to one guild or another!


    "Before you will start attempting to explain how necessary the guilds are for the development of the city, let me explain why I don''t think they will be any need to establish them here. In fact, I won''t even prohibit people creating guilds on their own! But rather than receiving privileges and rights just because they do exists, they will have to compete with the others on equal grounds. In other words, rather than creating guilds, every single citizen and aspirant will be allowed to create a brand on their own!"


    Finally, rather than bothering my mind with talks about stuff that I was never well versed in, I could revel in the topic that I could claim to be an expert in. Even though I never reached the stage of sitting at the highest deciding table of any firm, not to speak about full-scale corporations, just this few years of experience of working as a measly gear inside the machine was enough for me to know the ins and out of how a corporation operated!


    And just like others were bound to buy my products for the sake of attempting back-engineering it, I was capable of creating a formula for a successful business!


    "Brand? What do you mean with this word, sir?"


    Using the moment of confusion to sort my own thoughts, I moved a little bit to fix a small itch that appeared in my healthy leg before focusing on the topic once again.


    "While there will be a set of certain rules aimed at limiting this possibility to those who proved to be capable of managing a project on their own, the brand will basically mean a personal guild that every capable person will be able to create. As long as it will be deemed feasible, the city will give out preferential loans to the brand owners, in an attempt to help them establish themselves on the market. But rather than trying to explain it in vague terms, let me point out at the already existing example. Al, is Henry ready?"


    Henry, rather than being the former king of Commonwealth, was no one else but the owner of the very first privately funded project owner in the entire mining town of mine. With how I already had planned to invite him to this meeting since the idea of setting a new locating law appeared in my mind, I was sure to get him to wait somewhere nearby as to introduce him at the most opportune moment.


    "Sir, he is waiting in the longue."


    With Al''s confirmation, I only had to nod my head slightly for this loyal servant of mine to burst out of the room.


    "As we are waiting, I will ensure that all of you do remember who that Henry person is. He started as a simple travelling merchant who saw the opportunity in this place. Buying the wooden scraps for nearly no cost from the wood factory, he invested his entire wealth into building simple manufacture that produced a paper with the recipe that I openly shared. And now look where he stands?"


    Whether it was fate or just smart play from Al''s side, right when I spoke those words, an expensively dressed man came into the room. Just from his robes alone, one might think that he belonged to the upper tier of the nobility, yet the sharp aura that surrounded him belied this first impression, as there was no high noble that would be as attentive to his surrounding as Henry was.


    "This man currently owns four paper factories, works in closed agreement with the wood factory, supplies hard paper for the ammunition plants and from what I heard recently, is planning to expand his business into the new areas. Henry, would you mind introducing the new projects that you are already working on?"


    Despite it being the very first time when I had the chance to meet this crafty man in person, just a single look at him made me ensure that helping him with all my might would definitely pay off. Even though I initially did so for the sake of binding his loyalty to myself as his plants were of utmost importance for my current military effort, when I heard about his new idea, I felt as if I touched the pants of the God himself by roping him in to my side!


    "Dear sirs, I''m Henry. You might know me as the owner of the currently four paper plants spread around the mining town area, with two more plants currently being built. As for what our dear lord already started to spoilˇ­ Sir, with all due respect, revealing my intentions might end up with my entire plan failing. Should I consider your request as the confirmation that the terms I brought up are agreed upon?"


    Rather than flaring up due to such a blatant attempt at forcing his own way on me, I couldn''t help but actually smile! This was the spirit that I wanted to see in all of the future investors and managers! Without the wits and courage to fight for the welfare of their projects, how could I ever hope for even a single one of them to be successful?


    "Yes, I already reviewed the proposition you brought up and even went through with signing it myself. I believe its only a matter of delayed handling that resulted in this information failing to reach your ears. With that said, I hope you could finally reveal your intentions, or I''m worried that the tension will bring some of the officers here to the brink of collapsing!"


    Despite how poor the state of my health was at this moment, I knew that cracking even a simple and barely any funny joke like that could still soften up the atmosphere in the room. With how it tensed up after Henry''s daring words, it was something that simply had to be done!


    "Okay then, let''s break the seal of secrecy on this fun project of mine."


    Suddenly turning its sharp expression into the kindest smile that one could ever see, if not for the fact that I knew what he would say in his next sentence, I would most likely start guessing that he was about to open a theme park for the kids!


    "As long as fate will allow, my new project will tackle the problem of building fully scaled trains, along with armoured, steam-horse powered vehicles that could be used for the war effort."

 269 Automated Carriage

    8th August 1574


    "Are you sure you can go? I would really prefer if you kept resting for at least a few days more!"


    With the stabilising bandages and other contractions that the medics used to keep me from moving, finally gone, there was no way I could accede to Elia''s request. Not with how important this next project of mine was.


    "I''m sorry dear, but you know how little my health is worth when we look at the situation of the entire country. If I decide against sacrificing a bit of my comfort, how can I expect others to sacrifice their blood and life for the sake of our commonwealth?"


    Picking up a cane, specially handcrafted for me by the wood factory head administrator, I finally moved up from the bed, taking a long while to get used to the standing position once again.


    "If you say soˇ­ Just try to be as careful as possible, okay?"


    Hugging her soft self to my arm, this lovely wife of mine helped me get to the doors and all the way downstairs. In front of the mansion doors, this excruciating travel of mine was finally over, with the first model of Henry''s cart already waiting for me.


    "To think that he would come up with the design so quicklyˇ­ I guess investing in him was one of the better ideas I had."


    One could say that the most important quality of the lord or ruler, was not to be the best at everything but to be capable of finding people that would be the best in their respectable fields.


    With how little I knew about the mechanical construction of the moving vehicles, rather than trying to tackle its design completely by myself, I created a few blueprints of those few mechanisms that I knew how they worked, before passing them to Henry. But to think that he could take them and turn the knowledge contained within into a proper prototype!


    "Sir, I hope you will like the ride!"


    Opening up the simple, wooden hatch located on top of this bulky vehicle, Henry himself emerged from the innards of the craft. His smile alone could serve as the proof that even if not perfectly, this automobile of his was at least already working!


    Taking a taxing look at the general ideas that he put together, I couldn''t help but be amazed. With the modular tracks replacing the standard wheels, and its general length reaching the double of how long your usual carriage would be, I had some doubts whether the power of the steam horse hidden inside would be enough to propel it once the thin wooden parts would be replaced with proper steel sheets, but for now, I could at least use it to move around without much effort.


    "I''m very much looking forward to it. I assume you know our destination."


    If I were to separate it into three equally long parts, then the one at the very back would be responsible for all the movement. Consisting of four mark three steam engines, integrated fuel feeding system and the smoke expelling tube, it was so packed, that even fitting a piece of paper between its parts would pose a challenge.


    The middle part was where all the passengers had to stay, with three sets of double wooden slabs posing as both the bench and the leg rest. If not for the fact that the entire roof was made with just a wooden skeleton with a thin piece of fabric wrapped on it, I could already tell that it would create quite a claustrophobic feeling. But the real magic was located at the very front of the vehicle.


    For some reason, the front part of the vehicle, not only consisted of two small seats, one for the driver and the other one for what appeared to be the guide, but also a lot of machinery that was confusing even for me!


    "Henry, would you mind elaborating what those parts are?"


    Pointing my hand at the tangled mess of small conveyors, tubes and handles, I stared at the man behind this ingenuity. While I didn''t want to doubt his abilities, if all this mess was in place only for the sake of actually controlling the way in which the vehicle would drive, then this entire project would have to be scrapped!


    "Sir, those parts are not finished yet. If not for our urge to prove that the vehicle itself is working already, we would still take at least one or two weeks before giving you the first ride. As for their future use, they will be manipulated around a bit so that the front part of the vehicle will be able to fit an extendable cannon created with the modified blueprints of what you provided us with, sir."


    Only after hearing the explanations did I realise why despite how messy this piece of machinery looked like, I could still feel a bit of familiar vibes from it.


    With how fast the models of my weapons were constantly upgrading, there was no way that I would leave the big guns outside of this flow of innovation. Rather than putting my hopes in unreliable, slow and generally weak front-loaded cannons, I drew what a backloaded artillery should look like and delivered it to Henry''s new plant. And if my guess was right, rather than just going with the tank route and slapping a long barrel at the front of the machine, he actually decided to make it expandable from within the vehicle itself!


    "Sir, I know what you might want to ask. Why bother creating problems if we could just add most of the invulnerable design to the outside. But while this is just a prototype, when I first saw its test run, I realised one thing. With this thing, carriages will turn obscure. As long as one can find some wood to power this thing up, it will be capable of carrying way more cargo than a normal wagon, without relying on the good road conditions all that much thanks to the tracks system. And it was this idea that made me add some complexity to the project, so that in the future if an enemy spots one of those automated carriages, they will never know whether its a battle unit or just a logistical one!"


    Giving Henry ample time to explain himself, I was about to congratulate him on his foresight, when the driver sitting at the very front of the vehicle, finally pressed one of the pedals.


    "Keep in mind to not let your feet fall down! Without the floor shielding, if it gets tangled into moving machinery, only God will be able to save you from losing your limbs!"


    With this warning resounding in my ears, I instantly looked down, only for a powerful roar from behind to scare the shit out of me!


    Due to the driver finally letting the engines operate at their full potential, endless metal rods started moving like in some kind of elaborate torture device, before the vehicle sharped violently and finally started slowly moving forward!


    Thanks to the tiny holes in the side casing of the metal carriage, I could see that albeit slowly, it was really using the force of my engines to push itself!


    "We will start to speed up now!"


    Hearing the driver''s warning, I instantly grabbed the nearby handle mounted on the side of the vehicle, expecting another drastic change of momentumˇ­ Yet this time, my expectations betrayed me. Rather than instantly jumping forward like some kind of rocket, this vehicle had to take its time to reach even the speed at which normal carriage would go! But despite this very slow accelerating speed, it continued to raise its velocity to the point where not even a galloping horse would be able to outpace it!


    "The destination, new military area!"


    While I already knew that this vehicle could ride on its own from the simple fact that it appeared at the courtyard of my mansion, experiencing the ride myself was still an exhilarating feeling. But as great as it was, due to the insane speed it could achieve while riding on the recently finished road connecting my mining town with the detached military area, I still couldn''t help but feel a bit disappointed with how quickly the ride was over!


    But rather than being depressed over this silly part, I scrambled out of the vehicle, once again using the crane to help myself. Yet, rather than focusing on the impressive sight of the already working vehicle behind me, I directed my full attention towards the painfully ugly and practical sight in front of me.


    "Sir, welcome to the main gate of the New Tarnow detached military complex. While the barracks and training grounds are still being built, how about we give you a tour through the armoured carriage factory?"

 270 Innovativness

    8th August 1574


    "As you might guess from the fact that the final blueprint is not yet tested, the factory will still take a while to properly start, but most of the machinery is already in place, used to manufacture the parts we used in the prototype you just saw, sir."


    From the very moment my foot stepped inside the simple looking but grand in its size building, I knew that it implemented the most modern solutions that the development officers managed to assimilate into mining town''s architecture and designs. From the way the conveyors were run alongside the wall of the entire factory, through an entire side-building serving as the unloading station for the prototrains that could reach this place via the sect of rails, all the way to the damned walkways that allowed one to oversee the entire production from the elevated position.


    "I see that you didn''t slack off while building this place. Would you be so kind as to remind me, what are the city shares in this place?"


    Despite openly announcing how Henry was the first and currently most successful private investor in the entire area of future New Tarnow, there was simply no way that I would allow him to fully control the military plant like this one. Even if his production would limit to the trains and automated carriages alone, the importance of this project still forced the city to participate both in the costs, and the control of this place.


    "Twenty-five out of a hundred are on my name, fifteen more was invested by several nobles that followed my advice while the rest belongs to the city. Also, we are planning to expand the factory for an entirely new plant, where the trains will be produced. Sadly, we still have to wait for all the required specifications before we could start the construction for the plant. But for now, let''s focus on the current moment, rather than allowing ourselves to waste away with our heads in the clouds. After you, sir."


    In spite of how short we knew each other with Henry, he already reached the point where those occasional sirs, were appearing only for the sake of the crowd of people that followed us. If we were to be alone, I could already picture how heated his introductions of all the clever solutions he implemented in this place would be, without any time to waste on the stupid and unnecessary formalities!


    "Go on, sorry for stopping you like that."


    Summing up my reaction with just a slight smile and excuse, I lowered my head to this commoner. If I wanted to bring the change to the world and the commonwealth, I had to start by giving the example myself!


    "As you might see, the tracks are the very first part that will be created once the working model will be pickedˇ­"


    It seemed that rather than allowing anyone else to produce even the simplest parts for the design, they were going to just order the steel and iron slabs from the mining town, melt them locally and cast them all in each respective box!


    While I would never say that such factory design would be optimal, with how this would be the most important technology in the coming months if not years, before the automated carriages would turn common, the secrecy of its production was of the utmost importance, making me swallow the bitterness of how inefficient and risky that sort of approach was.


    "I''m quite satisfied with how it is all wrapped up, but I want you to modify one thing. Rather than making each separate box be responsible for the casting, modifying and then assembling the necessary parts, I want you to set two, three or as many as possible new plants that will be solely responsible for producing those parts. In other words, rather than putting everything into a single factory, I will direct more funds to your side so that every single step will be done in another part of the plan. Right now, just a single faulty element of the system would result in the entire production stalling, and this is something that we want to avoid."


    Right now, rather than there being a lack of concrete, I could say that from the numbers that I received from the development officers, there weren''t enough buyers for it!


    All the ongoing projects in the New Tarnow, that damned project of the city wall, the ongoing construction of the fortress, and now the construction of the biggest military dedicated area in the entire damned continent were still far from sapping the production capabilities of my cement factories!


    If not for the fact that all the projects that the city, or formerly myself had a hand in, would offer the preferential prices for the resources, I could already name myself as the richest man in the entire country, if not the continent. But rather than forcing myself to pay for the increased construction costs of all the future projects just to pocket the additional price of the concrete, I knew that allowing the free growth of everything that could sooner or later contribute to the development of my lands was a far better idea!


    "It will be done, sir. I wanted to keep everything within one building, because I didn''t want the new workers that have yet to be proven loyal, to steal the information about how those wonder machines are being built, hence this overly cautious decision of mine."


    Taking my previous words as scolding, Henry lowered his head with a clear look of disappointment in his face. While I was sure that he understood my point, it was easy to see that he still hoped to receive some praise for clearly ingenious idea for continuous casting of all the parts on the go!


    "You did well, so don''t lower your head as if you were guilty of something. Treat my words as advice for the future rather than scolding. But for now, I will have to excuse myself. There won''t be any point in building the barracks if the new, modernised form of the army won''t be implemented there in the first place!"


    After saying my farewells and receiving some help to get back to the open area, I cast a quick look at the enormous building from the outside once again. If I thought that the wood factory was already big enough to rival some of the supermarkets of the future, this automated carriage factory would be enough to rival some of the smaller industrial buildings of the modern era already!


    If only I could come up with all the Oil industries required to turn this currently nearly worthless resource into the powerhouse of the energy market it was in the future, I could see how the country as a whole would reach some monstrous levels of the growth!


    But everything had to be done step by step. Like the old local saying, that managed to survive all the way to the modern times, taught - the city of Krakow wasn''t built overnight!


    With all my current matters regarding this military factory already settled, I used both my crane and Al''s help to reach the construction site of the barracks. Due to the evergrowing number of newcomers, always willing to join the higher paying position of workers, during the time that I spent touring the factory, nearly a half of the entire wing of the barracks appeared. Even if all there was to them were bare walls made with still wet concrete, it was still a great sign of the speed at which my people could build new structures!


    "Al, Elemo, listen up. I''m sure you saw how many improvements every single aspect of the New Tarnow had to go through before it actually turned out to be any good. Am I right?"


    Rather than going on with a monologue like I liked to do so with the development officers, with the matters strictly regarding military, I couldn''t allow myself such one-sided interaction. Unless those loyal retainers of mine could perfectly understand the idea behind of what I wanted to convey to them, the entire point of putting them at the front of the new, modernised army of mine, would be completely lost!


    "Sir, does that mean that you are going toˇ­ modernise the army? I''m sorry if I didn''t use the correct word, but I hope I conveyed what I have in mind."


    Quite surprisingly, it was Elemo who spoke up first. With his introverted nature, I expected the extrovert Al to actually take the lead!


    "You did it correctly, and yes. While I can be proud of the level that my current armies can achieve, it''s not something that I want to regard as the absolute top of what real training can achieve. As such, I want you to understand one major thing that will be the very core of those new armies of mine."


    Unable to hold myself from taking the tensing break, I changed my position a bit, moving the centre of my body weight away from my injured leg and resting it on the crane.


    "For the entire first month of the training, the new batch of soldiers will be only taught two things. Physical prowess, and discipline!"

 271 New military

    8th August 1574


    "Discipline? Isn''t the level to what we trained the previous armies already enough?"


    With how I already put a great emphasis on this aspect during the training of my old armies, it was no surprise that my most loyal and oldest subordinates would be confused. But between teaching everyone how to listen to most of the leader''s commands and implementing a draconic and perfect discipline, my troops were still near the amateurs end of the spectrum!


    "No. When the new recruits will come to this place, for the first month of their life, rather than learning the basics of fighting, they will have to go through hell. On the mornings, before even the sun will come out, you guys will be responsible for waking them all up. After set amount of time, they will have to clean their room, dress in their uniforms and line up for breakfast. Then, the entire day of exercises including marching, shooting and field buildings will continue. While the new recruits will be training, older officers will go through their rooms. As long as even a single thing is not perfectly set as it''s supposed to be, they will turn the entire room around, so that before going for the dinner, the recruits will have to clean it all over again."


    As I continued to speak, more and more memories started to reappear in my mind. In this very moment, I couldn''t even imagine how happy I was that I used to watch the entire series of how the compulsory military service looked back before the polish military of the future changed to a voluntary one!


    "But this training reaching the point of bullying will only last for a month. After this, every single recruit will be renamed to a cadet and given the right to speak the words of the military oath that I have yet to write. For the next five months, their physical exercises and standard military training will continue, but there will be no more bullying. Do you understand what I said?"


    While this finishing question of mine could be taken as a simple one, an attempt to make sure that both Al and Elemo understood what position they would wield from the moment the barracks would be finished, it was actually far from what I had in mind. Tightly gripping the handle of my crane, I started to prepare for what was about to come.


    "Yes, sir."


    Sensing that I would be really mad if they were to treat the current question without proper type of discipline themselves, both of my retainers straightened up while replying.


    "I don''t think so. Let me demonstrate what I mean. Elemo, please, be so kind as to stand aside and pretend that you are just some farmer who decided to join the army."


    Dropping my crane to the side, I waited for a moment for this trusty friend of mine to finish my order before clearing up my throat and gathering a mouthful of air in my lungs.


    "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, MAGGOT?!"


    "I amˇ­"


    "STRAIGHTEN THE HELL UP WHEN YOU ARE TALKING TO AN OFFICER, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!"


    While this was just an example aimed at making the two of them to understand what I meant by bullying, I already felt bad by acting like that. Not like my morality was tainted by doing so, but rather due to how bad my throat started to hurt from just two series of shouts like that!


    "Sir, Elemo reportsˇ­"


    "WHAT THE FUCK IS ELEMO!? YOU REPORT WITH YOUR RANK, UNIT ALLOCATION AND THEN THE NAME! UNDERSTOOD?!"


    I knew that implementing the railing forms that the military I knew about created through an extensive set of learning, making mistakes and fixing them was impossible, all I could do was to strive for the perfection right away. Even if I didn''t really understand the point of being that hard on the new recruits, since it was something done by every single military around the world of the future that I knew off, there had to be some deeper meaning behind it!


    "Sir, Sergeant Elemo of the first recruitment army reports for duty!"


    With Elemo finally reaching something at least resembling the idea that I had in mind, I could finally relax and point Al to help me pick up my crane. With this handy support now back in my hand, I could finally retract a few paces back, stopping my invasion of Elemo''s personal space.


    "And that''s what I want you guys to do with the new recruits. They will be confused, scared and most likely will hate you for doing so, but for the first month, the most important part for them is to learn their place in the group."


    Holding tightly to my crane, I allowed it to be the main support behind the weight of my body. Just this quick and silly example of the disciplinary officer way of acting was enough to nearly completely drain me out of energy, but there was still much that has to be both said and done.


    "With that said, after the first month, at first you, and then the subofficers that you will be initially responsible for picking up will decide where each specific soldier will go. For now, I want to create five types of units."


    Using my crane as a pen and the soft ground of the yet to be covered with the concrete ground as drawing board, I created five different symbols, each resembling a single division that I wished to create.


    "Starting with elite troops, they will be equipped with the best weapon we can provide, and will have to prove to be better than anyone else. They will enjoy vast privileges and better pay, but their training will be far harder."


    Putting a line under a simplistic, five armed star, I marked this symbol as taken. Moving on to the next one, a simple circle, I once again raised my eyes towards those two poor men of mine.


    "Secondly, the standard army troop. They will be the main force of the army, trained to fight in groups, both small, average and big ones. For the small group, it will consist of seven regular soldiers and a corporal, who will have to be first picked out of the outstanding soldiers and additionally trained to act as the head and overseer of the small group. The next size of the unit will consist of five groups and be called a platoon, commanded over by the officer in the rank of a captain. The huge group will consist of five platoons, be called regiment and be commanded over by a major rank officer. Those ranks will be what I want you to start with for as long as it will take our forces to reach the numbers to think about the higher ranks."


    Despite having the ideas for the units and their respective ranks above the regiment, with how all my men were used to operate in armies up to two hundred fifty men strong, setting the new base unit to be two-hundred strong with the addition of the commanding officers would be a good starting point.


    Obviously, as soon as the fifth regiment would finish its entire training, I would form them up into a corps, consisting of a thousand men and commanded over by lieutenant. With five corps, a division would be made which would be in turn, managed by a general.


    Due to how the current highest commanding rank that the commonwealth itself allowed being a hetman, I was kind of forced to use a separate name steeming from the modern times to not push the wrong buttons of the high nobles, that claimed the right to name hetmans for themselves. Yet I could already be sure that from the moment that I could freely command five thousand men strong units on my own, I could claim the Hetman''s insignia on my own, creating yet another army unit of a strategical order, called front!


    "Sirˇ­ This is a lot of information to digest for us. Would you mind repeating it once again so that we can make sure we won''t pass wrong information later on?"


    Contrary to my expectations, it was Al who actually came up with this request. But seeing how invested he was already in this new idea of mine, I could only smile with sparks of joy lifting in my eyes.


    "Sure. The units start with a group of eight men, five of those makes up to forty people and are called a platoon, and five of those can create two-hundred heads worth of unit called regiment. As for the ranks that will command over those units, its corporal, captain and lastly, a major. With that said, let''s drop this topic, as there is still one more thing that I want to take care off before going back to the New Tarnow proper."


    Finally moving my sight away from the two lesser nobles in my service, I scanned the area surpassing the limits of the fenced down future location of the barracks. In the end, if I wanted to introduce modern types of army organisation and discipline into this world, I had to make sure that all the other aspects of the daily life of the soldier would be up to the modern standards as well!


    "In that field to the north, I want to set a huge food factory, producing long-lasting food. By mixing several nutritious ingredients and turning them into a thick paste, I want it to be packed while still piping hot into small metal containers that would be in turn, sealed off. The quicker it will appear, the sooner we will be able to start accustoming our future soldiers to this kind of meals!"

 272 First car flex in the world!

    15th August 1574


    "We will be reaching the gates of Krakow shortly. If that won''t be a problem, we would love if you could deal with any problems arising, sir."


    Turning his head away from the visor, the navigator of the first properly finished steam carriage smiled to me. With an entire week of the practical tests conducted both on the track and offroad back in the mining town, there was no problem in driving it all the way to the capital, outside of the potential reaction of the city guards!


    "Don''t worry about it. Causing commotion is part of our job!"


    Despite the driver being as far from being the noble as one could be by the bloodline, I still smiled at him and nodded my head. What some might take for gross misconduct for disrespecting my own noble status, was just another statement of authority with which I continued to express my willingness to go with the changes proposed with the new set of Tarnowian Location Laws.


    Sitting on the large sofa that made up half of the free space within the entire carriage, I rested my arms on the side of the vehicle. With how it was made to be just a representational model, rather than having it covered by the roof, we just had a simple, waterproof material that could be wrapped on top of the special scaffolding as to shield us from the rain in case it ever proved to be necessary.


    Yet, basking my face in the warm rays of the sun for the entire day worth of the journey, proved that my negative assumptions towards the weather turned out to be incorrect. With how a lot of stuff that I didn''t directly control going against me, those pleasant atmospheric conditions was the very first positive surprise that the world prepared for me.


    Sadly, the navigator''s heads-up came just in the right time, as within just two minutes the driver had to reverse the pull of the engines, quickly pulling the entire machine to a complete stop.


    "HALT!"


    Most likely unable to believe that such insane contraption could be produced locally, the guards used the german language to order us to stop, as if they were blind to the fact that we ceased to move right before they even opened their mouth.


    "Who are you?!"


    Even sooner than I expected, the same guard that ordered us to stop proved that his german proves was as great as the government of the post-communist Poland of the future. Or in other words, he simply had no qualifications to do the job he attempted to do!


    "Mike from the Tarnow with the retainers. I''m here for the Senate summons."


    Being stopped right at the city gates was still a huge giveaway that the warlike atmosphere already reached this place. While I was prepared to face the guards somewhere in the city with how unusual my means of transportation were, the fact that guards actually patrolled the main entrance to the city proved that Ostros betrayal hit the country even harder than I expected.


    And here came another surprise. From how just recently I was considered a traitor by the men in the royal castle where the senate would operate, even with how the entire situation was cleared out, I still expected them to hold some grudge towards me. After all, if one were to catch a man in one''s wife room, even if it turned out he was just an innocent electrician attempting to fix a broken cable, meeting that person on the streets would still prove to be an unpleasant experience!


    This was the main reason behind my concern. With how insane and direct influence those selected few nobles in the senate had over the city, I expected that anyone hearing my name would still react as if I was a haughty noble daring to challenge the current system! Seeing a guard actually acting respectfully was a hint that despite all my initial guesses, those few nobles that governed the country in the King''s absence weren''t as incompetent as I always was taught to believe they were!


    "Ride forth. Sadly, we can''t use our top speed, as the folk would rip us apart. Just let everyone watch while driving as slow as possible."


    There was no way I would openly admit to how I wanted to let the townsfolk create their own impression about me. Even with the clear efforts of the senate to clear my name in place, I was still going to do everything in my power to ascertain that no one would ever dare to go against me in the future! After all, if I was capable of creating a self-driving carriage, then everyone''s imagination was sure to go wild when thinking about what else I was capable of!


    In the end, the ride towards the royal Wawel castle wasn''t as exciting as I expected it to be. With my wounds still bothering me, I could only sit on my sofa with my hands on top of my crane''s handle, as if I was some mafia boss visiting the region under my control. Without the proper roof in place, there was nothing stopping me from observing the reactions of the people around, just like that was nothing that could bother their sight on me.


    And those reactions varied quite a bit.


    Some people simply couldn''t be bothered to even cast a longer look at my craft, as the daily challenges of the life in the current era made them immune to all the possible distractions. On the other hand, those who were either already rich enough to not care all that much about their deadlines or simply poor enough to actually have free time showed the entire spectrum of human emotions.


    From fascination, through curiosity all the way to the fear and repulsion. In a sense, it was a good thing that the guards were present everywhere around the route that we took, as I realised that all it would take for the mob to throw themselves at my carriage, was just a simple man throwing a stone at this ''devil''s contraption''!


    "I''m starting to regret that we didn''t take the mountable reaper gun with usˇ­"


    Due to the blueprint of the end-product already being finished and more or less perfected, while there were a few pieces created either for the sale as the high-end product for the richest or just for the use of the most important people in the soon-to-be New Tarnow, most of the factory resources were directed towards creating three types of the steam carriages.


    With the war in the east basing on the numbers rather than the quality of the troops on the attacking side, there was no point in outfitting all of those mobile fortresses of death with real cannons. That''s why, the lightest type of the steam carriage, named "Henry" from the name of its designer, used the spare weight limit saved on the weapons to increase its mobility. From what I heard, as that single model was still in the testing phase, it could even reach the speeds of modern tanks that I knew off!


    On the other hand, while having a lightly armoured vehicle was useful for quickly moving one''s forces around, there was no denying that using those machines without banking on their carrying potential would be simply stupid. Even though Henry-type could serve as a mobile fortress for the troops travelling in it, the main focus of the entire factory lied in "Pancer" type of the steam carriage.


    The name itself, was quite misleading for some, as despite its proper armour, it wasn''t a vehicle that could outshine the fortifications of the current times. Rather than that, it took one of the strange Commonwealth cavalry formations as the source for its name.


    Pancer cavalry was actually a type of military unit that only recently was reformed into proper light horsemen. Initially, they were a type of infantry that was using horses to quickly relocate, allowing them to save on the insane cost of resupplying the mounts after every battle. And while Pancer cavalry was already the main cavalry type through Commonwealth''s lands at the current time, the name of this early tank of mine still sourced itself from what they initially were.


    In the battle, that medium-type of battle vehicles would be unable to break through the enemy lines. It wouldn''t be something they would be outfitted for in the first place! Rather than that, with three reaper guns of the most modern design, supplied with ammunition via the feeding system integrated into the vehicle itself, was to be used as the main points of the formations, spearheading the way for the foot troops.


    And lastly, the most expensive, reaching a cost of a thousand gold coins each, "Hussar" type of vehicle.


    There would be no shame to call it a heavy tank of the current era.


    Initially, I wanted to have a vehicle outfitted with those backloaded cannons, but after talking this entire matter through with my advisors, I realised that in the current situation, there was simply no need for such vehicle. Rather than wasting both the carrying capacity and the space required for this type of huge cannon, not only was the size of the carriage nearly doubled, but the number of steam engines it was outfitted with was actually tripled!


    Every single "Hussar" carriage used twelve steam horses. But this kind of investment was warranted by what it was aimed to achieve.


    Twice as long as the normal carriage. Three reaper guns mounted with additional armour plates on its sides, along with two more both at its front and at its back. This was the ultimate weapon that I was capable to come up with against the onslaught of the Muscovites!


    With its insane power and reinforced tracks, it was supposed to carry its passengers right in the middle of the enemy formations, before clearing their surroundings with the use of all the reaper guns loaded on it!

 273 Senate summons

    15th August 1574


    "You may enter the Senate Hall!"


    Just the way in which I was treated at the gate right now, stood in huge contrast to how I was received the last time I visited Krakow. Rather than forcing me to wait for an extended period of time just for the sake of making the receiving party feel better about themselves, as soon as I slowly made my way towards the huge doors of the senate hall, the two ceremonial guards that stood on its side instantly announced my entry and opened huge wooden wings right in front of me.


    Moving forward, I finally felt what kind of situation I was in. It wasn''t anything stressful or great. I was just the type of person who would get excited over any little thing, only to fail to notice almost any change once I achieved something. Just like back when I moved from the primary to the middle school, I had to actually say my goodbyes to that school as I moved to the high school just to feel the pathos of being a middle-schooler!


    And this was exactly what was happening to me right now. For the first time since I appeared in this world, I felt as if I was finally in the place that I was supposed to be.


    Walking past two rows of chairs set on both of the longer sides of the room, I could feel the gazes of the old geezers, who currently held nearly the absolute power within the country, as long as one discounted all the privileges that your average noble could claim for themselves.


    After moving past the half of the length of this luxuriously furnished room, I moved my sight towards the front, where just below the throne, a seat like any other present in the room was occupied. But rather than spotting a polish noble there, a high-ranking bishop, Commonwealth primate was relaxing in the regent''s chair, as per the rules of the interregnum implemented before Henry''s elections.


    "Welcome to the Senatorial Hall, Sir Mike. I hope the necessary travel didn''t bother you all that much."


    Not even bothering to stand up, the primate reached forward with his right hand, decorated with several golden rings. Just a single look at the jewellery he was wearing made my killing intent go through the roof.


    Even though I knew that most of those rings had some kind of meaning behind them, from being a bishop, through all the other positions that he wielded, but in the current times of war, every single red golden mattered! While I knew that smelting those rings just for the sake of mining a few coins would be a huge loss, selling them at a premium price could still easily pay for the formation of a small military unit!


    "It''s my honour to be invited here."


    "Men, for the love of almighty, what are you waiting for? Can'' t you see that this nobleman is injured? Fetch him a chair, right now!"


    Maybe it was supposed to be a sign of favour, or maybe it was actually nothing more than just a human kindness, but no matter which one of those reasons was the real prompt behind this order, I still smiled lightly. Even if it wasn''t all that important, I still managed to put those high damned nobles on the spot, claiming this little victory for myself!


    "Thank you for your kindness, your excellency!"


    As much as it pained me to actually follow the proper protocol in the dire times that the commonwealth was currently in, there was nothing I could do about it. While irritating in itself for someone as busy as me, the loss of those few minutes that we would surely spend on just exchanging the pleasantries and following the social etiquette was of no importance in the grand scheme of things.


    Moving up, I still had to support myself on the crane. With just about two weeks of recovery, plagued with my constant activity that started as soon as my body was capable of handling it, I would still require at least a month or two before - if lucky - I could cast aside this supporting tool. But as strange as it might sound, despite the usage of cranes being an extreme rarity in Commonwealth of the current times, I could tell how greatly it changed my image in the eyes of the people gathered in the room!


    "Since we are all here, let''s not waste any more time. We invited you here, noble sir, with three matters that we wanted to discuss with you. But with the news that reached our hall just before your arrival, I''m worried that the number of topics for today will have to be extended by two more."


    Casting a glance at the Primate, I barely managed to stop myself from forming a smug grin. It wouldn''t take a genius to deduce what was one of those new topics, with how the commotion caused by my arrival spread to the entire city before I could even reach half of the distance that separated the city gates from my destination. As for the other topic, while I could guess what it could be, without the proper knowledge about how much my lands were infested with both local and foreign spies, I was unable to accurately pinpoint what raised Senate''s attention.


    "Respectable sirs, while I''m quite tired after the long and perilous journey I had to take in order to reach this place, for as long as my body allows, I''m all your for the questioning."


    Without the proper police force operating on the strict set of rules and protocols, ''questioning'' words have yet to grow this negative connotation that modern folk would attribute it with. But rather than just a slip of a tongue, it was actually a small ploy on my side, aimed at pushing the buttons of anyone who could potentially come from the future just like me!


    "Since that''s the case, let''s move to the first and most pressing topic at this moment. It has come to our attention, that you are forming quite a formidable force in your lands. While it turned out to be of extreme importance in view of the current state of country affairs, I''m worried that unless you can convince us otherwise, we will have to limit the number of troops that you will be able to muster. I hope for your understanding on this matter. In the light of the recent Ostros family treason, we can''t allow the existence of a powerhouse of the scale that you are reported to aim to create."


    Hearing this lengthy introduction, I could only gnash my teeth. I knew that this moment would come sooner or later, but reaching it still managed to put me on the spot. No matter what I would say here unless I officially announce my willingness to reform the entire country and either serve as the greatest helper for the future king or attempt to take the crown for myself, there was simply no way I would be allowed to form any unit bigger than a division, not to speak about a proper army!


    "Respectable sirs, let me get one thing straight. I do honestly believe that in the current state, our bellowed Commonwealth only has a few years, or up to a century to live before the foreign powers would forcefully nibble away at our lands, population at wealth. I''m worried that our current mindset formed by our prosperity might spell the doom for our sons and grandsons. That''s why, with how many riches my lands are capable of producing, I am aiming at creating a military strong enough to defend our lands against the foreign invasions. As you can see from the current situation at the eastern front, we are no longer capable of defending ourselves by relying on the worthless common summons anymore!"


    While the idea behind the common summons was initially great, the times where it had any worth ended with the shift of the field nobility to the landed nobility. Even though the militaristic pathos still existed within the ranks of the nobles, in the near future, no amount of bravery and personal skill would be capable of standing toe to toe with proper training and discipline!


    Just like first world war tactics and arms would be useless during the second world war, so was the medieval system of common summons pointless against a properly organised army, or even massive but unskilled force that muscovites used to break through our borders!


    "Noble sir, while your worry about the wellness and safety of our motherland is commendable, your attempts to guess the futureˇ­ They are nothing more than ramblings of an insane man!"


    This time, rather than the primate himself, one of the relatively young senators stood up from his chair, before pointing his finger at me with an angry grin on his face. It was no wonder that my words caused such a reaction, and it by no mean indicated that this particular man didn''t want to protect the country. With how they had the luxury to govern the entire country during the absence of the King if I were to point out at their efforts and call them not only useless but disastrous in reality, their pride was bound to act up!


    "Senator Jacwin, if my memory serves me right. I honestly do understand your mindset, but I would like to point out one thing. While you speak out of the experience of the ages past, my words are backed by the current events. Unless you can show me a force that will be able to march out against the muscovites within a week of time, that will have realistic chances of not only stopping the invasion itself but pushing the war towards the enemy territory as to ascertain that no further aggression will be possible in the coming years, then as painful as it must be to hear that, I will have to call your words a slander!"


    I knew it. There was no way to avoid the conflict with some of the senators. But at this point, I couldn''t really be bothered with it. After wrongfully branding me as a traitor, it would be way harder for them to actually pin any blame on me without any real evidence. If they were to do so, the entire noble state would rise up against their tyranny! And with all the projects that were currently going on in my lands, I didn''t need to worry about any personal retaliation of the senators themselves!

 274 Voloutary rental tax

    15th August 1574


    "Calm down, everyone. While I have to agree on one point, that foreseeing the future is the domain of God alone, there is no denying that within our limited means, we can try to read the situation in order to predict our next move. That''s what strategy in war is just as much as a strategy in governing the state during the times of peace."


    Seeing that the disagreement was slowly turning into a fully-fledged argument, Primate himself stood up from his chair and stepped in. In the end, if there were four more topics they wanted to question me about, allowing the ruckus to break the talks down before even moving on from the first topic would be rather counterproductive!


    "With all due respect, your excellence. This topic might be hard to be discussed calmly, but it''s something that is in general, necessary. I do not believe that the current military of Commonwealth is capable of protecting the country. Even if all those noble warriors can fend off the muscovites today, what about tomorrow? What about ten years from now? This topic is actually way deeper, so allow me to elaborate on my way of thinking."


    Ignoring the advice or rather a plea from Elia, I used my crane to help myself stand up. The words that I was about to say were simply too important for me to miss this small dramatic effect. Even if it meant sacrificing my future ability to run for the sake of convincing the senators, I was willing to take this trade.


    "Right now, every single important task in the country is managed by one group of people. It''s nobles who manage the lands. It''s nobles who take most of the spots in the administration of both the country at large and the cities or villages in detail. It''s the nobles profiting off and organising our grain trade, but at the same time, it''s also the nobles that you wish to send to the meatgrinder of war. While I could go on and on listing all sorts of professions that nobles occupy, I think you do get my point."


    Slowly pacing around the middle square of the huge chamber, I noticed a nice painting hanging on the wall. With an idea suddenly appearing in my head, I stabilised my position before pointing my crane at the work of art.


    "Respectable sirs, what would you think if I brought the great artist that painted this picture, only to forcefully push him into the military?"


    Asking this question, I realised that I might have made a mistake. While using a painter as the example of specialised role in the society could work wonders to help senators understand my point, it would also turn the topic from the debate about the military to the potential talks about the society at large! Yes, as much as it worried me to do so, I couldn''t take back the words that I said.


    "It would be a waste to push someone so talented in the art to the front. I see your point, go on."


    "Just like you admitted, your excellency, it would be a waste to push him to the military, especially during the times of war, if his talents could be used elsewhere for the greater good. To make it even simpler, a single picture painted by his hand, when sold, could bring enough money to pay for an entire unit of people dedicating their talents to the military alone!"


    Suddenly stopping right in the middle of the floor, I struck the ground with the bottom of my crane to once again focus the attention of the senators on me.


    "Just like with the artists, I do believe that people are better used when they are focused on just a single task, rather than spreading their talents thin, through varying topics. That''s how the military worked in the ancient Rome, known from its prowess, but due to the different social and economic systems, Commonwealth simply had no money to pay for the standing army so far. And please, don''t even get me started on the Quarterly Army. While the idea behind them is right, Crown lands simply lack the resources to maintain a proper number of units."


    Quarterly Army, was something created just recently. In the last years of his reign, the last dynastical king of Commonwealth decided that a quarter of the income from the crownlands would be fully dedicated to creating and paying for a small standing army. Just the fact that they were constantly trained and used to the military lifestyle, made them the backbone of all the armies that Commonwealth would create in times of need.


    Yet, the main problem still remained. Their numbers were simply too small! Ranging from a thousand to six thousand in the best times of this formation, they couldn''t compare to regular armies of Commonwealth neighbours, often numbering in tens of thousands!


    "Are you trying to suggest that you alone will be responsible for creating a new Quarterly Army, sir? Or rather, something based on the same idea, but finances fully by yourself?"


    Speaking up once again, Senator Jacwin pointed out the greatest flaw of my current design. But little did he know, that his words allowed me to find a simple solution to the problem of a single person amassing more power than it was safe for the country as a whole!


    "Sir Jacwin, I wish to thank you for pointing that out, while asking for forgiveness as my solution to this inevitable worry you brought up before will most likely start yet another topic. What I can propose right now, is to set a simple law."


    This time, I didn''t take a break to let the tension rise. Rather than that, I simply had to sort out what I wanted to say in my mind, as to make this rather complicated topic as simple as possible.


    "Right now, my lands are prospering mostly because of the innovative technology that I implemented. Initially, I wanted to rent the stuff that allowed me to amass such an insane wealth in such a short time. But hearing your doubts, made me realise that I should not act like those other great nobles, aiming to build their own power while ignoring the rest of the country. As we speak now, the fourth batch of the development officers should be finishing its training in my lands. They are taught the procedures that I''m using in my lands, along with how to use the machines that are the backbone of my growth."


    With the introduction to the idea done, I could finally move back to my chair. Slowly sitting down on it, I took my time to glance at the speechless senators, awaiting the proper part of my proposition.


    "I think you all already know that due to being falsely accused of treason, and later on because of my attempts to help form the army, I never had the time to push this project of mine forward. That''s why, I''m willing to give you, respectable sirs, an offer. I will put all the machines that I intended to rent, on the open auction. Anyone will be able to rent it, although only a certain monthly quote will be up for the renting. Half of the profits from the rent will be used to support the Quarterly army and bolster its numbers, while the other half will be paid directly to my coffers."


    After all this talking, I could finally enjoy the intentional break in a speech aimed at nothing more than increasing the tension. And I just couldn''t get enough of those stunned expression of the nobles, unable or unwilling to acknowledge that I just voluntarily gave up half of the potentially enormous amount of money!


    "And to make it simple for everyone to understand the idea. Ten out of a hundred of the profits that any project will bring with the use of my machines and thanks to the help of their trained crews, will be added to the cost of the rent so that if someone achieves success on par with mine, he won''t be able to just shrug away at the base cost. But what is important in this offer of mine, is that it will be you, respectable sirs, that will be responsible for popularising the rent of my machines!"


    In short words, rather than dealing with the rental agreement myself, I could push all the necessary efforts of the senate, while calming their worries about my army turning too big for the country''s safety!


    "While deciding whether or not to accept your surely generous deal will take time, I still don''t see how would that stop you from achieving complete hegemony within the Commonwealth lands!"


    As if allowing me to achieve even the smallest victory would mean losing his honour, Senator Jacwin instantly rebuked. Yet, anyone with eyes could see how his face was already red from the agitation, speaking wonders about his true intentions. To be quite frank, with how much he opposed the notion of improving my military, I couldn''t help but start to suspect him of having some ties either to Ostros or Moscow!


    "That''s pretty simple."


    Not giving him any more time to continue agitating others, I placed my crane right between my legs only to rest both of my hands on its handle and put my head right on top.


    "As long as the proposed deal will be accepted, I''m willing to limit the number of my own troops to never cross the headcount of the Quarterly army supported and financed by this rental tax."

 275 Societal problem

    15th August 1574


    "This propositionˇ­ To be honest, sir, I find it quite troublesome to see the source of your confidence in that matter. But since this is your wish, I''m willing to put it under vote at the later time. With that said, let''s move on to the simpler topic. Would you mind explaining to us, in fairly simple words, what is that strange and loud contraption that you used to arrive in the capital?"


    With the hard part of today''s meeting out of the way, now it was time to actually bring some heavy guns on my own. Obviously, rather than storming this place with the few men that I brough with me, I was going to use this automated carriage of mine as nothing else but bargaining chip, aiming at harnessing some favours with the senators!


    "Your excellence, respectable sirs. As I couldn''t guess whether or not my proposition about the military will be accepted, I decided that wasting this opportunity to promote my crafts would be simply stupid. As such, let me explain it in the simplest words. I have only a general idea as to how thisˇ­ contraption of mine works. I can tell that it''s powered by the force created by the steam horses that are hidden within the build, but as this entire project is managed by one of theˇ­ let''s say, a servant of mine, even if I wanted to, I wouldn''t be capable of explaining the exact details that allow it to operate the way it does."


    What I said, was what could be called a white lie. Due to my modern knowledge, I could guess how most of the construction problem was solved, all the more thanks to riding it while the inner machinery has yet to be exposed in the early prototype. Yet, if someone were to ask me whether I knew exactly how did it work, I could say that I was ignorant to it without actually lying!


    But even with that being the case, I wasn''t willing to just drop hints to those men gathered in the chamber. With how I was about to release my steam engines to the public, even if they were incapable of replicating the build, just by keeping the hints that I could drop in mind, I was sure that they would find someone capable of doing a vehicle for them!


    And this was actually a problem. In general, my idea of sharing the development plans and blueprints with the rest of the country and the rest of the world relied on one, extremely simple foundation. If one were to grade the technological improvements of my lands into tiers, then only by the time I myself would achieve third tier, would the second one be released for my countrymen, while the initial tier to the world in general!


    "Would I be right if I were to guess that your people are capable of producing those carriages on a large scale? Would using them in the military be possible if that were to be the case?"


    "Respectable sir, it''s not only possible, but it''s actually the main focus of the factory producing them. While in the near future, I hope that those carriages could populate all the lands of our country in the form of civil devices, capable of helping to increase farming and logistic aspects of our beloved country, there is no denying that before we win the war and reach the point of fully defensible borders, only the necessary amount of civilian vehicles will be produced. Sadly, while I can already admit that the military prowess that those automated carriages can provide is greatˇ­ Even when all the means of production are in my hands, the cost of creating just a single one is insane."


    With how the heaviest military carriage of mine, Hussar-one, could cost at the very least more than a thousand gold coins in its barren form, with all the costs of maintenance, weaponry ammunition and other stuff that this early type of steam tank had to be outfitted with, the cost could easily reach two thousand per piece or more! And that was all something that I had to pay myself while receiving all types of parts and resources on the product price. If anyone wanted to buy this kind of carriage on their own, with how it was military equipment, five times the premium price of ten thousand red goldens per single vehicle would be quite reasonable!


    "If that''s the case, then why did you claim that you wanted to promote it by using it to arrive here? If you are not willing to create civilian vehicles for the sale or rental, what''s the point of promoting it in the first place?"


    This time, it wasn''t the senator Jacwin that pointed this small inconsistency out, but the primate himself. While unexpected, it served as a reminder that despite how this bishop so far appeared as he was supporting my ideas, this wasn''t really the case at all! But rather than lamenting over the fact that I lacked any dedicated supporter in this currently highest decisionmaking instance in the entire country, I could only do my best to change it with my words alone!


    "Your excellency, I do firmly believe in the potential of the people. That''s why in my lands, I do not differentiate people based on their birth or blood, but based on their skills and abilities alone. By showcasing what can be achieved with the steam horses of mine, I wanted everyone who saw my carriage to question, what else could be made with them? As I''m a noble myself, I have to beg your pardon, but I''m not well-versed in the secrets of various crafts. Unless the people who know what kind of tasks of theirs could be made easier and quicker with the use of simple mechanical force come up with new inventions, we will be dommed to rely on those few development officers of mine when it comes to innovations. And it will suffice to say, that it''s not something I can be satisfied with!"


    I was unwilling to pretend that I was the only one who was creative in this world. To be perfectly honest, with how Henry came up with the steam carriage nearly completely on his own, my point about the people''s innate creativity was already proved. In fact, I wasn''t the most creative person in my lands either, as most of my designs were not new creations, but replicas of what I saw back in the future!


    Just like some crafty folks would come up with all of those machines on their own in the original timeline, I hoped to bank on this innate human trait of looking for the ways to exploit natural forces for their own benefit!


    "I''m not going to hide it. The more I hear from you, the clearer the picture of what you are attempting to do appears in my mind. Sir Mike, are you trying to undermine the position of nobility with all your projects, or just selected few?"


    It couldn''t be that easy. Hearing this clearly threatening words of the primate, rather than cowering in fear or gnashing my teeth at the sight of potentially losing his favour, I was actually filled with joy! I simply couldn''t'' believe he could make the task that he accused me of implementing, so much easier!


    "Your excellency, what I''m attempting to do, is to put capable people in places that could use their talents for the benefits of all. If you really think or even believe that this kind of approach could undermine the position of the nobility in Commonwealth, then I can only sum this up with one sentence."


    Once again using my crane to prompt myself up, I stood up and looked directly into the eyes of the primate.


    "TO HELL WITH THIS KIND OF NOBILITY!"


    Shouting those words with anger written on my face, I actually threw my crane away, instantly forced to start fighting to keep my stability. Yet, as stupid as it was to deprive myself of my support like that, I was willing to make this sacrifice for the sake of nailing my point even further!


    "If making the people give their best for the sake of serving the country is considered sabotage against our system, then the system is flawed in the first place! After all, how could we call ourselves nobles, if we have to worry about others proving that they are actually better than us?!"


    At this point, I couldn''t stand upright anymore. With my injured leg giving up, I lost my stability, falling down on one knee as if I wanted to show respect for the majesty of the primate sitting in front of me. But as painful as this small show of mine was, stunning the entire audience of the senators with both my words and my actions allowed me to squeeze just a few more words before they would surely interrupt me.


    "We are proud of being born to certain families, and use this fact as an excuse to put others down. We make others work for us, while not giving anything of value back to them. While I didn''t come here to reform the society, it''s you yourself, your excellency, that pointed out how flawed this system is in the first place!"

 276 Leshyn Family

    15th August 1574


    "That will be enough for today."


    Rather than replying to my point in any way, his excellency primate decided that concluding the meeting for today would be a better option. And quite frankly, I fully supported that idea!


    "Sir Bart, while the points that you brought today will surely result in us thinking about them, I hope that we can count on you not trying to enforce them outside of your lands, am I right?"


    This time, it was neither the primate nor the senator Jacwin who spoke out, but someone whose face I couldn''t recognise. While that didn''t mean he wasn''t an influential or important figure, it put me in a quite troublesome position. In short words, how I was supposed to call him?


    "Respectable sir, forgive me my ignorance, but how should I refer to your noble self?"


    In the end, I could only hope that being ignorant of the name of a certain noble, or at least being unable to connect his name with his face wouldn''t be gross misconduct. With how detached from the power my household was ever since the death of my great grandfather, in the worst-case scenario I could mandate my lack of social knowledge with the lack of chances to improve it in the first place.


    "I''m Rafael Leshyn, sir Bart."


    Rather than using this opportunity to put me down or boast about his own importance, this old noble kindly saved me from my situation. But by doing so, he successfully shut my mouth. While not so important in the current age, his household obviously already belonged to the ranks of the high nobles! But what was even worse, his name was perfectly well-kept in my memory!


    It wouldn''t be as easy to recall who he was, if not how one of his descendants, nearly one hundred and fifty years from the current day, would become a damned King of the commonwealth! Yet, even then, if not for the tragic times that he came to rule the country in, I would most likely only know about this great noble household from the occasional mentions!


    "Respectable sir, please, forgive me my ignorance. At the same time, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude for all your efforts aimed at reforming the country!"


    Before even replying to his question, I bend over on my knee, at first pretending that I just wanted to pick the crane that I threw away a moment before, yet with my knees already bent, I properly bowed to the man who along with the current head of the Zamoys family, was one of the leaders of the executional movement, aimed at retaking the crown lands unlawfully claimed by the nobles and clergy.


    "Dear Sir, there is no need for such a formal approach!"


    Raising my head, I could see that my action only made this old noble embarrassed. Yet, the message was already passed. From now on, everyone would know that I would side with the executional movement as soon as given the choice of doing so!


    Despite the entire meeting ending for today, I just couldn''t stop myself from putting even more details about my current outlook at the general politic. To all the influential figures that could either ally or side against me, so far, I was just a no one. A grandson of a great man, likely to strive to reclaim the greatness that my household once commanded.


    But that was all they could know about me, without actually making an effort to learn about me. By clearly stating my position in front of this gathering, I could finally make my introduction into the table where the big politics played out, setting the foundations of becoming one of the high nobles myself!


    "That''s a relief then. As much as I can sympathize with your ideas after hearing about them, I don''t really think that our beloved country is ready as a whole for them. But for now, let''s stop making his excellency put up with our small talk any longer. If you will find sometime later, I would be honoured if you could have a drink in private with me later."


    To think that I could achieve such a grand success right off the bat! While one could argue that winning the support of just a single magnate household was nothing to be so proud about, once adding both the Bone''s household, Zamoy''s household and to a point, Zboros household, I suddenly turned out into a dangerous potentate!


    "Thank you for heeding to my words, dear Rafael. And with that said, we won''t bother you any longer today. If you have some time after drinking with our friend, I would love to learn those several bits of information about how thisˇ­ incredible carriage of your works. The meeting is concluded!"


    With a stamp of a huge sceptre the primate held in his hand, the meeting was officially over now. But even when I was moving past the gate of the room, I couldn''t stop myself from smiling at the memory of this bishop nearly calling my carriageˇ­ magical!


    Yet, as funny as it was for me from the future, this kind of slip of the tongue would be enough to put anyone else of the current era on the high alert. After all, magic was considered to be a domain strictly against the Christian teachings! In this regard, this small mishap of primate could very well mean that he would now watch my every move, trying to find out whether I still belonged to the proper catholic faction within the commonwealth!


    ''To think that this tolerance would be so shallowˇ­''


    Walking down the wide corridors of the Wawelian castle, I couldn''t help but whine in my thoughts. While the fact that Commonwealth of the current time was still the most tolerant place that existed in entire Europe stood, it wasn''t as great as I imagined it to be.


    Surely, while in the commonwealth senate a catholic primate was calling a reformed senator a friend of his, the rest of Europe was about to descend into the chaos of thirty-years war, sparked mostly due to the differences between the catholic and reformed dynasties. This war would reach the point where some would consider it a prelude to the seven-years war, the official prologue of the world war series!


    But even with that, I still had to be careful as to not cross any of the lines that would put me against the catholic faction. Even with all the orthodox, protestant and reformed households occupying the titles of the high nobility, it was still the Catholics that were the prime power in the entire country. Unless I was willing to lose their support, keeping myself as the purely catholic persona who only dared to interact on rather cold terms with other factions would be still to my best interest!


    "Sir, it''s glad to see you in good health. Where should we go now?"


    As soon as I stepped outside of the main gate of the castle embankment, one of my subordinates instantly reported to me. To my surprise, rather than using the free time they had during my meeting to either eat something or just take some rest, they all diligently remained near the steam carriage, making sure no one would dare to approach it lightly!


    "Let''s go eat for now. There is no point in staying in the castle for now."


    Even with Leshyn''s invitation for the drinks which was, in reality, nothing else as an invitation to have a political debate about my aims and views, I knew that despite the meeting concluding, it would still take at least several hours before the senators would finish discussing everything that I said there. That was the sad reality about the current democracy within the Commonwealth, just like it was in the future democracies of the entire world.


    Without a strong leader, wielding a power to make the decisions on the spot, everything would stretch endlessly in time, making it all the harder to react to the emergencies, and wasting a lot of time of people willing to reform the country!


    "Where shall we go then, sir?"


    Even though I could pick from tens of great places in Krakow, sadly, only a single one of them could trace its roots all the way back to the current era. Yet, even this one bar that I fancied so much in my previous timeline despite how expensive it was, was nothing else but a cheap beer-drinking place now!


    "I don''t know, just pick someplace you will find pleasant. I need to rest for a bit now."


    Using the help of my retainers to climb back into the carriage, I finally seated myself in the comfortable couch, before immersing my thoughts into what could be potentially the next topic that would be brought in the next meeting tomorrow...

 277 Dinner with Rafael

    16th August 1574


    "This sure is a fine wine."


    Taking a sip from a crystal cup, I had no option but to admit that while the future offered a lot of interesting things, winemaking was a skill that simply vanished after a certain date. With the rich taste of the liquor that didn''t overwhelm with the alcoholic trace, one could drink it like water, not even realising when he would turn completely drunk


    ''So that''s why everyone is constantly drunkˇ­''


    Thinking to myself, I put the expensive cup back on the table. With my mouth and throat now properly wet, I could get back to the discussion.


    "From my personal basement. But as proud as I am in this brew, there is no way to claim victory over this insane beer of yours, sir Bart."


    Raising his cup a little bit above the table, Rafael swiftly put his drink near his mouth, instantly filling himself all the way to his stomach with the beer. Just a single look at this situation made me wonder about how this easily challenged the limits of the human body!


    Because it''s wasn''t this old man''s first nor second cup. Drinking without a care in the world ever since we meet, I wouldn''t be surprised if half of the barrel I brough as a visiting gift would be already gone!


    "But going back to the topic. What do you think about the current situation?"


    While I had to admit that drinking made the senator in front of me way easier to talk with as all the formalities between us were already gone, I didn''t expect him to bring such a risky topic up. Even though officially Henry was still a King of Commonwealth, with how he failed to return despite enemy attack, that by this time would be commonly known around the continent, I couldn''t even imagine anyone actually supporting him anymore!


    In the original timeline, it took quite a few months, extending the interregnum period for over a year and a half. Yet, in the current situation, with no way to properly organise an election, something else had to happen.


    Picturing the entire situation in my head like just an event in the game, made me realise that Commonwealth, as it was right now, could either go with fully democratic or autocratic rule. If the senate ended up making the parliament the supreme power of the country, the qualities of Polish life would remain the same. In that scenario, there would be little to no power capable of stopping my rise, as with the proper introduction of the system, I could become one of the greatest candidates for the ruling sceptre.


    Yet, despite that, I still believed it to be actually the worse idea. With how dire the current straits of the country were, without a proper leading figure, the burden of the entire war that was currently going and all the ones to come soon would be placed right on my shoulders!


    And then from that point on, it would be my factories that would supply the entire Commonwealth military, forcing me to focus solely on this aspect of the development!


    But doing so would be akin to exposing oneself to radiation. Someone wise once said that military is like an ugly bubble on top of one''s hand. The bigger it was, the more people one could scare with it, but ultimately, it would end up consuming its owner vital power.


    Rather than clogging up all my factories with the production of the military equipment, I preferred to keep the momentum of introducing new technologies. Even though I could make a killing on selling those carriages initially to Commonwealth military and later on to anyone that had no vital interests in Commonwealth, it would put an immovable stop on my raise!


    And ultimately, it would be this lost time that would put an end to my technological supremacy. With time, people would learn how to replicate the steam engines, then carriages, and within just a few years, the orders for more equipment would dry up. At the same time, all the possible enemies of Commonwealth and my personal ones would either buy off those carriages or develop their own, levelling the ground for any further conflict.


    That''s why, realistically speaking, it would be best for me to vouch for the quick election of a suitable King''s candidateˇ­ But rationally reaching that conclusion and openly proposing to denounce the current king in favour of a candidate I can''t even propose yet? Those were two different matters all together!


    "You went completely silent, Mike. Is something on your mind?"


    After letting me sort my thoughts for a long while, Leshyn knocked at the wine cup of mine with his cup. From how clear his eyes were, I could tell that even the amount of beer that he drank didn''t dull down his senses and intelligence.


    "I''m just thinking about what should we generally do right now."


    I wasn''t going to just reveal the state of my soul for no reason. Keeping the topic open and mildly ambiguous would give me some time to actually decide how I should approach this discussion.


    "Huh? In a few hours, we will go to the Castle in order to participate in the next round of hearing. Or could it beˇ­"


    Suspending his voice for a moment, Rafale proved that the arcana of keeping the talks tense were no secret for him.


    "... you have some other important plans?"


    As expecting his initial words made me be, the way in which this old man finished was nothing short of a disappointment. After bringing such an important topic before and leading towards it once again right now, he couldn''t at least reveal his cards while still at least a bit drunk?


    "You should know that I meant it in another wayˇ­ I just can''t help but try to decide what we should do as the entire country. Keep the primate as the regent of his Majesty? Pick a new king? Reform the parliament and make do without the king all together? I would love if we had the time to deal with those burning issues calmly and in a timely manner, but with one war already devastating our borderlands and a few more brewing in the distance, we simply can''t afford to do so!"


    Just like this sly old man, I didn''t reveal my hand. By bringing up all the possible routes, I avoided pointing out which one I would personally side with. In the end, as sympathetic as this old man could appear to be, he was still a tough politician, one of the few nobles of his households that were directly responsible for the booming growth of his clan!


    "I see what you are trying to sayˇ­ But to be perfectly honest, I''m kind of confused."


    Suddenly raising up from his previous wobbly position, Rafael threw a sharp look right into my eyes, as if trying to trace my reaction to his words from the very depths of my soul.


    "While yourˇ­ let''s say, enlighten actions aims at bringing more equality to the world, pointing at how you should support the very last option you brough upˇ­ I just can''t help but have this strange feeling that you would rather opt for selecting a new king instead!"


    Throwing the bomb without any regard for my mental health, Rafael smiled while seeing my panicked reaction. With how I was fully focused on meandering with my words to void giving any statements, seeing all of my attempts turning futile instantly rilled me up.


    "And what is your own opinion on this matter, sir?"


    Rather than allowing myself to be beaten up just like that, I instantly moved back to the offensive. Pushing the token back to the Senator in front of me, I used the time that I bought to regain my calm.


    "Quite frankly, if we don''t act fast now, we will be all doomed. With the most valuable local nobility already on their way to the army gathering, we can''t hope for a mandate to our decision, no matter what it will come to be. That''s why, rather than picking any of the sides right now, I can promise you, that I will support the party that has the best chances at stabilising the situation. Even if it will end up being the worse choice than the others, in Commonwealth current situation, we can''t afford any indecisiveness."


    I never in the world expected this man to just throw his hand in the open like that. With his cards now fully revealed, I couldn''t help but start to ponder whether his words were honest, or just crafted in an attempt to lure me into a trap.


    "For now, let''s drop this topic. I still need to gauge what will be the limit of my actions during the rest of the hearings. Depending on how free I will be to implement my plans for reforming and enriching the country, the amount of influence I will harness will drastically change. Like you could imagine, with an army strong enough to rival the country itself, no matter how will we come out of the situation, I will be able to help to enforce it, as to at least prevent commonwealth from falling apart."

 278 Second Hearing

    16th August 1574


    "It''s quite worrying to hear how you can only see an apocalypse for the commonwealth in its near future. You should try to tone it down a bit during the hearing, as it might easily scare away some of the nobles that would otherwise support you."


    As the two of us stepped inside the main castle building in the entire complex, Rafael dropped one last hint before we finally moved inside the senate hall. Just like before, the primate was sitting at the regent''s chair at the front, with the rows of seats on both sides filled to the last man.


    Maybe someone passed the news, or maybe others initially didn''t deem this hearing to be of any importance, but today was the first day where the entire senatorial body appeared.


    "Let''s not make it any longer than necessary. To start things off, we received someˇ­ worrying news about the set of laws you wish to introduce on your lands. Would you care to elaborate about your point of view in this matter, sir Bart?"


    With how formal the opening of the discussion was, I could tell that all the sympathy that I managed to harness in the primate, was now gone. Whether or not was it due to having a private meeting with a high noble belonging to the protestant faction of the country, I couldn''t change that fact.


    But rather than complaining about how pitiful or hard my situation was, I preferred to shut my own whining away and focus on achieving whatever I targeted.


    "Your excellency. Just like I mentioned previously, I strive to change the way of social advancement for the people. That''s why, in my lands, one can either follow the rules and enjoy considerable welfare, or insist on acting as if he is above those laws, suffering from heavy taxation. I never thought that this kind of approach would stir so much resentment within just a few days of appearing, for it to be brought up during such a high-class meeting!"


    As much as I knew that it would happen, bringing the problem of my new laws could only serve my own purpose. With how they were worded and set, no one could ever claim they were anti-noble, but as long as one had the ability to read between the lines, he would realise how harshly those laws of mine pounded on the social respect that nobility had.


    In short words, those who would have this little brains required and enough dedication to push through the hardships would have no problem applying for the status of a citizen. Even those who couldn''t afford to do so at the time could enjoy the benefit of being guests of the city. Only those who actually couldn''t be bothered to aim for anything that the visitor rank, would be slapped hard with all the costs added on top to literally everything!


    And that wasn''t all! With how the visitorial tax was applied to every step required to take in order to end up with the finished product, the more complicated the product in question was, the higher its outside cost would end up being! Just like one would only pay the harsh tax twice for the cast steel, one for the mining costs and the other for the smelting one, ordering a steam engine could easily rack up the tax to reach up to five thousand percent of the price that any guests or citizen would otherwise enjoy!


    "Whether a topic will appear during our meetings or not, is a matter entirely up to us, sir Mike. As for this reason, would you please be so kind as to explain whats the difference between those twoˇ­ I think guests and visitor ranks?"


    Hitting straight to the point, the primate proved that he wasn''t a regent of the king for the entire country just for show. To gather such fine details of my law arrangement right before the meeting? Just this fact alone proved that outside of being a bishop and a senator, he was a proper politician himself!


    "The explanation is rather simple. Citizens are those who proved to be a loyal and valuable part of the community within my lands. One can do so in many ways, but the officially recognised achievement is buying off either a business, production or housing space within the specified lands. As long as it fulfils certain loose requirements, it will be an official proof of status, and a handy tool for the planners to manage the growth of my lands."


    Stretching my back right on my chair placed in the middle of my room, I could feel the eyes of the various senators focusing on me, as they waited for me to continue with full attention focused on me.


    "For the guests, everyone who has a job or frequently trades on the lands ruled over by Tarnowian land can apply for this status. Those who actively work will get the card proving their identity during the first day at work, while those frequently trading on my lands can receive it by renting a warehousing space in specified areas."


    Taking a short break once again, I could see how the faces of some high nobles were tensing up, awaiting my reveal of what the last class that would most likely apply to every single one of them, meant.


    "And to finish things up, there are visitors. Those who do not live on my lands governed by Tarnowian lands, those who do not work there nor make active investments. While they are welcomed within the city borders, not only will they be banned from actively buying the most recent line of promoted products, even those that are already a widespread commodity of the inner market will be sold at a premium price."


    This was the general idea behind the entire system of my laws. Rather than forcing people to give up their identity for the sake of joining the prosperous community of mine, I was simply offering them a choice.


    Retain your nobility but act as if it didn''t exist, and you may prosper along with me. Try to throw your weight around, and you will be left behind in the dust of history!


    "I have to admitˇ­ That''s quite a crafty way to put the matters in order. As much as it pains me, it doesn''t look like we can influence your decision in any way or form then."


    With how the harsh tax that I applied to every single product of mine sold to the visitors was nothing more but the standard tax rate that nobles put over the commoners working on their lands, if anyone dared to flame me for such actions, he would have to lose his own source of income first. The fact that I could freely give the low taxes for my own people steemed from the fact that rather than relying on this kind of passive income to get by, I was profiting from the sheer fact that most of the production was mine in the first place!


    That''s why, rather than killing the flow of energy, money and products around the city with heavy taxation, I opted to keep my focus to the innovation, always allowing me to stay at the apex of technological prowess around the world. Only in this way, and by slowly but rationally distributing the outdated tech, I could make sure that my technological supremacy would not be challenged!


    After all, while others had to invest serious money and effort to replicate just a single product of mine, by the time they would be done, my lands would already introduce three new generations of said invention!


    "Since that''s the case, how about me move on to the next topic? If my memory serves me right, with two covered yesterday, one moved out of the way today, there should only be two more topics remaining?"


    Rather than allowing the primate to steer the discussion towards the next matter at hand, I took the initiative to do it for him. This way, despite the topic changing into something entirely else, I would still maintain at least a bit of my momentum from dealing with the Tarnowian Laws!


    "That''s truly a good ideaˇ­ But I''m worried that the last two topics I would want to tackle here, are soo deeply interconnected, that we have no choice but to discuss them both at the same time. To not make you, gentleman, wait anymore, let me explain what I and several other senators and magnates have in mind."


    Standing up from his simple chair, this time, his excellency didn''t focus his sight on me alone, but actually moved it around the room, as if warning everyone present about the seriousness of the situation.


    "The first topic, is how should we deal with the traitors? Given all the game of shadows that clouded our view before, it would be unbecoming of us if we didn''t offer some sort of reparations for mister Mike as he was harmed by our biased accusations, but it also brings us to the next topic."


    Suddenly stopping in place, the primate turned around, showing his back to the deserted King''s throne and embracing everyone in the hall with his penetrating sight.


    "How should we punish the traitors, and how should we divide the spoils of doing so."

 279 Pushing the limits

    16th August 1574


    Just like the primate mentioned, this topic was soo deep and connected with the others that it simply couldn''t be separated. After all, sharing the spoils would only be possible once the enemy faction would be defeated! But as if there weren''t enough problems, this kind of betrayal, most likely prompted by another country according to the current information we had on it, would be a first in Commonwealth history. And it just so happened to take place when there was no King to give a proper judgment!


    As if this was a strategy game, I could tell that the way in which I would respond to the questions would set the flags that would influence the smoothness of the transition of the current, faulty government into something that would be the system of the commonwealth in the future.


    Just like in World Universalis four, once Commonwealth would reach its breaking point, a set of events about the royal struggle would appear. While taking the easier route would save the stability and power of the country to some degree, it would inevitably lead to the creation of oligarchic government. And just like in that game, I was in front of something alike to a decision window right now!


    "Sir Mike, if I may ask, how do you think we should deal with the rebels?"


    And there came the bomb. For some reason, rather than proposing the options himself or leaving this burden to the senator that was in charge of the military affairs, his excellency actually went out of his way to put me in a spot with this question!


    Maybe it was his way of getting back at me for colluding with Rafael? Or maybe he really believed I could provide some valuable feedback, capable of completely reorganising their strategical and tactical assumptions? No matter which of the two options the reality was created by, I could still use this situation to my advantage!


    "Dear sir. Ever since my military was mentioned, I heard a lot of voices of dissatisfaction with how I want to have a strong standing army, both for myself and for the country. If we had a force that we could move at any given moment, uprooting the rebellion would be a walk in the park. But with how most of the capable warriors already departed this area to fight in the war, who will we send to quell the fires of the uprising?"


    Rather than giving out a straightforward answer, I knew that preparing the ground for a moment would yield a far better result in the long term. If I were to outright come out and say I can defeat the Ostros myself, I would never have any chances to put forth my demands for the sake of doing so! Only by pointing out how the country itself was incapable of currently dealing with this problem, could I retain the position of power in this discussion.


    While this remark was most likely intended to be harsh, the primate actually slipped! He had openly admitted in front of this entire crowd of the highly influential people that as it stood now, they had no way of dealing with the rebels!


    Obviously, if the push came to shove, by awakening the wrath of the entire country, not only would the rebels be instantly thwarted away but also the war with Muscovites would end up in just a few weeks, but I didn''t expect them to be willing to bear the consequences of doing do. And this was most likely the reason why primate was so desperate for pushing me into solving this problem for them, that he actually made that mistake!


    "Since commonwealth can''t handle the rebels in the current situation, I reckon I don''t have any choice but to do it myself, am I right?"


    Sitting in my simple chair and resting my hands on top of my cane, the corners of my lips inevitably raised high on my face. As troublesome as my sentence appeared to be on the outside, as long as the Senate would agree that it was actually the case, I would be free to demand them to accept any requests I would ever want to push!


    "That might be indeed the case. If you could solve that problem by yourself, the commonwealth would be eternally thankful for you. And you could be sure that your name wouldn''t be missed when more peaceful times would come."


    Nodding his head, the primate finally sprung the trap on himself. With those words reaching the ears of everyone in the chamber, the road to my greatness was finally open!


    "There are two things that need to happen before I will take this burden on my shoulders. First, rather than pushing the matter of rewarding me or punishing the Ostros, I think we should discuss it right here and right now. After all, I want to know what kind of reward I''m signing in for, as my resources are limited and I need to make sure that investing them will yield as many profits as it will be possible. As for the other aspect, I will require quite a lot of assistance in terms of pushing certain decision that would allow to speed up the process of forming my armies."


    It was commonly known information that most of my troops along with nearly every single better-trained officers of mine already went to the war. Rushing towards the gathering spot only to pull them back to my lands would be akin to slowing down the entire offensive. Something, that everyone wanted to prevent from happening in the first place!


    After all, there would be no difference for the country whether I would pull my troops or if one of the senators did it with his own retinue. That''s why I could at least expect the senatorial body of the commonwealth to realise that even with all my exploits, I would still need time and resources to actually create a proper army capable of dealing with all the power that Ostros could ammas in their wealthy lands!


    "What is the price that you are looking for, then? Keep in mind that if the costs of quelling the rebellion will be higher than if we were to do it ourselves, you won''t be even given the chance to do so!"


    As if realising how potentially deep the hole he stepped inside was, the Primate instantly added some restrictions to how much I could actually demand. Thankfully, I already knew how to play against this kind of approach.


    "I do not wish for much. The title of the Wolynian Governor along with all the lands that Ostros currently hold in that region would suffice. Additionally, there is something I would like to use in order to quell the rebellion, that will actually require a new set of laws in order to be established. Have any of you, respectable sirs, heard about the way in which logistic tasks are solved in the town of New Tarnow?"


    The problem with fighting Ostros lied in the fact that while their power base in a single place, their forces would most likely spread out around the entire area. With how they had to already know that the country considered them to be the traitors, they would be free to raid nearly in all directions, with the exception of the borders they shared with two other great clans who could easily thwart their entire uprising by themselves if given the chance.


    That''s why, rather than wasting the time to form long supply lines, secure the perimeter or bother with any other task that normal army of the current day and age had to waste its time on. Rather than following this long and perilous route of winning a proper war, I could just do it in early American way!


    "One of my servants happened to visit your lands in the recent past. From him, I heard that your people laid out a set of strange tracks on which wagon with products are pushed by some strange machines. Is that what you meant, sir Mike?"


    Standing up, Rafael suddenly backed me up, nearly instantly splurting another five of the senators to stand up in the sign of support.


    "That''s exactly what I have in mind. While my own lands, previously separated by the vast distance and connected only by the river, already established the foundation for the investment I have in mind, I need you sirs to agree to extend this new kind of road all the way from Krakow or at least, Lwow, to the lands of the rebelling family. Later on, expanding it to the city of Kijow would be highly advisable, but that''s something that could be discussed on a more opportune moment. And to finally shed some light on this secret invention of mine, allow me to introduce you to the idea of a train!"

 280 Planning for the train

    21st August 1574


    "We will need to increase iron and steel production. What is the current limiting factor for that?"


    Sitting down in the gathering hall within my own residence in New Tarnow, I asked while taxing the entire crowd gathered around a huge table. While I already knew the answer to this question, I wanted to make sure that nothing happened during my absence that would shift the position of the metalworking within my lands.


    "Sir, for now, only about sixty percent of our mines output can be processed, with only seventy percent of the produced steel and sixty percent of the produced iron finding a constant use. If we were to ramp up the smelting of the ore to its current maximum limit, its estimated that about twenty percent of the total production could be saved away, without impeding our current growth."


    Constant use that the metallurgy development officer mentioned referred to all the factories that had to be supplied with raw iron or steel in order to produce their own goods. Just the production of the steam engines required metal, so did all sorts of other plants created all over the place. If what I heard wasn''t just hearsay but actual fact, there were already some private plants operating at low amount of resources to create handy tools like cutlery for the sale!


    But with that said, more than half of my current metal production was already taken. I wasn''t as dumb as to poach the resources from the existing factories, in an attempt to create my dreamed railway. With how the entire economy of my lands promoted and based itself on the growth, forcefully stalling the production of the key factories would be aking to running a knife right through the veins that supplied this land with blood!


    As for the difference between freely overproduced resources and how much we could actually, it all came to the growth factor. New plants required machines and other types of resources in order to work. If I didn''t want the price of the metal or steel to skyrocket due to the increased demand with no changes to the supply, I had to keep a reasonably big stockpile of those key ingredients to anything industrialization related!


    "How quickˇ­ No, that won''t make any sense. While Bessmer type of smelters is sufficient for now, it won''t be the case in the future. Let''s ignore the problem of smelting the ores and speak about something else. As you all already know, we are now preparing for the tensest, most important and most costly project out of everything that we did here so far."


    On the other hand, while I wasn''t sure about the details, I still had the idea of how more modern furnaces worked. While the gaps could be filled with the ingenuity of the officers of mine, it would still take some time before even the prototype could be finished. As such, rather than wasting time on debating over something that has yet to appear, I preferred to focus on the matters that we could influence at this very moment.


    "Sir, with all due respect, but there is one question that I know most of my colleagues wants to ask."


    Suddenly standing up, one of the very first few craftsmen that came to my lands, now a proper director of nearly a third of my entire factory area, slammed his hands against the table. But rather than appearing furious, one could read how worried he was about uttering what he had on the mind in the open.


    "Go on. I''m not here to drown in praises, but to find solutions to the problems that we might have. Speak your mind."


    Despite all my efforts to equal the playing ground for everyone, even those highest-ranking subordinates of mine continued to cope with the problem of interacting with me as they would do with their friends or colleagues. Maybe it was due to my high social rank, or maybe it was just natural respect for the general owner and director of the entire enterprise, but rather than being helpful, I couldn''t consider it as anything but counterproductive.


    "Sir, can we even afford such great project?"


    Contrary to what one might think, every single piece of metal that circulated through my lands, had to be paid for. Taking a steel ingot, for example, it had to be firstly mined, requiring me to pay the miners. Then, it had to be smelted into pig iron, once again forcing me to cough up money for the maintenance of the smelters and the wages of the workers. Even then, it still had to go into the Bessmer furnace, only adding more costs on my end. Yet, so far, it failed to produce anything of value for me! Increasing the costs, even more, it would have to enter one of the factories of mine, ending up as a part of the product I could sell and make up all the lost money along with a huge chunk of profit on top, or it would go directly to one of the few private plants in the area, instantly netting me barely anything above the costs it took to create it.


    And so far, this kind of economy managed to sustain its own growth. Whenever a new investment would be opened up, all the money I made with my side projects or from the furniture trade would be counted, before a portion required to pay for the initial costs of setting up a new place would be set aside.


    But creating the very first train line?


    If not for the deal that I made with the Senators, I would never be capable of forking out such insane amounts of gold required to pay down for the steel alone that the tracks would require, not to speak about all the wages and other costs aligning to every new investment!


    That''s why, as soon as the first open-hearth furnace would be created and proved to work as expected, then rather than lying down the train tracks from my lands to the area occupied by Ostros, I would actually connect the two cities. Tarnow and Krakow!


    As silly as it sounded when one realised how the train was aimed at defeating the Ostros family, it only made sense once one delved deeper into the topic. By connecting Krakow and Tarnow, I would instantly push the trade between the already recovered trading area and the country''s capital to an unprecedented scale! And with all the hefty fees that I could put on using the only train that would exist in the world, by the time I could finally shift my focus to extending the tracks to the east, where Ostros lands were located, I would simply fail to find a way to spend all the money I would get!


    But that was only the tip of the iceberg. As insane amounts as I could make from the fees placed on using the train, I was highly reluctant to actually agree to set them high enough to pay back for the initial costs of the investment. With how I was already earning from the trading area itself, hindering the trade with an overwhelming tax on the transportation would be akin to shooting myself in my foot.


    Because the main source of gold that the train would bring would come from all the nobles and cities that were interested in creating a station in their lands!


    It was no secret that this kind of means of transportation instantly lead to the rapid development of the areas everywhere even a simple train stop would be created. With the number of goods carried by this metal machine, connecting all ends of the vast lands of the Commonwealth with its diverse culture and products would be no longer a pipe dream!


    But what was the absolutely vital point of this investment, was the fact that no high-noble would dare to sleep upon this chance! Just by applying a small tax to any passenger or product that would be transferred on a single train station, one could gain an enormous passive income while enjoying all the other benefits of the train stop!


    "I don''t think we have to worry about that."


    Smiling at the officer, I gestured at one of the servants present in the room. After just a short moment, a huge map detailing the Commonwealth geography was slapped in the middle of the table, with me trying to not look ridiculous as I climbed on top.


    "Here, is Krakow. The first destination of our future train."


    Stabbing the tip of my cane right in the place where the capital was located on the map, I directed everyone''s attention to the line that I proceeded to draw with my cane.


    "We will have to build three bridges in total. Here, here, and there."


    Pointing out at several choke points in form of rivers, I detailed how certain parts of the country had to be avoided, while some others warranted an increased use of rails just to connect them to the network.


    "Once we finish it up with its last, big station in the Lesser Poland, right between Tarnow and the trading area of mine, I can see at least seven major households appearing on our doorstep, begging to be allowed to invest in this project!"

 281 Cheerios Deputation

    25th August 1574


    "Sir, the delegate of the Cheerio family has arrived."


    After knocking on the doors to my study and announcing the newly arriving party, this butler of mine stood to the side, allowing the group of four men to enter the room.


    Watching those men from behind my desk, I pointed them at the nearby chairs. There was no need to say anything at this point, as the gesture was obvious in itself.


    "Welcome to the New Tarnow. Would you mind telling me on what kind of occasion do I deserve such honours?"


    Sadly, I didn''t recognise anyone from the visiting group. Obviously, I couldn''t expect for the house head that I met all the way back on my wedding to come with visit just to have some talk about business, yet I still couldn''t help but regret that I would be forced to negotiate with people I knew literally nothing about.


    "Spare us the formalities, noble sir. Or did we do something that would deserve such a cold treatment?"


    Stepping up, it was surprisingly the youngest man of the entire group stepped forth, clearly indicating who was in charge of this deputation.


    "Oh, please, that was just a silly habit of mine. As much as I personally hate all those wasteful, timeconsuming steps required by the etiquette, ever since my person was brought to the focus of the entire country, I just don''t have any choice but to follow it."


    Even before the topic of the negotiations, already obvious to me, would be introduced openly, I already started placing down my chips on the table. In fact, Cheerio was the first household outside of the strict group of my supporters that personally bothered to approach me. Given how they could profit a lot from my private war with the rebels, both in terms of land and potentially getting a deal to have their lands be the host for one of the train stations, it was fairly obvious that sooner or later, they would pay me a visit.


    But they didn''t need to know that my reputation have yet to permanent through the entire country!


    Because before the prototype of the train would make its virgin journey from Tarnow to Krakow, I would only be known as the rebel or patriot, depending how far one lived from the source of the fresh information.


    "I can wholeheartedly agree, sir. But to make it even easier, how about we share a Bruder?"


    This proposition was as open as it was outrageous. But for me, it was just a small, little reminder that some of the traditions present in modern society actually had its roots all the way back in history long gone!


    "Kilan, go bring some of the Tarnowian booze. Yeah, the stronger one."


    "Respectable deputy, before we even go through with the ritual, I will have to beg for your forgiveness, but the latest mattersˇ­"


    "Sail straight to the shore, mister Sailor. There is no point for the lengthy explanations!"


    With his eyes keenly watching as my butler filled the glasses with a strange, brownish liquid, the leader of the group quickly reinforced his point about ignoring the formalities.


    "Okay then, sir. May I know your name first?"


    For the first time in a long while, I was given the chance to drop the bomb. And there was little to say about how unexpected it was for the deputy!


    "Ah, so that was your point earlier, mister Mike. I''m Constanty, of the cheerio family. You have the honour of meeting my father before."


    As if the dams of the knowledge suddenly unlocked, all sorts of the information that I would otherwise never remember came flooding to my mind. From all the exploits of the man in front of me that would come to be in the near future, though how he was an uncle to Jeremi Cheerio, one of the figures that resounded with bold notes through Commonwealth''s history, all the way to how he would die from being poisoned during a holy massˇ­


    Unsure about the source of this knowledge that momentarily overwhelmed me, I could only stand up and shake hands with the young man in front of me.


    "Once again, I apologise for not recognising such a great man like you, sir Constanty. Shall we?"


    As soon as our hands detached, I pointed at the set of half-filled glasses resting peacefully on the table.


    "With pleasure."


    Replying with a smile, Constantly grabbed one of the cups. Using this time, I circled around the table and picked my own portion as well.


    "For the fortune!"


    "For prosperity!"


    Crossing our leading arms at the elbow height, we both raised the cups at the same time, following through with our actions and drinking the thick content all up in one go!


    "Mike."


    "Constanty."


    Bruder, often called Brudsio, a word originating from german word Bruderschaft, that found its way in Polish culture as an act of breaking the ice and formally moving away from using respectable form of speech towards each other. That was also the meaning of the toast before drinking, and spelling our own names despite the two of us already knowing how we were both named!


    "Okay then, now that we have this part out of the way, speak your mind. I think I can guess the purpose of your visit, but let me hear it from you first."


    Right now, despite how developed my lands were, due to the lack of promotion of the solutions that I was using, I didn''t have any hopes that I was known from anything else but allegedly rebelling against the country and producing quality drinks.


    "With all due respectˇ­ But I think I need a momentˇ­"


    Only at this point, when looking at Constanty''s flushed face, did I notice one bit of the information that flooded my head a moment ago. This young man in front of me was known for how much he abhorred drinking alcohol!


    But being just a local noble, I had no way of knowing this in advance if not for this strange event, looking like a rare interference of the system! In fact, I used it so rarely due to the social constraints of the era, that I nearly forgot that it existed in the first place!


    "I drank many different kinds of beveragesˇ­ But just what the heck is this? It tastes so good!"


    Hearing the words of praise, I couldn''t help but smile. This one drink was something that I developed in the moments where I just couldn''t think about the problems related to the development of my lands and progress of laying down the train tracks. Basing its taste of what I remembered of a popular drinking brand from the future, Jagermaster, it took quite an extensive amount of time to find the proper ratios of proper herbs to replicate even a part of this sweet, familiar medicine!


    "It''s one of my newest drinks. Sadly, it''s brewing process is just too damn complicated to let me mass-produce it, so for now, it''s something one can drink only as my guest."


    Despite how we openly dropped all the formalities, or even despite how I encouraged the group to just explain what aims they had by coming to my place, I just couldn''t help myself from trying to play them a bit further. After all, if I could get Jarema''s uncle addicted to a drink only I could produce, then swaying this future, famous warlord of Commonwealth to my side would be all the easier!


    "It''s a pityˇ­ But can I hope to bring back some as to let my father taste it as well? And since we are speaking about drinks, my dearest father send us here to ask whether there are any chances of pushing forward the option of setting some breweries in his lands? While I''m sure you two had a lengthy talk about it with how quickly he introduced the topic, but in the case that you forgot, he ordered me to pass you this letter of good intent as well."


    Suddenly tingling as if he remembered something, Constantly quickly patted himself all over, before a happy smile appeared on his face. With his face digging into his clothes for a moment, he quickly pulled out a rolled and sealed piece of paper before casually passing it to me.


    "Oh? It would be a sign of disrespect if I were to talk with you guys, before reading your benevolent father''s message!"


    With how I highly doubted that Michael Cheerio whom I already met with would bother his son to go all the way to New Tarnow just to ask about such a small matter, I concluded that this letter held a huge chance of containing the true meaning of their visit.


    And just by reading a few initial words, I managed to confirm my guess.


    "I remember it all now."


    Opening one of the desk''s drawers, I made sure to stuff the letter inside before decisively closing it and raising my eyes. Only after a long period of staring directly at Constanty''s eyes, did I continue.


    "For now, it would be best if you would stay, at least for the day. I will see to have someone give you a tour of my lands. As for the message to your father, once you go back to him, you can tell that by the beginning of the October, I will surely pay him a visit and fulfil the promise I gave to him all this time in the past!"

 282 Spy

    25th August 1574


    "One of the men in the visiting group is an Ostros spy. While I''m not sure which one if you manage to find him out, feel free to use that information for your own benefit."


    Putting the letter aside, I looked helplessly at Elia. With her hand slowly caressing her belly, I could tell that she was already starting to slightly curve her previously impeccable stomach, indicating that our child was properly growing within her body.


    "You knew that and you still thought that it would be a good idea to give them a tour through your lands? What did you think would happen, the spy would be amazed by our stuff and attempts to convince Ostros to just willingly surrender?"


    Shaking her head in a notion of disbelief, Elia looked at me as if I was some kind of idiot. At least, there was no anger in her voice, indicating that she still believed that no matter what, I would somehow still be able to turn the entire situation around.


    "Rather than hoping for them to just surrenderˇ­ I thought that by showing them what we can do, we could force them to make their move. After all, I made sure so that the news about postponing resolving the conflict for as long as it would take to lay the train tracks all the way to their lands. With that, we already know they will attempt to counteract this kind of invasion, rather than messing up with the training of our troops."


    Creating the entire situation where everyone, my own people included, would believe that I would invest so much of my resources just for the sake of dealing with some noble was already an achievement. In fact, in the entire domain of mine, only about ten people knew the truth!


    Yet, as great as this kind of scheme worked, it also required me to be kind of wasteful in terms of a small part of the iron that I had to use to create a prototype of the train transport carts!


    After all, if anyone were to infiltrate the camp, the military complex would be the first target they would make sure to observe. As such, no matter how stupid it was with how the blueprint for all the parts of the train was already created, the troops that finished their first week of hell, would have boarding and hopping off from a caricature of the train that strangely close resembled my steam carriages, written inside their daily training scheme!


    The only saving grace of this entire scenario was that as soon as the open-hearth furnace would be finished, all the steel and iron that was wasted to create those fake train carts could be smelted back into a useful form of ingots!


    "Still, inviting a spy to tour our lands? What if their aim wasn''t to learn more about our position but to sabotage it?"


    Only to find out that I didn''t really have one!


    If what Michal wrote to me in the letter was true, and that spy was about to poison one of the wells? One of the water storage tanks? Nah, the last option was impossible, since there was no way anyone would miss a stranger trying to climb on top of nearly twenty meter''s high tower!


    Even poisoning the river didn''t seem to be possible, as its water was mostly drawn to the filters and boilers before anyone could dare to drink it. What''s more, even if not for that health and safety measure, the number of people that could get sick because of the poison would be too small to affect my production or any of my other projects, as the fresh current would quickly get rid of the poison.


    "Sabotage what? Ah, don''t get me wrong, I''m not trying to defeat your point, but rather to see a way in which a single man could really cause any problems."


    Feeling the warmth of my dear wife all over my lap, I couldn''t help myself but embrace her tightly, while making sure no pressure would be added on her stomach. While I knew that this kind of small actions wouldn''t hurt the kid inside her, with no modern doctors and medicine everywhere around me, I just didn''t dare to take any unnecessary risks.


    "Isn''t that simple? Studying the chain of production takes only a moment. With how we are currently doing our very best to increase the smelting output, just by paying someone who is responsible for the currently operating furnaces would have a negative effect on the overall progress. What''s more, with enough information about how our lands work, he could hire some mercenaries to wreak havoc, bribe some nobles to go against you with some claims, find a soldier of fortune to assassinate you during the nightˇ­"


    Raising her head from her belly, Elia looked me in the eyes with a small dose of ridicule mixed in an overwhelming ocean of affection. Despite the current state that this dear wife of mine was, just this look alone was enough to awaken something deep between my hips. Yet, I wasn''t as careless to just grab Elia around her waist, throw her on the nearby bed and calm down this sudden urge of mine!


    After all, even if I was the type of brute to do something like that, even though my injuries didn''t stop me from living my life to the fullest, putting too much strain on my leg or arm could prove to be disastrous!


    "I''m quite scared with how many ways to deal a fatal blow to our plans you found out in just a short momentˇ­ But neverthelessˇ­"


    With my hand slowly climbing up on her round belly, it took only a moment for it to sneak under her rolled upped robe. A single touch was enough for me to realise that while I was busy with dealing with the councils, city, development and all the other useless stuff, one of the important parts of my beloved wife actually managed to grow quite a bit!


    In one instant, this discovery rilled my entire self. Unable to hold myself back from confirming my guess, rather than taking the rest of the robes out, I simply tore it off Elia''s body!


    "Dear! You don''t need to be so hasty!"


    Protesting in a light, frilly voice, Elia reached forth with her arms and interlocked them behind my neck. Just from how she pushed her chest to the front, I could tell that her protests were nothing but a part of the play!


    "How could I be not hasty when I have such delicious sight right in front of my eyes?"


    Murmuring in a voice loud enough for Elia to hear it, I pushed my head downwards, instantly attaching my lips to the tip of her breast. With my teeth locking on her nipple, I sucked as if there was no tomorrow while feeling Elia''s hands pulling my head even tighter into her bust.


    "Dearˇ­ Todayˇ­"


    With her words barely capable of coming out of her mouth with all the gasping sounds she was constantly producing, it took her some time to finish her sentence.


    "Iˇ­ I want to beˇ­"


    Elia didn''t need to say a single word more. Even despite not knowing yet what she wanted, I was perfectly fine with anything that she desired! That''s why, after returning myself to a normal position and making sure she would be safe, I released my hold on her body while spreading my arms wide, as if I wanted to convey her the message that she was free to do anything that she wanted!


    "Dearˇ­"


    The first thing she did, was to place her delicate palm right on my cheek, before gracing me with a slight kiss. Soon, she slid off from my lap, as her mouth continued to traverse down my body. Yet just as Elia finally lodged herself between my thighs with her hands already operating around my belt, a sudden knocking of the doors broke our immersion.


    "Come here."


    As painful as it was to have my expectations sniffed out just like that, I caught Elia under her armpits and brought her all the way back on top of my palm. Not only was this the quickest way to hide what we were doing in the middle of the damned day, but it also allowed me to hide the bonner that I popped as soon as our lips reunited a moment ago. Using my healthy leg to kick up the cloth from the floor, I quickly covered Elia''s front with its still intact, backside, before calling out towards the doors.


    "Enter!"


    Seeing who was the damned cockblocker, I was about to swear to myself that I would make his life miserable as only an employer could when I heard his report.


    "Sir, we got urgent news. One of the companions of the deputy was found attempting to throw a bag of gunpowder into the mouth of the Bessmer furnaces!"


    In one instant, all the excitement from before disappeared, putting my mind on a high alert. Yet, no matter how dire that news was, especially during the time where every last bit of iron and steel were absolutely crucial to the ruse I was set on creating, my body remained motionless, with just the thought of accidentally hurting Elia with a sudden movement was enough to paralyze me.


    "Dear, do you want me to solve this matter?"


    To my surprise, rather than allowing me to take care of the problem like usual, Elia actually jumped off from my lap in a single, graceful movement while holding her broken robe in a way that would make it hard for anyone to discover its state.


    "Only if you really want toˇ­"

 283 Elias scheme

    25th August 1574


    "What the hell have happened here!"


    As soon as the two of us along with ten soldiers of the escort have arrived on the scene of the failed bombing, I simply stood back. Since Elia wanted to deal with this case, then there was no point in me interfering as long as her actions wouldn''t cause some longlasting repercussions.


    "My lady, we learned from the local workers that one of the visitors was acting quite strange while in the area. According to their words, he attempted to throw some kind of package into the mouth of the operating Bessmer furnace, but due to how he was acting previously, one of the workers managed to deflect the projectile. Sadly, because of how close he had to jump towards the mouth of the furnace, his arm is now badly burnt."


    With this quick recount of the situation given by one of the present militia, we were now almost entirely up to speed. And with just a single look around the place, the two of us could gather the rest of the necessary information.


    In a place a bit away from the commotion, medics were trying to help the badly burnt man, while on the opposite end of the area, a row of four men were kneeling on the ground. While all of them were nobles, it didn''t matter at all to anyone in the area, as a group of my soldiers kept their heads right at the end of the muzzles of their rifles.


    "Take that man to the infirmary. Give him the best possible attention and do not skimp on the medicine. All the costs will be covered by the city. All those who took part in handling the assailiants, step up."


    Rather than shouting or even speaking in a loud voice, the instant respect that my wife somehow managed to command made the entire area silent enough for everyone to clearly hear her voice. Heck, even standing a fair ten steps away from her, a distance that in a normal crowd would make it nearly impossible to communicate, I could hear every single tone that left her lips!


    "As per order, my lady!"


    Without even a moment of hesitation, a group of three men stepped forth to the front.


    "With all due respect, lady, but two of our friends who helped to restrain those men already went back to work. They claimed that since the situation was dealt with, there was no point in allowing any further stalls in the production, especially with how we are pressing the targets right now!"


    Rather than just calmly waiting for the expected reward, one of the workers that looked as if he left his farm just a few days ago with pieces of grain still shining in his hair, kneeled down in front of Elia before adding a few words from himself.


    "Good, thanks for your input. Go and bring them here now."


    At the same time, she knew that with how I was the one to order the increase of the output, she wouldn''t appear as contradicting herself with the order to ignore the backlash for the sake of bringing the workers for an additional break. Even if most of the people would instantly understand that rewarding the people who voluntarily did their best to protect their workplace from the attack would have a far greater effect than the worth of even an entire cycle worth of Bessmer''s furnace steel output, Elia had to realise that when it came to managing a huge crowd, relying on each individual''s intelligence was nothing but a clear hint of either idiocy or just plain out madness.


    "Meanwhile, bring the perpetrators here."


    Elia''s silent voice was knocking against my eardrums as if she was some kind of general giving the orders in the midst of the battle. For some reason, even when I interacted with those subjects of mine, this kind of respect that people were showing for her was rather unimaginable!


    On the other hand, as soon as this wife of mine gave the order, the soldiers that so far were only making sure that none of the assailants would escape, lowered their weapons before grabbing them by the bounds that held their hands together and dragging them to Elia''s foot.


    At this point, I couldn''t help but approach my wife a little bit closer. Dealing with this matter could be tricky, as it still involved a descendant in a direct line from one of the most strategically important partners for my plans in the near future. While I knew that she would like to send an important message with her actions, at the same time, I had to make sure it wouldn''t be way over the top!


    "Him and him, release them."


    With just a single look, Elia proved that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. Releasing Constanty and the only elder from the diplomatic group she made sure that no hard repercussion would hit my lands for treating Cheerio''s blood to harshly. On the other side, I could guess where her way of the thinking was coming from in regards to the elder.


    From what we heard on our way here, the package that the spy attempted to throw into the furnace, was quite heavy. And to top it all off, the mouth of the furnace in its operating position was located nearly ten eight meters above the ground! Those two things combined made it clear that no matter how crafty that elder would be, his physique made it simply impossible for him to be the one responsible for the throw!


    "Now, can anyone tell me who threw the explosive?"


    Seeing how Elia was attempting to tackle the situation, I realised that she might be making a mistake. After all, the letter we received from Michael didn''t specify that there was just a single spy in the ranks of the diplomatic expedition! Keeping that in mind, I made sure that even the elder that Elia ordered to be released, was still kept under a strict watch of my personal guards.


    "It was Robert!"


    Suddenly, a shout resounded in the area. But surprisingly, it didn''t came from the direction that I expected!


    Turning myself around, I saw Constanty attempting to wrestle his way out of my guard''s hands, with a full dose of hate filling his face.


    "I knew he came from Ostros lands before entering our service, but his work was so far impeccable. Mike, forgive me this oversight, please!"


    Acting as if he lost his mind and didn''t care about the dignity of his name, Constantly actually managed to instantly convince me that he was telling the truth. After all, only during the great emotional turmoil would people like him lose their composure. That alone was enough for me to understand how much his father valued the potential deal of setting one of the future train stations in their lands!


    But on the other hand, Elia clearly ignored his pleas, not even turning her head to look at the Cheerio descendant. Rather than that, she only stared at the guards, conveying that her previous order still stood.


    "It was the man on the left."


    Finally, the two workers that initially went back to work, arrived at the scene. Without even a moment of hesitation, one of them pointed at the middle-aged man lying on the right. To be honest, just by looking at how beaten up he was, one could guess that he was the true perpetrator, but due to how all four of them were bound to be treated rather roughly, it wasn''t a criterium that one could use to judge their actions.


    "Lift him up."


    A single swing of her hand was enough to once again, prompt my soldiers into action. One of them even went out of his way to grab his hand and forcefully pull his face upwards!


    "Listen up. You have two choices. Either you spit everything you know now, or you do so when I will be done with you. It''s up to you whether you will take the easy or the hard way."


    Not even for a moment did Elia lose her composure. Her face remained completely emotionless during the entire situation as if she was entirely detached from the entire event.


    Sadly, rather than complying with her wishes, the spy attempted to spit in her face, only for his body to disappoint him, resulting in his saliva landing between the two of them.


    "I guess you prefer the hard way. That''s okay with me!"


    Suddenly putting a bright smile on her face, Elia nearly danced around on the spot. It seemed as if this man refusal to speak was the greatest gift that one could ever present to her!


    "Men, put that man into the pillory. He is to be guarded through both the day and night, and every citizen is encouraged to spit back at him. Give him as much clean water as he requires, but keep him starved for as long as it will take for his guts to meld down due to his own hunger."


    Sweeping her long skirt as she turned around, Elia paced her way back to me with that bright smile from before still brimming on her lips. Yet, in this situation, seeing my wife shining like that just a moment after she condemned this man to one of the worst torture''s one could experience, I couldn''t help but start to worry a bit.


    "Come on dear! Isn''t it cheaper than hiring a lasher? This way, we will wait for a few days and he will tell us everything we need to know!"


    Those two sentences by itself would be enough to make any husband worried about the mental state of their wife, if not for a wink that Elia used to signal that it was by no means an end to her scheme!

 284 Scheming together

    25th August 1574


    "So that''s what you wanted to do!"


    After making sure that all of the workers that participated in the voluntary civil duty of apprehending the assailants, the two of us returned back to the mansion. Given the circumstances, I wanted to have a talk with Constanty to explain the matter regarding the letter I received from his father, but doing so before consulting Elia would be highly unadvisable.


    After all, what if her plan required Constanty and the one, old man that she deemed to be innocent to remain oblivious to what was happening? Since I already gave her the free rein over this matter, I should at least stop myself from butting in the middle.


    And from what Elia said as soon as we were sure that no one could eavesdrop on our discussion, this decision of mine was the best out of all I could take!


    "I have to say that, I''m starting to regret that I didn''t ask you to involve yourself in all those political games beforeˇ­ Who knows how far we could get if you were to employ that scheming mind of yours for our cause!"


    Exclaiming with astonishment, I could see how Elia''s face tourned to a mix of sourness and happiness. Thinking about it as soon as I said those words, I could see how happy she was for receiving the praise, but reluctant to accept it due to what I praised about her!


    "This way, rather than learning something that he will deem that we want to hear, we will get him to pass the false news to the Ostros instead. After all, what''s the point of learning about about their plans? In the current situation, if they have any ambitions to survive, they only have one way to expand, and it leads directly into our own route of invasion."


    Shrugging her arms, Elia most likely pushed the idle thoughts about judging whether she should be happy or not with my praise aside. With how we have yet to decide what kind of bullshit we would let the spy learn before our guards would just so happen to sleep on the duty, allowing for the man''s escape, there wasn''t really that much time for us to spare it on idle thoughts!


    "Anyway, did you receive the news about the military plant?"


    It was something that I initially wanted to discuss right after we would be done with our lovemaking that we started before, but with the matter of spy appearing right on our plate, I had to push this topic aside. But given our current situation, it could potentially present us with a perfect opportunity to bank on taking over that spy!


    "You mean about the new warcar model?"


    "Not really."


    What Elia meant, was most likely the first prototype of the proper tank-like warcar. Despite all my reservations against including a proper cannon within the warcar before breechloading ones could be developed, after several visits from Henry and his valid points about making the sieges quicker and safer, I finally caved in. But as great of news, it already was, what I had in mind held far greater importance.


    "They finished the development of the logistic vehicle."


    Looking at how most of the carriages developed and produced by my military plant were outfitted for the war purposes, we were in the dire need of something that both civilians and the military could use for the more mundane aspects. After all, with how focused warcars were on their defensibility, every single one of them was way too costly to be used for the stuff that horses could take care off!


    That''s why, rather than focusing all the energy of the people working in that plant on developing new machines of death, I tasked them with the creation of a carriage so simple, that even a single steam engine would be capable of propelling it!


    With the power unit generating the most cost out of all the parts due to how complicated it was, limiting the general weight of the vehicle and turning it into a slightly improved version of what others would attach to the line of their horses, not only all the problems of moving the staff around would just disappear but I could also see how drastically those simple vehicles would change every single part of the economy, from farming through trading all the way to creating the first type of public transport!


    "That one aimed at lowering the cost? What does it have to do with the matter at hand?"


    Raising her lovely hair from the papers that she was looking through, Elia looked at me with her curiosity-filled eyes.


    "Didn''t you say that we can use him to send some false info to Ostros? We can''t hide the extent of our industraˇ­ let''s say, development. So rather than trying to achieve something that can only turn futile, how about we just swap some details aroundˇ­ And make them think that our sacred weapon is actually wooden carriage propelled by the steam horses?"


    The problem with passing the false information to enemy ranks lied in the extent to how much one could lie. If the information was made too good or too bad to be true, then it would be discarded as the misinformation it in fact was. That''s why I personally believed that using those logistic vehicles aimed at the civilian market would be believable enough for Ostros to swallow, especially once they would learn about how populous and advanced New Tarnow already is!


    "Woah, I didn''t think about this! It might actually work!"


    Seeing how I managed to surprise my dearest wife, the corners of my lips inadvertently started climbing up my face. But before a smile could be achieved, I realised that within her surprised expression, some hints of disappointment were hidden.


    "Dear, mind telling me what you initially wanted to feed the spy before letting him go?"


    And here I stepped on the landmine. With how the creation of the logistic vehicle''s prototype only arrived recently, Elia have yet to learn about the news. This might been one of the reasons why she didn''t take this possibility into account, resulting in me stepping up and stealing the spotlight from her!


    But that didn''t mean that her idea, that I was still ignorant about, was wrong. In fact, even if it were to prolong the war for a week or two, I didn''t mind lying that what Elia came up with initially was actually a better option than what I came up with right now!


    "Wellˇ­ If you insistˇ­"


    Seeing how apparently reluctant Elia was to spill the beans, I should normally think that she already judged her plan to be worse than what I proposed, but with how her lips curved just a little, I realised that it might not be the case!


    "Before you came up with that idea of yours, I thought about letting them know that the entire train aspect was nothing more but a ruse, aimed at making them drop their defences so that our swift attack wouldn''t have any troubles shattering their weakened guard. I hoped that this way we could make them wary of their every move, buying us a lot of time to train and equip more troops."


    Hearing Elia''s plan, I realised that in fact, it was far better than what I myself came up with! But the best part about it lied in the point that we could merge our ideas to feed something far more believable to the spy!


    "Dearˇ­ Do you think about the same thing as I do?"


    Finally, I could use this comic overused quote. Since I couldn''t read her thoughts, there was no point to tell what she was thinking, nor whether it was even close to what was strolling through my mind. But in reality, this sentence of mine was only aimed at hinting Elia towards the idea of merging our plans, so that she would keep the achievement of coming up with the combined plan!


    "You want to have sex too?"


    Woah, in all honesty, I didn''t expect this kind of response as we were in the middle of planning our next move! But before I could actually respond to this question, Elia burst out with laugh os hard, that she had to support herself on the table in order not to fall down to the floor.


    "I''m sorryˇ­ but your face when I said thisˇ­ It was one of a kind!"


    Keeping herself stable with one hand on the desk while holding her own waist with the other, Elia continued to mesmerise me with her soft giggle, as if she wanted to replicate the future courses of ASMR personally for me in the era where ASMR couldn''t even happen.


    "But being serious now, I think I know what you meant."


    Finally calming down after a moment, Elia rose back to a proper standing position while wiping a tear of joy away from her eye.


    "We can tell the spy that we are going to use those logistic vehicles, or rather, cutting-edge military transportation vehicles to execute a swift attack on their lands."

 285 Showcase of military

    28th August 1574


    "Present your weapons!"


    Officer''s shout resounded in the vast, open field of the defilade''s marching ground located right beside the military plant. Standing on top of a small tribune, I could still reach the end of my recently formed army.


    Proving that their training wasn''t for naught, as soon as the officer ordered, all of the fresh recturts standing on the other end of the plaza could see how nearly six hundred men brought their weapons from the resting to ready-to-dire position in a single, uniform motion.


    "Fire!"


    Resting the bottom of the carabines on their hip, soldiers pulled the triggers, sending a quick salvo right into the embrace of the skies.


    "Fire!"


    Unshaken by the recoil of their shoot thanks to a special way in which they stood, my newly formed troops shoot, again and again, always responding to the order within a single second. With my keen ears, I could still hear that some of the soldiers shoot either a bit too late or too early, but in general, they managed to reach the level beyond of any other unit that could exist on earth.


    That is, in terms of how orderly they could shoot on accord during the presentation of their skills. And no matter how awesome it looked like within the safety of my lands, I doubted that even half of them could do the same in the midst of fierce fighting.


    "At ease!"


    Only I, Elia and some of the other high dignitaries of the city had the chance to watch this awesome scene. Them, and Constanty along with this the two of his retainers that were said to be free from charges of espionage.


    "That''sˇ­ Incredibleˇ­"


    Looking down at the orderly rows of my men Constantly could only sing praises of them, knowing that not even the Quarterly units of Commonwealth couldn''t reach this level of discipline.


    "Now you see why I can be certain of the victory. While Ostros thinks that I will waste my time preparing the train lines for the logistical support of the prolonged campaign, I can just stuff themˇ­ Or nevermind, you will have the chance to see it with your own eyes in a moment."


    Stopping right before I would reveal the crux of the entire ploy, I smiled at my guests before turning completely mute. As annoying as it was, I had to play the host of this event, otherwise, the potential spy that remained within his ranks would realise that it was all nothing but smoke in his eyes!


    And just like I said, before a long while would pass, a commotion appeared behind the ranks of my men. But anyone with good eyesight could realise that rather than coming from the back rows of my soldiers, it was actually happening way behind even the officers that controlled the order from behind the entire formation!


    But the show didn''t end on the steam carriages just appearing!


    At first, the initial four units continued to ride forward, as if intending to slam against the tribune where all the guests were located. Only when they reached the middle point between the military and spectators, their group split into two once again, with two turning left and two turning right.


    By the time that all the vehicles finally appeared, every single group that consisted of seven soldiers and the officer found themselves standing behind a parked carriage.


    "Board the logistic vehicles!"


    Just like they trained in regards to the trains, soldiers instantly threw themselves to the action, but still managed to keep their discipline. While I could spot several mishaps here and there, the general sight of my people moving towards their assigned seats and resting on their prepared position.


    "Depart!"


    As soon as the calm returned to the field, people could see that as impressive as the entire manoeuvre was, it also revealed that only the initial row out of all five that were prepared, had the chance to board the carriages. But that didn''t change the impression that my guests must have to have when all those fifteen carriages that we managed to finish, suddenly started moving forward!


    Ignoring all the eyes that were resting on their shoulders, the first group out of every platoon that had the honour of achieving the best score evaluation during the last set of tests, remained completely calm. If one were to ignore the situation around them, one would most likely believe that they were some kind of sailors sitting on their boat during complete wind stall!


    "Deploy!"


    Only when this command stopped all the carriages within their shortest stopping distance, did the situation changed. Moving in pairs, two by two my men continued to jump off the back of the carriage, moving up as soon as the pair in front of them freed the space. In just a few seconds, the entire group of one hundred twenty people that was previously only a bunch of passengers was now lying on the ground with their weapons pointed out in the exact same direction as the directing officer''s hand!


    "Set the perimeter!"


    This command already reached the point that even I couldn''t fully understand. As I never was too interested in command, I left the choice of teaching the specific commands to my retainers. And from the looks of it, they not only studied how the war was conducted so far but also took the prowess of the new weapons in the account!


    Within just a few moments, what used to be a long line of crawling men, turned into five units, each consisting of three groups eight men strong. Two of the groups moved about thirty meters forward before dropping back to the ground in a triangular formation, with the three remaining groups protecting the flanks and centre.


    "Establish firing positions!"


    Yet another order, and my soldiers stood up only to rush back to the carriages. Taking out two planks in the middle, two of them would pull out bags filled with sand before throwing them towards their compatriots and doing the cycle all over again. In less than two minutes, those bags found their in a small half-circle, high enough to protect a soldier laying down on the ground from any possible incoming fire, while creating a perfect support for the heavy barrel of his weapon.


    "That will be all of the interesting points for today. I hope you liked it."


    Turning my head to Constanty, I could only smile seeing how wide did his mouth open as he watched the show. Knowing a little bit about his history, I could tell that he was already creating scenarios where he would be either with those soldiers of mine or against them, and attempting to find all the pros and cons of such formation.


    "Wait, is that all? But they doesn''t seem to be about to stop any time from nowˇ­"


    Taking a peek at the events ongoing on the plaza, I could see that the troops that moved forward with the carriages, were now about to finish packing up their sandbags back to their carriages. According to the plan, they would then return to their usual position, before the next line of the soldier would repeat the entire course of boarding, deploying and so on.


    "It''s only going to repeat from now. I hope you didn''t expect me to reveal all the formations that could be created with the use of such mobile force?!"


    Pretending to be exasperated, I actually had to do my absolute best to stop from giggling. In reality, those formations were completely and utterly useless. Even if using those silly wooden steam carriages was my real intention, then they would still have the perfect use of a local cover, along with giving the advantage of elevated position. What would be the point of leaving them by the entirety of the troops in the first place?


    But I could tell what kind of theory both Constanty and one of the men beside him were bound to attach to this kind of reasoning. After all, those carriages were bound to be expensive! With how two of them lacked the cover over all the mechanics that allowed them to move, something that I ordered to make sure the guests would have the chance to gaze upon this wonder of engineering, no one on the tribunes could have any doubts that every single vehicle had to cost way more than your average noble could afford!


    With that said, using so expensive items just to provide cover for some commoner soldiers? Their lives were far cheaper for those slow-minded people!


    "No, that''s perfectly reasonable. Also, now that you have proved that you are capable of defeating Ostros, I will be taking my leave."


    Clearly stunned by the show that I presented him with, Constantly was clearly anxious to get back to his home and report to his father at the shortest moment notice. But before I would let him go and bring one of the potential spies back to Ostros lands, I still had one more thing that I need him to do.


    "Dear friend, I hope it won''t be a problem if I ask you to bring this letter back to your father?"


    Pulling out a piece of paper from under my coat, I passed it to Constanty with a wide smile on my face.


    "While it''s nothing important, I remember he asked me about the right to create Tarnowian beer locally in his lands. In the letter, all the necessary steps to create a drink of such quality are detailed, although the recipes that we are using remain secret. I hope it won''t be a problem for you!"

 286 Reaching the deadline

    7th September 1574


    "How are the tests going?"


    When the entire ploy aimed at buying us some time to prepare for the invasion of Ostros lands went into action, I actually dared to think that my days would become less frantic. Because who could''ve thought that the further we got away from the date during which the escape of the spy was arranged, the more and more matters continued to pop up, making me unable to have even a few minutes of rest outside of my sleeping time?


    "The power unit and feeding system are already working, but we still need to improve the brakes handling. If everything will go according to our current schedule, the delay is estimated to decrease to only two days."


    Not even bothering to look up from the stash of papers that occupied nearly his entire desk, Henry replied while scribbling some words on one of the many blueprints. Looking at the situation, I couldn''t decide whether to be happy or sad.


    From one side, the production and lying down of the train tracks between Tarnow and Krakow was already finished, the entire week before the scheduled deadline! But as great news as this was, the end model of the train still had some problems that had to be solved, before even its production could be started!


    On the other hand, just by looking at how diligently Henry was working on the blueprints that he created all by himself, made me feel like if the time where my personal input would be no longer necessary was already nearing. But rather than despairing over how I would lose the main point that drove my lands forward, I was actually happy!


    After all, there was only so much that I could personally do. Draw several blueprints, decide on some laws, reply to some lettersˇ­ At the current stage, I couldn''t even find enough time to spend with my wife, so seeing how at least a part of this burden could soon be taken away from my shoulders was something that I was looking forward to!


    "That''s good then. We can''t delay it any further though, otherwise the entire point ofˇ­ Or wait a secondˇ­"


    WIth how the day when the train would travel between two cities for the first time was already scheduled and missing the date would put a huge strain on the trust that people had in me delivering all my promises on time, in our current situation, I wasn''t so sure whether this was something bad or not!


    After all, if even this initial stage of the fake invasion plan were to be delayed, then Ostros might expect the main invasion to delay as well! But the question was, whether this kind of slight tactical advantage was worth all the potential losses that being late with my promises would create?


    "Nevermind. Try your best to finish it all in time. If you do so, you can expect even greater funding for your projects."


    Right now, due to joining the city properly, all his businesses were under the direct ownership of the city, with only a small part of the profits supplying his personal stash. But as bad as it might sound, in exchange for joining hands with me, his projects were financed almost entirely from the tax that was slowly starting to grow to some unimaginable numbers!


    Seeing that the man was more interested in looking for possible problems with his design rather than reporting in detail to me, I decided that there was no point in staying in his study. Thankfully, the next stop was relatively close for me, because if I were to traverse all my lands by foot, then my still painful injuries would never heal!


    Moving out of the small building that was placed by the side of what was the defilade plaza just a few days ago, I could only gnash my teeth as I walked through the vast, open space. Looking around, I could see some of my guards keeping the respectful distance, ready to come to my aid if I were to feel any worse at any given moment, but otherwise allowing me to enjoy my little stroll.


    "I guess the military is nextˇ­"


    Looking at the space that used to be an open plain just about a month ago, that now turned into what I could call a proper army area. From the fence that surrounded the entire place, dotted with several guarding towers to prevent any attack from reaching this place unannounced, through the long housing buildings where the recruits would sleep and keep their private stuff, all the way to the enormous gym hall, where they would train during the absolutely worst weather. Looking at this place, only a small area in the middle and at the very back of the fenced-off part remained empty, as to allow the future soldiers to get used to the conditions they would face during the real conflict.


    "Open the gate!"


    Despite how annoying it was for the visitors and me especially, I didn''t compromise on making more than just a single entrance. With how the discipline was the most important part of teaching those recruits, having only one way to enter or leave the area could serve as yet another important way to nail the absolute obedience into them while making the moment of off-time even more precious for them.


    "Thanks."


    Nodding my head to the diligent guards that stood at attention as I passed through the guard''s booth, I finally got inside the military part of the new development area.


    "Attention!"


    Almost instantly as soon as I stepped inside, the nearest barrack building''s door opened, releasing more people than I expected to see.


    While the information that I would come for the inspection of the progress was openly known to the officers, I expected the entire thing to happen rather calmly, with me just watching how the training goes and how quickly do those new soldiers of mine improve.


    But it seemed as if they were going to surprise me quite a bit!


    One by one, entire units were running out from now not only the nearest but all of the barracks, quickly filling the entire free space between the buildings.


    "Present weapon!"


    In one instant, my vision was filled with more than a thousand soldiers, amounting to most likely every single recruit that was either in the process of basic training or already past it. Looking up towards this massive group, I couldn''t help but smile.


    "At ease, soldiers!"


    Using the entire capacity of my lungs, I managed to calm down the entire company. Standing straight with their weapons hanging down from the belts around their shoulder, this force of mine looked as if they were willing to go and conquer the entire world for me if only I gave such order.


    "Platoon leaders, step forth!"


    Today wasn''t just a simple inspection that I could conduct at any given moment. In its truest sense, I was here to receive the combined pledge of loyalty from the heads of every unit, marking their entry to the proper armed force of mine.


    "To the oath, stand!"


    The leading officer shouted, instantly prompting the twenty-five men to step forth. While it meant that even those recruits that have yet to finish their initial training would get to swear the oath, I didn''t mind doing such exception.


    After all, if we wanted Ostros to believe that our real aim was to quickly push with the invasion while officially only buying time, just the words wouldn''t be enough to convince them. As such, even though it would be just another bit for the mosaic of Elia''s scheme, every single recruit that would swear the oath today, would be moved to the advance barracks in the proper Tarnow, from where the invasion would officially start!


    "We, the soldiers of Lord''s Mike lands??"


    Even though there wasn''t much meaning in forcing those people to act like the modern military would, I found it strangely encouraging to have them act as such. With all the problems, enemies, wars and conflicts appearing on the horizon of the future, with each passing day, I only felt more and more overwhelmed by all the events that had me in their centre.


    After all, I was only a normal human! There was a limit to how much stress and work I could handle.


    And looking at those orderly rows of soldiers, flexing their muscles while all uniformly looking up at a specific angle, had some magic effect of calming my mind down!


    "I hereby accept your oath! Go back to your units, not as recruits, but as the soldiers of Commonwealth!"

 287 Delays

    11th September 1574


    "Forward, march!"


    As annoying as it was to have all my military march on foot when there were special steam carriages that could easily move them to Tarnow, with how limited their number was, I had no other choice but to make everyone march the entire distance between my colony and the city that it took its name from.


    But those soldiers of mine didn''t appear as if they minded this situation any bit. Used to the long marches during their training, the journey that would ensue right now could be considered to be a pleasant stroll rather than tactically important relocation of the forces. After all, that was the essence of saying "Sweat lots, bleed a little", which could be considered to be the prime maxim behind the entire military of mine!


    "Sir, the marching line is forming properly. We expect to fully leave the outskirts of the New Tarnow before the midday. Also, it seems that there are no problems with transporting train parts."


    Given how the only train line that existed in this world connected Krakow and Tarnow, and the only place where the machines were advanced enough to produce a power unit of the train were in New Tarnow, all the logistic units that would be otherwise used to transport either men or their supplies were now carrying deconstructed steam locomotive, that would be assembled only when all of the parts would be gathered together in the Tarnowian suburbian station.


    "Good, make sure that everything is going as planned. We can''t allow ourselves any further delays."


    In the end, whether or not to delay the arrival of the first train wasn''t something that I could decide on. Just when everything was tested and was working properly, we learned that disassembling the locomotive inevitably lead to one of its parts wearing off, and leading to the total collapse of the system responsible for transferring the movement provided by the steam horse towards its wheels.


    By the time that the train was about to reach Krakowian station, nearly all of the development officers that ever dabbled in ironworking were busying themselves with trying to find a solution that would allow us to fix the problem. By the time the train was supposed to bring back curious Capital Citizens for a visit in Tarnow, they finally finished their roundabout solution, that relied on simply exchanging the volatile part rather than fixing the problem at its core. And now, two days after the scheduled event, we were finally departing from New Tarnow, hoping that by the end of the tomorrow this damned train would finally start working!


    "Mike, calm down."


    Standing beside me, Elia kidnapped my hand and brought it to her bosom, hiding it within the pleasant cover of her soft breasts.


    "It''s not like you can always finish everything perfectly on time. Don''t you know how little everyone else cares about one or two days delay?"


    Looking down on the face of my beloved wife, I just couldn''t hold on to my anxiety. In one moment, I felt as if all the worries were simply melted down by her bright and cheerful smile. And to be honest, she had a fair point.


    In the current age, delays were obvious to everyone in literally every single aspect of one''s life. There was a reason why the clocks would require quite a few more years of the entire world developing to appear, as without the proper urbanisation on the scale of the entire country, being perfectly on time was simply impossible. Carriage breaking down due to the bad road conditions was enough to make one''s visit late not by a few hours, but sometimes it could create a few days worth of delay!


    While all of that held true, it didn''t mean that I was willing to accept such reality. The more my lands would grow both in terms of development and its size, along with all the other adjacent territories adopting at least part of the inventions that made me so wealthy, the greater the priority of saving the time would be. In the end, if I wasn''t the one to introduce the concept of punctuality to this world, then I could only accept the fact that sooner or later, someone else would do the same!


    Just like with the logistics or manufacturing, one who held the torch of invention, would get the most benefits out of it, while forcing the others to satisfy with the scraps that he would no longer consider to be valuable. And just like my markets were open to anyone interested in the early and outdated steam engines, if someone were to introduce the concept of organised time in his lands first, I would be unable to do anything about lagging behind in that regard!


    "While that might be true, it''s not like I can just wave my hand and ignore this problem. If we start accepting small delays right now, they will only continue to grow to the point when they will be capable of paralyzing everything that we are priding ourselves with. Can you imagine the unrest that would ensue if we were to be late with paying the wages to the workers?"


    Just by bringing this topic up, my body was shaken by a sudden shiver. Exactly like I pointed Elia out, if I was a single or two days late with paying what I was due, nothing major would happen. With everything that I gave to the people that worked for my projects, I could count that their sympathy and loyalty would soften the impact of this kind of problem. But what if the wages would be three days late? Or four days? In the weekly payment system that I implemented, that could already cause a huge strain on the financial situation for most of the people that worked for me!


    After all, my lands were still something of a novelty on the huge body of the commonwealth. There wasn''t even a single generation of people that grew up with the intention of becoming the paid worker in this or that factory. Rather than that, the entirety of my workforce consisted of the people from poor parts of the country, farmers, beggars and other social outcasts, sprinkled with a small number of people that were genuinely interested in banking on this opportunity to make a killing just like Henry did.


    And I could tell from experience what would happen with them if the flow of money were to be suddenly broken by a damned delay! With how I spent two years in the United Kingdom as your typical low-end worker back when I was still living my life in my original timeline, I could tell how stable, weekly wage would make people used to it. After all, I could remember how hard it was on me when due to some problems with the banking system of the company I worked for, my wage was delayed for just two days!


    Being a damned kid that I was back then, I had little to no savings, quickly reaching the point of starvation at that time! If not for some of my more mature friends offering me a helping hand, I could very well go without food for few days!


    But the difference between me back in that timeline and the workers in my current reality lied in the fact that the wage system present in my land has yet to create its own fame of stability. From the moment even a single element of this financial chain would be broken, other elements would start to crumble, quickly leading to the general dissatisfaction and protests, that would in turn only accelerate the decay of my lands!


    "That would beˇ­ bad. I get your point, but it''s not like we lack the money to pay the workers. From what I saw in the report, another shipment of golden coins that we got from trading the furniture outside the commonwealth is about to reach Gdansk soon. Unless someone will dare to attempt robbing our armed caravan there, we should be safe for at least half a year from now from that disastrous situation you described."


    Bringing up the matter of the trade, Elia simply shook her arms. Suddenly, her head twisted to the side, with one of the carriages quickly pulling all of her attention. Compared to nearly everything else in the orderly marching column formed by our soldiers, it looked simply pitiful. Pulled by the horses rather than the steam engine, completely enclosed wagon was something that any other noble would easily pride himself with. But in my current situation, I couldn''t help but feel the dread just by looking at it!


    "It seems that our carriage has arrived. Since you hate the delays so much, let''s not be a cause for another one ourselves!"


    Regaining her positive energy, Elia quickly summed up the situation before pulling me along. In the next moment, we were already sitting on the comfortable couch within the spacious compartment of the carriage, filled to the brim with all kinds of tools that I might find useful for my work.


    "I can''t wait to get back. To be frank, I''m kinda missing our castle now!"

 288 The train is now finished

    14th September 1574


    "Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it!"


    Watching as the engineering group that came along with the military party continued to fix several parts together, I couldn''t stop myself from cursing. Improvement to the army mobility? Enhanced logistics? How could I consider myself to lead in this part of the innovation if we still had to take three days to move from New Tarnow colony to the Tarnow proper?


    "You are not helping!"


    Turning his head around, Henry scolded me with an annoyed look, before moving his head back to where his hands were. With how we were once again behind the schedule, even despite pushing the date of Train presentation by two days, wasting time on idle Lord''s whining would not help anything at all.


    Improvements to communication my ass. While I would have to be blind to miss how much easier it was to move the troops around now that they were properly trained in the art of stable and prolonged marching, it didn''t change how much we had to slow down once the reality of Commonwealth legendary poor road hit us.


    Most of the time, rather than walking on the road, we would have to guess where the tracts was supposed to be. Rather than stable, hard and dry surface on which we could walk, my soldiers had to find all sorts of creative ways to prevent their expensive shoes from turning into scrap leather due to how they had to traverse something that could only be called a marsh.


    When I was thinking about relocating everyone, I simply failed to take one element into account. The weather.


    With how I got used to sun prevailing on the sky, being hit by the constant two days of the relentless storm was akin to God slapping me right in my cheek as if to remind me how much he cared about my plans. It was also the moment when I understood the meaning of the saying, that nothing makes God laugh more than human plans!


    "Okay! The main transit system is ready! Let''s bring all those damned parts together!"


    Finally, as my thoughts were constantly taking turn for worse and worse, Henry pulled himself out from something that looked like a damned operating table. Wiping down the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, he quickly gestured at the workers that stood on standby nearby.


    "PULL!"


    What this genius of business meant by the transitional system, was in fact something aking to the entire machinery of the locomotive, stripped out of the casing and the power unit itself. Just by looking at it I could tell how freaking heavy it has to be, warranting the use of over fifty men that pulled on the metal chains on which it was hanging!


    But we simply didn''t have the time to prepare the necessary framework that would allow us to not only ground the steam horse in place, but also set it up in a way that would give us the power to precisely control its immense power!


    "Slowly, slowlyˇ­ DO NOT LET GO!"


    Noticing how quickly the workers responsible for maintaining the hold on the chains were tiring down, rather than hoping for the best, I quickly called one of the officers of the military that was currently busying himself with overseeing the process of allocating the soldiers to their respective housing.


    "Bring fiftyˇ­ no, bring a hundred men. We need them right now."


    Form one side, calling for volunteers to help might sound easier, but I wasn''t willing to put the face of this insane project in the hands of some random people. While my soldiers picked their job to avoid working as simple labourers, there was no denying how strong and obedient they were. Considering all sorts of training that they had to go through before being accepted as fully-fledged recruits, I was much keener on relying on their strength rather than involving myself with the crowd that spectated the entire spectacle.


    "On it, sir!"


    Instantly dropping whatever he was currently occupying himself with, this random officer of mine, with marks on his uniform indicating that he barely even passed through the training course, jumped into action. In just a few moments, he came back to the place, leading two entire platoons, amounting to eighty able-bodied men.


    "Secure the chains! We can''t allow this traction system to fall down!"


    With just a quick look, Henry noticed the change in the situation. Not even bothering to ask for approval, he started ordering my soldiers around. While I could see several looks of discontent caused by the civilian ordering the damned military, with how they could see that I didn''t protest, none of the soldiers dared to disobey their orders.


    "Slowly now! We need to make sure it fits perfectly!"


    As if the fact that several tons worth of iron and steel was of no importance for them, nearly twenty workers jumped right under it, with bolts and screwdrivers in their hands. Rather than allowing the mechanical part to just gently sit down on the casing with the ginormous steam horse already mounted on it, they had to manually place the long bolts in the traction system first. Sadly, only by screwing all the bolts at the same time, the two huge parts would be fit perfectly into each other, allowing the train to avoid the risk of the locomotive just falling apart due to the constant stress of the forces influencing it.


    "Fix the screws!"


    Even though I didn''t personally take part in the entire process, I was just as anxious as everyone else. While the others had to risk their health by standing under this insanely heavy part, the reality was that even if something happened, even if half of the workers that were responsible for keeping it above the casingˇ­ Nothing really would happen at all! With how only a few centimetres separated the two parts, with that distance constantly shortening, even if the chains were to break, at worst the traction system would just fall down on the casing, forcing everyone to repeat the steps once again.


    But on the other hand, if anything were to go wrong now, then I would have to face another delay!


    As silly as it sounded, this train was supposed to arrive in the capital initially three days ago. When the first delay was confirmed, that date was pushed back by two days, and even now we were already a day past the deadline!


    If any accidents were to happen right now, everything would go even slower, completely unrooting all the trust that I managed to build in the populace about how I would always deliver anything I promised on time!


    CLANG!


    "It''s done."


    At first, Henry said this sentence with a soft voice, with his eyes completely fixed on the finished product. In this one moment, everyone simply stared at the locomotive, that outside of the outer casing aimed only at protecting it innards and pretty easy to add, was finally finished.


    The clanging sound from before meant that all the bolts were in their respective places, indicating that everything was lined up perfectly. With that, the chains could no longer hold the traction system, allowing it to just slide down, and push the nails down their slits with its own weight.


    "HURRAY!"


    After this moment of silence, the entire place erupted in cheers. Everyone knew that this was one of the most important moments of the recent history, that would forever change how the entire country operated. Even though so far only a single, short line connected two cities in the commonwealth, the fact that the very first train was now right on its tracks and nearly ready to venture into its very first real journey, meant that its prowess could be finally prowed!


    "Guys, guys!"


    While I was happy to see that even the people who lacked the basis to understand the true meaning of this event, were capable of sharing the joy of those who could, there was no point in wasting more time than necessary on cheering alone. With how late we were, every single minute mattered.


    "GUYS!"


    Shouting from the bottom of my lungs, I finally managed to calm the surroundings to the point where people could actually hear their respective orders.


    "Just like I promised, everyone who took part in this great moment will have their wages doubled for the next three months. But we can''t just stop here. Since the train is nearly finished, how about we just do this one, last stretch, and actually get it running?"


    Most of the troubles bound to appear with the construction of the train were tackled by Henry. But it went without saying that as the one who came with the idea, provided necessary technology, funding, materials and the project itself, I held the right to be the host of the commemorative moment like this. But rather than holding to it for too long, I just summed up the situation with a few words, before pointing my hand to the side, where Henry stood.


    "This is a man, who initially wanted to profit off the opportunities that Tarnowian Colony created. By joining his hands with me, he now turned into one of the most important figures in the entire country. This is a man responsible for creating and bringing this train for everyone''s use! Everyone, meet Henry!"

 289 First train ride

    14th September 1574


    Tudum, tudum, tudum.


    Who would''ve thought that this familiar sound of the train''s wheels jumping over the small gaps in the tracks could make me so nostalgic. Sitting in the very first carriage behind the power unit, as long as I closed my eyes, my mind would instantly take me back to the times when I took nearly the same road on the monthly basis, commuting between my family home and the one I where I was renting the room as a student.


    With my hand inevitably reaching to where my blouse pocket would house my phone, I hit myself in the side, instantly opening my eyes and returning to reality.


    The ride was not nearly as comfortable as even the worst type of train that connected those two cities in the future. With how New Tarnow has yet to find out the proper ratios for making proper spring steel, I simply had no way to create proper springs that would soften up the ride. Yet, just from the look of amazement clearly written on the faces of literally every single other passenger, they were far from having this kind of doubts.


    "This isˇ­ It''s insaneˇ­"


    Even though Elia already knew that this kind of commune would be extremely common in the future, seeing how she was gripping the base of the table that decorated our seats, I could tell that travelling at speed far higher than what a normal horse could achieve was still a scary experience for her.


    "Don''t worry. I made the workers triple check every single track they laid to make sure they won''t be any problems. Trust me, there is no need to worry about anything!"


    Reaching with my arm, I grabbed her further shoulder, before pulling her a bit closer in this side hug.


    "I have to admit, sir. Even while I was working on the designˇ­ I never expected for this thing to be so great! At this rate, we will be in Krakow in likeˇ­"


    Due to how stable the speed of the train was, Henry had no problems just standing up and walking over from his seat. Yet, before he could finish his calculations, I already opened my mouth.


    "In about a quarter of an hour."


    While it was nothing more but a rough estimate, with how many times I took this path in the future of this world and my personal past, I could roughly compare the speed of the train that I would take back then, to how quickly we were moving right now. Obviously, with the way greater resources and technological background than the real inventors of the train had, just the first model already reached speeds that were unavailable for any of the classic early steam trains, bringing our travelling rate to nearly twice as fast as a galloping horse could move. But even with that said, the route that would take me at most seventy minutes in the future would take at least two hours right now!


    "Incredibleˇ­"


    And just like I said, about ten minutes after I announced that we would be reaching Krakow soon, the speed at which we were travelling started to decrease. At first, it was clearly induced by limiting the prowess of the engine, but by the time the walls of the city finally appeared on the horizon, the train was moving only due to its momentum.


    "We will be arriving shortly, sir!"


    With a noisy clang, the metal doors that separated the power unit from the passenger carts opened, showcasing one of the lucky workers that won the position of the charcoal feeder. Just a single look at his presence was enough to tell his job, with how every single inch of his clothes and exposed skin were covered in the black dust.


    "Good, let''s hope the preparations on the Krakowian side are ready."


    Acknowledging the message with a simple nod of my head, I opened the window and pulled nearly half of my body outside of it. In a single moment, an agonical pain shook my shoulder, reminding me that even after all this time since I was injured, my body still has yet to fully heal.


    Ignoring the pain and the powerful fist of the air that constantly fought against the muscles of my stomach. But by leaning outside so far, I could finally confirm that it was just a matter of minutes before we would arrive in place.


    "Okay, everyone. If I were to be perfectly honest, laying down those tracks and constructing this train was the easy part. Are you prepared for the upheaval that is about to come?"


    Despite how there was still a few kilometres left for this train to cover, even with its speed halved at this stage, it would only take a few minutes before we would come to a complete stop. And from the very moment the train would be confirmed to be idle, we would be swarmed by the people willing to sell their daughters just for the chance of using it once!


    "We are approaching the station!"


    Due to the charcoal feeding worker leaving the doors between the units open, everyone could clearly hear the words of the Train''s captain, despite the constant noise of the machinery working on the idle gear.


    "Are you ready guys?"


    Dropping the formality for the sake of encouraging everyone, I looked at their faces. There was no sign of hesitation, but surprisingly enough, rather than being excited, they all had their eyes filled with determination.


    But why was this surprising, someone might ask?


    For me, this day would mark the return of the times when I would have to waste my time for the prolonged talks with the great nobles, all the while trying to placate everyone interested in my train for whom I couldn''t find enough time to deal with. On the other hand, for the people responsible for the creation of this communication mean, it was supposed to be the greatest day of their life!


    Starting with the glory of marking the history with their names, through the great fame that they would gain amongst their colleagues, all the way to many nobles surely attempting to approach and poach them with offers that I couldn''t overbid. In short words, the moment the train would stop, those people that filled the wagon with me would enter the peak of their lives, while I would be bound to not only lose a huge amount of skilled officers but accept the fact that a lot of the knowledge would leak out!


    Because as stupid as it was if I were to increase the wages of everyone who worked in the train project, all the workers and officers who were busying themselves with other projects were bound to demand the same kind of treatment. And while I could afford to pay more to a single group, doing so for the entirety of my workforce would sap my financial prowess within a few months at most!


    "Sir, you don''t need to worry about anything."


    Out of nowhere, Henry pushed the people that happened to stand between me and him away, harnessing all the attention of the most important passengers of the first train ride in the world on himself.


    "It''s pretty easy to understand what troubles your head, sir. But seeing you being so distressed by this glorious moment instead of enjoying it with us, is not only souring our mood but also could be taken as an insult!"


    At first, I thought that this smart man would at least attempt to improve my mood, but with just a few words of his, he managed to prove that he couldn''t care less about my emotional state. Instead, what I thought to be a heartfelt confession aimed at cheering me up, instantly turned into a lecture!


    "Not even a single person in this wagon could ever achieve anything close to what we just did, without all the help and opportunities that you provided us with, sir. Even if anyone were to offer us better wages, titles or honours, in the long run, it would mean leaving the trainˇ­ hehˇ­ I think this kind of sentence will stick!"


    Suddenly bursting out laughing, Henry managed to diffuse the tense atmosphere he created a moment ago. For some reason, maybe due to how this kind of saying already existed in the future, even the corners of my own lips inevitably went up!


    "Anyway. Anyone who would be stupid enough to take the offer from the other nobles, from the people that used all their wealth and power to stop us from ever achieving anything greater than what we already had, would inevitably leave the train of the inventions that are centred around you, sir. Without the backing of the enormous industrial power of New Tarnow, creating a train would require one to invest way more gold into the basic elements of the industry than any of those stupid nobles could ever bother to do. While they are bound to be jealous of this train and many others that I can already see appearing on all the tracks that we will lay down, they simply lack the means to facilitate our knowledge and abilities even if they wanted to!"


    Just as the man shouted right in my face, as if he was angry that I dared to doubt their loyalty, the train slowed down considerably, finally coming to a full stop.


    "I see."


    Against Henry''s words, I had no way of rebutting them. Everything that he said was the obvious truth, that I was simply too overwhelmed with everything that was going on around me to notice.


    But this kind of lashing, this kind of lecture was something that I required to regain my mental footing in the situation. Nodding my head to Henry, I conveyed my thanks to him, before shaking my face around to get rid of the useless thoughts and clarify the sentences that I had to produce in this historic moment.


    "Everyone. I''m sorry. As strange as it might be for your employer to apologise, Henry was right. Rather than asking you to stay and keep building the future me, let me put it in other words. If anyone here is dumb enough to leave just as we are getting started, you are free to go!"


    Shouting those words, I felt as if certain unnamed weight suddenly fell down from my shoulders, freeing me from its burden. Yet, despite how harsh those words sounded, I have yet to find a single face that would twist in an even slightest grimace of anger!


    "So, without further ado, let''s rock and roll!"


    Letting go a bit too much, I shouted a phrase that only I could understand, yet I was sure that the tone of my shout was more than enough to convey the message behind those words.


    Taking just a few steps forward, I could see the entire crowd of people parting ways before me, all the way to the doors of the wagon. But rather than opening them graciously, with the respect for how important this moment was in terms of history, I simply grabbed the metal railing of the doors and unceremoniously pushed them open, revealing the insides of the train carriage to the outside world!


    UWA!


    In one moment, a sudden burst of ovations engulfed me, nearly making me take a step back and close the doors behind me. Withstanding the initial wave of the cheers from the enormous crowd gathered at the northern outskirts of the city, I took a few breaths before letting go of the doors and using my now freed hand to gesture at the crowd in an attempt to calm it down for a moment.


    "Welcome everyone! We came here from Tarnow!"


    Those two sentences were more than enough to make everyone erupt in cheers once again.

 290 Impossible happens

    14th September 1574


    "Let''s start with the obvious question that I know everyone wants to ask. Will this train be available to use for everyone, or just the chosen few?"


    Still standing on the threshold of the first train cart, I spoke to the crowd. Even though it was given that my voice could at best make it to the first few fronts row only, I openly hoped that the people would pass my words further down the line for now. After all, the official announcement would still take a long time to appear, as the train would be aimed to be initially an exclusively military object, rather than a civilian means of transport.


    "Sadly, for now, it is still in the experimental phase, so it will take a long time before anyone will be able to use it outside of the designated fewˇ­ But as soon as the war with the muscovites will end, I will do my absolute best to launch enough train for everyone to cheaply use!"


    Pep-talking the locals was nothing but an obstruction for me. Only when the train tracks would connect several important points in the country, would this mean of transportation get popular. For the low-class citizens, the cost of the ticket would be equal to like a half of what they would otherwise have to pay for traveling with a caravan, with all the costs of protection, food and shelter they would have to normally add up to just the transporting fee included.


    On the other hand, I could already tell who would be using this train the most. And surprisingly enough, it would not be the nobles!


    At first, yeah. Being able to flex that one took a journey with this metal monster might be incentives enough for some to pay the initially huge price for the tickets, but that was not a means that could provide enough money to ever pay for the costs of the locomotive itself, not to speak about the tracks, carriage or the personnel that had to run it all.


    The only way in which this train could turn profitable, was either for me to use it in order to spread my products even further at a much smaller cost, opening new markets that I could dump my old and outdated products on orˇ­


    "But while what I said holds true, there will be a way for the craftsmen and merchants to strike a deal, allowing them to use the train to transport their wares! From today on, any city that will become the host of the train will be forced to lift their private taxes, allowing for the quick and fast exchange of goods across the entire country!"


    This was the only way, outside of my own usage, for this train to ever pay its down costs down. Use the middle class that could actually make a huge profit by using the train to transport their wares. Just like it was the case with every single of my projects so far, I could earn from it only if the entire situation would turn out to be a win-win for both me and the parties that would be interested in using it!


    "Anyway, this will be all for today. As I was summoned to the castle, I will have to ask you guys to make way for me!"


    Gesturing at some of the folks in the cart with my hand that was still hidden behind the cart''s wall, I ordered the few people that served as my escorts to descend from the train along with me.


    "That won''t be necessary."


    To my surprise, just as my feet touched the bricks that were used as the floor for the train station, a huge commotion appeared nearby, before the entire crowd parted aside, making way for a huge military detachment of the city guards.


    Considering how I was invited to the city, I didn''t need to worry about being imprisoned. Not after being falsely accused and treated as a traitor once. And that could only mean that someone in the senatorial hall was smart enough to understand what kind of crowd my train would gather, making it nearly impossible for me to actually get to the city!


    "Welcome back in Krakow, sir Mike."


    Coming up to greet me, Rafael finally showed himself, explaining how could this greeting party be both so grand and so late at the same time.


    "It''s good to be here, even if I arrived only for a single day."


    Before, moving between any of my lands and Krakow, required at the very least, an entire day dedicated to travelling alone. But that would not be the case from now on. While only Krakow and Tarnow had their stations finished, thanks to the early finish of the open-hearth furnace, the number of rails that was produced for the train-tracks allowed my workers to reach the point where the city of Sandomir would be added to the list!


    With how I was currently its official governor, establishing another trading hub that would be well-connected both to the governor''s seat of power and New Tarnow, would be a piece of the cake. In fact, the place that was suitable for this effort was already picked, and the materials were slowly stockpiled in the area for the sake of construction!


    "While it''s a pity that your visit will be so short, it is still good that you managed to show up. There are some rumours that reached the senate, so the rest of the old folks wanted to have aˇ­ rather unpleasant talk with you."


    Hearing Rafael words, I couldn''t help but grin while cursing in my mind. There was only one thing that they could be angry about, and it was my military plans leaking out. And as good as it was in a tactical sense as it was an opportunity for me to reinforce the fake news that we passed to the spy we ''accidentally'' allowed to run away, at the same time it meant that Ostros still had someone backing them up in the senate!


    But no matter how much I racked my brains about it, I was unable to find even a single powerful noble family that stood to gain anything from siding with the traitors!


    Given all my investments in the military, both in terms of constantly recruiting more and more people and in terms of the equipment that every single soldier of mine carried, it was given that sooner or later, Ostros would lose the conflict. With how they had the foundation of their power clearly defined, as soon as I would either gather force big and strong enough to deal with them or find a way to uproot their strength with some other, less typical means, then the era of their household would come to an end.


    But what worried me, was how that didn''t mean that all of my enemies would be finally dealt with!


    "Don''t worry, I didn''t expect the road to the Castle to be layered with flowers. And with that said, can you lead the way? As comfortable as this train is, moving around is still quite bothersome for me."


    Despite how Rafael was slowly turning out to be one of my supporters, I wasn''t really in the mood of talking with him right now. Rather than this matter being another piece of a political game which I had to partake in by becoming a huge figure in the country, I simply preferred to enjoy the time in the capital with my wife!


    "Sure, but I will tell that again. Be prepared for what is about to come."


    Once again teasing something that was about to come, Rafael didn''t bother me any longer, moving to the front of the column formed by the city guards.


    "Let''s go."


    Finally free to move freely around, I turned my head to Elia, before grabbing her arm under mine and following the steps of that friendly senator.


    In just a few, quick moments, we moved from the place that wasn''t even within the city walls towards the castle itself. Recalling the future times that I spent in this place, I could even remember which number of the tram I would have to take to cover this distance within just a few minutes. But even despite Rafael''s warnings, I didn''t expect the atmosphere at the castle to be so solemn!


    Just by crossing the gate I knew that something was wrong. At least, with my people still accompanying me, I didn''t need to worry about some kind of plot aimed at stealing either my life, health or property, as even the small number of ten of them would be far more than enough to cut open a way of escape for my group.


    With this strange atmosphere still bothering me as I moved through the corridors of the place, I finally reached the senatorial hall, where to my surprise, every single seat was already taken. But as if that wasn''t enough, there were four more people already gathered in the main hall of the place!


    "Welcome, sir Mike."


    With the group nodding their heads with respect, I realised that something was really wrong. If they were willing to show their respect to me just like that, I realised that something huge had to happen!


    "To keep the matters short, we decided that our former king failed to fulfil the promises he made, as such, failing to respect the contract that he signed the moment he was given the throne. As such, new elections will be formed. And besides the candidates that you can see in front of you, you were chosen to take part in the incoming fight for the crown!"

 291 Rules of the election

    14th September 1574


    "Excuse meˇ­ What?"


    Hearing the announcement of the Primate, I wasn''t sure whether I was just hearing things, or maybe if someone accidentally managed to drug me up with some kind of powerful hallucinogens. Either way, to believe in what I just heard, meant reevaluating every single aspect of my both internal and external politics!


    "Let me say it once again. The five of you were elected as the Royal candidates for the Commonwealth''s throne. As long as you manage to win the elections, you will be ordained as the King of Commonwealth, leading our glorious nation to the prosperityˇ­"


    Just as the primate had to take a short breath before continuing, one of the men that were standing in the middle of the hall with me, stepped up.


    "But? There is bound to be some kind of catch in it, isn''t it?"


    Looking at the man''s profile, I couldn''t help but think that he had somehow a familiar look. At one hand, I was sure that it was my first time meeting him in person. But by delving deeper into what my soul was screaming, I was one hundred percent sure, that I had some type of connection to him!


    "Well, it couldn''t be that easy, could it?"


    As the primate answered the question, his lips blossomed in a huge smile. Standing up from his simple chair, the current crown''s regent approached the five of us with big strides.


    "While I called you candidates, in fact, you are more like candidateˇ­ candidates!"


    Dropping the unexplained bomb, the primate stepped back towards his own chair. Only when he comfortably rested on it, did he start speaking again.


    "Each and every single one of you will be given a mission. They are all aimed at fixing the current problems of the commonwealth. Only those who will manage to fulfil their mission will be able to participate in the election."


    With a nod of primate''s head, a group of five servants jumped towards my group, each of them passing their designed nobles a sealed piece of paper.


    "For the first two months, the context of your tasks will remain private. Whether you will be able to finish it or not, solely depends on you. But after this initial deadline passes, the missions will turn public for everyone. Do you understand the implications behind my words?"


    Once again, all that the primate offered to us was his wide smile. Yet, despite how kind his appearance was, I could tell how devious the intent behind his words was.


    "Once the missions become public, we will be able to hinder each other in an attempt to make sure someone else won''t be able to participate in the elections? Is that really the way to go? You said that our missions are strictly correlated to the problems that Commonwealth face right now, and you dare to pit us against each other with those problems as the background?"


    "I don''t think this is the case."


    As much as I disliked the politicians of all sorts due to what I saw in the future, I doubted that this strangely familiar man''s words were on the point. Even if every single senator here had their own aims and policies, I had little to no doubt that outside of the traitors like Ostros, they would still put the good of the country first and foremost!


    "If I may, I guess that once we fulfil our missions and the deadline pass, we will be able and encouraged to help others in fulfilling theirs. As long as we will be able to contribute enough, while the problem will be solved, the other person would lose its right to participate in the elections, right?"


    With this kind of approach, rather than ignoring the country needs for the sake of winning the election, one would have to strive to fix as much of its problems in order to not only eliminate the possible rivals but also for the sake of gaining more prestige that could help him win the elections. But as much as I hoped that this guess of mine would turn out to be right, I couldn''t help but wonder just how one''s participation would be judged?


    For example, I could already tell what kind of mission was written in the letter that I received. Even though the rewards for defeating the rebels were already set, given the time when the Senate came up with the rules for the election, if they wanted to assign any other mission to me, they would risk me ignoring the problem of the rebels altogether!


    But what would happen if one of the election participants took care of his mission right away, and sent a single soldier to help me to defeat the rebels and as such, fulfil my own mission? In theory, that would mean that I failed to fulfil my requirements of participation in the royal election myself, instantly disqualifying me, even if that solider would fail to contribute anything at all for the ultimate victory!


    "You are perfectly on the point, sir Mike. But you are missing one point. Rather than helping others to fulfil their mission in order to eliminate them, the proper election won''t start until all of the missions will be fulfilled. So, rather than eliminating others personally, if they fail to finish up their tasks and contribute to the end of the current, troubling times, those who will fail their missions in time will bear the mark of being responsible for the turmoil continuing!"


    Hearing those words, I only now realised how devious this plan was. In theory, it wouldn''t directly affect the outcome of the elections. After all, all the problems that troubled commonwealth were more bothersome towards the common folk than for the nobles, who would be the ones casting the votes. But just like with everything else, one couldn''t speak about one side of the problem without looking at the other one.


    Unless the common folk would feel safe and taken care off, their productivity and loyalty would take a dive. The longer the problems would exist, the harder it would be for the nobles to maintain their daily lives at the level they were used to. At some point, I could see how the entire swaths of the country would be covered in the flames of unrest, with commoners rebelling about their overlords, even if said nobles had nothing to do with the problematic situation that bothered those commoners!


    "I see. But, rather than just thanking for the opportunity and the honour of being chosen as one of the royal elects, I need to ask one more thing."


    It would be incredibly easy to just accept the reality and jump in joy at the sheer thought of such an easy way of becoming a monarch opening up right in front of me. After all, as long as I could get the crown on my head, fixing most of the country problems and improving its standing in the world would become far easier than doing the same while working from the bottom of the social and political ladder!


    But there was simply no way for me to just randomly agree to the situation, without properly understanding the terms that would bind us during the election! With how in the real line of the history every elected King had to sign two documents, one of the general laws that guaranteed the position of the nobility within the country and the other that summed up all of his personal obligations towards the commonwealth, I could tell that the terms for becoming the King during this election would be at least as harsh as they were in the original timeline of mine, if not even worse!


    "Go on, sir Mike. It''s best if all the doubts will be clarified right away."


    Nodding his head, Primate smiled at me. With our stares meeting each other, I could tell that this man already knew what I was going to ask!


    "Your excellency, respectable Senators and you, noble brothers. While being chosen as one of the potential Royal Elects is already a great honour, there are two things that bother me. First, what would be the terms of becoming a king for the one who would win the elections? And secondly, how did the process of picking the candidates looked like in the first place?"


    While the first question was rather obvious, it was the second one that was most important. Unless the entire country would accept the way in which the elections would happen, then becoming an elected King would be akin to plummeting the entire country into the fires of the civil war!


    "Let me answer your questions one by one."


    Standing up once again, the primate proved that he had a fair bit of theatrical talent. After all, his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear him even if he were to remain seated!


    "For the terms, it was decided that after seeing what happened with the previous selected royal candidate, the way of succession will change as well. Rather than opting for hereditary rule or elective monarchy, we decided that once one of you takes the throne unless two-thirds of the noble class decide against the hereditary of your personal rule, then it will be your heir that will inherit the crown. Yet, if the heavy majority of the nobility decides against it, then a group of royal elects will be chosen again, repeating the current way of choosing our king."


    Those words were directed to everyone in the hall as if to nail this point down. Looking at the way that some of the senators looked at the primate while he said those words, I could tell that not all of them were the supporters of the idea.


    "As for the terms of taking the throneˇ­ It''s fairly simple. The noble class will get the guarantee of its status, while all the wealth and lands of the elected noble would be merged into the lands of the Crown. That means, that as long as your new dynasty will be able to keep the throne, nothing much will change for you, but once your heir won''t be directly elected as the next King, all that your dynasty will keep will be a single selected town, village or city!"


    This time, those words managed to silence the entire hall. Because what they meant, was that although one could win the crown pretty easily, it would mean risking all the power that one''s family amassed during the past ages!

 292 Round-table meeting

    14th September 1574


    "This is bullshit!"


    Sitting down in a special chamber that the senate prepared for us, I could see the other candidates finally speaking up.


    "Why should we risk getting the crown if, in the end, it would ultimately bury our families? How are we expected to get the support from the rest of our household for that?!"


    Looking to my side, I could see one of the youngest participants in the royal election. His face all in red, his fist clinging down on the edge of the tableˇ­ Rather than answering his dumb question, I simply reached for the cup with my own beer that already became the luxury drink of the capital before taking a small sip of it.


    "On the other hand, who could''ve thought that we would get the chance to become the king? Anyway, it''s nice to meet you guys. I''m Jan Ossolin, of the Axe crest. It''s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir Mike. My father told me a lot about your exploits already!"


    While the Ossolin family was familiar to my memory as one of the powerful magnate households of the commonwealth, I had absolutely no idea what this young man was speaking about right now! How could his father know about my actions? How would he know about me, if I never heard about him?


    "Excuse me, sir brother, but would you mind telling me where did your respected father hear about me? With all the stuff that was recently on my plate, I have to apologise but I didn''t pay any attention to the people I was meeting with."


    Even though I was sure that I never directly met this man''s father, I still had to act as cultured as humanly possible. Even if I were to lose the elections, then one of the candidates sitting around this table would become the damned king! In fact, as long as I could find someone suitable, I wouldn''t mind giving him my full support in exchange for a free reign about installing all my investments and innovations across the country!


    After all, the crown itself didn''t have that much of allure behind it as one might think. Even while ignoring all the restrictions that the senate would place on the newly elected king, becoming the ruler still meant that rather than continuing my efforts at improving the country, I would have to dabble in the minute politics of balancing the power of each noble household, bother myself with both internal and external diplomacy, grant titles, judge the trailsˇ­


    In fact, reaching a position of the grey excellence behind the King would give me way more opportunities!


    "Ah, I don''t mind it at all! In fact, my father always laughed how even the governor would have a lot of trouble trying to find you in order to meet you, sir brother!"


    Suddenly laughing up, the young man hit his hand against the table in a moment of typical polish joy. If not for the fact that I raised my cup in a timely matter, just the vibrations of the table would be sure to spill some of its delicious content!


    Only now did I realise just who the heck did that man was speaking about. While Jan Bone was Sandomir''s governor, it was apparently his father that was responsible for managing the local fortress along with several small villages attached to it! But thinking about it now, didn''t it mean that Jan''s father was already on the frontlines?


    "So that''s the case. I guess he must''ve had a lot of fun watching how the entire area was changing due to my investments."


    Nodding my head while bringing my cup forward, I toasted to the fellow noble before taking a huge sip to flush the dirt out of my throat.


    "Are you done chit-chatting now? Don''t you fucking realise how important this meeting is?"


    Suddenly, our pleasant conversation was broken by the same guy that was trying to start the rant before. Calmly raising my sight at him, I took another sip before putting my cup down on the table and standing up.


    "Fellow brothers, if that''s the man that''s chosen as the royal candidate, I have no choice but to start to doubt the sensibility of this entire event. How would our country look like in the eyes of others if he got insulted during a diplomatic ball and acted as he does now?"


    While I was already close to deciding against aiming for the crown myself, that didn''t mean I shouldn''t at least try to decrease the number of rivals that could compete against the candidate that I would choose to support!


    "Youˇ­!"


    Flaring up due to my words, the young man stood up, openly placing his hand on the handle of his sabre.


    "What, are you going to attack an injured man? Is that how much your noble honour amounts to? Or are you going to act like that every time nobles won''t agree with you after you would potentially become the ruler?"


    Those few words were enough to make this unknown young man to shut up, focusing on gripping the handle of his weapon to the point of the bones of his knuckles showing up under his skin.


    "Okay guys, calm down. We are not here to argue, but to discuss the situation."


    Standing up, the same man that struck me with how familiar he looked, stopped the argument before I would be forced to use my handgun to stop that young idiot advances. Just this alone was enough to prove that this man looked at the situation not from the point of his personal gain, but by focusing on what was the best for the commonwealth.


    After all, if he were to be super calculative about it, then escalating this conflict would bring him far more benefit. Not only would at least one of us most likely die, but the other one would be quickly disqualified from the elections for killing the other candidate, limiting his rivals to just two more! But as doing so would mean that two of the missions would lack someone who would be determined to fulfil them, this man still stepped out!


    "You might not hear about me, so let me fix that situation right away. I''m Lew Sapieh, of the Fox crest. My family might not be as great as yours, so you could say that I''m risking the least amount of wealth in case of becoming the king, but with how I managed to triple the general worth of my possessions, not to speak about taking nearly all of the governing titles in my region, I dare to say that I''m just as qualified to stand in this room as the rest of you are."


    Only when I heard the name of this man did I realise just where the heck did this strange feeling of familiarity came from.


    That''s because I saw the pictures of his grandson all over the history books in the parts detailing the beginning of the fall of the commonwealth!


    As for the Lew himself, he was kind of a legendary figure. While not being a founder of the household by any means, the deeds that he just detailed would normally be just a small part of what he managed to achieve in the original timeline.


    By amassing nearly every single important position in the great Lithuanian princedom, this man managed to singlehandedly wrestle his family''s way up to the very top of the noble''s social ladder, to the point that in just a bit over a hundred years, one of the most disastrous commonwealth civil wars would erupt against the overwhelming dominance of his grandson, holding nearly every single important function and title within the borders of the Lithuanian princedom!


    Yet, for this man today, I could tell that outside of being a great politician, he was also an insanely efficient governor, capable of far more than what he just flexed about himself!


    "It''s a pleasure to meet you, sir brother. While I''m only meeting you now, the tales of your exploit already found their way to my ears in advance."


    Hearing my words, a small blush appeared on Lew''s face as he sat back down on his seat.


    "With that said, can we focus on the current situation? If I may, the terms that the Senate offered for the election are really restrictive for the soon-to-be king. As such, I assume that some of you might decide to pass on this opportunity, unwilling to risk your family''s wealth for that. If that''s the case, then please, step up and claim so, so that the rest of us could learn what your mission is, and solve it before it would uproot the stability of the entire country!"


    With this speech, I confirmed one thing. Not only was this man a great administrator, but he also appeared to be a true patriot in the age where this kind of feelings was scoffed upon. Unless it was all a play aimed at improving his own position, then I could tell that I found someone that I was willing to support on his way of reaching for the crown!

 293 Declaring intentions

    14th September 1574


    "Step up then. Let us know who is really interested in taking part in the elections!"


    Seeing how the lead of the meeting was quickly slipping away from his hands, Jan suddenly stood up, announcing his intentions.


    "Since that''s the caseˇ­"


    Following the sudden takeover of the leading role of the meeting by the young Ossolin, the last of the candidates that so far remained mute, entered the fray. Due to how relatively inactive he was so far, I didn''t really pay any attention to him. That was one of the advantages of the current times over the future. Here, if I was late to do or think something, nothing really bad would happen because of this!


    Rather than losing the chance of promotion due to a business client slipping from my grasp back in my times when I operated in a huge corporation, here, I could just calmly take my time to analyze the entire situation. Who would be able to say that this more toned-down approach wasn''t better? Instead of making the hasty decisions or judgments due to the pressure of time, taking one''s time to come to a proper conclusion seemed to be a far more effective way of acting!


    "I can''t take the responsibility for burying my entire family, nor can I compete with the achievements of yours. As much as it pains me to ignore such a great opportunity, I will have to remove myself from the elections."


    Contrary to my expectation and wishes, it wasn''t the mute man who spoke up. Seeing what kind of opponents he would have to face, the young man who I made fun off earlier, placed his letter on the table before sitting down, pulling a small knife from behind his belt and cutting the envelope open.


    "Form two thousand men strong unit and establish a defensive position on the left bank of Berezen river."


    Uneceremonialy pulling the content of the paper package out, the young man read its content aloud, officially putting an end to his chances of becoming the king. Right now, as long as even a single fellow candidate were to pay any mind, preventing the young noble from accomplishing his task on his own would be as easy as killing one bird with ten stones!


    In fact, while his act of dropping out could be considered as an official resignation, no one would be as dumb as to trust his word on that. Not only it would be insanely hard for the young noble to report this act to the senate, as it could easily turn into a huge burden on his household''s prestige soon after, no one would ignore the chance that this notion was nothing more but an act of a clever play, aimed at making everyone else forget about his existence. After all, as long as all four of us believed in his words, then this young man would be able to finish his task in peace, without even a single one of us attempting to help him before it would be too late!


    "I will, obviously, participate."


    "While my family does not owe as much as you guys, even if that could be considered to be a hit on possible growth of Crown''s authority if I were to win, I can assure you that as long as I will be given the chance to repeat the same economical miracle that I created in those few lands that I do own, our country will benefit much more than just by claiming your fortunes for the Throne!"


    As kind as this man''s behaviour was, one would be grossly mistaken if he were to treat him lightly. The fact that he acted politely, didn''t mean that he lacked a hand full of ace cards that I could bet he wouldn''t hesitate to use!


    "So will I. With all due respect, sir brother, I do not believe in my chances of winning the elections, nor I will particularly care if I were to lose, but this chance is simply too great. And let''s not forget the fact, that I hope to learn a fair bit from competing with such great statesmen like you!"


    On the other hand, young Jan was literally brimming with optimism, as if just the chance to take part in this huge event was enough of an honour, with the opportunity of claiming the crown for oneself being nothing more than a cheery on top of the cake.


    "I will partake in the elections as well."


    Finally given the chance to speak, the mute man didn''t hesitate even for a second to put his few cents. Just this alone was enough for me to understand how tough opponent he would be if I were to go against him. It was a commonly known technique in the future. People in groups would tend to remember the first, the second and the last person speaking about the topic. It was simple conjecture with the first person opening a question, second one answering, then everyone else would input their own views on the mater, and only the last person would be able to leave the lasting impression due to their unofficial duty of concluding the topic.


    By forcing his turn of speaking to be the second to last, he made sure that he would achieve exactly what he did with his behaviour so far. Those people wouldn''t pay him that much mind. What''s more, thanks to the course of the discussions so far, everyone at the table had a rough understanding of everyone''s position. Starting from the young man who dropped, he proved to be not skilled enough to be even considered for the role of the king. Then came two short exchanges between me and both Jan and Lew, allowing the entire group to at least gauge our opinions on the entire matter. But as for the last man?


    In fact, I didn''t even know his fucking name!


    "To be frank, sirs brothers, I would like to have a personal and private talk with each and every of those who decided to participate. Truth to be told, I don''t really have any interest in the Crown. Ah, and don''t get me wrong!"


    Seeing the sudden changes of literally every single face that surrounded me, I could tell how I managed to stun everyone with this revelation of mine. While I had to admit that picking the second to last spot was smart of this one guy I name didn''t know, I wasn''t going to let go of the advantages of putting the memory of my own stance into everyone''s heads!


    Yet, I still had to tone down the revelation a bit. With how I said my part, it was pretty easy for the others to misunderstand my intentions. While the first to drop out was a man who not only didn''t have any real chances or qualifications to become the king, but he also couldn''t guarantee that his household would support his attempts due to the risk involved, I had no such excuse. Calling my act of holding back my answer to be caused by lack of interest could be pretty easily interpreted as the lack of interest in solving the country problems!


    "I do not mean to say that I won''t take part in the elections, but at the same time, I''m not going to say I won''t. No matter what mission is written down on my envelope, I will strive to perfectly fulfil it. But before I will be able to tell whether I want to participate in the elections or not, I need to make sure that you guys would be even worse choices for the King than me!"


    By putting the matter in this way, someone stupid might feel insulted, but the men around me were far past this point of intelligence. What I basically said, was admitting that I didn''t believe myself to be suitable for the role of the king, putting myself down rather than the others!


    And it was granted that I would do my best to find this one candidate who could find the perfect balance before securing my own interests with his policy along with supporting the country in a realistic way! While becoming a grey eminence behind the court would allow me to expand my ideas, innovations and influence far further than what even my greatest dreams allowed me so far, if the country would have to pay a steep price for me achieving that position, then it would be ultimately all for nought.


    Because in my current position, as long as I would manage to defeat the Ostros, then turning my current power and wealth into the powerbase for my future household would take me a year at most. By forcefully stalling the development and expanding not in terms of innovations but constant and competitive production, I could ensure that my descendants would be able to comfortably live off the fortune I''ve built while adding another powerful pillar of strength for the country. But if I were to push my opportunities to the limit and achieve greatness at the cost of the country, then I would still be stuck at the position of someone powerful enough to influence the inner politics, but too weak to oppose anyone who managed to gain the control of any of the neighbouring countries!


    "I understand. Since that''s the case, how about you start with me, sir brother?"

 294 Change of mind

    14th September 1574


    "So, what''s in your envelope?"


    Sitting down in one of the rooms that were built beside the train station of mine, I stared at the enclosed piece of paper that I held in my hands. Even with Elia''s probing, I was quite hesitant to open it.


    Thinking about this from external point of view, I had nothing to be stressed about. Not only I was already certain that I won''t even take part in the elections, in fact, I already knew whose candidature I was going to support!


    In the end, while I still thought that this one, mute candidate had any chance to fight for my support with Lew, during the short meeting that I had with him, all my delusions were dispersed. Outside of huge political talent to manipulate the course of the discussion, there wasn''t almost anything that I could see in him as potentially profitable for the country.


    On the other hand, Lew had it all. From the great managing skills, through the huge amount of patriotism in his soul, all the way for the low initial position. Those three points were essential for anyone that wanted to earn my support.


    First, with how little his lands would contribute to the Crown''s position, I would be able to easily maintain his support. As long as my lands would keep bringing in increasing amounts of tax, he would have to swallow the huge degree of autonomy that I would trade my support for.


    But instead of treating it as something that he had to suffer through, his administrative skills would make it fairly easy for him to actually reforge it into one of his greatest ace cards! Even before the election proper could start, I could already tell that as long as he would do one simple thing, not only I stood to profit some kind of insane numbers, but the country as a whole would benefit greatly from it!


    And this was the third aspect that I looked for in the candidate that I would support. Patriotism. While this word was often overused or misinterpreted in the future times by the leftist propaganda that sourced itself from a book written by someone who was soo radical that he was expelled from the Soviet Union, in reality, it wasn''t as bad as one might consider this trait to be.


    Rather than focusing his mind on waging wars all around the country just to ascertain the dominance in the region, a true patriot would always look not for a ways to make life worse for other counties, but to improve the situation within the borders of one''s own country. Rather than glorifying wars like fascists would, a true patriot would consider war to be nothing more but an extension of the country''s politic, only affordable if there was either no other choice or if the other choices were simply too disastrous!


    Slapping the envelope on the small, wooden table bearing the marks of being made in my own wood factory, I threw myself back on the bed, attempting to regain my peace.


    "Should I open it myself, then?"


    Sitting beside me, Elia grabbed my neck and moved my head on top of her lap, gently caressing my hair. While I still wanted to allow the anger to power me up for a few moments more, feeling her delicate fingers brush against the skin of my scalp was a spell strong enough to completely eradicate my powerless fury.


    "Yeah, I don''t even want to see what''s in there."


    Given the situation, there was no way that I would be asked to do anything else but eradicating the rebellious Ostros. Given how much time has passed ever since the first batch of my newly formed troops left the city, in about two more weeks I would be able to muster between one and a half thousand and two thousand of soldiers, fully equipped with the basic arms and outfits, and two to three units of them could already use the heavy equipment of mine.


    That strength alone would be a huge overkill when it came to eradicating a single family, but given how strange they were acting both when the conflict started, during their siege of Tarnow and all the way to how they had yet to attempt anything during this period of an unannounced armistice, I didn''t want to risk everything I had just by thinking too lightly of them.


    "I guess it''s just like you thought."


    After a moment of hearing the paper being ripped apart and watching how Elia pulls the letter from the envelope, I could hear her words as her fingers continued to massage my head.


    "Deal with the ostros, maybe finish the train. Am I right?"


    There was no denying it. This kind of mission would deal a fatal hit to all of my plans so far. Given how we basically did our best to convince Ostros that we would attack soon, this mission would force us to change this fake play into a real one. And even if I knew that I was more than a ready to do so, it didn''t change the fact that it would only mean bigger losses!


    "Right on the point. You are supposed to kill those responsible for the treason and free all their lands from their rule. Quite harsh for our country, I have to say."


    I could tell from how her fingers tensed up on my head that Elia was pretty shocked by the second part of the order. Given how hight the position of the nobility was in the country, it was quite surprising to be allowed to deal with them in such a decisive and conclusive manner.


    At least, this meant that I would have one worry less on my head!


    "Anyway, now that you know what our mission is, would you care to tell me whether you plan to take part in the election in the first place? While I can see the Crown is far higher on the importance scale than fulfilling our own plan, I can''t help but be worried about this entire situation. After all, we did warn the Ostros about the impending invasion from our side!"


    Voicing out the same problems that were plaguing my mind, Elia inevitably managed to bring back my anger.


    "Don''t you think that I was acting a bit too mild?"


    With this sudden realisation striking me right in the heart, I raised from Elia''s lap and looked her directly in the eyes.


    "What do you mean?"


    Most likely confused by my sudden change of attitude, Elia looked at me as if a fish suddenly grew from the top of my head, and I started asking her whether she wants it salty or with herbs.


    "So far, I was so focused on doing everything that I could to develop my lands, that outside of investing in the military and propagating new ideas, I didn''t actually pull my own weight as the noble."


    Speaking this sentence more for the sake of clarifying my own thoughts rather than explaining it to my dearest, I turned around, put my hands behind me and leaned back as if hoping that this position would make it fairly easier to think.


    "I know that going to war won''t bring me many benefits, but I''m starting to realise now what''s the source of our current problems. If you were to name the three most burning problems of our lands, what would they be?"


    Rather than bringing my point directly, I preferred Elia to voice it out herself. While this kind of talking was something that I learned during my time as a telemarketer during the early times in the corporation I worked for, even after I advanced far higher to a manager of project that didn''t involve even a single phone annoyance, I still found it quite useful for nailing down important points I wanted to convey.


    "For the New Tarnow? It would definitely be the lack of charcoal, as the line of the forest is getting further and further away with each damned day. Then it would still be the lack of workforce, as we can''t pull new workers from the surrounding lands quickly enough to sate Colonial need for manpower, and lastly, it would be the lack of market for the high tier product of ours."


    Without even thinking about this, Elia quickly outlined the correct problems that I already wasted several nights to figure out a solution for. This only served to prove that despite how little people saw her around the place, she was still working hard to earn her place beside me as the head managerˇ­ woops, as the wife of the owner of the entire place!


    "You see, I see a single solution that would solve all of those problems, but for some strange reason, I was hesitant to even accept thinking about it."


    Standing up from the bed, I kneeled in front of Elia''s knees, grabbing both of her hands and planting a gentle kiss on top of them.


    "It''s a war. By taking over Ostros lands, we can get our hands on rich coal deposits, that would save the problem of fuel for our furnaces. By killing their household, we can force their servants into semi-slavery, sentencing them for long periods of forced labour, and finally, by showcasing the might of our war-oriented inventions, we can convince everyone just how much our civilian ones are worth!"

 295 To the war we go!

    19th September 1574


    "I know that your training was far shorter than we initially expected and wanted it to be, but even with that, you are already far above the necessary level to take part in the fight."


    Starting with the clarification of the situation for the new recruits still confined to the military area, I waited for a moment for the information to sink in. Compared to the officially sworn soldiers of the first batch that came out of this place, they still lacked a lot of training in terms of marching and other aspects that were highly important in terms of the infantry, yet when compared to the units that were already fighting on the frontline, they had even more training than them!


    And let''s not forget about the fact that this batch of recruits didn''t really need to know how to march properly! Given how the steam carriages factory was already operating in full swing, every single man that was standing in front of the small podium right now would always be travelling with their machine rather than dirtying their shoes by marching!


    "I know that it might feel overwhelming to finally got to war, but remember, this is what you signed up for, this is what you trained for and this is what you are bound to do for your own personal glory and the safety of the country we live in!"


    As soon as I returned from Krakow, rather than pushing them even harder in terms of training, I actually decided that allowing them one day of leave to spend their times with their families was a better choice. Every single recruit was coming from the class of serfs, making their lives so far quite miserable. By showing them the difference of what they had before and what they get by serving under me, I hoped to properly reinforce their morale and make them loyal towards the case!


    After all, nothing motivated soldiers in the current times more, than timely and generous pay!


    "So let me ask you this one question. Are you ready to earn your keep?!"


    Finally changing the tone of my voice from friendly uncle to a stern commander''s one, I shouted at the group of men lining up in front of the podium on which I stood.


    "YES SIR!"


    All at once, those new recruits responded with a uniform shout. Given how they already went through a month-long training, all the basics of discipline and military behaviour were already properly nailed into both their bodies and their minds.


    "I''m not going to ask you to give your lives for the case you will be fighting for. Rather than that, I want you to kill all those fuckers who will stand against us!"


    Using one of the few real-life quotes of the generals that stuck to my mind, I shouted at the group in front of me, still keen on reinforcing their morale. After all, whenever someone was going to a war or a battle, there was this one single thought that prevented him from fighting properly.


    Up until now, fresh recruits that were mobilised by the nobles of the country didn''t really have any other choice. They would be put in the middle of the formation, surrounded by either professional soldiers, mercenaries or nobles and given no simple way of retreating.


    On the other side, I didn''t have the luxury to force them into fighting like that. But on the other hand, the fact that each and every single one of them would take part in the battles not while on the ground exposed to anything that the Ostros cavalry would like to do with them, but behind pancer walls of the steam carriages with reaper gun in their hand, had to compensate for all of the laps in their training and discipline!


    "YES SIR!"


    Once again, uniformly responding to my call to arms, the lines of my soldiers pushed their chest up.


    "Then what are you waiting for? Mount the carriages!"


    Thinking about this, the recent success at obtaining the spring steel thanks to the open-hearth furnace was one of the absolutely best news that could reach my ears. In just a few days, all the war carriages were outfitted with the basic form of amortization, making them far more capable of traversing the hard terrain that the less developed parts of the commonwealth were filled with.


    But that didn''t mean that my carriages were free from problems. Right now, when they were fully stocked with provisions, ammunition, guns, crew and fuel, each of them could only travel up to one hundred and fifty kilometres, before the lack of fuel would force them to stop. For as long as it would take me to obtain an endless amount of coal that was far more efficient when used as fuel than the plain wood or charcoal, every hundred kilometres covered would be marked with forced stop, during which the crews would have to pick up the axes and get some wood from the surroundings!


    While this kind of tactic was sustainable in the forested areas of the commonwealth, once the crown would put its attention to the steppes, then my steam carriages would turn completely useless without the proper train supply line, capable of providing them with ample amounts of fuel!


    "YES SIR!"


    With this last shout, the orderly line of my soldiers broke up. With each of the group forming a small square and trodding away to man the vehicles that were already prepared for the departure behind them, I could finally step down from the pedestal and approach one of the few heavy carriages that the manufacturing area managed to finish.


    "Is everything ready, sir?"


    Sitting at the very front of the vehicle, one of the few nobles that joined my cause early enough for me to put my trust in him was holding the simple steering wheel.


    "Yes, we will be departing in a few minutes. For now, we will aim to reach the rallying point near the Lwow, where the rest of our army should be stationed. We are only waiting for one more person now."


    As great of the improvement in terms of the logistic the steam carriages were, they could only show their valid points once they started moving. The process of actually putting them into motion still required quite a bit of effort, stalling the departure for a short time.


    "I still can''t believe you are allowing me to take part in this missionˇ­ After the last blunderˇ­"


    Looking up from my seat, I saw that Peter finally has arrived. After our plan involving the use of the spies that came to this place with him, rather than returning to his own home, he decided to stay in this place in order to learn how the things worked here. Given how he was one of the descendants of the potentially one of the most important and powerful allies of mine, rather than trying to hide the effects of my lands from him, I even made additional efforts to make people go around and explain how things worked in the places that caught his interest!


    After all, most of the Ostros lands were relatively close to the Cherrio''s household domains. With how developed areas could only strive if there were other developed places that they could cooperate with, making sure that Cheerio would develop at least a fraction of the pace that my lands were growing at, was one of my long term strategic assumptions!


    "Just like with how we are teaching you about all the great things about industrial development, I want you to see how insane military power it offers to those who dabble into it. After all, what would be the point of becoming richer if you can''t project your power with it?"


    Given how Cheerio family would be involved in the private endeavours of Polish nobles in taking over the entire Russian tsarate just a few tens of years from now in the original historic timeline, making sure that they would grow in terms of the military could only make both me and the commonwealth as a whole profit.


    In the end, before the royal election would be over, it would be hard for me to manage the growth of my lands. Even the insane profits that my wood factory was generating thanks to the foreign trade, it was slowly turning to be far less than enough to support the constant growth of my lands.


    Only by finding someone who would kiss my foot for dumping all the stuff that was already obsolete for me, but useful for them, would I be able to realistically support the continuous and rapid growth of my private economy!


    "I see, that makes senseˇ­ To be honest, I can''t wait to see how great those inventions of your will prove to be right on the battlefield!"


    Hearing Peter''s words, I couldn''t help but smile. Given how we would observe the events from the safe insides of the heavily armoured carriage, it would be given how excited and calm he was!


    But rather than accompanying him on this trip to the dreamland of what would happen in the near future, I used the frame of the carriage to support myself as I raised from my seat and looked outside through the open hatch of the carriage. Seeing that the war carriages of mine were already properly manned and only awaiting my order, I smiled and got back to my seat.


    "Let''s go! The war is not waiting for anyone!

 296 One day away from the rebels

    20th September 1574


    "So, are you willing to sell or not?"


    "Come on, we both know that we are buying a lot, but it''s not like we need to buy from everyone!"


    "One gold is my last offer."


    This kind of sentences could be heard all around the town. With the train tracks now extending all the way to the great city of Lwow, it was given that this would be the rallying point for all of my troops.


    Starting with a thousand people strong force that was previously relocated to Tarnow, reinforced with mechanised troops that I just brought from the New Tarnow, leaving only basic guards to keep that place safe behind, all the way to the three hundred people strong unit of mercenaries that I recruited on the way, my combined forces were now reaching two thousand heads, giving me a huge chance at finally dealing with the problem of Ostros.


    But rather than rejoicing at the fact that this greatest headache of mine would be soon gone, I had to cough up more and more money with every step that my entire company moved forward. After all, even though war could bring great benefits to the winner, everyone knew that it was never a cheap endeavour.


    Even ignoring all the armnents, soldiers'' and mercenaries'' pension, the ammunitionˇ­ Even something as simple as the food was putting a huge strain at what my coffers could take!


    Yet, I was willing to go for such lengths. With the second and third open-hearth furnaces already well under the construction, it would only take a few weeks before I would be able to change what was the limiting factor of the construction of the train rails. With how in the span of just a few weeks my workers managed to connect the cities all the way from Krakow through Tarnow, Pilzno, Ropian to Premysl and Lwow, as long as it could be moved from the military effort to the civilian use, the amount of gold that would start flowing down to my coffers would greatly exceed any expense that I ever considered to be a burden!


    "Sir, at the current rate, we should be both well within our budget and the timeline designed for obtaining fresh food. If our estimates are correct, we should be able to depart with the sunrise."


    In most of the wars of the time, there was no such thing as peacefully obtaining the provisions. Rather than that, generals and nobles just couldn''t be bothered to waste their precious money on something as stupid, moving to more direct and forceful methods of obtaining food for their soldiers.


    But that was one of the elements that made their forces so weak and fragile. Living off the land could only go so far. Land that was one pillaged, would take years to recover, making it night impossible to lead a prolonged war on a limited territory.


    Yes, it was costly as heck. Just a single pig was enough only for a single meal for up to a hundred people, meaning that I had to pay twenty red goldens each day to make sure that all of my people were completely satisfied! But as generous as this kind of approach might seem to anyone else of this era, I still believed that this kind of investment would turn out to be worth.


    By nailing in this very basic manner to the head of my soldiers that when they were fighting properly, the level of their lives would improve by leaps and bounds, while they would still have to obey the strict discipline that ruled in my forces, they would be far happier to keep fighting than the force made of the people that would struggle to eat whenever on the campaign!


    "Good. Even with our carriages, I''m not as stupid as to think that we could travel through the night. If everything goes correctly, we should be able to arrive at Cheerio''s family lands in the next day, and start our siege right after!"


    Nodding my head to one of the coordinating logistic officers that used to be one of the development officers for New Tarnow colony, I was about to get back to the Inn where I aimed to spend the night, when purely military officer approached me, saluted and passed a simple envelope to me.


    "Sir, our spies managed to obtain a detailed map of the Ostros positions and embankments!"


    Hearing the news, I couldn''t stop myself from prying open the envelope and pulling out a simple sketch of a map, outlining the point that the officer just mentioned.


    "Good job. Make sure to take a rest before returning to your duties. Or you know what, give me a moment."


    Using the wall of a random building that just happened to be nearby as the handle for a small piece of paper on which I wrote several words, I stamped it down with this new stamp of mine that didn''t require lax to leave the mark before passing it back to the officer.


    "Take this to the warehousing area and get those scouts a standard bonus pay. If this map proves to be correct, they can be sure I will reward them handsomely."


    As much as I wanted to use the knowledge written down in form of simple images and marks on the letter I just received, I couldn''t ignore the possibility that it was just another form of disinformation. With how I was personally responsible for making Ostros prepare for our swift arrival, the chances that they would do everything in their power to introduce confusion to my camp were too high for me to ignore them.


    "Yes Sir!"


    Given how this officer was bound to be connected to the scout unit in some way, otherwise he wouldn''t waste his precious time just to pass the message if he could send any of his men to do so, my gratitude was bound to apply to himself as well, explaining why his face suddenly lighted up with excitement.


    "Now, with this thing, I guess I won''t get to rest early today."


    With all the organisational problems bothering me ever since we arrived at the Lwow''s outskirts, I barely had any sleep. Yet, no matter my still stinging injuries, no matter how tired I was, I had to make sure that everything that I could influence would be done and ready for the moment when we would finally depart to make our last straight before the real war with the rebels would start.


    Keeping that in mind, I left the city, directing my steps to one of the huge tents in the middle of the camp that my forces created right outside of the gate. Given how we had the official mission given by the senate, the city council didn''t really have any choice when it came to accepting a huge force of mine making a temporary camp just outside their gates!


    And to be fair, with how those rich merchants that managed this city reacted to the first appearance of the train, I could tell that if I told them to suck my dick off one by one, they would be more than happy to do so with the potential benefits that this train would bring to this city looming over their heads!


    "Everyone, I''m sorry for the short notice, but we managed to get the general idea on how the Ostros dispatched their forces. While I can''t be sure that it''s correct, nor that it won''t change in the time we will take to arrive at the scene, I still need you to work it all out to figure out the best way to deploy our troops."


    After just a few moments after I sent the messengers to gather the highest-ranking officers in my camp, I already had them all gathered around a simple table crafted from anything that happened to be at hand. Throwing the letter that I received a few moments ago on its surface, I sat down in one of the few luxurious items that I just had to take with me on this mission, a comfortable chair directly sent from the wood factory of mine.


    "Sir, if what we are seeing is true, then it doesn''t seem like we will need to alter our basic formations by much. With the light carriages creating a half-circle around their fortifications to stop any potential sorties, those few tanks that the factory managed to produce could outshine their own cannons with their improved range. In this way, we could force them to use the cavalry toˇ­"


    Halfway through the lecture of my own office, I already stopped paying any attention to what he was saying. Even though most of the equipment that would be used in the incoming battle was something created from the ideas that I brought, it didn''t mean that I was the one best suited to decide their deployment. With how long every single officer of mine had to work around those machines during their training, each of them knew their pros and cons way better than I did.


    Rather than thinking about how the battle would go, I just couldn''t help but feel a certain type of unsettling anxiety. Even though all kinds of logical thinking would put me in the chair of the winner tomorrow, I had to constantly clean my hands from the sweat as if my body was sending the alarming signals to my distraught mind.


    "One day away from the rebels, huh?"

 297 Sir! We are ready!

    22nd September 1574


    "This isn''t good."


    Looking at the enemy positions in the distance, I muttered to myself. The inevitable delay that caused my force to take one more additional day to arrive at the scene that initially expected, was just what the Ostros forces needed.


    "Sir, should we follow up the original plan?"


    Standing at the top of my heavy war-carriage, I continued to observe the fortified positions of the enemy. Given how they set their camp right on the road, I could tell from their lack of preparations against wide flanking that the terrain to both of their sides was untraversable.


    "God, no! They didn''t come here to fight us, they came here to sound off our army. Even the spy that we allowed to return to their lands never had the chance to learn about the true extent of what we can do, so it''s better if we keep it that way."


    Taking a moment to cope up with the surprisingly difficult situation, I shook my head before turning to one of my attendants.


    "Go and create a quick sketch of the enemy positions. Also, send a word to the logistic camp to reward the scouts that gave us the information. It seems that we gave those fuckers a bit more time than we could afford."


    Hiding back into the carriage, I took a moment to calm myself down before opening the hatch once again and using the helping hand of a random soldier that appeared in the vincity to get down to the ground.


    Given how we didn''t start the offensive right away, the soldiers instantly jumped to their own tasks of setting the camp and securing the perimeter. Despite the lightly armoured steam carriages being the perfect fir for creating the loose first line of defence around the camp, I didn''t dare to expose their existence yet. So far, I hoped that Ostros would believe that my greatest strength lied in those simple logistic carriages. Revealing the fact that my war cars were already outfitted with tracks rather than the wheels would give then enough hints to deduce the real use of those machines of mine.


    "Sir, the map is ready and the officers have assembled in the field headquarters, awaiting your arrival."


    As I strolled pointlessly through the field, trying to come up with some clever way to hide my ace cards without wasting the lives of my soldiers for that sole reason, one of the soldiers reported to me, announcing the end of my short break.


    Taking a look in the direction where the courier was pointing his hand at, I could see that a huge tent was already erected. Due to the sunny and cloudless weather today, it''s sides were pulled upwards, revealing the set of tables and figures littered all over the place, indicating that the officers of mine were already racking their brains off over the way in which we should crack this enemy position.


    Yet, only when I actually approached the place, did I realised what kind of disaster it was.


    "Everyone, calm the fuck down."


    As strange as it might seem, I was the person with the greatest war experience in the entire camp. While it amounted to surviving a single siege I commanded over, it didn''t change the fact that I alone held the burden of sending my people to their deaths on my shoulders.


    "Take a look at the map and explain what do you guys see."


    Sometimes, just voicing the situation out would give ones some clever ideas on how to cope with his problems. Outside of that, I wanted to make sure that what I saw with my own eyes, was actually the same as what my officers, who never learned about more modern ways of conducting warfare, perceived.


    "Right now, we are about two hundred meters away from the range of their cannons. While the road is unobstructed itself, the scouts already confirmed that Ostros set two huge artillery embankments on its side, aimed along with its profile."


    Taking a look at the table where servants were turning the simple sketch provided by the scouts into a proper model with figures and markings of the terrain, I could see what part of the enemy positions this officer of mine was speaking about.


    "I saw that it''s not obstructed by anything, so I can guess the enemy expects us to attract this apparent point. Doing so would only cause us to clog the road with the wreckage of our potential spearhead. Continue."


    While this way of attack was the most obvious one, I could tell that the enemy hoped I would fall for that apparent opening in their defences. Given how they learned about my logistical carriages, it was the natural to take precautions against an enemy using them as military force!


    "It''s not confirmed yet, but it seems that both the far flanks of their positions are naturally covered, disabling the option of just passing by them. Unless we can waste several days to make a detour, we have to go right through their position."


    Taking a quick look at the map showing bigger part of the area than just the positions of the two armies, I could quickly see how far we would have to go to reach a point from where we could actually attack. Not only that, but the closest road also leads through the Cherrio''s lands directly attached to the Ostros domain! Even though Cheerio didn''t have its representation in the Elections, I could be damn sure that doing so would cause those pricks at the senate to claim that I used their help to win, instantly sabotaging the position I hoped to achieve!


    "No, we can''t make any detours. As terrible as it is, we have to go right through them. What are the estimated forces of the enemy?"


    So far, I put this question for later, as in the current defensive setup, it didn''t really matter whether they had two hundred men or five hundred. Their entire position relied on the amassing artillery and protecting this thin passable bit of terrain with it!


    "The scouts reported that they have two proper banners of lancers and four companies of footmen, one of which is of the foreign hire."


    This one sentence managed to stop me from frantically looking for the solution of what seemed like an impossible battle. With Banner referring to about as many men as complain just that it was used in cavalry units, the report meant that Ostross gathered about three thousand men in this place!


    Even with their immense wealth, I honestly doubted that they could gather much more, especially with two extremely expensive banners of horsemen!


    "What are their positions?"


    Instantly putting all my attention to the nearly finished model of the battle positions, I could answer this question myself.


    "Two companies are manning the embankments on the sides of the road, two more are stationed behind the choke point. The cavalry is all amassed on their right-wing in reserve. But sir, there is still an important element of this plan, that''s not reflected by the model!"


    Just as I was about to push all the idle thoughts of mine aside and order my troops to go with the initial plan, after all, the officer''s words managed to stop me from doing so.


    "Speak."


    In this very moment, I felt as if I held the key to the future in my hand. The fate of the entire country and the direction in which it would go depended all from the single decision I had to make soon!


    "Stretching for over a hundred meters there is a set of intervening trenches. Even if we somehow manage to push through the range of artillery, our troops will have a hard time passing through those, all the while I can tell the enemy won''t stop shooting."


    Hearing this information, at first, I could feel my heart nearly stopping from the fright of what would happen if I recklessly ordered the attack. But just as I was about to enter the state of deep thinking, I recalled a scene from the Cry of Duty series.


    "How thick are those trenches?"


    Raising my eyes at the officer that so far, managed to answer all of my questions, I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins due to how important the answer to that question was.


    "About a meter wide and as long as half of each embankment."


    Hearing those words, I could feel the corners of my lips climbing up. Just to make sure I wouldn''t make another mistake, I moved out of the tent to eyeball the height of the embankments in the first place. Seeing that they were about two to three meters high, I realised that this battle would actually be easier than I could ever dream it to be!


    "Rally the troops. In the first wave, bring our cannons just close enough to keep them safe from the enemy artillery. Make them focus only the positions aimed at stopping the advance through the road and prepare the heavy war carriages to attack at moment notice. On the other hand, stuff as many footmen into each of the light carriages. Once the enemy focuses on our artillery, they will attack the embankments in the straight line!"


    Saying those words, I could see the faces of my officers whitening down, as the weight of those words suddenly made them think that I was sending our troops for the certain death.


    "Sir, but the trenchesˇ­"


    "Don''t worry about them. The soldiers are to move out of the carriages only after those won''t be able to climb at the embankments themselves! The basic carriage staff will clear the front of the embankments with their reaper guns, then the footmen will use the same embankments as the cover while clearing the rest of the garrison!"


    The scene that I remembered, was pretty simple. When the Russians were taking part in the urban fighting against the Germans, there was this one moment when the player would move through the trench as it started to apparently crumble. As it appeared, enemy tanks, way heavier than my carriages, could just ride over the trench, without even noticing that it was there in the first place! With how the back of my carriages was mounted with the reaper guns as well, they could be used to suppress the potential attack from the troops hidden in the trenches, while my soldiers would take over the embankments with ease!


    With my order now given, the entire camp stirred into action. In just a few moments, the carriages that were initially covered with all sorts of cloth and tents to hide them away were revealed to the world as more and more soldiers were stuffing themselves inside.


    Following my order to the letter, it only took a moment before nearly all of the carriages had a pile of useless furniture that was inside for the crew convenience sake in the first place lying beside them!


    "Sir, the heavy carriages are ready!"


    "Sir, the artillery is ready to advance!"


    "Sir, we can''t fit any more foot units inside, but outside of that, the light carriages are ready!"


    One by one, the different divisions of my army reported, putting the last few pieces of the puzzle together.


    Raising my head to the skies, I took a deep breath. From the commotion I just saw at the enemy positions, they were clearly conscious of our preparations, making sure they were ready themselves. But rather than worrying about this, I slowly exhaled the air while watching the skies in order to calm my throat and lungs down.


    "Attack."


    Dropping my head down, I waved my hand towards the observers, finally initiating my offensive against those pesky Ostros!

 298 Advance part 1

    22nd September 1574


    The Ostros shot first.


    It was hard to say what made them act like idiots there. Maybe one of the poorly trained fire-man slipped and pressed his igniting stick right on the special hole in the cannon, resulting in the first fire? Or maybe the same poor guy simply panicked when seeing my overwhelmingly big and coated in steel carriages pressing forward? Or maybe it was just an attempt to sap the morale of my forces right before the attack?


    Either way, whatever was the reason behind this, the projectile only managed to create a small ravine about two hundred meters short of the position of my spearhead, made with the heaviest war carriages that I had.


    Soon, the entire position of the enemy hid behind the quickly rising cloud of smoke, as the rest of the cannons followed suit. Once again, rather than a proper order, it was most likely caused by the chain reaction of people just aiming to shot only after the barrage started. Given how the scouts reported the type of the units that Ostros had under them, I doubted that even half of their combined army was properly managed by the officers!


    On the other hand, unbothered by the ongoing and slow barrage from the embankments, all five of my steam tanks pressed forward all the way to the point that was marked as the edge of the effective firing range of the enemy artillery. Given their height advantage, one might think that they would be able to shoot further and better. Thankfully, for the industrial power that stood behind the back of my army, this three or four meters of difference in elevation didn''t matter at all!


    "Raise the barrel! Forth notch, sixth-degree!"


    Thanks to the prolonged training of the officer''s voice, even standing good three hundred meters away from the place where the action was happening, I could still hear the piercing sound of the orders being shouted inside the safety of the thick, steel can.


    "Cannon ready!"


    This time, I had to properly strain my ears just to hear a faint hint of the soldier''s response.


    "Sir, what about their cavalry?"


    With all of our troops now readying for the fight, one of the officers that took part in the general meeting back in the headquarters tent ran towards my position before saluting and asking this unregulated question.


    "What about them?"


    Focusing my eyes on the thick barrels of the cannons embedded into the heavy war carriages of mine slowly raising to their designated position, I couldn''t really be bothered with someone annoying me right now. With just the mass of my troops and their equipment, once set in motion, changing their orders would be akin to voluntarily pushing them into a huge delay that could deconstruct our entire attack!


    Taking a look at the distant enemy positions, I had to imagine how they looked like with the thick smoke made of burned gunpowder covering them as some kind of smokescreen of the future times.


    "You might be rightˇ­"


    Given how focused I was on overcoming the greatest hurdle of the battle that was now in its opening phase, I actually made the mistake. I ignored the greatest and mobile strength that the enemy had!


    Two banners strong of cavalry, meaning, about a thousand men strong force that entire commonwealth always prided itself with!


    "Take ten of the light carriages from the reserve and deploy them on our right flank. Make them stand sideways to the rest of the camp and bring additional ammunition to them. In the case of the attack, they will be our main and last line of defence. Sadly, I can''t afford any bigger changes right now."


    Just like I said, as I was talking with the officers, the line of the light carriages stuffed to their brims with the soldiers was now starting its raid. With the enemy artillery still trying its absolute best to rain fire on their path, one might think that this few hundred meters that separated their starting positions from their target would turn into a hell of killed soldiers and broken machines.


    In fact, I couldn''t blame anyone for thinking that, given how slowly those overburdened carriages were moving right now!


    But it all changed once they entered the range of effective firing of the enemy artillery!


    BOOM!


    As if dolls coordinated by the agile hand of the theatre master, the salvo of my five powerful cannons could be taken as the sign for the attack. With a huge cloud of smoke suddenly erupting from the small chimneys hidden at the back of the light carriages, all of them burst forward, as if the angels themselves were pushing them towards the enemy lines!


    "Sir, the first line is advancing! Should we send the second one right away?"


    Given how hard those carriages were to manoeuvre while moving at high speed, they all had to be spaced away from each other, as to prevent any crashes.


    "No, keep them to the moment when the footmen will take their position and then reinforce. We need them to pass the message to bring back now empty the first line back."


    Despite how this entire battle was taking place on land, it had some sides that made me compare it to the legendary scene of landing at the Omaha beach from the Colonel Ryan movie. Once the war carriages of mine basically crashed against the steep slope of the embankments, the reaper guns would cover all of their surroundings with the hail of bullets, sweeping all the stupidly courageous soldiers of the enemy from their places!


    Only after the closest trench and the front of the enemy fortifications were declared to be emptied out from the resistance, the sides of the war carriages started to open. One by one, the footmen swarmed out of the light carriages, splitting into two groups. Half of them jumped into the closest trench to clear it out from the possible remaining soldiers of the enemy, attempting to establish a fall-back position for the other group.


    At the same time, the advance force climbed the steep, sandy slope, only stopping about a meter below its edge. With the reapers guns quickly making a short work of anyone who dared to approach it, as soon as the machine-gun fire stopped, my troops, reached the edge and used it as the support for their rifles.


    "Push the second line in!"


    Seeing how my men managed to secure a foothold, I instantly ordered the next line of attack. Despite how efficient my guns were both in terms of quickly clearing large swaths of crowds and in shooting anything that dared to move within the trenches, in less than just a few minutes, the barricades were taken!


    "Sir, the enemy cavalry is moving!"


    As soon as the rest of my light carriages moved in against the line of enemy trenches, a report came. Taking a quick look at the place where the enemy units were bound to appear, I could only curse at the lack of communication.


    If only I had a radio in every single carriage of mine, I could just halt the right-wing of the second wave, putting them perfectly lined up along the path that the enemy cavalry would have to take in order to attack!


    Sadly, that thinking belonged to the dreams. Without the radio-communication, I was forced to watch how in just few moments, a thousand strong unit of enemy best troops raced down the cleverly hidden path, quickly approaching my camp!


    "Reserve carriages, open fire!"


    With how congested that small path was, Ostros could give my gunners a better present. Even though the distance at which they started shooting was quite away from what they were trained to shoot at, even if a pulled were to miss someone that the gunner aimed for, there were still multiple lines of enemy perfectly lined up behind him!


    "Move the fire of the artillery at the throat of that path!"


    Aiming with my hand at the small opening in the left wing of enemy embankments, I quickly moved the suppressing fire of my cannons on it. With how the battle was developing, even the soldiers that were freshly arriving at the front line, quickly noticed the commotion, dropping the idea of climbing the fortifications and just turning to the side to shoot at the orderly lines of enemy cavalry!


    In such a crowd, every bullet hit.


    By the time the enemy commander realised that this suicidal charge wouldn''t even get the time to properly spread and execute a charge, nearly a third of the enemy elite units was already dead!


    "Continue with the advance, heavy war-carriages on the road to make a spearhead!"

 299 Advance - part 2 - Trench war

    22nd September 1574


    I would love to say that with the take over of the embankments, the battle was basically over. Sadly, that was not the case.


    Just as the heavy war-carriages were about to begin their slow crawl towards the now safe opening, a single light carriage returned from the frontlines, instantly blocking their advance. The next moment, an officer whose name I couldn''t even recall jumped out of the vehicle, spriting his way towards the headquarters.


    "Sir! Urgent report!"


    Falling on his knee the moment he arrived before my face, proving that he already had some military experience prior to joining my forces as no regime in my forces declared any need for such useless and unpractical formalities.


    "Speak."


    Given how his entire uniform was completely covered in the smoke, earth and blood, I could tell that this man participated in the fight at the very front of the formation. Given that, his news were bound to be from the very first line of the battle!


    Yet, even with that, the fact that he blocked the advance of my heavy war-carriages, even if his news would prove to be essential to winning this battle, he would have to be punished. If this kind of gross discipline breach were to go unpunished, who could even imagine how would my soldiers start acting?


    After all, the army was supposed to listen to the orders, not report every single thing and take actions themselves! The size of this man''s punishment now only depended on how really important the news he brought was!


    "The embankments that we saw and expected are not the only one! When we managed to create a hole in the lines of the enemy, I managed to see that about a hundred meters behind them, there is at least two or maybe even three more lines of the fortifications, all manned by artillery crew!"


    In this one moment, I realised just what kind of disaster this single officer managed to prevent from realising!


    The first line of defences that were aimed at stopping anything that would dare to set foot on the road, was destroyed. This fact was confirmed by the scouts, lookouts and the calculated outcome of the long bombardment that lasted through the entire first phase of the battle. This was also the reason why I dared to push my machines forward, hoping to use them as the mobile fortress that would support the advance of my troops, while gnawing away at any enemy who would dare to set his head away from the fortifications.


    But if this plan were to come to the fruition, then the second line of enemy embankments would made a short work of my war carriages, successfully achieving their target of blocking the road!


    Unless I would find a way to push the light carriages over the first and every single next embankment, then I would have no other choice but to take over those places one by one, with a costly push of the infantry devoid of any heavy support!


    Giving the first and most important order, I took a look at the officer that brought the report.


    "For now, you will remain here. From one side, the news that you brought might be crucial to the outcome of the battle, but from the other side, you broke the disciplinary regime, preventing my orders form being executedˇ­ I will need to find a way to treat you justly, so it''s better if you will just remain here. Men, bring him some water and tend to his wounds!"


    Pushing the matter of this officer away from my head as soon as two nearby servants jumped at him and helped the man to walk to the back of the tent, I took a look at the situation, trying to imagine how it really looked like.


    "Send the messenger to both wings of our attack. They are to make sure the first line of defences is cleared out, but once the enemy starts retreating, they are to do the same. Make them use the steep walls of the embankments as the cover, those who won''t fit are to go back on the light carriages."


    The new outline of the enemy fortification that I quickly created on the model by shifting several pieces around, gave away what kind of tactic they were most likely about to use. Rather than trying to win the battle itself, they just wanted to turn it into a war of attrition, retreating to the next line of defence whenever the last one would be breached!


    But as great as this could work against the standard army, used to the grand battles that would resolve the conflict in the first place, this kind of approach was pretty useless against my own force!


    "Once the carriages go back, send two of them to the Lwow at the max speed. They are to contact the train station and request a huge delivery of the artillery ammunition. This won''t be a quick battle, so we need to be prepared to fight it for as long as it will be necessary!"


    If Ostros wanted me to kill my own army in the set of prolonged fights for one position after the another, I would do exactly the opposite. While I was pretty sure that even as I was thinking about the countermeasures to their approach, the reserve forces of my enemies were busying themselves with digging new embankments and trenches, it didn''t really matter in the long term.


    Given how at least the first three obstacles were made with just the embankments alone, with the trenches serving as nothing more but a way to slow the advance of the footmen, then the true battle wouldn''t be about the number of people that either side could throw into the melting pot. It would be all about who would run out of their artillery first!


    But what actually worried me to no end, was how closely this kind of tactic resembled the worst type of conflict that Europe ever saw. Worst, in terms of the military casualties and the length of the war.


    Trench war.


    What was supposed to be a swift conquest performed by Germans, turned out to be a prolonged battle, nearly a year-long, over an unimportant city of Verdun. And I couldn''t allow to repeat the mistakes made by the commanders of both sides back in what used to be my past.


    With the orders given, my soldiers executed them surprisingly swiftly. As soon as the orders arrived at the front of the battlefield, I could see my forces instantly turning around and retreating to the line of the embankments, as if the devil himself was chasing them from the other side.


    This kind of quick reaction was quickly explained, with how the last units that were the first to advance, suffered front he first salvo of the enemy second line!


    Once the dust and smoke cleared out enough, I could finally see what the officer was talking about. With my soldiers lying down on the top part of the embankments, as about half of them was working tirelessly to turn the nearest trench into loose earth that they used to create a simple ramp for their friends to comfortably stand on, there was only about a hundred meters of relatively free space, before the next line of enemy fortifications emerged from the ground!


    Given how many cannons they wasted on their first front, I would normally assume that every next frontline they would defend would severely lack the proper artillery support, yet, the reality once again decided to show me its bottom instead of its cute face.


    "Sir, the battle has stalled!"


    At this point, I was too focused on trying to figure out whether my plan would work out or not, to actually get annoyed at one of the assistants reporting something that I saw with my own eyes.


    "It will all boil down to who will be able to keep their artillery goingˇ­ Bring me one of the logistic and one of the artillery officers at once!"


    I wasn''t a military expert. If I wanted to know if the plan that was slowly taking root in my mind was feasible, then I had to consult those who were better versed in the topic than me. Rather than pretending to be the ace of everything, relying on the experts in their respective field was always more efficient!


    "On your order, sir!"


    Just a few moments later, two men reported to my position, this time properly saluting with two fingers to their temples.


    "The first question goes to you. If our tanks were to position themselves behind the cover of the embankments that we control right now, will you guys be able to shoot at the next line of Ostros defence?"


    That was the main point that my entire plan relied upon. Given how relatively short the distance between two armies was, the better quality of my own artillery and guns didn''t play the role anymore. Kudos or the enemy general for figuring out a way to make my greatest advantage useless. But what if we were to use my cannons in the way the mortars worked?


    "Sirˇ­ That would require an extensive groundwork, as the cannons cannot be raised at a high enough angleˇ­ But yes, it will take some time but we can get into the position to shoot safely at the enemy."


    Nodding in response to the satisfactory report of the artillery officer, I turned my head to the soldier responsible for the entire logistic of my camp.


    "How long will our artillery ammunition last?"

 300 Advance - part 3 - Pincer attack

    22nd-23rd September 1574


    The sound of the constant artillery exchange between the two sides was the only thing that accompanied my troops when the sun started to set.


    At first, it was hard to say which side had the advantage. Due to their elevated positions, Ostros cannons managed to overcome the qualitative difference between themselves and my own big guns, forcing me to go with the mortar tactic. And that meant, that for the most of the time before all the preparations would be done, my tanks only pretended to aim at the enemy, adhering to the old military rule.


    The man shoots, but it''s the God who carries the bullets.


    The groundwork necessary for the first step of the plan was far greater than I initially imagined. Rather than just riding at high speed against the enemy embankments after the angle of approach would be softened a bit, my soldiers had to basically dig up a special line of small trenches, in which my artillery would be able not only to ride all the way up to reach the necessary angle but also making its foundations strong enough so that additional support that prevented the tanks from sliding down could be mounted.


    And with that said, only right before the midnight, all five of my artillery positions were finally ready.


    Four of them were split to both wings, easily capable of wreaking direct havoc all the way up to seventh or maybe even eight trench as long as the spacing between them was more or less even. That allowed me to push those work-hardened soldiers to start creating the proper groundwork for the attack that would come soon.


    Only by the dawn of the twenty-third of September did I finally receive the report that I waited for.


    "Sir, the gatehouses are finished, the scouts reports the huge casualty rate in the enemy lines. While it''s not yet confirmed, it seems like Ostros moved most of their troops to the third line of defence, leaving only the skeletal crew in the current artillery target!"


    This was perfectly reasonable. That is, in the situation when both sides could only shoot properly for as far as the nearest trenches go. In my case, just by wasting a few rounds of artillery, my tank crews could fix their calculations and wreak havoc on the third, fourth or sixth enemy line. The problem was, once they would do it for the first time, the element of surprise would be gone!


    "Good, move the troops and light carriages into the position. They won''t expect what hit them."


    At the current rate, this battle would come to an end only when either side would completely run out of the supplies. That''s why I couldn''t afford to show my cards for the slight price of just a single trench! Rather than aiming to take a few meters more of the current no man''s land, I had to make the ongoing ploy count!


    But that didn''t mean I wouldn''t use it at all!


    Right now, the enemy tactic relied on amassing most of their forces at a single spot, keeping the cavalry in the reserve with hopes of using it for a shock charge, and keeping me from ever using the main road. The last point could be easily achieved by keeping just a few artillery pieces fixed on the thin bottleneck between the two wings of embankments, making sure that any attempt at crossing it would turn the road unusable.


    That''s why my current manoeuvre had to be executed with perfect timing!


    "Sir, we are ninety percent sure that our shoots will land directly on the target!"


    That was the last element that I was waiting for. Giving the entire night and nearly half of a day to the artillery squads to work out the distances, range and angles that would let them yield the most precise first salvo, I hoped to use them as the paralyzing factor for just a single moment.


    Because there was one flaw in what we currently knew about Ostros detachment. And using it up properly could secure my ass in case of even greater forces waiting in reserve far behind the current battlefield!


    "Everyone, take positions!"


    Rather than shouting this order directly to the soldiers, I simply said it in the headquarters tent, allowing the mass of adjutants to instantly vibrate before collapsing into a sea of individuals that chased to their designated units. Within less than ten minutes, those messengers came back, confirming that the order was relied upon and confirmed.


    "Sir, are you sure about that plan?"


    Looking at the enemy positions, the officer that dared to stop my earlier attempt at advance allowed this murmur to escape from his mouth. And while I could act as if I didn''t hear that, it still hurt me quite a bit.


    While common soldiers could think that while they were sleeping on the hard ground with barely any cover due to being right on the frontline, I would be using all kinds of luxury back in the camp. Yet, this single field officer that I held due to the disciplinary reasons back, was perfectly conscious of the fact that forming the plan of the next advance took me the entire night, during which I didn''t catch even a wink of sleep!


    No, I wasn''t sure about it. During the war, when I lacked information about the enemy plans, positions, detailed number of troops, state of the morale and many, many other things, I could only try my best to create a scenario that would put my soldiers at a great advantage, while nullifying all the preparations Ostros made to switch the situation around.


    There was simply no other way, and the reasons that made me go to this war forced me to hurry up.


    "Signal the attack."


    As if this was the time or the grand battles of the high medieval period, with the sound of the horn, everything moved forward.


    At first, all the heavy war-carriages of mine lined up in front of the prepared gatehouses, only for the first one in line to cut through the supporting structures with a quick series of its frontal reaper gun. Before everything even managed to collapse, as if the sound of the firing was another signal, my artillery started to fire. This, in turn, resulted in the drivers of the heavy carriages pushing the steam engines to the limit, forcing their way through the light, wooden rubble directly on the surface of the first line of embankments.


    At first, all of them rode forward in a straight line, but once they crossed half the distance that separated them from the bottleneck of the second embankment line, they suddenly turned towards the middle!


    It was like if every single action was just another piece of a perfectly composed symphony. Right when the enemy had to react in order to bar the entry to the third plateau for my heavy carriages, the artillery shells shoot just a moment ago finally landed.


    This was all that my carriages needed. A moment of confusion, shock and dust, covering the view of the enemy cannons. Before Ostros fire crews could react, all of my heavy carriages burst through the bottleneck, racing towards the next one.


    It was also the moment when all of my light carriages moved forward, once again packed to the brim with soldiers. While the entire plan was great and complicated, their task was to do exactly the same what they did during the first attack.


    Then, the heavy carriages passed through the second bottleneck, instantly taking a light turn to the sides, escaping from the potential fire of the artillery fixed on the road. Even though it would be the first time when those war machines of mine would participate in the battle, they served the core purpose of my battle plan!


    On the other hand, when there was only twenty or so meters remaining before the light carriages would reach the second embankment, they stopped. Pouring the soldiers out of their insides, each of them equipped with nothing else but a neatly packed bag of earth, the reaper gunners at their back made the short work of the enemy units that remained on the second plateau.


    "Keep goingˇ­"


    This was the most vital part of the attack, yet, it was the most prone to failure. In just a few moments, all of the earthbags that were kept inside the light carriages were stacked into two thin ramps, just wide enough for the light carriage tracks to fit on it. Not even waiting for the soldiers to get back inside, the drivers instantly pushed forward, using those ramps as the convenient way to get on top of the second line of embankments!


    "Nowˇ­ Hurry upˇ­"


    Moving to the third plateau once again, the heavy war-carriages of mine continued to make a short turn, lining themselves upright at the foothold of the forth line of enemy fortifications. Shielded from the enemy artillery by their own defensive setting, the firing holes in the sides of the carriages opened up, allowing the multiple gunners stuffed inside to start the carnage.


    Yet, while the heavy carriages managed to reach their target perfectly and do exactly what they were supposed to, the same couldn''t be said about the light carriages.


    Out of twenty that were sent to the attack, only twelve managed to make it on top, with entire eight of those expensive machines of mine slipping of their ramps and falling to the side.


    This was the reason why the footmen had to wait for their machines to climb before they would be allowed to once again seek safety in their insides!


    "Now! Everyone, press the attack!"


    Unable to stop myself from shouting, despite knowing that not even a single man at the frontline would manage to hear me, I tightened my grasp on the head of my cane to the point where my knuckles turned white.


    But it seemed like outside of the loss of about two thousand pieces of hold in the machines, the rest of the casualties would limit itself to the normal fighting.


    With the footsoldiers taking less than two minutes to man the light carriages that remained, before the heavy carriage gunners could finish their ammo, they were already climbing on top of the third line of embankments, taking the enemy forces from behind!


    Once again using the enemy fortifications as the cover, this time hiding away from the fire from the friendlies, my soldiers began to massacre the bulk of the Ostros forces, not pincered between constantly reinforcing line of footmen, and the heavy, machinegun suppression from the heavy war-carriages!


    No matter the casualties created by the slip, this battle was all but won!

 301 Lets call them devils

    23rd September 1574


    "That''s strangeˇ­"


    Looking at the battlefield from the perspective of someone surrounded by the insane mess created by the support units in the camp, I couldn''t actually believe what I was seeing.


    While fresh recruits were making the rounds trips to bring back the injured soldiers, help those who were too hurt to be moved or comfort those few who wouldn''t make it either way, the battle was actually still ongoing!


    Well, to say that the fighting was still fierce would be a huge overstatement. After trapping the bulk of enemy forces between the mass gunfire from the few heavy war-carriages of mine and the regular frontline created by the infantry shooting from behind the safety of the embankment, I expected Ostros forces to simply break down and surrender.


    Even though I wasn''t even remotely close to where the fighting was taking place, I played enough shooting games in my life to understand how it had to feel to be in that bloody mess right now. With nowhere to hide, and actually no viable target to fight against, I expected Ostros, or at least their quickly assembled units, to break apart and surrender within just a few minutes. Even though they still had several pieces of artillery spaced out between the further lines of defence, all it was capable of doing was stopping the further advance by fixing itself on yet another chokepoint. If they were to shoot at the plateau where the carnage was going on, all they would achieve would be just quickening the process of killing their own compadres!


    "Sir, the general casualty rate is calculated! This fight was a huge success!"


    Even though the reports that various officers of mine were bringing couldn''t be less positive, I was still quite worried about this situation. While I never got deeper into the topic, I saw several articles in my time back in the future claiming that a unit would be considered to be immobilised after losing just twenty percent of its base headcount, and dissolved if that number reached forty percent. Obviously, that number would spike both higher and lower depending on the discipline of the unit, the time period when the fight would be happening and the main tactic or strategy used by the said military, for the battle of the current time, just killing or seriously injuring the half of enemy forces should lead to a swift and decisive victory due to the morale loss.


    Yet, as if the future historians and scientists that came up with those numbers were nothing but a fraud, Ostros forces continued to fight despite their desperate situation for as long as even a literally single soldier kept standing!


    "There is something really wrong with themˇ­"


    "Sir?"


    Hearing the question from the same officer that just brough the positive report, I finally managed to shake those thoughts from my head and focus on the matter at hand.


    "Could you please repeat your report?"


    With my eyes glued to the still ongoing sparks of the fighting in the furthest parts of the enemy embankments that I could see, I didn''t really pay any attention to what he said a moment ago.


    "Sir, the casualty reports are now turned in and calculated. From what we saw, out of the initial forces of two thousand, we only got one hundred deaths and three hundred injured. While those numbers are rounded up, they also include those people that will most likely die due to their current wounds. Obviously, we can''t count the costs of the ongoing clearing process, but still, I think we can announce that this battle was a great success!"


    Seeing how brimming with happiness the man was, I couldn''t help but let some of his joins into my own mindset.


    One hundred dead soldiers of mine. This number would normally be able to crush anyone''s spirit. One could say, that I was responsible for all those deaths that happened! But on the other hand, from what I said, the initial attack, if it happened the way that the future historians would portray it as, then the casualty rate would be at least twice as small!


    It was this relentless and unforgiving loyalty of the Ostros soldiers that forced my soldiers to put themselves at greater risks during the battle, just to clear out some smaller pockets of resistance that were in position shielding them from the two fronts of the battle.


    Yet, even with that number racked up far higher than it should initially be when compared it to the real casualty rate of the battle as a whole, its meanings changed entirely. From the previous reports, Ostros forces were estimated to lose an astonishing two thousand and six hundred people!


    This number wasn''t taken from the ass, but was the rough count of the entire headcount of their initial forces, decreased after estimated number of people that managed to slip by the constant onslaught of the reaper guns from my heavy war-carriages into the further lines of defence. Right now, if the initial count of the enemy was correct, only about five hundred enemy soldiers remained spread out through all of their lines of defence, still blocking the advance of my forces.


    But at this point, it didn''t really matter. All they could do against my overwhelming numerical and qualitative superiority was to slow down the march, buying more time for the Ostros to prepare for what was about to hit them. Yet, it still worried me to no end.


    "Don''t you find this strange, guys?"


    Turning to the group of the officers that was currently managing the recovery action after the battle in its truest sense was already over.


    "Sir?"


    Some of them raised their heads just to steal a quick peek at me, while the great majority didn''t even bother with their lord''s useless banter. Even though most of them only joined the military directly through my recruitments, those few veterans that supported my cause already taught them an important truth about the war.


    Do never bother with the general that''s struck by the nostalgia and regrets after the battle. What''s more, if your general is an appointed political figure, never allow him to take the lead during the battle itself!


    In the time of the fighting, once the orders are given, all that officers can do is to sit down and wait for the results. Attempting to change the course of the battle by some clever tactics right in the heat of the fighting, would never be productive. Obviously, if one was lucky enough, then just the fact of pulling the soldiers out in order to make them perform a new order could coincidentally just so happen to save them from a trap that the enemy would be closing on them, but in every other scenario, changing the flow of the battle in its midst would only introduce chaos and disorder into one''s ranks!


    That''s why, instead of turning their attention entirely towards me, those great officers of mine preferred to just focus on their current tasks. After all, what could a noble like me, who didn''t even take part in the fighting, known about the process of recovering the injured from the battlefield? What could I know about the logistics that had to be brough to its maximum potential in order to turn the process of moving the goods, people and machines around?


    "I just can''t wrap my head around it. What could have Ostros done to make all of their forces so loyal and obedient?"


    This question could be considered to be a bit stupid. After all, I have yet to receive news of a single soldier of mine deserting, so it was quite strange to start the topic of the real morale caused losses. But this question of mine, although stupid for some, had actually a deeper meaning behind it.


    Ever since I appeared in this world, I was doing my absolute best to prevent anyone from learning about my system. This habit of mine, even though I crossed this rule by explaining everything to Elia, grew so strong that unless it was absolutely essential, I would actually often forget that I had this system in the first place!


    The reasons behind this were simple. Even with all the tolerance that Commonwealth could pride itself with, once one was accused of witchcraft, then all of his further action would prove to be under immense scrutiny of not only the church, but the country as a whole!


    "It''s just as ifˇ­ They made a pact with the devil to compel their forces to listen to every single order of their generals!"


    Throwing the bait amongst my officers, I knew that it would take the time for this seed to produce any real effects. But as long as my little scheme would succeed, then the news about Ostros dealing with the devil would spread like a wildfire across the country, bolstering my strength with the throwaway forces of the believers and fanatics, willing to give up their lives and blood just to purge this cursed clan from the holy lands of Commonwealth!

 302 Talented but unexpected gues

    30th September 1574


    My current conflict with Ostros will most likely be classified by the chronicle writers as the first war of its own kind. Normally, after the grand battle would be won, the sides would usually either switch to the war of attrition, with the losing party desperately trying to assemble new army while the winner would do its utmost to close that window of opportunity for his enemies.


    But what was happening around me right now, could only be compared to the introduction of proxy warfare to the world, three hundred years before this type of conflict was first created.


    Clearing out all the defensive lines of Ostros, took my forces entire damned week. But there was nothing that I could do about it without compromising on my priorities. Without the ample preparations to take each line of fortifications, I would have to throw my troops to the meatgrinder, quickly slaughtering my entire army before even putting Ostros capital to a siege.


    Yet, not everything was as bad as the current delay. By the time the last obstacle on our path to the hinterlands of my enemy, crowds upon crowds of workers managed to bring the train tracks all the way to its next designated stop in the seat of the Cheerio''s household power, city of Cheery. With that done, the frontlines were now just half of a day away from the already operational train-station, turning the process of sending the injured back and receiving fresh reinforcements and supplies into something inconceivable in the current age.


    "Sir, I would strongly advise pressing forward. Now, with the last bastion that blocked our path gone, we can make the use of our insane mobility to take Ostros down before they will be able to regroup and mobilise new forces!"


    Sitting behind a table in the middle of the new camp, I looked up at the officer. From the look of agitation visible in his squinted eyes and tightened fists, it was obvious that he was not only frustrated with how slow our progress was during the last week but also how eager he was to put the end to the madness of this civil war.


    "I already said it, didn''t I? I''m quite worried about Ostros current manoeuvres. What''s more, now that we are basically linked to the entire economical and industrial powerhouse of my lands, I don''t think there is any point in rushing the things. We still have way more time than necessary to put them down. If we were to suddenly force-march my troops deeper into Ostros land, the supply lines that we finally managed to recover, would break once again. I''m not going to let my soldiers starve."


    Back when I first saw the front of the enemy fortifications, I assumed that once they would be taken down, the war would come to a swift end. Either the other side would beg for peace and forgiveness, or I could simply push my forces for a bit to take over their capital city of Ostrog before anything else could happen.


    Instead of basking in the glory of the victory, I was constantly burdened with more and more problems. As if that wasn''t enough, my own retainers failed to understand that we could win the entire battle rather easily not because of some random element of surprise or God''s favour, but thanks to what they were so willing to abandon right now!


    The supplies.


    "Sir! We arrested a strange man lurking at the periphery of the camp. He claims to be a former commander of the mercenaries that Ostros hired!"


    The sides of the headquarters tent were all raised high up, to allow the daylight to enter its premises. That''s why the sudden appearance of a messenger was nothing to be surprised about.


    "Search him thoroughly and bring him to me."


    After a moment of hesitation, I gave the order. Given what kind of suspicions I had about the Ostros, I highly doubted that this was nothing more but a desperate attempt at my life. Yet, in the off-chance that I was wrong, there would be no problem in listening to what that man had to say.


    "Sir, are you sure it''s a good idea?"


    The same man that was trying to convince me into pushing my troops blindly into the enemy territory, was now worried whether my actions were not too rash and reckless? Even though this thought managed to curl the corners of my lips up for a bit, I had to quickly shake it off from my mind, as four guards of mine brought someone who looked like the worst kind of beggar in front of me.


    "Speak."


    Unwilling to bother with any kind of formality, I only cast a single glance at the tattered clothes of the man before turning my sight back to the papers outlining the logistical situation of the campaign.


    "Sir, I''m Hans Utter, former commander of the Galwarian Brotherhood. I came here to offer you my services."


    Just as I was about to pick up a pen and write down some orders for the quartermasters to add the request for some wine rations to be brough from Tarnow in order to improve the mood and morale of my troops, the unexpected quest dropped a bomb right in the middle of the tent.


    With the goose''s feather falling down from my fingers and sprinkling the paper with dots of wasted ink, I moved my sight on top of the man with a look of ridicule.


    "And what kind of services do you mean by that? I''m sorry, but you do not look like someone who could offer me anything of value."


    Holding myself back from openly laughing at the outrageous offer that he brought, I was about to gesture at the guards to bring him away when the man wrestled his arms from the hold of my men.


    Startled by this action, I jumped out from my chair, feeling my left leg wavering under the sudden increase of weight that it had to carry. Even after all this time, I still didn''t fully recover from my injuries.


    Thankfully, after being able to finally straighten himself up, the man didn''t jump at me. He simply stood where he was, looking at me with eyes that belied his current attire and situation. Rather than pleading for mercy or help, his gaze was filled with pride and confidence, as if this was just yet another day in the job for him.


    "Sir, I can offer you a way to end this war and insights at the atrocious events taking place at the Ostros court. That alone should be enough to make my services attractive, not to speak about fifteen years experience in the military out of which seven that I spent commanding my units. And with that authority in mind, I need to ask an important question."


    Stopping his speech for a moment, Hans took a mouthful of air, before suddenly shouting.


    "What the fuck are you doing with your army?"


    This question was yet another action of this man that managed to make me speechless. While I knew there were several points that I understood incorrectly about my forces before actually using them on the field, but even after shedding all my self-pride, I still couldn''t say that I grossly mismanaged my forces!


    "First, I would advise you to watch your words. Secondly, you need to tell us what you know first, otherwise, I won''t be able to judge how much that information is worth. If you really want to work under me, this is the bet that you will have to make."


    As surprising as this man could be, as soon as I gave him the ultimatum, I pulled my attention right back to my papers. Scrubbing the still wet ink from the document in front of me, I picked up the feather, dipped it in the ink and signed the order.


    "Then let me tell you two things. Ostros are somehow capable of forcing anyone under them into complete and unbreakable servitude. What kind of atrocities does that bring with it, you need to guess yourself. And right now, they are sending their knights everywhere around their lands to gather as many commoners as they can in their home fortress. That''s all the knowledge that I can spare for now."


    Instead of spilling all the beans right away in order to gain my trust or maybe even respect, this man actually managed to hit the jackpot. By withholding most of what he knew, even despite giving us two huge leads, he proved that he could at least take care of his own self- interests. That was what made me actually see him in a new, favourable light, leading to the next question of mine.


    "Tell me then, since I''m not using my military correctly, what would you advise me to do?"


    Saying those words, I took a quick peek at the officers that busied themselves all around the tent. Given from their anxious stares, they too were quite curious what this man had to say now.


    "I get that you are waiting here for a reason, and I won''t claim that it''s a bad option. But unless you are willing to fight the entire population of the Ostros lands just to conquer barren and depopulated lands down the line, use those miraculous carriages of yours to stop Ostros'' knights from rallying more troops. Doing so, would not only earn you some favours with the population but also stop the enemy from growing even stronger!"

 303 One day away from Ostrog

    7th October 1574


    From the moment Hans took a partial command over the army, the way in which the war was conducted rapidly changed.


    Previously, with a week all I managed to achieve, was to clean out a tiny place on the map, just so that my forces could advance forward. Right now, the last week was witness to the incredible exploits of this randomly appearing mercenary.


    Firstly, still as nothing but a potential advisor, he took all the light carriages from my force and remodelled them from unit support vehicle to raiding one. Ridding it of anything but the absolute essentials like fuel and ammo, just in the first day of their new operations, over three hundred of the enemy cavalry was down.


    Just by pushing a single-vehicle towards the notable villages, my soldiers would cross paths with enemy envoys, gathering the new army for Ostros. A single one didn''t amount to much, just a group of ten to fifteen mounted soldiers, out of which a single or two could be actual nobles. A single light carriage was more than enough to catch up to them and cut them down without a fail. And with over twenty of them scouring the entire province, Hans managed to shut Ostros household''s capital from the rest of their sizeable lands.


    Over the span of the next three days, this mercenary quickly gained in my eyes, bringing him as high in the chain of command as a newcomer like him could ever raise. While I still had to keep him accompanied by at least four of my men, this didn''t slow his actions at all.


    "So, what is the matter with that ''train'' of yours?"


    Staring at the strategical map of the area, Hans stamped his finger against black square just behind our new camp. Raising his eyes at the few officers present in the headquarter''s tent, he looked over them. Yet, not a single man stepped up to explain this already common piece of information.


    "To keep it short, it''s a powerful tool for resupplying. The lion share of the ammunition, provisions and other supplies we got, comes from it. That''s why we can''t go against the enemy yet. We don''t want to put ourselves in the exact same situation as the Ostros are in right now."


    In order for this outsider to effectively manage the army as he was doing right now, this kind of short talks had to happen on the daily basis. In just a few days, he managed to incorporate the flaws of Tarnowian Strategical Assumptions that could be described as the very first manual for leading the war with this new kind of army, turning it into a beast when compared to what I could do with it previously.


    With the countryside of the province pacified with the light carriages, Hans split my army in half. Taking the veterans, he moved them in a tight circle around the city of Ostrog. Each of the villages they manned received only a handful of soldiers, yet with the frequent patrols of the light carriages, that effectively prevented any attempts of Ostros at breaking through the encirclement.


    Secluded to the single city of theirs, only their impressive food stockpile allowed them to escape the clutches of starving out. Yet, even with their reserve, it was only a matter of time before they would have to turn desperate. But what was important for now, this opened up the entire province to the unrestricted engineering work!


    Instead of finishing the war, Hans was not in the hurry. Using the second half of my army to help and protect the workers, this madman boosted the estimated constructing speed of the railroad, bringing those heavy machines right at Ostros Capital''s doorstep! Something that was expected to take at least two to three weeks, was actually done with just a single week!


    According to the reports, this wasn''t the only front that managed to improve. From the moment our positions connected directly by the train with my lands, I learned from the new batch of news that the train works in the north were progressing even faster than my ongoing conquest of the rebels.


    This was the one deal that I managed to steal from the capital before going back to fulfil my mission. With how creating a train-line from the western-oriented capital city of Krakow to the main mobilisation point in the east, the city of Minsk, had nothing to do with my mission but everything with the overall war-effort, by creating a train-line between Tarnow and Krakow I won the deal with the senate.


    So far, it wasn''t the lack of money or materials that slowed all my efforts down. It was the number of people.


    With the constant and frequent visits of the head merchant of my semi-autonomous state, my coffers were heavier than ever before. Thanks to the finally appearing sparks of the high commerce, the outdated steam horses were slowly turning into the main source of income for my lands, quickly reaching numbers far greater than what could be achieved with the limited external trade.


    If one were to have a general look at the interactive map of the current country, then he would see a growth splurging alongside the train tracks, whenever they lead. Even though civilians still were banned from using the trains for their own interests, they were still more than enough to prove that my household was turning impossible into existing. This fact alone was the water that my starving production commerce thirsted for so damn much.


    Yet, what was even more important, was the country''s involvement in laying the tracks.


    By winning the deal, I received basically all the non-essential workers from the lands through which my train would pass. Nearly free from charge and used to work, those crowds of people were instantly turning any amount of supplies and materials into the finished piece of the iron road. As soon as the carriages would appear with the logs, train tracks and shovels, by the time the metal road would allow the construction train filled with more tracks to arrive, a bridge would be already spanning over the river, waiting to be connected to the rest of the network.


    For the very first time since I appeared in this time and world, it was the output and transportation that stalled the progress of construction. I even considered setting up even more smelters, yet that would quickly lead to depleting the ore reserves, didn''t really increase the output all that much. Given the situation, even though the war was still officially raging, some of the workers were already dedicating their time for preparing the old mines into their new form of usage, along with connecting it to the network by adding a small industrial train station nearby.


    And all of that was already happening on the lands officially belonging to Ostros before we even could defeat them!


    "Okay then, we are officially a day away from winning the war. Tomorrow, we could basically eradicate Ostrog from the maps with the endless supplies flowing directly towards our cannons. So, I think it''s about time we start negotiating."


    Dropping a bomb like never before, Hans instantly stole the attention of the entire crowd gathered in the main hall of some random inn. Raising his cup as he looked at the surprised faces of the crowd, he calmly took a sip as if the suddenly tense situation didn''t bother him at all.


    "Come on, don''t tell me you did all of that to raze Ostrog? I know that you hate Ostros, but right now, we are holding all the chips. They have the knife on their throat, and as long as we can secure our interests here, then in a few years time, our power will be way too great for them to ever challenge. Why bleed our forces down and cut the throat of this thriving city? In two years, just by banning them from using the trains, they will sell us the city before moving to another country!"


    Looking at the man, I realised one aspect of Polish history that I knew from my time. Never in my past, did a major Polish household just disappear from existence like that. Even those who rebelled against the crown, later on, would often be spared and capable of rebuilding their power down the line. Essentially, a major household could only disappear over the ages, as the effects of losing the edge over the others and slowly being chipped away from the importance. Yet, what I was currently set on, meant the complete end of the entire Ostros family as the members of the Commonwealth!


    Right now, I realised that I was on the crossroads. I could either take Hans''s advice and follow the route that this country would originally go. Doing so would mean that all of my efforts, all of my innovations, would only prolong the time that would be left for the commonwealth. Even back in my original history, when the golden age was over, it was the lack of reforms and nearly oligarchic system of power that turned this country from the richest in the world, to barely a shadow of what it was. In the end, all the united nations of the commonwealth would suffer the occupations of three giants, putting all of them at the sideways of the history for all the times that were about to come.


    On the other hand, pushing forth would mean going against golden freedom, the current sparking idea that the nobles adopted, greatly limiting the power of the entire estate in the process. I never realised this before, but the fate of the entire country depended on my single decision right now. Either I would take the easy way and condemn the place by giving a huge precedent for the later abuses of the privileges, or I would stomp on the Ostros, giving an example of what would happen to anyone not putting the nation''s interests at the pedestal.


    "We can''t back down. We are going to eradicate the Ostros before they will have any chance of rebuilding their power and fighting us back. We can''t leave such a huge hole in our defences, right in the hinterlands of the country, just as a huge war is burning down our borders."


    This few sentences of mine were a statement. It wasn''t a question, nor a proposition. It was a simple order deciding the course of our future actions. This time, even if in the short term, the tactical decision of Hans could bring us more benefits, I couldn''t sacrifice the long term strategical outcome of this solution.


    Raising my own cup with the freshly supplied Tarnowian beer of mine, I looked through the golden liquid at the faces of the crowd, before raising the glass to my lips and downing all of its content all at once.


    "So, one day away from the Ostrog we are. I wonder if anyone will ever recall the battle that is about to come."


    To my surprise, Hans managed to come to terms with the new reality rather quickly. Raising his own glass, he accepted my toast, downing his own portion as well.


    "I highly doubt it."


    Just as I answered his guess, the rest of the crowd repeated our toasts, gulping down their won drinks.


    I had no doubt this moment would never be written in the chronicles. No one is interested in the exploits of the army fighting during the civil war. All that people want to know is that it happened, it ended and move on to more interesting moments in history, not those detailing how brothers spilt each other''s blood.


    Little would the historians of the future know, that the day that awaited us beyond the next rising of the sun, would decide the course of the history of not only the Commonwealth as a whole but most likely all the nations it would ever interact with!

 304 The end of the Ostros rebelion

    8th October 1574


    "This is not looking good for them."


    In a classical siege, the real battle would begin long before the two armies would meet. Starting with the classical envelopment, the target that attacking party wanted to take down, would have to be completely cut away from the outside help, and the entire adventure had to be finished before any form of relief force could be formed.


    Yet in the current scenario, Hans threw all the covenants to the trash, revolutionizing the entire warfare.


    With light carriages cutting out any form of supply from the now starving city, by the time that my entire force arrived at the line of already prepared ditches and firing stations, the city was akin to the ripe fruit, only waiting for the gardener''s hand to be picked.


    "Sir, we are ready to begin the bombardment."


    Standing beside one of the many batteries deployed for the siege, my attention was stolen by one of the officers. With his hand pointing directly at the city in the proximity, I could tell from the look of excitement on his face that this particular man couldn''t wait for the attack to start.


    "Do your job."


    Today, it didn''t really matter when the firing attack would start. It was all but a distraction either way, so there was no problem with letting the soldiers who remained behind to have some fun.


    Nearly instantly after I gave those soldiers a green light, the entire area shook under the powerful voice of the firing cannons. Thanks to the extensive groundwork done right outside of the Town''s firing range, my cannons didn''t lose to the stationary defences of Ostrog in terms of elevation, finally giving me the chance to make the most out of their supreme accuracy and range.


    As soon as the first position opened fire, the rest of them quickly followed suit. In one moment, the city turned from a relatively calm place when compared to the bustling camp of mine behind the front-lines, into a melting pot of death, ruins and devastation.


    Located all around the city, all the paths that lead outside of its gates were blocked by the sizeable detachments of my troops. Once any attempt at sortie was to be taken, the mobile forces distributed along with the entire encirclement with the light carriages to move them around would nearly instantly fall right down the necks of those stupid enough to put their nose outside of the safety of the city walls.


    Even though every cannonball that hit its walls or inner buildings would later mean greater costs of rebuilding this once-thriving population centre, I much preferred this solution rather than losing my soldiers during unnecessary and costly wall assault.


    Because after all, my soldiers were already comfortably preparing for the battle within the city walls!


    And soon, this guess was proven true.


    With the constant barrage of heavy cannons against the city, no one really realised when it happened, but the gates to the city suddenly opened. As of today, I was just a simple overseer of the military effort managed by Hans, I could watch how the cleverly hidden mobile force of mine instantly reinforced the covert unit, successfully taking one of the gates for ourselves.


    "Press forward! Take the south district!"


    Even at the distance on which I was standing away from the city, I could still hear the commands of my officers leading their units right into the enemy fire. Even though the light carriages weren''t the most armoured units of mine, its walls still provided more than enough cover for the advancing troops to hide during the enemy salvos and ride on when there was a need to quickly relocate somewhere else.


    Obviously, there was just a single reason why the heavy carriages didn''t join the fun right away. With how much slower they were when compared to their lighter cousins, they would only slow down the pace of my troops taking over more and more of the city from Ostros'' hands.


    Red flare.


    One of the recent discoveries that had little to do with my lands. I could say that while I did my part in discovering it with how actively I promoted new things, outside of this moral aspect, it was created by someone completely unrelated to my force, workforce or even industrial areas. Yet, as soon as I realised what it was, my entire military took over the entire stock of the crafty merchant that accidentally made it, ordering a whole lot more from him in the near term.


    "Push the heavies towards the source."


    This was all the input that I had to provide during the entire battle. With how the heavy carriages and tanks were the absolute ace cards of my force, that was the only type of unit that remained fully and solely under my command. Unless I were to order them to go in, they would remain on their position for as long as the battle would last.


    "Yes, sir!"


    In one instant, as soon as my words left my mouth, one of the many messengers burst out from the headquarter''s tent, chasing the mirage of the nearby position. Just a few hundred paces to the side of my current commanding centre, behind a hill, a huge and relatively flat plaza was occupied by all sorts of machines of mine. Form the new models that arriver with the pretrained crews during the last train shipment, through the several pieces that had various mechanics checking them all over in order to repair the damage they sustained during the fighting, all the way to the battle-hardened and prepared unit of heavies.


    They would only have one task during the fight.


    With Ostros efforts to assemble a big army cut short by the quick raids of the light carriages, they had a severely limited pool of manpower. Even if they were to mobilise every single citizen of the town into their army, they could still afford only a single to two points where the resistance would be actually substantial. With most of their cannons and better equipment gone on the battlefields already, they could only throw numbers against my superior in every other regard force.


    And that''s where the heavies would come in.


    Their sole reason for existence wasn''t to be the main battle tank. With how slow it was thanks to the several layers of armour and steel plates covering its entire hull, even a child on a pony, or even a properly running adult could easily escape from its chase.


    But once those several tons worth of metal would attain any kind of momentum, just by directing it right against the enemy defences, I could make sure that nothing would remain from them after just a single charge!


    And I didn''t have to wait all that long to see it with my own eyes!


    Thanks to my elevated position, I was able to peer through the walls into the inner parts of the city. Compared to Krakow, despite taking way more space on the plain, its streets were several times wider, attributing to how loosely populated it was. Even with this place being the centre of Ostros power, outside of the household court and some basic administration buildings, this town was just as big as any other one could find just by walking down the road!


    Looking from my position, I had the perfect view. I could see how just a few moments after I gave the order, a group of two heavy carriages leisurely strolled into the place where my foot soldiers had some troubles dealing with a barricade made from the rubble.


    Seeing what the drivers of my heavies did then, made me think that at least one of them would be the great ancestors to all the chads in the future world. Without a care in the world, instead of blocking the enemies from attacking the other side of the street, those two carriages of mine simply rode directly into the barricade, quickly splitting it into three separate blockades.


    And then they started firing the reaper guns from within the carriage.


    At this point, there was no point in me watching the proceedings any more. Sending my assistants away, I moved back to the commanding tent and sat on the chair designed especially for my use.


    "Sir, the city is taken!"


    Just a few moments later, the information finally arrived. While it didn''t mean that the fighting was over yet, it was the last hard step that we had to take before officially ending Ostros'' uprising.


    And just like that, another officer came to the tent, cast a quick look at me before saluting and reporting.


    "Sir, we took the keep. Ostros household is no more."

 305 Cheerios looming arrival

    8th October 1574


    "While I knew that it was to be expected but to see the city reduced to such a stateˇ­"


    As if with a touch of magical wand, once my soldiers disposed of the entire Ostros family, the remaining survivors of the place nearly instantly dropped their weapons. If only I could share this information, it could easily serve as an additional way of confirming that our enemy was finally dead, but doing so would ultimately bring way too much attention to me.


    "Thinking about this, who managed to kill the Ostros? Ah, don''t worry!"


    As soon as I asked the question, I could see the uneasiness appearing on the face of my officers. For a commoner to kill a noble, no matter the situation, meant a death penalty. And those officers of mine actually thought that after ordering them to do so, I would still hold it against them?


    "Don''t worry guys. The deaths of those sons of bitches fall all on my shoulder. So, who did it and how, because I need to decide on the reward."


    Recalling the way in which I learned about the death of those first and hopefully the last opponents that I would face on my road to dominating the entire country, there was a strange bit that I just couldn''t understand. Only by asking those responsible for the death of those fuckers directly could I learn about this one element that kept puzzling me.


    "Ah, yes sir!"


    Only now reflecting on how their behaviour might look like to others, the officers gathered around me nearly jumped on their feet, bringing their right hands towards their foreheads in the salute.


    Seeing this, I couldn''t stop my smile from appearing on my face. This kind of thing was one of the basic requests that any officer candidate had to fulfil. For example, when an officer of the lower rank commanded over his direct subordinates, then the higher-ranking officer had to support him. What happened later, how big of a scolding the lower-ranking man would receive in the private didn''t matter. In front of the soldiers, a high ranking officer could never undermine the authority of his own subordinate!


    That''s why what my officers just did could be considered a gross failure to follow the proper proceduresˇ­ Yet right after winning the battle, with how the topic was quite tense, I decided that following with the normal procedures of punishing them would simply take away a huge part of the happiness that my soldiers were currently filled with.


    "Sir! Urgent message!"


    Right as I was about to dismiss my officers in order to ascertain them that I wouldn''t punish them for their silly yet important mistake, a new man entered the area, instantly attracting my attention.


    And the attention of the nearby officers.


    Instantly dropkicking him to the ground, before that man could get within five meters away from me, he was already tackled to the ground, held by the three of the nearest soldiers.


    Speaking of procedures, there was a specific one that detailed how one was supposed to bring the news both to the field commanders and to the general staff. Running into someone else like that was a big no-no. Allowing this kind of thing would quickly result in my instant death due to the very first assassination attempt that would come my way!


    "Sir, I''m sorry for the lack of protocolsˇ­ but we have reports of Cheerio family approaching our back camp in full force!"


    That was indeed a strange situation. While our unofficial alliance was just as its name - unofficial, I already expected Cheerio family to intervene in the situation a bit. After all, I was no one but a small noble that only recently entered the table where the real game was going on, so it would be strange to think that Cheerio would allow me suddenly come into possession of the entire wealth, although nibbled away by the military effort, of Ostros household!


    But as much as I expected their envoys, maybe a slightly bigger detachment aimed at proving their strength and kindly asking for some stuff that they would take anyway, to think that they were appearing in their full force? What even was that full force that the messenger spoke off?


    "How many?"


    As a simple way of measuring someone''s commitment, the number of the troops they would bring was still valid to a certain extend. Just like I experienced it firsthand during the campaign, moving troops around on the map was simple only in strategy games.


    From the matter of supplies, through the problem of actually moving them from their comfy houses into the unforgiving weather of central Europe, all the way to preventing them from dying out due to the natural occurrences and accidentsˇ­


    While it was something that I read in a typical adventure novel instead of historical tract, there was this saying that for every single soldier that laid his head on the battlefield, four more would die in the following days.


    Some, due to their injuries making them unable to suffer through the forced march that commanders often liked to treat as natural marching speed. Some would succumb to the infections, other to the food poisoningˇ­ Just the memory of the Napoleonic wars was enough to recall this one moment when this otherwise great commander lost nearly a third of his force due to dysentery! That historically accurate moment was so funny to my teacher back in the school, that he didn''t forget the mention that French, or rather, allied forces started modifying their own uniforms as to add another hole in order to be able to march!


    Listening to that part of the history made me realise, that as valuable as the profession of the hunter was, both in the civil and military life, with the stinky trail left by the French army of that time, most of the military scouts had to give up their roles and join the force as your everyday soldiers!


    "Over two thousand, sir. I saw them personally, so instead of taking the detailed count, I rushed all the way back while ignoring all the procedures. I admit to being at fault here, but if such a huge force descends down on our unprepared camp, this campaign will be all but over!"


    Listening to the man, I inevitably bit at my lower lip. From one side, bringing back such important information in time was of the utmost priorityˇ­ But if I continued to pardon every single transgression that soldiers made against the set of the rules that I prepared for them, what would be their use in their first place?


    What would happen if all the messengers started rushing back to the camp to report that a squirrel on the tree they were tasked to guard suddenly popped? If headquarters were to be swarmed with reports like that, then even if someone managed to actually report something of real importance, that vital message would simply drown in the sea of useless shit!


    "I get it, let him up. For bringing this information, I genuinely thank you."


    As I said those words, I didn''t miss the opportunity to lower my head to that soldier, still nailed to the ground by the combined weight of several officers of mine. If I didn''t introduce the change even in the simplest of the daily occurrences, then how could I expect the people to adopt it down the line?


    History was full of examples of great ideas that didn''t work because they were forced on others with the ringleaders behind them conveniently moving around all the limitations and rules. Even if I wanted to introduce a set of laws that would bring the commoners and merchants up to the level of nobility, without proving that this kind of system could work myself, no one would dare to test it out themselves.


    "Sadly, it goes without saying that you broke several rules of the regime that I gave to you guys. That means, I still have to punish you somehow."


    Twisting my head to the side form where the Cheerio was coming from, I could feel a huge wrinkle appearing on my forehead as my brows furrowed.


    "I still have to punish youˇ­ but given the situation, it seems that I don''t really have the time for that. In your free time, you will take four rounds of latrine clearing duty. Dismissed!"


    Ignoring the bow of the man whose eyes were filled with both an intense grief and extreme relief at the same time, I simply snapped at the entire unit of my personal guards lurking nearby. With their company, I mounted one of the light carriages before setting off for the back camp of mine.


    Located right beside the temporary train station, it used to be perfectly organised for the sake of unimpeded logistic. But right now, it was a complete mess.


    With a huge army of Cheerios already appearing in the direct line of sight despite all of the houses, farms and mills blocking one''s vision, it was given that my people, mostly defenceless, would panic!


    "Half of the group, remain in the camp, calm everyone down and pack them on the train. Worst case scenario, we will have to use it to move them outside of the harm''s way. Also, send someone to the city to start mounting up the relief force. We can delay them with a single carriage for only so long."


    Watching how the potentially enemy forces started to descend the last hill that separated them from the perfectly flat plain, so generous for the cavalry charges, I realised that once Cheerios were set on attacking, then only disaster awaited. Even if I could somehow pull out a part of my troops, all the losses that mounted up during the entire anti-Ostros campaign would be just a drop of blood in the sea of crimson that would be spilt once I would have to fight against those two thousand damned veterans!


    "Yep, there is no other way. Stop the train from leaving, everyone but the driver, stay behind. I have to go and talk with them."

 306 Offering the deal

    8th October 1574


    "I''m sorry, sir brother, for all the ruckus. I hope it didn''t cause any major problemsˇ­"


    Looking at the genuinely troubled expression of the Cheerio''s household patriarch, I wasn''t sure whether I was feeling tired or if my head was about to explode in pain.


    All the alarms, all the rush and potentially even some wounded that would be met with an unfortunate accident during the hurryˇ­ Because of this?


    "You see, when we were departing, all we knew that you moved with the force of two thousand against a family with an estimated strength of eight thousand people on their side. How could we know that our information was wrong? We only learned that on our way here."


    Listening to the man''s words, I couldn''t help but notice one thing. Defeating the rebels was my own mission, bestowed upon me by the senate. How could Cheerio''s dare to interfere with it? Even though I could tell there was no ill-intent behind their arrival, by appearing here they were directly involving themselves in a problem that I had to solve in order to obtain the slot at the royal election!


    Or was it an attempt to prevent me from growing too much? If they were to either guess or even learn the content of my mission, by attempting to help me out, they could claim that I did not finish my mission properly!


    "And if I may ask, what is the very reason behind your visit?"


    It was obvious that at some point, we would haggle over the Ostros'' wealth. This household was simply way too big for a single force like me to consume. Even if I were to attempt doing so, not only I would have to direct most of my resources into incorporating those new lands into some kind of administrative system of the new era, doing so would mean putting my back wide open for all of the major nobles to stab at.


    "Well, I think I am safe to assume that since you are here, to greet us, then the problem with the rebels is now finished. Am I right?"


    Hearing the words of Cheerio''s patriarch I realised that there could still be one more option. With how negative opinion I had about the current workings of the senate, I never took this under my consideration, but that didn''t mean it was impossible!


    "Yes, as of today, Ostros bloodline no longer exist."


    Putting my stare directly at Cheerio''s eyes, I could tell how his wrinkled face tensed a bit as he ingested this huge bomb that I served him. Normally, a huge family wouldn''t fall down. It could lose its meaning over time and thin out to the point where their name wouldn''t matter anymoreˇ­ But for the entire bloodline to die out? That was something definitely uncommon in the world of Commonwealth. Just like I realised before the attack on the city, by breaking the natural flow of history, some blood had to be split.


    "That''s definitelyˇ­ not what I expectedˇ­ but I can''t say that I''m surprised."


    "Anyway, let''s not keep you waiting. I can see how tense you are. We are here because of a letter we received from the senate. Don''t tell me you really thought that those old foxes would let the fate of the country into the hands of some inexperienced nobles? While there were great hopes that all of you will manage to fulfil your mission, the entire country is mobilising for the war either way. Making sure that the problem is resolved is their responsibility afterwards."


    Spreading his arms in the gesture of innocence, this old man smiled at me with joy somehow making him look a little bit younger than he was.


    "So that''s the caseˇ­"


    In the end, it made sense. While some of the senators could believe in my prowess, leaving everything in my hands would be simply foolish. Without the second force ready to strike at the moment''s notice, how could those governours of the country just hope that I or the other candidates would manage to succeed?


    There was no way they forgot about the ongoing war. It was a threat that loomed over everyone. My act of eradicating a single bloodline implied that this history would no longer follow its original course. And if that was the case with the internal affairs, why anything should be different when dealing with other nations?


    While I never managed to confirm it, it''s almost certain that Ostros possessed some kind of system of sorts. As someone who had his fair time dealing with stupid customers, I could understand certain behaviours to some point. And nowhere in hell would the loyalty of Ostros'' people make any sense!


    Given that possessing a system wasn''t something that was exclusive to me, maybe something that wasn''t even that rare, then I couldn''t just naively expect that the rules persisting in different areas of the life would remain the same. Just like I didn''t hesitate to destroy the entire household, who would promise me that Muscovites would follow the rules of old medieval warfare? Who would say that they would be satisfied with just a bit of borderland, instead of throwing everything they had at the commonwealth in order to destroy the only rival Muscovy realistically had before becoming a super-power!


    "Anyway, I think we stood here for too long already. How about we move somewhereˇ­ more comfortable, in order to discuss the details ofˇ­ dividing the spoils?"


    Given how much I expected this moment to come, the only thing that managed to surprise me was how openly this shrewd patriarch could speak about basically stealing a part of my spoils. Yet, that was just how politic worked. Only by making my friends happy with our relationship, I could count that once I would require their help, they would evaluate it as yet another worthy investment.


    On this game table, there was no place for sentiments. Unless I could convince this patriarch in front of me that being my loyal friend would bring stable and huge benefits to him, then I would have to start preparing for yet another war. But this time, I would never be given a chance to fight in the first place.


    "I think that''s a good idea, but there is no point to go anywhere. My offer is already prepared and it''s at the same time the lowest that we could go."


    Standing firmly in front of this older noble, I could feel the shiver traveling down my spine. Right now, I was basically using great swaths of lands, as nothing more but chips on the negotiating table! Something that in future people would spend their entire careers to have a little bit of power over by becoming governors or deputies, I was now selling just for a good intent of the other side!


    "Hmm? If you say so, then go on. I''m quite interested in what you will propose."


    Starting the topic, there were three problems.


    Firstly, I had to make sure that my interests would be covered. No matter what would happen in the future, it was me who won the war, so it would all boil down to my own decision what to do with my spoils. But instead of holding everything close to myself, distributing it to the potential allies made far more sense.


    Secondly, I had to make the patriarch in front of me, feel like he made a killing. Only in this way could I push the responsibility for the next task on his shoulders.


    And connecting to the previous point, thirdly, I had to find a way to establish a power-balance by giving out parts of the spoils to the respective families. By doing so, I could turn the worthless lands into trading chips and buffer zones that would protect my vital interests from anyone else!


    "To start things off, I want every single mine and resource node that we will ever find on those lands. Once it''s discovered, it belongs to me, although all the newly discovered sources will pay ten out of a hundred of its income to the owner of the land. Outside of that, I want Ostrog and the right to build the special road through any lands I pick to be suitable. Outside of that, there is only one more aspect left."


    So far, my requests were insanely small when compared to what I was giving away. For the current-age people, mines could be profitable to a point, but never were something that they would lose their heads over. A chance of getting more farmable land was far more interesting to them. As for the matter of the road, Cheerio''s patriarch actually perfectly understand the meaning of this word.


    "All the food produced in the lands adjacent to the terrain that we will hold, will be sold in my local markets by the standardised price. Once the are gets more population, the size of the monopolised trade will grow accordingly. In other words, I will always pay you the stable price for the food, as long as I get the priority to buy as much of it as I want. And to put it simply, the lands that I''m willing to cede to others, are bound to feed anyone who will live in the parts that I will retain."


    Finishing my request, I looked around, making sure that no unnecessary pair of ears were close enough to hear my next statement.


    "And let''s not forget the fact, that if my plans go smoothly, then this area will see the greatest economical boom ever since the creation of our country. I wish to connect every important place in the country through this land. You can trust me, just the profits of the train and the station on your lands will bring more benefits to you than anything that will ever grow off those lands!"

 307 Settling the deal

    9th October 1574


    Making deals with just words? That could only happen in the heat of the moment. After the initial agreement, both of the sides took a proper rest before sitting down in a room, a map and several barrels of Tarnowian beer.


    "So, your main interests lay within the marked zones, while the additionally marked lands are to be leased to you, right?"


    With just the two of us, sitting at the table while sipping on the drink, a lot of the time usually spent on the formalities could be spared.


    "Yeah. Those red marks are the locations of the possible mining areas, along with blue marks for the industrial areas. Between them, the yellow markings mean our intended path of the train, with black dots meaning train station."


    Pointing my finger at the specific places on the map, I repeated the map''s legend once again.


    Looking down on the paper, I was astounded with the possible outcome for my idea. By giving away overwhelming most of what I won, I could easily secure all the areas that I had any interest in. With each point of interests designed to be capable of housing the mining and basic industrial crew, along with all their necessary workplaces, I could greatly diversify the sources of my power.


    So far, without any real means of transportation, I was stuck in the two places where I invested anything in. In my hometown, more common business, turning the entire area into a huge trade hub. Nearly the entire trade that was already budding between New Tarnow and the rest of the country was going through this point. With the added incentive of it being the single place in the entire country when one could cheaply obtain Tarnowian Beer, even without any other ploys and schemes, this place was growing at an astounding rate.


    On the other hand, New Tarnow wasn''t as great as it supposed to be. This kind of problem was something that I met with only once in my past. As silly as it might sound, it happened in a certain building game. As easy as it was to start in a certain place, it often proved to be challenging to transition into the later parts of the development. And the same problem plagued this great city.


    With no reliable and stationary source of fuel, the entire industry of New Tarnow was slowly reaching the point of no return. If not for the carriages that some genius recently turned into tree-cutting machines, the entire place might already starve out of the fuel. That''s why I could stomach giving away the great majority of what I was privy to.


    In this way, anyone who would like to obtain cheap resources could go to one place, providing way more product than anyone could ever imagine being possible. With all the improvements to all the steam mining tech, mining was slowly turning from a clan''s work to a proper industry as well.


    And if someone ever wanted to buy a product, that only New Tarnow will be capable of producing, they will have to go through the Tarnowian Market!


    "Butˇ­ Like, seriously? Don''t you really care about the rest of the land?"


    After taking a moment to think, Cheerio''s patriarch looked at me before reaching for his cup and taking a mouthful. Only once his throat was flushed with this great drink, did he pick up where he left.


    "Anyway, since you don''t really care about the other lands outside for the right to set a trade post and rights to lay the roads, I think we should split it between other families around. In this way, everyone will be more willing to cooperate with you, and you will get an outlet for your products. Also, I would like if you could add those train stations to some of the cities in the province as well. I can see the potential behind this system, and I want to take part in it."


    Raising his eyes at me, Cheerio''s patriarch pointed at several places on the map.


    "Doable, but keep in mind that all the construction efforts will most likely soon move towards winning the war. Instead of losing men to stop them, I would prefer loosing quickly fortified position with their men laying down their heads as the price!"


    This was one of the worst aspects of development. As soon as just three or four mines would be connected, an early type of industrial area could be constructed. With coal to supply the vast energetic hunger of the place and the quick logistic created thanks to the trains and proper city-planning, the output of that single outpost would be more than enough to quickly turn the entire province into a damned industrial area!


    It went without saying that this was most likely one of the most important aspects of the entire deal. By using other lords to settle the lands all around my property, then the reserves of workers will never dry up. Keeping a positive relationship with Cheerios just by overwhelming them with gold by letting them partake in the growth and dabble in the profits would mean that as long as there was gold in my coffers, I could hire anyone I wanted from the entire province!


    With the possible production outcome from the industrial area, after it would properly start itself up, the growth could be geometric. By the time the third generation of industrial areas, settlements and trading outposts would appear, the entire province would be effectively in my clutches.


    "Yeah, I understand it. Also, I hope that you do take into account the fact, that if that deal goes through, then you won''t need to worry about workers, money or resources?"


    Suddenly dropping a huge bomb, the patriarch calmly took a sip of his beer as I rapidly turned my stare to his face. Unable to believe what I just heard a moment ago, I shook my head, trying to push this mirage out of my head.


    "I can see the potential of what you are doing and trying to promote. If my guess is right, once my farmers would adopt your inventions, the production would skyrocket, am I right?"


    Putting his cards out in the open, the Patriarch put his glass away, now properly focusing his stare. But this proposition wasn''t as surprising as one might think. From the moment that Cheerios officially declared their willingness and eagerness to participate in building the train, I knew that it was only a beginning.


    Just like with drugs, once one would experience a phase of uncontrollable growth caused by something age-breaking, there would be no stops for him. The thirst rises as we drink. Even without a single step was taken towards the idea that I hoped to achieve, this old man already was placing his dibs down on me!


    "I believe that mutual cooperation of the highest degree would be for the best for both of our households. If not for the fact that you are married, I would gladlyˇ­"


    Realising where the topic was heading to, I quickly cleared my head from the hock before raising my stare at the patriarch.


    "Let''s not dig this topic any deeper."


    By defeating the Ostros, I finally sat at the big table. So far, even with all my exploits, I was nothing but a funny, new character. In the eyes of the monstrous magnate families, even though I made far more than some of them, my lands were simply too small to take me seriously.


    But right now, I could see in the Patriarch''s eyes that I properly joined the big boys. From now on, there would be no small nobles meddling, pranking and annoying each other, doing quick raids of each other territory. Now, once the guards would be up and the fists swinging, the fight would be to the death.


    That''s why, in this moment of joining the real game, I had to set some rules. For people on this level, marriage was nothing but a diplomatic weapon. For them, divorcing or even killing a wife wouldn''t pose as many problems as for anyone else. And I couldn''t allow this kind of treatment.


    "Okay then. So, are you willing to sing the proposed terms?"


    Raising from his chair and looking at me, the Patriarch suddenly moved his hand to the front.


    "I am."


    Standing as well, I reached across the table and shook hands with the Cheerio''s family head.


    "Let''s develop the shit of this place."


    I could stop myself from adding as I took the first step towards advancing into an entirely new age of industrialisation.

 308 Land of promise

    10th October 1574


    "So, what are your plans?"


    After a good night of sleep, I once again meet with the patriarch. This time, in the open tent of my field headquarters, with a map lying openly on the table. After all, this place was clear from the enemies already.


    "With how we were given two months time to finish our tasks, we still have about a month left before the deadline. That means, that as long as we focus our efforts, we can turn this place into a powerhouse in that time, before moving all the forces to the war."


    From one point of view, stalling for the time like that couldn''t do any good. With the enemy forces not restrained by our logistic and organisational problems, waiting a single month before committing forces could mean that two more cities would fall under their pressure!


    But on the other hand, by sacrificing a single month, I could turn this place into an area capable of outproducing current Industrial powerhouse, New Tarnow, without even making an effort. Commonwealth forces would require those two months either way, as the support for the royal election candidates would only intervene once the time would be almost up. So it wasn''t like my personal decision could change the flow of the events all that much.


    "Are you sure about that? Wouldn''t it be easier to just invest all our efforts into increasing our numbers?"


    Only at this point did I realise the problem bound to cooperating with someone of the old date like Cheerio''s patriarch. While he was surely a great man of his time, he grew used to constructions taking place over the span of years instead of days. I couldn''t blame him for acting cautious, where directly recruiting more forces could give us a tangible edge over the enemy.


    "Yeah, I am. As long as we pull it through, the war will be conducted with my war carriages rather than with horses or sabres. If we manage to finish this place, even if only its skeletal outline, then by the time the first reinforcements will start arriving at the war-front, the course of the conflict will change instantly."


    There was one additional reason why after a good night of sleep, I decided to go with this idea. It was impossible to speed up the process of forming new units for my army. In the older generation of the military, the one that Cheerio''s patriarch heralded, troops could be rallied by simply pushing the serfs from one''s lands into military service. Outside of some basic killing equipment and even less care put towards their training, they would act like the cannon fodder during the battle, bolstering the morale of the real units that could affect the battle.


    In essence, the military of the old type would burden its best units with the logistic required by the vast amounts of enlisted serfs. That was something that I would never allow within my domain.


    With how developed my lands already were, the lives of a simple person turned from daily toiling for some food, into a comfortable life with a great paying job, improved living conditions and nearly absolute safety. Basically, for the former serfs and merchants, the opportunities to enrich oneself were wasting on the streets of my towns!


    As long as one was daring enough, then the tools offered by my lands were more than enough to build many fortunes over. And it was this land of opportunity that made people want to protect it.


    Contrary to the potential expectations of the other feudal lords, my army never lacked recruits. It was the problem of manning up the officer quarters required to train more troops. For a single soldier, after pushing through the month of hell, during which he would be trained to always follow the orders of the officer, two weeks of active physical training would commence, aiming to at least reinforce the condition of the future soldiers. After that, only two weeks of warfare theory and two weeks of practical experience exercises, and one could be said to be a properˇ­ private. The lowest kind of soldier!


    In order to advance through the ranks, a fresh private could either strive for the officer''s training or attempt to ammas the experience on the field, so that he would gradually rise through the ranks due to his achievements and qualifications alone.


    The second road was long and full of treacherous situations. Even though this was the most advanced technologically military in the world as of the date, there was always the chance that one would lie his head on the battlefield.


    On the other hand, there were the officer''s coursesˇ­


    It would start with a month of heaven.


    With a fresh batch of recruits assigned to a person, an aspiring officer would get to live a life in the luxury, all the while his bullied underlings would watch him with hate. During that period, the officer would be taught all the basics about the tactic and strategy of the battle. Once the real training for the unit would begin, the officer''s candidate would have to perfectly score the knowledge tests about the basic deployment formations and how to operate with them. Only after this point, would the officer reunite with his future unit, building the relationship with the boys during the last month of the training. Once the process was done, the graduating officer''s candidate would appoint two to three candidates from his own units, giving them the chance to enter the course themselves, before the entire unit along with its officer would enter the ranks of the proper military.


    This process would naturally speed up over time. In fact, I could foresee the moment when the amount of potential new recruits would start to dry up due to the massive enlisting campaigns. With more officers to draw from, some natural talents were bound to appear. Be it in a soldier who will perform some random miracle on the battlefield, or in an officer decisively trying a new tactic to save the day. All that I had to do, was sit down and wait for a few months before Tarnowian troops would turn into the most powerful military organisation in the entire damned world!


    Sadly, I didn''t now have those few months to speak off.


    Even as most of the officers in the camp busied themselves with drawing the plans for several strategic structures around the place, the training regime back in New Tarnow was putting hundreds of people through the hell of the training.


    The matter of officers drawing plans was yet another upside to this kind of military arrangement. Instead of relying on foreign, outside help to draw the schematics for the small settlements all around the province ranging from industrial areas, through the mining sites and living areas all the way to small and big military outposts aimed to supervise and protect the entire enterprise. Within just a few hours ever since my men started working on this new task, the map on the table would constantly receive more and more pinned pieces of paper on it, containing the detailed plans of a structure that should appear in the pinned place!


    "So you are opting for using the time that we have left before the deadline runs off, to settle this entire place? Are you sane?"


    Taking a long while to realise what I was speaking about, Cheerio''s patriarch looked at me with shock in his eyes.


    And it could be said that he was rightfully stunned. To establish full control over the entire province and develop it to the point where it would once again start bringing profitsˇ­ In a month? That indeed sounded insane!


    "Listen, it''s not impossible at all. With my building materials and the practice of my workers, building those places in such a short amount of time and filling them with essential machines is certainly doable. The only problem would lie in the food supplies, butˇ­"


    Taking a look at the great view that extended from the position where my headquarters tent was, I could already picture the ugly metal scars in form of iron train tracks, littered all over this place.


    "I dare to say, that food''s price right now is low. As long as a single train line will be finalised, I can buy any amounts of it form the markets all along the lower ends of the tracks. That means, you don''t need to hurry with moving your serfs here, but I would advice to actually give them the freedom to move here themselves. You will be most certainly surprised about the enthusiasm and creativity those people will come up with."


    Looking at the Patriarch with joy in my eyes, I could bet a huge part of my fortune just on what kind of face this old man would make once those poor people would be given the opportunity to improve their lands. Just by sending one rumour around, this simple-minded folk would rush to the land of promise, quickly supplying my lands with anything I would ever desire!


    This would be another boost to my economy. Once they would arrive, some of them would quickly find employment in workers-hungry industrial areas. Using the money they would earn, they could buy the food from my supplies, generating the first flow of money. Later on, as some of them would begin to properly settle, I could see all sorts of places growing out of the poor soil as if this land was blessed by God himself!

 309 Rebuilding Ostrog

    14th October 1574


    "Yeah, move the powder to the second area, and bring some more steel beams to the fifth one."


    The change that happened to Ostrog city surroundings in just four short days, was astounding.


    In one moment, all the military camps were disbanded, moving on to start the construction of the basic structures. Most of my soldiers hailed from the masses of workers, so this wasn''t their first time in this job.


    With those four short days, the train line that was just behind my lines before, now properly reached all the way to the side of the city. Given how local trade route, one that connected hinterlands of the country with the rich colonies and fortunes of the east, went in nearly a direct line from east to the west, instead of blocking its path, the very first train station of a real kind in this province, was set directly beside the road.


    Turning this entire golden route into not only an asphalt road but also connecting the edges of the country with the train line would instantly escalate the economic growth of those areas. But for now, this train station, this main project that was completed over the last for days, would serve as the main warehousing and logistic point. From this place, all the points of interest that I marked would be settled, finally picking up the rate at which the building materials were produced.


    Even before the investment would start properly, I already knew that it would only take a moment before the local production would catch up to what New Tarnow could provide. That''s why, in this very moment, this single train station would service all the masses of workers that I would move to this areas, along with all the import and export of those two cities!


    If one would take a stroll outside of the eastern gate of the Ostrog City, then he would see a wide path laid directly beside the city. This kind of planning already belonged to the new way of thinking.


    Back in the times, when location of the cities was rather common, people would often block all the ways of the trade flow, forcing it to pass through a road incorporated in a city. If someone wanted to pass, they would have to put their wares on the sale, forcibly increasing the ongoing trade.


    On the other hand, I opted against this kind of treatment in my lands. By leaving the road open and free for anyone to use, even going as far as investing separate fund for turning it into the best kind of road that I could currently make, I gave the people of the province a message.


    I''m not going to bully you.


    But with just this simple bit of planning, I openly declared that I won''t force the tools on the trade. Yet, the reality was far better for me than it looked like. Given how even the most distant parts of the country would be connected to the rest of the lands by train, the general price of wares would fall down. Soon, people would be unable to trade in any way other than by using my train!


    Not only that, once the skeletal fundaments would be laid for my settlements, the fluttering price of the products they will be producing, would force most of them to look a better way of earning. Once my lands would gather enough people, the increased production rate of the expensive materials along with the lower amount of food accessible while the farmers would get way more lands to tilt, the entire economy of this province would kickstart all at once.


    That''s why, when I planned for the reconstruction of the single city that I requested as my price of conquest, I decided to go with quite an unorthodox approach.


    Instead of investing in the ruined parts of the city in order to rebuild it, I gave the order that all, every slightly damaged area were to be burned. Destroyed to the ground, to the point where not even a single piece of rubble would remain.


    There were several reasons for my decision there.


    Firstly, by allowing the old layout of the city to dictate the way in which I could develop it, I would ultimately fall into the pit of arguing with the older citizens whenever innovation would force me to rebuild certain places.


    By scrapping so much of the city right away, I could open the space for the actually important and practical stuff.


    Right now, only a small part of the ruined areas got cleared up, but with the first batch of both the building supplies and workers arriving a few hours ago, the progress was already visible.


    Looking over the city from a vantage point on the top of a nearby hill, I could see how some of the old districts were already busying with workers laying down the concrete foundations.


    But that wasn''t the end of the effort. While the old city was rebuilt nearly from scratch, right outside of its gate, after passing by the trading route and train station, one could enter an area, marked away from the rest of the place.


    So far, the work there has yet to start, but I could already imagine how a simple drawing I made when thinking about this, would turn into the biggest human structure ever built by the humans!


    Sadly, I wasn''t speaking about some kind of wonder here. Rather than that, I observed the marking, white stones that outlined where each warehouse would be built. The entire area to the side of the train station would be actually a single, big mass of storage buildings!


    This was something that absolutely had to appear in this place. Just by looking at the plans, I realised that as soon as New Tarnow finishes its upgrade, another one will have to be built near the Tarnowian trading post!


    Only with this kind of a centre of the distribution, would my people be able to manage the flow of all the wares between the vast distances separating my lands apart.


    As silly as it sounded with the reports from the north claiming that the construction of the train line connecting the hinterlands of the country with the centre of war effort was greatly hindered, I could still dare to say that in a near future, there would be at least one more train line connecting the two future centres of distribution, as to allow a perfectly smooth and constant flow of the trains.


    "Sir, the general construction of the first centre of operation is finished. It would be advised to move there."


    Hearing the report from one of the workers, I couldn''t help but smile.


    This was nothing but a standard procedure that I worked out before and taught to my people even before going for the war. Once the enemy land would be secured and transformed for the sake of development, there were several steps that everyone had to follow.


    And I wasn''t an exception from the rule!


    With how I was responsible for only the major oversight and general orders, creating a place where all the commanding chain could settle was of the greatest importance. Even with that, it took them four entire days to finish it, given all the work that had to start all at once!


    "Good, lead the way."


    Following closely after this worker of mine, I passed through the streets of the new Ostrog. Compared to the cramped, outdated and sometimes even ugly and unpractical building scheme of the past, even the skeletal constructions that would turn into proper building with time already looked way cleaner and simply better!


    But once I saw the commanding centre, I realised that my military and the workers that arrived a bit earlier, truly outdone themselves.


    Most of the time, I would gladly direct the entirety of my forces to the practical tasks, giving up on such silly things like comfort or quality of the places I would end up staying.


    But looking at the magnificent building in front of me, I was only able to just remain silent in shock and awe.


    Critically looking, one could say that there was no beauty in it. Crafted with nearly nothing but the raw materials, it lacked any form of decoration or useful features. Even the problem of plumbing would take at least a week to be solved, with how much work it required to be implemented in a completely new city.


    But it was still beautiful.


    Simple, multistorey building, something that would be considered at most as a small condo. Yet, in this world, this was the most practical and well-thought-out office that I could ever hope for!


    Fortified first floor to prevent any assaults, proper perimeter and inner garden to help people relax, all the way to a damned lift that could spare someone walking just four flight of stairs?


    Noticing a single, bunk building beside the main house, I could tell that everything else was already provided. As long as there was a single well in the proximity, hot water and automation would be easy to implement!


    "Okay then."


    Feeling reinvigorated by the sight of my new workplace, I wiped away a tear from my eye, before taking the first step towards developing the shit out of this place.


    "Let''s rock\u0026roll!"

 310 Development and code

    20th October 1574


    "And that concludes my report."


    Placing down a sheet of papers that contained all the data that he was asked to bring, one of my assistants saluted by raising his two fingers to his temple before leaving the room altogether.


    All in all, the chances that I would ever have the time to look through it in any greater detail than what I just listened to, were nigh.


    Standing up form behind my desk to give my brain some time to regenerate, I looked out of one of the very first commercially used windows in the entire world.


    Rather than being made up with thousands of multi-colored pieces of glass, it was a simple plane of this strange liquid that was so thick that most people thought it was actually in a solid state. While buying it off the budding market, sparked by my drive for the innovation, could easily amount to a single percent of the total money I was sinking into the hole of the local construction. And with it''s scale slowly reaching beyond what a normal person of any time would ever consider to be possible, one could imagine just how much this single window took away from my pockets.


    Looking outside, I could tell that a lot of work was done over the last two weeks. By this time, the city barely had any marks that would remind anyone of the fighting that took place here.


    Starting with lodging areas, all the people that lost their fortunes during the siege, were granted a comfortable flat there for free. As long as they could prove that they actually had the house where the shells of my military rained, they would get the luxury of living in a place that would soon be equipped with heating system, running water and even proper savage!


    Creating the pipe network all over the city was simply impossible. Without destroying the rest of the buildings that somehow managed to get through the demolition spree, it would be impossible to create the tunnels in which the savage could flow. With that said, only the places created on top of the scorched land could ever enjoy this kind of basic luxury.


    Knock, knock.


    "Come in."


    At this point, I was already used to the constant nagging. Every few minutes, someone would knock to my doors, come with some papers, ask for my advice and leave right after receiving it.


    One could say that in the past few days, I turned from a victorious noble that won the right to participate in royal election, to a lone man enclosed in his dwelling, spending his days by helping others!


    "Sir, the General report came!"


    Bowing right in the doors-frame, this time the message carrier actually held far more important position. Judging from the several ribbons embedded into the shoulder of his uniform, this man actually hailed from the military, moved to the normal logistic effort due to his high confidentiality privileges.


    "Show it to me."


    "Ehˇ­ I guess the sooner we start, the sooner we will finishˇ­"


    Shaking my head in a defeat, I received the small package before carefully opening it up. Inside, a stack of tens of pieces of paper was located, threatening me with just its size alone.


    "I guess here goes nothingˇ­"


    Pulling out the first paper out of the stack, the first thing I did was inspect the top-right corner of the report. Unless it was marked with the similar ribbons like the ones on the arm of the soldier that didn''t dare to move away from the spot, then I could generally ignore it or put it for later, as it didn''t require my utmost attention.


    "The general logistic node is all but finished, only the parking, in and out-going areas and the tracksplitter are left to be finished. Estimated finishing time, twenty fourth of the octoberˇ­ Seriously?"


    Staring down at the paper, I wasn''t sure whether I should be angry and disappointed or content and prideful. Within less than two weeks, my people managed to finish everything about around the train and communication areas, leaving only the side taks for the latter?


    While the lack of track splitter meant that the speed at which the materials and humans could arrive would remain roughly the same, the fac that the building itself was already mostly finished, would allow me to at least streamline the transportation of the people and products from the main station to the general points of interests!


    As for the track splitter thing, it was one of the most important and most complicated elements that would come to exist in the entire damned province. To be honest, I was only capable of giving the idea for it, with its entire execution falling down on the shoulders of my retainers.


    In short, there would be only two tracks that would connect any and every single location to the others. It was made for the sake fo allowing the continuous passage of the trains, no matter which way they would be going. By giving each of the places a dedicated lane, the capacity of either receiving or sending the resources would ultimately end up relying on the capacity of the local stations rather than the train tracks themselves!


    The fact that the track changer has yet to be finished, meant that all the materials from New Tarnow had to be transported by train to Ostrog city, from where the light carriages would drive them off into the final destinations!


    It didn''t take a genius to understand how efficient this kind of system would both in the short, and in the long turn.


    As soon as this next step would be done, then by arriving at the Ostrog Main Train Hub, one could choose to either travel further down the eastern road, reaching all the way into the borderlands of the commonwealth and quite likely, in the near future, into the lands of other people. On the other hand, if someone was just a simple worker that had to transport to and from work over a huge distance, he could just go to another track on the station, where the dedicated train would be repeating its course over and over again!


    This solution obviously required for the local train-station scheme to be actually replicated into all the key points around the province. The entire idea lied in fact that the single areas without much importance would connect to the local hub, from where the train would change the tracks and travel down towards the higher hierarchy of the hubs, only to change its tracks again and finally arrive at the main hub!


    Obviously, as the time would go, most of this unnecessary traveling could be ignored. INstead of going from each and every small area towards the main hub, all the primary processing of the materials could be done in the lowest grade hubs, instantly putting them on the highlighted spot of the development. Once those points would grow to a satisfactory level, the focus would change to the pre-processing in the second grade hubs and later on, basic wares production right beside Ostrog!


    With the main storage area of my lands located right beside the city, I could already picture how the original square of the town would soon turn into nothing else but high-income district for soon to be one of the greatest cities in the entire continent!


    "Ooh?"


    Putting away this paper that caused me to feel a great mixture of different emotions at once, I took the next report, only to realise it''s markings in its upper right corner.


    "Code XF42, what does that mean?"


    After scanning the title of the report and the content of the first, outlining paragraph, I could tell that without the information I asked for, I wouldn''t go anywhere.


    "It will be "in a near future" sir."


    I never learned the way in which those messages were encrypted. Just from the fact that only the absolute elite of my forces could reach the point of being a secret messanger one could realise how hard it was to learn such thing.


    From what I understood when my retainers attempted to explain the entire scheme to me, each letter had assigned a commonly used word, while each number meant some kind of action.


    BUt as if that wasn''t enough, what was written on the paper and the code that I just spoke about, were actually two different things!


    If I were to read from the paper, then the correct code would be 8ld1. Only after translating each letter and number with the help of a special code sheet I had near my hand, I could produce a code that would be understandable for the messenger.


    "Oh, that makes senseˇ­"


    Contrary to my first expectations, it wasn''t that easy to crack this kind of coding. While most of the text was written openly, all the major and important clauses, details or problems were codded down, making it impossible for anyone to ever break this system. With only the highest officers often responsible for several mining sites and industrial towns by themselves, knew how to use the code, and only I had the sheet with the codes.


    Even if someone were to catch the messenger, he wouldn''t be able to learn anything as messengers themselves were clueless about the way of translating the original code into the real one.


    Yet, when reading that my scouts expects Muscivote raid on my newly acquired lands in a near future, I couldn''t help but feel unsettled by it!

 311 Muscovite envoys aide

    24th October 1574


    "What''s does the report say?"


    Sitting down in an inconspicuous tent set at the edge of the local forest, upon seeing my group, anyone would most likely think that we were some sort of mercenaries or hired swords returning home after either winning the bet of picking the employer or after the rest of our forces was defeated.


    Given how I couldn''t bring any serious force here in order to not bring any attention to this place in the first place, I could only rely on acting low-key to seriously get by.


    "Sir, just like we expected, it turns out that it wasn''t a raiding force, but a covert diplomatic party. Should we go with the plan, or just surround them and apprehend all of them? While doing so might result in some casualties on their sides, as long as we will be able to take even a single officer alive, all our questions would most likely be answered. There is no point in putting your lordship at such risk!"


    This wasn''t the first time when my men protested about it, and I could tell it wouldn''t be the last. Given how I was only starting to finally recover from my injuries, I was still incapable of proper fight. In the case of the talks with the party that we were tracking would beak up, the instant escalation of the conflict bewteen our unnumerous groups would bring a lot of danger to my personal health, given how I was barely able of protecting myself.


    Or rather, that would be the case if I was as stupid as to direct my life with words like noblese oblige or nobles'' honour. It went without a question that the other party was armed to its teeth. Given how they were acting under cover, right in the hinterlands of the enemy homeland, any mishap or missfortunate accident on the way would force them to fight their way back to their own lines.


    In this kind of situation, I wasn''t as naive as to believe that the other party would respect the sanctity of the envoys. With that said, one could think that as disabled from hand-to-hand fighting as I was, if any fight were to ensue, my side with far smaller numbers would be bound to lose.


    "Like I said, there might be some words exchanged there, that only I will be able to denounce or acknowledge. After all, don''t we have several mobile units stationed all around their path, ready to jump into action right when the first shoot will be fired?"


    Looking with a huge sympathy at Hans who was the biggest opponent of me going into theˇ­ coincidental meeting, I only swung my head to the sides a few times before reaching with my hand towards one of my adiutants.


    "My gun, please."


    Even with all the improvements, no matter whether they were inspired by the feedback from the soldiers or became a thing after creating special think-tanks ordered with nothing but the task of improving this basic weapon of my forces, my personal gun was still a grade above the rest.


    With my fingers reuniting with this dear weapon of mine, I couldn''t stop myself from running my hand down the barrel of the gun.


    Despite being stored in the chest at all times that it was not used, a bit of dust somehow managed to find its way inside the box, dirtying my precious comadre.


    "With our guns, I don''t think we need to worry about anything though? Additionally, right now we don''t really have any choice."


    Smiling gently, I pointed the muzzle of my gun towards a hill nearby. Just when the attention of my retainers turned towards the place I pointed at, the small cloud of smoke that was rising above it revealed the appearance of the front guard of the cover Muscovite diplomatic mission to Ostros.


    "Announce us."


    Giving the order to one of the few remaining cavalrymen from my military. In one moment, he was standing on the ground and receiving orders, and in the next moment, he was already galloping towards the potentially enemy force!


    I didn''t need to wait for long for the events to develop even further. After some sort of exchange between my man and the foreign unit that we were simply too far to hear, a small detachment of riders separated from the main group and followed my man back to our camp.


    "What is the meaning of this? You better explain why we are not meeting in Ostrog!"


    As soon as his horse entered the premises of the small camp of mine, a tough-looking guy jumped off from his saddle, instantly approaching my simple seat. Yet, contrary to his expectations, rather than being intimidated by his brute-force approach, my men instantly prepared their guns to shoot, pointing over seven barrels directly at the man''s face and every place he could attempt to dodge to.


    "It would be advisable for you to keep the proper tone while speaking to your masters, you dog."


    While I never got the chance to meet with Ostros, the way they acted starting from the unreasonable demands of the envoy through the sudden invasion on my lands all the way to the method they used to conduct the war, was more than enough to grasp the general feeling of their behavioural standards.


    "What did you say?!"


    My words managed to push not only my soldiers into action but also the rest of the small detachment that arrived in the place along with either the envoy or the envoy''s aide that was currently failing at throwing his weight around.


    "Like a good master to a dog, I taught you a lesson. Next time you shout, do a step forward with any other intention than kowtowing to me or even make a face that I will consider funny, your head will part from your neck, and the only remaining escort of yours that I will keep alive will have to go and fetch another dog for me to slaughter. This process will continue for as long as worthless slaves like you will learn their place, or the envoy himself will come to greet me."


    Instead of explaining this strange situation, pushing my weight around seemed like a better choice. While my view of the mindset of the current age muscovites was obviously biased by how I learned the history from the point of view of their ages-long rivals but seeing how the man nearly instantly turned patient and respectful, I couldn''t help but feel the doubts about whether these stereotypical assumptions I had about muscovites of the time being actually right!


    "Yes, master. I came here to rely on the question of the envoy. Please, forgive me my rudeness."


    Falling down to his knees, this brute man kneeled down and lowered his head, revealing a huge scar on his neck.


    In this one moment, I suddenly felt a huge wave of guilt overwhelming me. This mark on the man''s upper back meant that he actually either was in the past or continued to be an actual slave!


    As someone from the future where slavery was commonly scorned and considered to be the lowest that humanity ever got outside of genocides, realising that I was actually so directly rude to a man who went through the hell of slaveryˇ­


    "What''s the envoy''s question then?"


    Forcefully stopping those regrets of mine from influencing my decision-making process right now, I cut short muscovite envoy''s aide series of apologies, I pushed the opportunity a bit further. After all, the main point of this meeting, was to sound off the intentions of the entire muscovy, so that I could use my forces not wherever the glorious Commonwealth command would lack men, but where my military could actually change the course of the war!


    "His majesty envoy wants to know why did the meeting''s place change from the capital city to some obscure place at the side of the forest."


    Even though his disposition already changed to one of an obedient dog, I could still feel the threads of threat in those words of the envoy''s aide.


    "Right now we are in the middle of the war. Contrary to what was suggested, Commonwealth forces did not depart from this land, forcing us to face no only the wrath of Tarnowski household, but also nearly all the high nobles that have their lands nearby! If you travelled through our northern lands, you should already realise the gravity of the situation."


    Saying those words, I felt a huge wave of gratitude towards Cheerio''s patriarch. If not for his swift actions in giving the lands that I conquered away to the nearby nobles, I wouldn''t be able to use this incredibly convincing point to sway the opinion of the envoy!


    "We have indeed seen the influx of nobles in the lands that we expected to be completely devoid of people at this pointˇ­ Should his majesty the envoy take it as if you failed to move those meatbags away in time?"


    Just by hearing how the man in front referred to the serfs that were bound to the land and lord they lived under, the blood in my veins started to boil. Sadly, if I didn''t want this chance to go to waste, I had no other choice but to suppress the hate that was growing to dangerous levels within my soul and keep my act together!


    "Let''s sayˇ­ due to your side negligence, a lot of our plans turned awry. After all, we can''t forget about Tarnowian''s leaderˇ­ special abilities!"

 312 Reveal

    24th October 1574


    "Whoa, wait a second! Don''t you think that bringing that up with so many people aroundˇ­"


    Hearing the envoy''s aide response, I could only congratulate myself. It seemed that I was right on the spot when I guessed that some other people were in possessions of system-like talents just like me!


    While it was a pity that I had no idea what Muscovite leader''s abilities were, at least I had the general idea of what Ostros were capable off!


    Their actions during the conflict clearly stated that they didn''t care about the loyalty of their people. Instead of improving their lives to buy their allegiance and making sure than anyone trying to offer them more would be pictured as the devil himself in their propaganda, there was no evidence in any of the places that my forces scavenged to support that statement.


    But if we put the endless potential ability there, the equation of Ostros forces and plans suddenly started to make sense. As long as it was similar to what I guessed already, then their now deceased leader could form an army of any size he would ever want, just by forcing his subjects into full and unwavering loyalty to him!


    "How stupid of you to think that even a single one of my soldiers that I brough here could ever speak a word of this matter. Do you really think they have any resemblance of free-will left in their bodies?"


    Given how in essence, this was nothing but a foul play on my part, I couldn''t do anything about the fact that by bringing the matter of the special abilities, I would inevitably expose my own people towards this topic.


    Yet, in reality, it was all planned. Just like I couldn''t start the building of the trainlines connecting all the furthest part of the commonwealth together without setting a proper base industry beforehand, I would be unable to push for any changes related to the systems that I and the others most likely had, if I were to figuratively travel to the Vatican and have a talk with the Pope himself.


    In order for the ploy and scheme to grow, its seeds had to be planted way in advance, so that its sudden growth sprout wouldn''t surprise anyone, forcing their hand into cutting a new plant inviding their garden. By bringing this topic right now in the limited openness of my soldiers, I just made sure that while it would inevitably leak outside with time, tracking its source would turn simply impossible for the investigators of the current times.


    "Ough, that''s right, how stupid of meˇ­"


    Backing down and once again lowering his head, the envoy''s aide clearly struggled to come with some kind of decision for a moment, before his head raised back to its usual position.


    Hearing the second sentence, I didn''t pay almost any mind to the invite itself, but focused my attention in whose name was used to herald the invite!


    While I never was good with the precise dates of the stuff, I was more than sure that the actuall Imperial titles only appeared in Russian Tsardom at least one if not two hundred years in the future, after Muscovy turned from nothing more than a regional power located at the absolute edge of what was considere to be a civilised world. To that point, the rulers of Muscovy that was later renamed as Tsarate of Russia always called themselves Tsar in an attempt to continue the legacy of the byzantine empire that they always claimed to be the successors off.


    Ever since princedom of Muscovy succeeded at repelling the Mongol control, it always strived to be the uniting force that would bring back all the other rhuthernian clans under its own rule. Taking the mantle of the heralds of the eastern slavic tribes, they came up with the idea of Muscovy being a third rome after the latin city and constantinople has fallen. Due to the vast amount of rhuthernian lands quickly getting conquered by the Lithuanians who were spared the onslaught of the european mongol invasion, Muscovy was nearly in an eternal conflict with the grand princedom and later Commonwealth after Lithuania and Poland merged into a single state.


    "It would be an honour to attend this meeting. But as you can see, in the process of repelling those idiots from Tarnowian lands, I got hurt quite painfully in my leg, so it would be a great act of magnitude if his majesty the envoy could settle with the meeting taking place here instead. After all, we have all the tents, tables and seats for the people of honour ready!"


    Swinging my hand around, I pointed at all the different kinds of furniture that was brough fresh from the wood factory in new Tarnow. With the trains rushing on the daily basis to logistically connect my already developed lands with the province that was nearly in its entirety under construction and renovation, ordering a single cart full of fancy furniture devoid of any brand markings was troublesome just a little bit.


    "I will pass this request to the envoy then. With all due respect, but I would like to take my leave now."


    Hitting his forehead against the solid ground, the envoy''s aide slammed his knees and hands into the dry earth of the steppe, awaiting my approval. It seemed like the silly show of strength that I presented to him before managed to work wonders on his attitude.


    But to be fair, I didn''t enjoy seeing another man humiliate himself like that before me. I couldn''t understand how others could enjoy giving others such kind of treatment. If I wanted to fix my low self-esteem, only by doing it with my own effort could I achieve results that would last for a long time. Trying to make myself look bigger by lowering others, was a measure that worked only for as long as I was powerful enough to bend the knees of anyone who would ever become a possible threat to this fake authority of mine, built on nothing but the premise that I was indeed the strongest.


    "Sir?"


    As soon as the aide along with the men that approached our camp with him left the vincity from where they could hear what we were talked about, nearly all of the officers in my camp along with Hans himself approached me a bit closer.


    The question they wanted to know the answer for, although unspoken, was obvious.


    "This thing is something that I originally planned to bring up during the conflict with Ostros in case we would turn out to be unable to crush their power. That''s also the reason why those who managed to kill their entire bloodline got rewarded so handsomely. But before I say anything else, you all need to swear on your swords and faith, that not a word of what I will tell you will ever leave your mouth."


    This kind of promise was bound to be broken. As much as I trusted my people to never utter a single word about the explanation that I was about to give them, as soon as even a single one of them would find the time to get properly drunk, then the information would spread all over my lands within just a few days, through the entire country within weeks, and across the entire continent within months.


    I wasn''t as conceited and self-entilted to assume that only the nations in this specific part of the continent were blessed or more likely cursed with the people from the future. Knowing so little about the entire process that resulted in me appearing in this timeline in the first place, it was easier to point out what I know rather than the lapses in my knowledge. In fact, it was more accurate to say that there were lapses of knowledge in the sea of my ignorance about those topics!


    But one thing was certain. It was only a matter of time before the world would learn about the existence of the systems, or special powers how I was about to call it. If this matter was left alone, then by the time it would become a vibrant topic in the high society, a new wave of witchhunt would ensure, but this time it oculd easily sweep through the noble community of commonwealth!


    That''s why, instead of relying on the luck of never being found out despite how quickly I made it so big, I decided to be the spark behind the explosion of this problematic matter in the society. As long as I could be the first to bring this topic up in the papacy, with the backing of the entire commonwealth, then there was a huge chance that I could find a way to save myself from the God''s redemption as much as the crusades from the countries that would still be ruled by people without the system by the time this plan would come to its fruition!


    "Sir, we swear!"


    In this moment, all of the officers and soldiers that accompanied me on this risky mission gathered around, raising their swords and sabres at the height of their heart. Even Hans, despite not being a noble, took part in this ritual.


    "To put in short wordsˇ­ There are some people around the world, that were either blessed or cursed with means that others could only dream about. While it''s only a guess of mine, that fucker''s reaction only serves to confirm the fact that someone in the Ostros household was capable of enforcing absolute and nearly mindless loyalty of their subjects."


    Taking a short breath to get some air into my lungs, I looked over the faces of the soldiers around me, all focused on me.


    "And to tell you the truth, you could say that I''m just like Ostros. The difference is, they were cursed with the power to enslave the others, while I was blessed with the knowledge about the times that were yet to happen."


    Declaring myself to be special, even to such a small group, would have great effects soon. Just like I claimed before, I knew that it was only a matter of time before the roumours would start spreading. And given how I would be their source, adding the fact that in the recent months, I was one of the most active people in the entire country, I wasn''t as naive as to think that the general investigation that was bound to ensue would miss my family.


    "Sir, does that mean you have the gift of divination?!"


    Stepping forward, Hans asked the question that was on the lips of everyone gathered. Sadly, it wasn''t the case. Otherwise, how could I ever allow even a single casualty to appear on my side?


    "That''s not the case. Divination is nothing more than a set of tricks, maybe some predictions based on one''s accumulated knowledge and experienceˇ­ What happened to me, was entirely different."


    Standing up from my chair, I looked towards the disguised diplomatic mission that was slowly approaching our vincity. Knowing that I had little to no time to finish, I ignored the sharp pain in my yet-to-be-fully-healed leg.


    "There was a single day, no different than any others, when I went to the church. Staying behind after the holy mass, I continued to pray for the welfare of my household and our country, when I suddenly found myself drifting through the times that are yet to come. It was then that I saw the deterioration of the commonwealth, many long and exhaustive wars that depleted our resources and population. It was during those god-sent vision that I saw the collapse of commonwealth, followed by the ages of empires, age of bloodshed that brought human''s tyranny and cruelty to levels unimaginable for any of you, all the way to the times when humans completely lost their sense of self."


    Once again taking a quick peek at the approaching group, I realised that at most, I had time for a single sentence more, before I would risk the diplomats from Muscovy hearing the content of my speech.


    "That''s why, I''m doing my best to change that cursed history I saw. This is what I believe to be the reason why God himself bothered to grant me the mercy of those visions."

 313 Unreal offer

    24th October 1574


    "How bad is the situation?"


    Contrary to my expectations, the envoy turned out to be not only a young man in his forte, but from how fluently he was speaking the local language, I could tell that he had to be born in Commonwealth, but due to some life choices of his or the local warlords, he ended up becoming muscovite.


    After all, in the current times, there wasn''t such thing as nationalities. The lowborn would consider themselves the be locals, born in the city of A they would call themselves Aers. Outside of that, merchants never would bother with such stupid ideas like nationality, when their job itself required them to know as many languages as they could while keeping contacts in as many places as they were capable of.


    The only social class in the current world, as much as it pained me, that cared about such elaborate stuff like homeland or nationality, was the nobility. With how directly they were involved with managing the country, something that was clearly visible with how the senate was now in the full control of the governance of the Commonwealth, the feeling of attachment to certain greater group managed to sprout in the noble souls.


    In the original timeline, this process would have to be refined by the fires of constant wars and the overall deterioration of the country, that pushed the great majority of the meaningful nobility to press for reforms. Everyone in the future United States of America would pride themselves in holding the title of creating the very first constitution in the world, yet no matter how future Poland would strive to promote it, the world would often forget that it was the Commonwealth nobility that pushed for creating the very first European constitution that was worldwide second only to American one!


    "Would it suffice to say that right now, we have no way of rejoicing the main forces in Ostrog? With how important this meeting was for my lord, he decided that even losing my entire unit would be worth it as long as I could pass the several requests that he deemed to be of absolute priority if you wish to keep an ally in the Commonwealth hinterlands."


    This kind of sentences was nothing but a wild guess on my end. While the fact that the enemy diplomatic mission outnumbered my soldiers by far didn''t mean that I could just go with a less risky route. In the end, everyone that I was talking with right now, would end up dying by the end of the day. Outside of the envoy himself, even a single enemy soldier operating behind my lines could generate great costs once he would turn efficient in sabotage kind of war. That''s why I didn''t really mind if my words would miss the mark by a margin great enough to alert the envoy. One could say that it was nothing more and nothing less than your simple high-risk, high-reward play on my side!


    Shaking his head with visible regret, the young man in front of me looked around the area. For some reason, this simple scan of the surroundings suddenly turned his attention up a notch, as if something somehow alerted his vigilance.


    "Where are the lookouts?"


    Just a simple change of tone was all that this man had to do to alert his entire group. In one instant, muscovite soldiers drew their weapons, instantly sparking the same reaction from my soldiers. At least, given how my people knew from the very beginning that this entire meeting was nothing more but a smart scheme, their weapons were already prepared, hidden under their coats rather than being held in the natural carrying position as it was the case for the muscovites.


    "I would advise you to not make any rash decisions."


    Finally reaching towards the cup of my beer that I hid below my chair, I openly brought it to my lips and took a hefty sip. Once the glass left my face alone, the envoy could see a wide smile formed on my face, as I stared at him with pity.


    "What is the meaning of this?! Who are you?!"


    As flustered as the man was, something that I could observe from the rapid changes appearing on his face, he remained sane enough to remain perfectly still at his seat. Maybe it was just me, or maybe the sight of several guns pointed directly at his face had a similar calming effect to even the strongest calming drugs that in the future I knew, unruly mental patients would get tanked into their veins.


    "Since you already realised the truth, let me explain your situation properly."


    With a single gesture at one of my aides, a young man who had the balls to volunteer for this mission despite never holding a gun in his hand, quickly brough my preferred crane of choice, allowing me to stand up without forcefully ignoring the insane pain that would come close to paralyzing my leg.


    "Right now, you guys are kinda in the middle of the area that is the witness of the greatest development spree that this world has ever seen so far in its existence. As we are talking, my people are laying down the train tracks, connecting all sorts of mines to the logistical centres and laying the foundations for the industrial areas."


    Taking a few steps to reach the nearby table, I made sure to move slowly enough to not alert the soldiers from either side. With the devious plan already budding in my head, unnecessary bloodshed here was the last thing that I wanted.


    "All Ostros forces got decimated, and their household is no longer a thing. Their lands were divided between local nobles, and the most important points of interest in the province we are here right now were annexed to my private domain. Within the next two weeks, the forces that I scrambled together to defeat the Ostros, all the heavy, light and supportive equipment, will be produced by this land on the daily basis, supporting the war effort against your main armies. That means every single unit will be equipped with more thanks than your people have guns."


    Dropping the bomb one after the another on the man in front of me, I could see how his expression continued to deteriorate. Even if he didn''t understand more than half of what I said, just the confidence that was brimming from my words should be enough for the proper message to be conveyed.


    "Why are you telling me all of that? Do you wish to flex? Or do you want to imply that despite having more men than you, we are doomed to lose if the fight were to break off?"


    Seeing the strange look in the envoys eyes, I realisde that there was something going on that I had no clue about. Maybe they had some sort of ace card hidden in a place that my scouts missed? Or maybe they had some way of conveying the messages over the long distances?


    This second guess was actually supported by the way in which they conducted the war on the border. Even though I didn''t directly involve myself with this grand conflict, I wasn''t as lazy as to completly ignore those few reports that were arriving in my lands about theˇ­ negative progress of the Commonwealth forces. Faced with the Muscovitean advance on the entire length of the border, the old type of Commonwealthan army was simply unable to cope with the aggresion!


    Still stuck at the idea of fighting the grand battles if the chances were even or turning towards the proxy war if the chances of wining the war were nigh, once they were attacked with something that I could only describe as the first world war style of conducting the war, then even the superior quality of polish-lithuanian troops couldn''t change the inevetable outcome!


    But as dangerous as it was for the commonweal to face against this kind of general strategy, there were a lot of reasons why this style of warfare only developed far later in the future.


    And the most important of them all, was the means of instant communication.


    To spread one''s forces across the entire, insanely long border between Muscovy and Commonwealth, meant putting them at the risk of Commonwealth forces just riding from the top to the bottom of the border, using their mass alone to just wipe all the enemy contingents one by one. In order to counteract this kind of defense, the aggresor had to be capable of instantly moving his troops around, either to push them deeper into the enemy territory or to pull them back, clearing the path for the pancer fist of the defendant.


    And with how Muscovites were winning this war so far, I could tell that either they were insanely lucky, or they had some means of communication that even I couldn''t figure out!


    "Listen to everything that I want to say now. Right now, you are facing against my smaller force, that is capable of shooting everyone in your group before even a single one of my soldiers would have to change the magasine in their weapons. Even if somehow you would manage to clutch your way out, two more mobile units with machines far faster than horses are on the standby nearby. In other words, if we start fighting, then no matter the outcome, you won''t be able to carry your head away from this place."


    Starting with a light threat, I kept my eyes glued to the Envoy''s face, trying to see whether my words were not pushing him too far. After all, a cornered man was the most dangerous one!


    "Now, two informations that you need to understand at the same time. First, I''m the one who holds the power in this force. There are no doubles, nor there are any hidden figures pulling the threads from behind. But at the same time, while I hold this power, I never really bothered to use it on a huge scale. That''s why, killing me would meant that my designated heir would take my place, while still holding all the means of conducting warfare against you."


    Even if revealing my deepest secret soundded stupid, by doing so I proved that I dind''t really care about it. After all, outside of some early work that I did myself, the entirety of the progress made by my people and lands came from their own efforts, with just a tiny amount of me overseeing their work!


    "And since now you know that killing me wouldn''t change anything, let''s get to the crux of the matter. How about we call it a day and sign a peace?"

 314 Lets get rich

    24th October 1574


    My offer had absolutely no weight in terms of diplomatic relations between the countries. One could say that the only peace I could sign would be between the entirety of the Muscovy - or at least the part that was responsible for the war - and me myself. Yet, doing so would be no different from the treason. As a Polish noble, one of the current great powers of the commonwealth, my status alone obliged me to certain things.


    "A peace? And who do you think you are to even offer it?"


    As expected, the envoy''s reaction was simple. Instead of taking me seriously, he simply giggled, instantly annoying all of my soldiers at once while relaxing his own people. But instead of just ridiculing me like that, after a short time his laughter ended in one instant, with his face returning to its usual seriousness.


    "But let me endorse you. Why do you think you are capable of offering us a peace, and what would be it''s potential terms? After allˇ­"


    Taking a sweep around with his hand, the envoy pointed at his entire force.


    "... those people here are nothing but a small unit. While they have the right to call themselves elite, in the grand scheme of things, neither do they nor I matter. Just like you claimed that killing you won''t change a thing, so is the matter with killing us."


    It was to be expected. Ever since ancient times, an envoy was someone who not only represented the entirety of his side, but also was commonly agreed to be a figure that could never be met with harm. It came from the simple fact that if that basic law was not upheld, then there would be no way for any of the sides to ever end the conflict untill the other side would be completly anihilated. And with how most of the wars so far were not about the ideology like in the future, but the influence or some extremely profitable slash strategically important lands, the position of an envoy whose security was guaranteed no matter what, lied in the interests of all the sides.


    Yet, even with all of that. There were a lot of cases when envoys would lose their lives. Be it when trying to negotiate the peace with some rebels that actually reached a bit closer to turning their war into a total and ideological thing, when attempting to negotiate with tyrants or in many other cases, the life of the envoy could be ended.


    Those two sides of the single coin that was the position of the envoy resulted in a simple thing. Being an envoy would be considered as a great honour, but also a great danger. Due to this, never in the history of the european continent did this position fall onto the head of someone who was vitaly important either for the ruling clan or the country as a whole!


    "You see, this matter is pretty simple."


    "From the moment I won against and eradicated Ostros household, the war was over."


    Stating this reality with absolute confidence, I took a short break, curious whether the envoy would react. Sadly, this man wits and balls turned to be far bigger than I intialy expected, forcing me to pick up my piece without the other side actually asking for it.


    "Right now, you might be winning, I will give you that. If I''m not wrong about the means that the figure behind the Muscovite power possess, then you might even push the frontline way deeper than I believe it already reaches inside the commonwealth. You can steal all the wealth, kidnap all the people from those lands, nad burn everything down upon leaving. But let''s be honest, why would be dumb enough to wage war, even a small and simple one, not the total one that you guys are investing yourself in, just for some loot?"


    Taking a look at the envoy, I hoped that my face would properly express the same emotion that a parent would have once trying to explain something obvious to any adult to their growing-up kid.


    Someone once said that war was nothing less and nothing more but an extension to one''s diplomacy. Just another mean that a ruler would have up his sleeve, used whenever the less costly tools would fail to provide the effect that the crown required. Until the age of empires that would start with the fall of Commonwealth and the resulting rise of the three great powers of central and eastern europe, only very few wars were actually fought for the sake of survival.


    Hailing from Poland in the original timeline, I was capable of pointing just a single conflict that was actually about the survivial of one''s country that happened before the world wars. And as surprising as it might sound, I didn''t mean any of the uprising sparked by the partitions of the Commonwealth, nor even the wars that resulted in said partition.


    It was the Polish-Teutonic conflict that decided which of those countries would reign supreme over the entire region. Just like the predecessors of the current commonwealth broke the powers of the Teutonic order and quickly assimilated it into its own lands, if Polish-Lithuanian alliance of that time were to lose, then the history of the entire world would change drastically upon the raise of the powerful teutonic force in the region.


    In that scenario, one that I made happen many times over in the world universalis four game, the empowered teuton state would quickly secularise and swallow the remains of the weakened lands of the future commonwealth. Once that would happen, then no other force to the east would be capable of stopping the teutonic growth!


    "The amount of resources, manpower and effort you guys are investing into this war makes it clear. It''s not just some child''s play in the tatar raid''s style, but a real war aimed at conquering either a huge swaths of lands, or taking over the commonwealth as a whole. But here is where your problem starts."


    With how this entire situation was planned from the very beginning, a single swipe of my hand was enough to get one of my men to bring me a map that outlined the general region of both Commonwealth and Muscovy, along with several other points that were properly kept away from the legend.


    "Right now, you guys can do anything because instead of joining the war, I''m taking my time to properly integrate those lands into my domain. But even as my power grows here, those two lines that you can see marked with redˇ­"


    Even though it was only one of the three colours outside of black and white used for the overall draft, I still pointed my hand at it in order to make sure that the envoy would perfectly understand what I had on my mind.


    "... are nearing its completion. According to the reports that I''m recieving daily, its only a matter of days before the rallying point of of Commonwealth forces will be connected directly to my lands. And its only a matter of about two or three more weeks before the lands that I acquired recently, will start producing the military equipment. In short words, in three weeks, the war will enter a new phase, and in up to two months, your army will be flattened under the tracks of my war carriages. And keep in mind, that what I''m telling you, is nothing more than the worst case scenario."


    Obviously, the lines on the map were not precise. The relying point that this map provided was shown in the city of Vilinus instead of the city of Minsk where it would really be. Even when I was providing information for the enemy in order to pull them to my side, I wasn''t as stupid as to balantly give them all the information they needed to prevent any of my plans from taking place!


    "Let''s say that for a moment I will believe in what you are saying. For this one, short moment, I will pretend that you actually have the power and means to realise your words. In that fictional scenario, what would you like to propose? Given all the introduction that you used to bore everyone out, I assume you didn''t create this whole ploy just to flaunt how great you are, but to offer something that would be beneficial to the both of us."


    Just like the envoy said, everything that I said before was nothing but a preparation for the grand reveal of my proposition. Yet, when it came to actually spelling it out, I realised that there was something within me that stopped me from doing so. As if my moral spine was attempting to prevent me from realising this devilish idea.


    "In short words, what I want to offer is a complete world domination. Not by the means of military, not by the means of forcing others into obedience. What I can offer you guys, is to join hands and use our combined force to get so fucking unimaginably rich, that all the petty reasons that one would usually have to wage the war will become nothing more but an annoynace due to how busy we will be not making the money, but counting how much others will be making for us!"

 315 Details of the devious deal

    24th October 1574


    "How about you fill me in with some details, instead of some lofty words and ideas that have no coverage in facts?"


    Just by looking at the envoy''s face, one could freely judge that he was rather negatively geared up towards what I said a moment ago. But from the single fact that the envoy actually bothered to ask for the details I could tell that he was actually more than interested!


    "Before I will do that, please, tell me. What do you think power constitutes?"


    This was one of the questions that everyone who ever tasted said power would ask themselves. Even back when I was no one but just a team leader in one of the worst kind of jobs, namely - call centre - I could still enjoy a huge amount of not only authonomy but also the power itself, as all the decisions about hiring or firing people, changing the targets and approach of the consultants under me were fully within my power to change or modify. In the end, as long as my department was providing the necessary results, the higher-ups would give me completely free reign of it.


    Did that mean that I was powerful figure back in that firm? Considering how much I feared some of my direct supervisors that didn''t care about the official decisions of the boss regarding my autonomy in operating my department, I was nothing more but a gear in the greater machine of the firm. By myself, I had no power whatsoever. But at the same time, everyone who worked under me, knew that once they would piss me off, their carrers would hang by the thread.


    Was I powerful or not? Back then, this question lingered in my head, constantly pushing me for more promotions, greater targets and all the unnecessary stuff, that while allowing me to reach for the higher seat in the company, quickly resulted in nearly the entire collapse of the call-centre department once I left its management to other people.


    "Power is power. I''m powerful to those who listen to me, and I''m no one to those who can order me around. Power is just a world used to describe the relativeness of one''s position in the pecking order."


    Shrugging his arms without a care in the world, the envoy quickly described himself as one of those who never paid a lot if any attention to those kind of theoretical questions. Sadly, if I wanted to convince him about the profitability of my plan, I had to make him understand one thing.


    "You are both right and wrong. In an ancient world, without developed society, your power was equal to how big your club was when compared to the others. Once the world started growing and human societies continued to develop, the meaning of power changed from your personal power, to the power that you could command as the leader of a force. This kind of scheme last to this day, and this is exactly what I hope to change with your support."


    "So you are trying to say thatˇ­"


    Just from hearing the way in which the envoy started his reply with, I knew that it didn''t matter at all what he would say later on. The sentence he used as he started speaking, was no different from the manipulative means that I taught to my subordinates back in my original timeline to allow them to reiterate the problems of the customers in a way that would make our offer look like the ultimate and best remedy to everything they had to face!


    "I''m not trying anything. What I''m offering you, is to transition into the next form of power, that isn''t exclusive to just being a noble within one country, but being a powerhouse whose power spreads across the entire world!"


    Even though I still have yet to provide him with any details, I could see that by constantly bringing this topic up and showering it with the praises, I was slowly changing his mind from totaly and absolutely rejecting my idea juts because it was mine, towards maybe giving it a chance!


    "But since you wanted the details, then let me give you some. As long as you retract the troops and promise to pay the reparations within two years, then I''m willing to let you in on the scheme that will completely change the world."


    For the first time during our talks, I came up with something concrete. Yet, after praising my own proposition with vague words for so long, for the first concise words to be about the costs of actually taking the offer?


    Someone who only dabbled a bit in trade and negotiations would consider it to be a fatal flaw of my argumentation. Something that would instantly put my offer on the route to be declined. But this was also the way of thinking that separated temporary workers at the call-centre from those who made thousands there.


    "Are you insane?! Do you really think that I would accept such humiliating terms while we are on our way to decimate your entire country?!???


    Agitated by my words so much that he stood up as he rebuked my proposition, the envoy went as far as standing up as he shouted, instantly prompting up the reaction from my soldiers. While seeing how both sides once again took each other at the length of the barrels of their respective weapon, I could only gnash my teeth and ignore the pain in my jaws caused by this. As dangerous as pitting everyone like that was, it was something that had to be done in order for my offer to go through!


    "You are on your way to having your entire population enslaved by me. From the moment I defeated Ostros, a month long timer started ticking. Once it will reach the end of its set period, then no force in the entire world will be capable of stopping me. And you know whats the funniest part about it all?"


    Still sitting down on my chair, I kept my fully relaxed and even slightly joyous smile as I was finally reaching the interesting part of the negotiations.


    "What is that?!"


    Still angry at my outragerous proposition, the envoy clenched his fists to the point where his bones started to shine from below his skin.


    "I won''t need to send even a single soldier of mine in order to change the weight of the troops numbers to commonwealth side. The profits from what will be produced in a day once everything starts will be more than sufficient to hire thousand strong units of mercenaries. And while initially it won''t be that much, you should understand at this point that the speed at which my lands profitability grows, is exponential."


    Sitting down the envoy with those words, I kept my smile seeing as his angry face started to melt, replaced by the expression of hopelessness.


    "That''s why, instead of wasting so much gold just to show you who is the boss, I''m willing to let you feed on the scraps that will fall down from my table."


    Those words were extremely condescending. But it was all within the technique that I developed with several coworkers of mine, that was aimed at pushing the customer into a perfect emotional state to ultimately make the pucharse.


    "But those scrapsˇ­ What I meant by scraps, is in reality a chance for you and anyone who actually sent you here, to earn more money personally than the entire Muscovy makes right now. Not a bad deal, won''t you say? And if you ask how I plan on doing thatˇ­ Then let me point you out in the direction of extremly rich lands to the muscovite''s east, where coal, iron and all kinds of other natural richness are just waiting in the ground for someone to take intrest in them! What I can offer you, are the means to excavate it, process it and an enourmous marked where you will always find the buyers for the finished products!"


    Pretending to be so agitated that I involuntarily stood up, I forced myself to keep the same happy grin on my face, hiding how in reality I could barely stand the pain in my leg after such sudden move.


    "And let''s not forget that the amount that you will be producing won''t be that hard to transport, as I''m willing to connect Muscovy to the train network that is currently on its way to be finalised in the Commonwealth!"


    My offer was good. That point stood no matter what. Those who failed to follow behind the rapid technological development, were bound to descend into the second league where no one would bother to pay them any mind. By giving Muscovites the chance to hop on the technological hype-wagoon, I was basically saving them from falling into the obscurity!


    But it wasn''t as if I wouldn''t profit from this scheme.


    IN reality, it was nothing else but what the modern economies kept doing in the timeline that I hailed from. Move the basic production away from the country, get the vast amount of preprocessed resources just to turn them into even more expensive products that would be later imported to the entire world!


    Just like in that polish anecdote abotu soviet supremacy times. From Soviet''s clay, we make quality figurines. Using the money from selling them we buy piglets, then we grow them and sell them for the meat. With that money we buy basic electrics to build computers, and from the profits from selling computers, we obtain a high quality clay from the soviets!


    Even though this was initially considered as nothing more but a joke pointing out at the faults of the communist economy of occupied Poland, once I would delete the last part, it could accurately describe the economic chain that I was hoping to implement by making peace with Muscovites!


    But this time, it would be the Russia that could come up with jokes like that about its own economy!

 316 True meaning

    "So? How did it go?"


    Back in the Ostrog, I could finally sit down and enjoy some light drink with my dearest Elia. Despite being in the main office building, I allowed myself this minimal level of corruption to use the limited space within the building for the sake of a small amount of living space where I could rest after fulfiling my daily duties.


    "More or less, exactly how I planned. But well, not gonna deny it. It was tiring as heck!"


    Finally able to relax, I stretched my hands out, far in the air, before allowing them to fall flat along with my body. Feeling the soft skin of Elia''s lap below my head, I could finally relax and push the irritating thoughts about my play from before aside.


    "It''s okayˇ­ just rest easy. You don''t need to try so hard anymore."


    Gracing me with one of her killing smiles, Elia continued to rub her fingers across my scalp, gently massaging my head. Due to her belly already visibly growing, all other kinds of cuddling were a big no-no for me. Even when I knew that there were some couples that didn''t stop from making love to each other almost to the day of their child''s birth, given how there was no skilled and experienced medical personnel along with all kinds of cutting-edge machines that made their work that much easier, I was simply turning paranoid.


    The vision of becoming a father, even when compared to the hurdle of managing such a prosperous and dynamic territory as mine, still managed to terrify me. To prove it, it would suffice to say that just a single thought about parenthood was enough to wash all the disgust I fell towards myself after the parade of lies with the envoy, focusing all the efforts of my mind on whether I would be a good father or not.


    But why did I feel disgusted at myself? This kind of thinking was something unexpected given how well that meeting went according to any of the eye-witnesses. Sadly, in reality, it was nothing more but an elaborate ruse, copy of a huge scheme that I implemented back in my original timeline to finally free myself from the burden of managing the call-centre department of the company I was working in.


    In fact, I didn''t want peace. While it was true that giving others the simple jobs of extracting basic resources and primarily processing them was the way to go for the modern economies, it simply wouldn''t work in the current situation.


    In order for this kind of legendary "Japanese split" named after the first country that implemented it to work, there were two interchangeable prerequisites that had to be fulfiled in order for this kind of economic planning to work.


    If I were to push all the mining, smelting and production of the iron ingots to Muscovite lands, then it would be only a matter of time before some of the ''broken'' steam horses of mine would be reverse-engineered and manufactured on the spot. Even though they would obviously initially be of far worse quality, making their own engines would spell the beginning of an end of the subsidiary relationship of muscovy towards the commonwealth.


    The technological advantage that I currently had over everyone else in the world was simply too small for this kind of scheme to work. As age-breaking as steam engines and other products of mine were, they basically all relied on the single concept of using steam power. Unless I could make the jump to the production and usage of electric energy, then the technological gap would be far smaller for me to comfortably throw my weight around.


    Obviously, that didn''t mean that I would lose my advantage any time soon. No matter what, the development always looked the same for anyone in the world that had to start from scratch. No matter how big your savings were, no matter how much manpower you could throw at developing the land, no matter how much resources you could siphon from the rest of your country. Some steps had to be taken slowly.


    In order to create the very first steam engine, one had to understand the principle behind it and come up with a design that would provide the maximal amount of energy


    But all in all, only after creating a proper power-base capable of producing all the materials necessary to expand the development elsewhere and introducing some kind of logistic improvements, would one be able to kickstart the growth on a real scale.


    Right now, I finally reached that point myself. With Tarnow and New Tarnow serving as the providers of the raw material for setting up various industry across the province, I could slowly begin their shift towards higher-end producing as the means of the basic productions would be replaced to the province. Even though all the industry in the places that I already owned were long prepared for this step, only after the modernised means of transportation, the train, was finalised on the conquered land, could my forces finally begin this major shift.


    In fact, one could say that I was implementing this kind of technologically-economical disparity within my own lands and I wouldn''t be able to refute him. This process was layered down in the shape of a triangle or more picturesque - pyramids. Only the topmost part could hold the means to produce the highest-end product possible, with each step-down meaning simpler production of the greater scale. And just like I did with the Ostros province right now, I could repeat the same process in the lands conquered from the Muscovy once the war would end!


    But there was still the other prerequisite that had to appear in order for me or literally anyone else in the world to implement this kind of practical economy. There had to be enough space on the markets to swallow all the production provided by all the layers of the pyramid. Contrary to what one could expect from the pyramid graph, the most money would always come from its very top. The more layers existed within the structure, the more complicated and hence valuable end-product would be sold. That meant that ultimately, the price of the resources required to produce it was nearing the point of a statistical error when compared with all the costs of manpower and processing.


    And just like that, a problem appeared. Once markets would be filled to their full capacity, where would the money come from? Once there would be no more people interested in buying, the main source of money that would later be used to fuel the entire pyramid scheme would dry up, quickly leading to the several problems like bankruptcy, civil wars and total breakdown of the society. While one could say that it wasn''t anything one couldn''t handle with enough preparations, I wasn''t willing to be the one responsible for bringing the future''s doom''s clock to just a minute before the twelve.


    "What''s going through your mind?"


    Breaking my train of thoughts, Elia lightly pulled on my hair to make sure her voice would reach my clouded mind.


    "I solemnly swear that I''m planning something devious."


    Answering with a single sentence out of a below of an average series of novels that literally all the teenagers in my original timeline were forced to read as it was popularised as the trending novel, I couldn''t help but smirk at the memory of how bad that series of novels were.


    Promoted as a book for young adults, marketed as a book for kids, written as a book for teens, it failed to actually hit any of those markets, with plotholes and idiocy making it unfitting for the young adult market, dark themes of death and sins making it unsuitable for kids and being generally uninteresting and poorly written making it a failure in terms of teen novels. If not for the immense wealth poured into marketing it as the new legendary series that would change the literate world, I would most likely never heard about it, too busy reading really good novels instead.


    "What do you mean with that?"


    Smiling lightly as she continued to caress my hair, Elia stretched her back by leaning with her head behind, accenting the supple bosom of hers, hanging directly above my head placed on her lap.


    "Nothing much to be honest."


    Smirking in response to Elia''s joyous expression, I slapped my hands against my face, before finishing up my sentence in the proper way.


    "I''m just looking for ways to conquer the world without wasting all that much effort."


    This statement... Was an obvious lie. Or rather, it was a half-truth. Many hours in games and in history books already taught me that creating a military power capable of conquering the world was fairly easy. The problem was to actually hold on to the land and the people that constituted said world!


    "So, where our new capital will be? Tarnow? Or are you finally do something about developing Pilzno just like you promised ever before we got married, my dearest?"

 317 Diversifying the trainlines.

    30th October 1574


    To say this day was mundane and boring would be a gross understatement. Right off the bat, once I arrived in the office, my desk was already swarmed by the stacks of various papers to check, with even more waiting in boxed beside the wall. And once I realised that every single stack of the papers was about a different matter altogether, for the first time since I started developing my lands, I felt a bit of regret.


    All my actions so far could be considered to spawn from two major reasons that I had.


    First off, personal one. Thinking about development, growth and innovativeness, it all came from a single fact that people wanted to make their lives easier. Why tilt the ground by hand, if you can use the force of animals to do it was more efficient? Why use the horses to move around if you can do the same with a car? Why go to make your groceries if you can just order your food online?


    Some say that it was the military that was the spearhead of the development through the ages, but this saying couldn''t be any further from the truth. In reality, the military was actually on the other end of the chain. Instead of being the leaders of innovation, they were its greatest customers.


    Implementing all sorts of new technology in order to gain an edge over the enemy was the most obvious way to go around things, so while the researchers and scientists often didn''t have the military use in mind while working on something, the funds and protection offered by the military rarely fallen on the dry ground to transform into a beneficial relationship that only speed up the process.


    Ultimately, all the progress that humanity made came from the simple sin of ours. Slothfulness. Why waste your energy on doing something, if you can make something or someone do it for you? The way of creating incentives for the people and innovations for the technology always followed this pattern.


    And I was right on top of it. Shuffling the papers in front of me, I dabbled my pen in the ink before starting the monotone process of reading through the document and then deciding whether or not to sign it. Given how my staff overtook nearly all of the duties that I dealt with previously, I had no other choice but to change my flow of work from creative to organisational one.


    At this point, I couldn''t be any happier about the fact that I once finished a Univerisity that had something economy something in its name. As little as it was worth once put to the work in my current reality, it still managed to help me create a proper managerial system for everything.


    But that put me right in the spot that was my against off feeling of slothfulness.


    Speaking about the other reason for my drive to develop, it was rather obvious from the last events. As full of opportunities, the current times were, they were filled with dangers just as much. Without all the progress that I made over the last few months, I would have nothing to pit against Ostros who would surely go after my lands either way.


    But this kind of reason could be said to be entirely political, outwards. Rather than aimed at improving the lives of my family, retainers and serfs, I strived to make sure their environment would be safe from external threats!


    Yet in all of this, despite all the work that I had in front of me, dealing with the matters that I had real influence over, being able to see the effects of my actions reflected by the realityˇ­ This kind of feeling compensated for all the hardships that would normally come in this line of work!


    Taking the piece of paper that I was holding right now, for example, it outlined the new set of laws and regulations for the usage of the eastern thread of my train tracks. With how there was no longer any enemy in this direction, instead of hogging all the fun of trains for the military purposes, I was doing my best to reform it into a working and well-oiled system of civilian logistic!


    It was an idea that came to my mind as I focused on how could I fulfil the promise that I made to Elia all those months ago. But how could I develop Pilzno, a city that was even further down the line from Tarnow, which was already greatly detached from the area that I was currently developing?


    The answer to this question was pretty simple.


    There was no humanly way for me to implement the first idea that I had of turning both Tarnow and Pilzno into nothing else but the extreme ends of a greater urban area. Doing something like that would require me to construct a city that was several times bigger than even the biggest metropolis of Poland I knew from my original post!


    Rather than focusing all my efforts at creating something that had no chances of working, I simply used what I had on hand to implement a simple, but the incredibly profitable scheme for all the lands between Pilzno and Tarnow.


    Right now, while the lesser Poland plains were not considered as the greatest land of the country, they were at in the first tier of the lands one would like to possess at the very least. Its main problem was how incredibly fragmented the plots of lands were, making it hard for anyone to create a new, massive holding there.


    But rather than fighting with reality, I simply adopted the mercantile approach. Using the permit I got from the Senate, all the lands that my train line would pass by could be forcefully annexed into my domain. While this right was something that I was insanely reluctant to use due to how big of a backlash I would have to face later on, once I invested enough red goldens into the group of nobles that came to my aid in buying out the plots of lands from various families, most of the local nobility turned to be smart enough to take the gold and leave.


    Obviously, there was no way this plan could work for everyone, resulting in a quite ugly map with most of the land between Tarnow and Pilzno marked in my private colours, and several jarring enclaves destroying otherwise perfect borders of the area I bought up.


    Knowing how little I could do against those noble households that refused my offer, I simply shook my administrative shoulders, before proceeding to implement a simple tactic initially designed to allow the trains to pass each other on the longer routes.


    Beside nearly every enclave belonging to someone else, a small station was added to the train line. It broke every single safety rule that I could recall from my past, but in the current age, it didn''t really matter all that much. What was more important, was how this massive mean of transportation would instantly lead to a drastic drop in the price of food!


    Given how most of the local nobles supported their lives by forcing their serfs to work harder and harder on their fields, with the decreasing price of food, the earnings of those pesky nobles would drop as well, all the while the lands around the small transit station would continue to flourish!


    This was my way of fulfilling the promise I made to Elia. Instead of turning Pilzno into the centre of the world, it would serve a major role of the last big city before the highly-developed area of Tarnow and New Tarnow Colony. With how the road between those two cities would be the main area where the high-end manufactories would be set up, something that I had to do in order to diversify the structure of my lands, anyone willing to join my workforce from the far east or later from the north would have to either through Tarnow or Pilzno!


    Clang.


    The sound of the doors slamming against the wall on the other side of its hinges indicated that something huge happened. Raising my head from the paper detailing the exact location of one of the small stations, I saw the flustered face of one of the more active officers of mine.


    "Sir, they are retreating!"

 318 Armistice

    30th October 1574


    "Who is retreating, where they are retreating, what the hell do you mean?"


    Just a single look at how agitated the messenger was I could tell that something insanely big happened. But no matter how exciting the news was, it would be just quicker and easier if instead of announcing the big news and passing away right away, the man would just tell what actually happened!


    "Sir, the Muscovitesˇ­ Without any sign of it before, they all started to retreat back to their positions on the border!"


    Only now did the man managed to crucify me right into my chair. The shock of the news was so great, it felt as if my hands and legs were nailed down to the wooden structure of my seat, making me unable to move even an inch.


    "Theyˇ­ they did what?"


    I couldn''t stop myself from asking this question, as dumb as it was. I just couldn''t believe that something as great as this would happen! Was it the effect of my talk with the unofficial envoy? Was it a strategical manoeuvre aimed at creating some tactical advantages? Or maybe was it something caused by the internal problems cutting short the supplies necessary to lead any form of war?


    Even without the ability to answer those questions, I could tell that the thing I lacked the most, was now offered to me in plenty. The time.


    All the way to this point, the only enemy that could seriously challenge anything that I was creating, was the time. Given the rate of development in my lands, whenever I got my hands on another resource, opportunity or invention, the process of enriching and growing my powerbase only continued to accelerate!


    And now, right after I defeated the local threat to my power, the main enemy that was so huge that no matter the quality of the stuff that I could currently throw at him, it would simply overwhelm it with sheer numbersˇ­ An enemy like that was retreating?


    Even in the worst-case scenario where it would be nothing more but a strategical move and attempt to regroup their forces, even if the entire war was aimed at nothing but burning the borderlands to prevent any attempts at quick contestˇ­ There was no way that the situation from yesterday could be restored at any time shorter than at least a month!


    This month alone was all I really wanted from the lady fortune so that I could fully commit my energy and focus into developing my newly conquered lands!


    "Go and call the senior officers. Put everyone at attention, and send the message to the cities and villages that we are going balls deep into this!"


    Finally defeating the shock that overwhelmed me, I sprang up from the chair, instantly jumping towards the messenger, catching his arms and firing the series of orders and places that he had to go to.


    "Sir, what should I do first?"


    "Obviously, call the senior officers. Then, make sure to spread the tasks I gave you to more people so that the messages will be sent as quickly as possible. Right now, we can''t waste even a single moment!"


    At this point, I could rejoice at two things. One of them, the fact that the looming threat of the Muscovite''s invasion was currently postponed, and the other one, something insanely small yet extremely personal for me, the reality fo just pushing the papers around was about to end!


    Given the new rate at which the changes would be happening to all of my lands all at once, I wouldn''t have the time to fine-tune the details as I did for the past few days. Rather than that, I would have to go from one place to another to make sure that the basics were covered, only to move elsewhere to deal with the problems that would arise there!


    Right now, I was the only one who could picture how the modern conglomerate and metropolis should look like. Those images that I had of the future, made planning for the development incredibly easy.


    For starters, there was no point in making a single, congested place where everyone would live and prosper. The way in which New Tarnow was set up made it nearly impossible for it to grow anymore, as it was slowly starting to reach the limit of how much of the raw resources it could produce.


    That''s why I decided to go with the English route here. Instead of creating trams or long-distance trains, I could mix them together, creating a modern network of connections between all of the settled pieces of land that belonged to me or my allies, allowing for convenient logistic of both the materials and humans between any given points joined with said network!


    As I continued to write down the details of what I wanted to create in this god-sent time, my room continued to fill with the officers that were brought here without paying any mind to interrupting their normal duties.


    "Everyone, listen."


    Once the doors of my room in the office were finally closed, and the shuts on the windows blocked anyone outside from hearing what I was about to say, I finally took the stance on the current events.


    "Right now, we are entering the most frantic, desperate and tense moment in our lives."


    Starting off with a big gun to make sure everyone was paying their entire attention to me, I smiled and pointed out in the general direction where the Muscovy would lie.


    "As of today, we entered a period of an armistice with Muscovy, allowing us to stop worrying about the war and focus our manpower and materials on developing our new lands. If you thought that going to war was a tough nut to swallow, then you better be ready for what''s about to hit us all!"

 319 Changes to the organisation

    3rd November 1574


    In the short span of just four days, the changes that happened to all my lands would be unimaginable if not for the fact that I could see them with my very own two eyes.


    Starting with the trains, instead of carrying all the wounded back home and continuing to resupply both the army that remained in the place to secure it and all the settlers that took the opportunity to start their lives anew on my lands. With the space in the train previously reserved for the provisions now freed for the sake of building materials, those damned four days alone were enough for seventeen of the designed outposts to have their baseline areas well under the construction, with a set of an iron mine, coal mine, processing plant and housing area already nearing their finish!


    After all, even with the train, all the resources that I required in the former Ostros land had to be transported over a relatively long distance. Adding all the limits of the current train system starting with only a single track connecting all the major points, if two supply wagons would arrive every day, most of the logistic department would end the day by going to get their drinks in order to celebrate!


    "Sir, the second stage of fourth-order is finished!"


    "Sir, the fourth stage of the nineteenth order requires more steam engines in order to conclude!"


    One by one, reports continued to flood my area no matter how far I would attempt to escape them. This was one of the points that made me unable to enjoy the fact that all my plans were finally coming to the fruition.


    The momentary relief when the news about the muscovites retreat arrived fell short on the insane workload that I had before the news. With the increased progress of the development on all fronts, what I considered to be an entire day worth of work, was nothing more but a small part of what I had to do now!


    "Mike, aren''t you a bit too hard on yourself?"


    As soon as he finished registering the pieces of information that various messengers continued to busy me with, Al stood up from his desk before slamming his hands right on my workspace.


    "What do you mean?"


    Raising my eyes at one of the two oldest and most loyal retainers, I couldn''t really understand what was going on through his head. With the rapid change that happened to the military force that I operated, Al no longer could find a place in it. Despite several attempts, it looked like if he just couldn''t adapt to the new way of conducting warfare, quickly leading to rather depressing thoughts and extensive drinking from his side.


    Despite how busy I was with all my matters, finding a job for him was one of my priorities. That''s why, when Elemo actually brought this matter to my eyes, I quickly arranged for some of the officers to take this trusty friend of mine to a trip around all my lands, hoping that some job would catch his eyes.


    "Sir, with all due respect, but what will be the point of achieving so much, if you were to collapse right here and now? Let''s not forget how the mourning could influence the pregnancy of the lady Eliaˇ­"


    Even back in my times as a manager of the company, I never had an actual secretary for myself. One could even say that this kind of role turned obscure with all the progress that humanity made ever since advancing to the information era. Outside of the absolute biggest fishes, no one could really care about spending a small fortune on the wage for a secretary, if the same work could be done even better by an AI designed for it from the very beginning!


    But right now, I couldn''t just ask someone to go and program an artificial intelligence specialised in client reception. In fact, even if someone could handle the coding, there would be no computers or even machines that could work based on the code to do the bidding that I required in the first place!


    That''s why, as surprised as I was by Al''s proposition, giving him the role of my personal secretary came at the slight cost of breaking all my childhood dreams of what having a personal secretary meant.


    And with all honesty, given the situation I found myself in right as Al joined the office, I couldn''t care less for a long-legged, big-breasted and always willing beauty.


    "I think you are rightˇ­ But it''s not like those matters can waitˇ­"


    In the short period of just a few days, Al managed to come up with a system of grading the news and reports, nearly eradicating all of the work from my office for a moment. Sadly, as people got used to this new organisation of the work, every minor officer of mine seemed to be enchanted with the possibility of putting his request right on my desk rather than going through the department of officials especially designed to fulfil this work!


    "If you mean all those reports, then it''s another trick of mine. You can actually ignore all of them. Do you remember the group of people that I asked for? The number of the stage that the report is marked with actually means the department that the report should go to, while the number of the order means that this particular piece of news will come to the group bearing the same number. While everyone outside of this building thinks that those numbers are just for the sake of future archivesˇ­"


    Stopping his small lecture only to look at me with a huge smile, Al proved that all those times when he saw me building up the tension in the crowd listening to me proved to be beneficiary to him as well.


    "They are actually the places where those orders will be taken care off!"

 320 Train to Capital

    9th November 1574


    The road from the outpost area which is how I started to name the spread out mass of small places where the development was taking place, back to the Krakow was easier than ever. While the sudden change to the situation at the eastern front caused a huge delay to any form of official acknowledgement of the new situation by the parliament, there was only so much time that those great and small nobles alike could waste on their meaningless discussions.


    To be quite frank, if I were to use the levelling method to grade the level of advancement of specific technologies, then it would be the low level of the train of mine that saved not only me but all of my people and lands at the same time a lot of problems.


    Back in my days as a child, I happened to travel by train with my family. It was your typical trip for the parents and kids to a nearby aquapark, yet during a nearly half-an-hour long journey, I got curious about one thing.


    Why there is always this funny and repetitive sound that always accompanied anyone that travelled with this mean of communication. Given how it was even before the time when more modern and comfortable trains were bought and implemented in the network, instead of the feeling of just gliding through the air that they offered, one could feel every single bump on the tracks right on one''s own butt.


    "That''s because the metal tracks contract while it''s cold and expand while it''s hot. If not for the slight empty spaces between each track, then they would deteriorate into the state where it would be impossible to actually use them!"


    That was the answer that my father provided to me at that time. Ever since then, I never bothered to think about it anymore, as more modern solutions that were implemented all over the country soon after got rid of this problem to a certain degree.


    But right now, instead of bothering with the hot temperatures that could destroy the tracks if not for said small spaces between each track piece, I had to think about the complete opposite - harsh weather of the winter!


    While the period of time that I was currently in was often considered to be a small ice age, turning this part of the world so cold that during winters one could even cross the entire baltic sea that separated the mainland from the Scandinavian peninsula! But despite that, the weather so far was rather kind both to me and to all the enemies of the commonwealth.


    Thinking about it as I watched the snowy landscape pass on the other side of the window as the train that I was sitting in slowly continued to tread forward, I realised that instead of my words influencing muscovites actions, it could very well be a perfectly devised strategic plan.


    Recalling the map of the current state of the country and the last marked positions of the muscovite forces from my memory, I noticed with terror that this simple guess of mine actually perfectly fitted into the way in which the war moved!


    Being someone who grew up used to Poland being just a tiny fraction of what it used to be during its entire history, it didn''t pain me all that much to realise that muscovite troops actually overran five and a half damned provinces!


    Looking back in history, this would be the first war of this kind ever since the fall of the ancient Roman Empire! From the very moment, feudal countries happened to be a thing, all that the wars were about steemed from either the wish to grow one''s land or from personal vendettas and conflicts. Yet if my random guess were to be true, then this entire war would turn out to be nothing more than just a prelude to what was coming once the country would once again see the warm light of the sun!


    What if, everything that happened so far was nothing more but a prelude to a great war that would erupt once nature would remove the barriers it was setting with every piece of snow falling right now?


    "What are you thinking so hard about?"


    Sitting right beside me and cuddling into my arm, Elia busied herself with caressing my hand that was placed under her skirt, right on her bulging belly. Given how attentive she was, she has to notice the state of my mind a long time ago, but only now decided to ask about it in order to let me sort out my thoughts by myself.


    "Don''t worry about it, just some defeatists ideasˇ­"


    Smiling to my dearest wife, I started moving my hand over her belly again, as if that could calm her down. The problematic thing was that she was calm in the first place, so my actions had a pretty obvious meaning of attempting to avoid the topic!


    "Come on, do you trust me? It''s not like I will judge you basing on your thoughts alone. Or ratherˇ­"


    Suddenly springing into action, Elia moved from the seat beside me right on my lap, instantly casting away the coldness of the interior of the train. Given how most of its structure was made out of wood and the overall design had still a lot to ask for, implementing some kind of small fireplace would be the peak of irresponsibility.


    That''s why, due to how used I was to wearing mostly light clothes so far, I lacked any robes that could keep my entire body properly warm. Yet Elia, as if lead by some greater power, managed to counteract even this little thing!


    "It''s not like I don''t trust you. I just don''t want to burden you with things that could turn out to be nothing more than just my panic thoughts."


    Using my free hand to touch Elia''s cheek and caress it for a moment, I could not only watch but also feel how her face relaxed a bit as her lips curved up in a light smile.


    "If I''m not here to listen to the things that are troubling you, who else will?"


    Leaning forward a bit and placing a gentle peck on top of my lips, Elia quickly threw her arms around my neck before bringing my head right into her bust that continued to grow as her pregnancy entered further stages. Surrounded by the pleasant warmth and softness that was limited only due to the layer of material that blocked my head from resting on Elia''s breasts directly, I could feel all the worries that I had just a moment ago disappearing in this soft heaven.


    "You knowˇ­ I don''t think it will hurt our child ifˇ­"


    Looking at Elia''s lips, I could see her glib tongue sweeping the moisture from them, with no visible effect. With her intense stare directed right into my eyes, it was obvious what she had on her mind even without spelling it out loud.


    "If you insistˇ­"

 321 Fertile ground

    11th November 1574


    Just a few years ago, even a fleeting idea that one could traverse all the vast expanses of Commonwealth that separated its southern territory from the capital would be taken as a crazy rambling of a mad person, if not outright heresy. Yet, as if against all odds and probabilities, I was now stepping down from the first-class wagon of my own damned train, just nine months after I appeared in this timeline!


    "Come here, dear."


    Thinking about it now, it was the first time when I actually could enjoy it. It was the first time when the cheering of the crowd pleasantly affected my humour.


    "Vivat Tarnowski! Vivat Commonwealth!"


    As if I was some kind of King, while I helped Elia to safely traverse the relatively high distance that I covered with a single jump a moment ago, nearly everyone gathered as far as even in just the vincity of the Krakowian Train Station continued to give me honours. While most of my mind was focused on making sure Elia could get down from the wagon safely, by denying the pleasure that steemed from the current situation I would turn myself into a liar.


    "Shall we?"


    Once my dearest wife finally stood safely on the solid ground of the stone floor of the station, I couldn''t help myself from acting the situation. Offering Elia my arm, I smiled gently towards her lovable face.


    "With pleasure."


    Replying to my smile with one of her own, Elia graciously accepted my arm before wrapping her hands around it. The warmth of her body nearly instantly repelled the coldness of the snowy day as her delicate smell filled my nostrils.


    "Sir, it''s a pleasure to see you here."


    I wasn''t the only one who could read the situation. Before we could even have a chance to descend from the special part of the station reserved for the first-class passengers - something designed according to the advice of one of the officers working on it - the head-officer of the station appeared right in front of the two of us.


    "Thanks for the warm welcome."


    Even though the cheering of the crowd that was safely kept on the other side of the sturdy barriers that separated the VIP part of the station from the rest still continued, it didn''t seem to influence our small talk in any way.


    "I''m only fulfilling my duties. Either way, as much as I would like to hope that you came here to have some well-deserved restˇ­ I think just the sight outside is enough to bury those hopes."


    Shaking his head in a clear disappointment, the station manager seemed to genuinely worry about my health. To be quite frank, I could actually get where he was coming from.


    Thinking about this, my approach was one of the two that one could take while attempting the world conquest in the strategy game made by Paradoxal Interaction company. Namely, there was playing tall and playing wide.


    Those names came from the fact that the entire course of this lengthy game was taking place on the world''s map. That''s why, players who liked to expand a lot and derive their power from an endless number of small fortunes, there were some obvious disadvantages to this approach.


    In their attempt to limit and make the expansion more realistic, every single act of territorial growth would incur a special penalty, that could lead to a great and incredibly hard type of war, where all of the countries that fell threatened by player''s expansion would unite in a common struggle to curb his power down. That''s why, some of the players given up on this strategy and the idea of conquering the world through the game, just for the sake of developing their piece of land to its absolute limits!


    Obviously, this strategy while in the game has its downsides as well, just like in the real world. But there was one insanely important point that made it my goal to not only introduce this kind of approach in my lands but also in the entire country as a whole. There was one element that this otherwise great game failed to take into the account.


    The manpower. The ultimate struggle of anyone wishing to grow his or her lands. While on the outside, this was only the problem of finding more able-bodied men for the sake of speeding up the production and construction process, the reality was way worse.


    This was actually something that I foresaw all the way back when making the plans for the New Tarnow. From the sanitary problems, through the utilities all the way to something as common as food or overgrowth, while the increase of population was both the cause and the result of the technological growth, it was only when a bit more modern approach to medicine appeared when humanity as a whole managed to tackle the worst of the problems that would appear if the issues mentioned were not taken care off in advance.


    But as of today, I could cast aside all those worries. Even though calming down the internal situation of the country and likely contributing to the unofficial cease-fire with Muscovy was nothing but just the first step on the road of evolving the entire country, no journey started at its destination!


    That''s why even the summons that was the direct cause of my arrival in the Krakow couldn''t spoil my mood. Right off the bat, I was welcomed as a hero, even though the population only knew about the single success of the campaign against Ostros. The people that I never had the chance to meet personally just like the station''s head office were expressing how much they valued me, and the most important group of people was willing to see me. If this couldn''t be called a fertile grounds for the growth of my own influence, then I had no idea what else could!

 322 Storming the Senate

    11th November 1574


    "Make way for the general! Make way for the General!"


    It had to happen either while I was busy conquering the Ostros or most likely as soon as the news of my victory reached the capital.


    Thinking back, this could be considered to be an ingenious play by the senate. Even without any information about my involvement in either solving or putting the problem of invasion for the later, just the things that I managed to achieve in my crusade against the rebels were enough to greatly elevate my standing in the minds of the country''s populace.


    Walking down one of the main halls of the royal castle in Krakow, I couldn''t help but notice the familiar ramp that led to the main gate to the castle, visible from the window right beside me. In the history that I was familiar with, in a few hundred years from now, this place would fall under the Austrian control, only to be retaken by the polish protectorate established by the Russian Empire, later to be annexed back to the Russian motherland and keep changing hands all the way until the end of the second world war. After those few hundred years of struggle, this gatehouse that I was looking at now, would become a house for all the thirsty students, looking for a place where they could down a few tins.


    It would suffice to say, that I could even recall the times when I myself was hiding from the sun under the shade of the castle walls, enjoying my lovely pint of Guinness that I splurged on in a moment of idiocy!


    But right now, instead of looking out for the possible police patrols that would eagerly gift me with a ticket for drinking in a public place, I was actually refusing a cup of wine that a passing servant offered me from his plater!


    "Is it really alright for me to come with you?"


    Walking beside me, the sole reason why our group was moving so slowly through the corridors asked with clear worry in her voice. Yet, if anyone were to protest against my act of taking Elia along for the Senate summons, I would be ready to hack him down with the lovely sabre that was hanging down my side!


    "It''s okay. They might''ve summoned me, but if they are unwilling to pay you your respective honours, then we might use this opportunity to push our agenda even further."


    That was the official reason why I insisted on taking Elia with me. But the reality was starkly different. From the moment the summons would be over, I could tell that my position in the country would change. No longer would I be able to enjoy the benefits of being a second-rate noble in the country, so it was the last moment for me to take a stance at how seriously I treated the matters related to my family.


    "If that''s what you sayˇ­"


    Still clearly not convinced, Elia hanged her head a bit but kept her moves steady. She was already slowing everyone down and was clearly not willing to slow us even more. As much as I hated to see her like that, I wasn''t yet ready to reveal what I had in mind to her.


    This moment was simply too important for me to act as I would normally do, putting not only the safety but also the comfort of my wife at the very front. No matter how painful it was to watch the beads of sweat appearing on Elia''s forehead as she pushed herself a bit too much if I wanted to make her safe in the future, I had to kill all my mercy right now.


    "Welcome, victorious general."


    My mind was still occupied with Elia''s state when we actually passed by the doors to the senate hall only to be welcomed by the same group that sent me off to conquer Ostros some time prior.


    "I do not recall accepting this title."


    Instantly taking a hard stance against the primate, I bluntly refused the tittle that they offered to me. In fact, if not for how much they were trying to force it on me, I would gladly take advantage of the specific benefits of this proposition and position.


    But in the light of the ongoing election, accepting a military title would effectively put me at their leash!


    "Ah, forgive us our haste. Given how we never thought that any of the royal elects would manage to fulfil their objective without the help, this senate unanimously decided that if someone has to be the head of the Crown''s army, then it might as well be you."


    A general title, or rather, a hetman''s title, was a matter actually far more serious in Commonwealth''s environment than it would be in any other country. Not only was this kind of honour related to one''s personal prestige, but it would also come in with a huge chunk of royal lands that were supposed to pay for the current quarter''s army.


    Right now, what the Senate was doing, was putting me through the ultimate test.


    Once I would take the reins of the army, there would be no force in the Kingdom that would be able to stand against me. Only the joint effort of all the nobles would have a chance of succeeding against me. That meant, that if I was unwilling to stand down during the elections as per the orders that would surely appear, I would have to turn into rebel whose defeat would be ultimately through and ensured!


    Yet, as much as a power play from the senate it was, I could simply ignore it and do my job the way I always did. Instead of allowing those damned great nobles to pull me into the net of their intrigues, I could simply lay low for one or two more years, so that my power would reach such unimaginable degree, that senate''s words would be worth absolutely dogshit!


    As much as my national pride was brimming when I thought about noble democracy that existed in the commonwealth of my current time, I also knew what would it cause. This democracy simply had no right to work in the long term, just due to the cultural differences in the Commonwealth itself!


    With nationalities ranging from Polish, through Lithuanian all the way to all sorts of groups from Rhuthernia, the system that was initially developed for the highly civilised society of former Poland, was mixed with the greatly different universe once it was merged with the Lithuanian one.


    Not only was the east more focused on singular, powerful families that held most of the power, but there was also no history of the political debate of the Polish kind in the Rhuthernian world. While this kind of political system could work in the vast and loosely inhabited lands of the Rhuthernia, it was counterproductive in the densely populated land of the polish hinterlands.


    By merging those two greatly different political systems, the young Commonwealth parliament was currently testing the limits. With no King to speak off, for now, there was no upper limit to how much power high nobles would like to accumulate in their hands.


    And this was the motion that I had to fight with. The systems that created the Senate, were not inherently bad. It was just their mix that introduced some unhealthy elements that made it ultimately fail.


    "I''m sorry, but accepting any form of official positions or titles would infringe on the right of my fellow royal elects to stand on the equal footing. The difference in our starting situations already influences this election greatly, so I would appreciate it if we could hold dearly to all the remnants of fairness that somehow survived so far."

 323 Decision on the independance day

    "They truly have some balls, don''t they?"


    Even though we went over this topic over and over again, I still couldn''t stop being amazed at how shameless the high nobless of the senate acted. Right after hearing about my refusal, they actually told me to go back in two weeks time?


    "Dear, calm down. It''s not like we can do anything about it. Given the situation, we are bound to expect some resistance with our plans!"


    Grasping the fingers of my left hand, Elia hugged herself to my side, most likely hoping that her warmth would help me clear my mind./


    "Well, that''s given."


    Rather than her actions managing to shut me off, it was the meaning implied behind my wife''s words. So far, I have yet to tell her my thoughts about the entire royal election thingy, ultimately leaving her in the dark about my plans of installing someone proper on the throne while remaining in the dark myself.


    Yet, in this specific situation, Elia''s words held true in both scenarios. For her, it was Senate attempt at curbing my chances at becoming the king, while for me, it was an attempt to rope me into the schemes of the high social circle. Given how I could use my time much more effectively while focusing on my own lands rather than some noble squabbles, there was no way that I would agree to that. Either way, refusing to pay them any mind was ultimately the one thing that I could do.


    "Anyway, let''s change the topic. Maybe it''s because of my anger, but the journey seems to be even quicker than usual."


    Looking outside the window - one of the most expensive parts of the entire damned train, explaining the lack of those in the military outfitted trains - I could see the thick forest of the Lesser-Poland grand plain giving way for the first lines of buildings.


    Thinking about this, I greatly neglected Tarnow recently. Even though everything that I did happen over the span of about nine months, I still couldn''t help but feel guilty for that. As the hometown of both my original and the current self, it held a special place in my heart.


    Yet, even without all that of my overseeing, the policies that I implemented seemed to have insanely positive effects of the land. It took me actually a while to realise that the buildings that announced our entry into the urbanised area were quite a lot further than just a few weeks ago when I last took this train!


    If even in such a short period of time the growth of the Tarnow could move so fast, then maybe I actually didn''t have anything to worry about?


    "It''s truly a wonderˇ­"


    With her eyes glued to the sight of many, many lights behind the window, Elia whispered with nostalgia.


    "What is, my dear?"


    Even though I could guess what my wife had on mind, I still went on and asked while pulling her a bit closer into my embrace. With the rhythmic noise of the train''s wheels hitting against the small slits between each respective train track turning the atmosphere hypnotic, I could feel Elia resting her head against my shoulder.


    "If you exclude all the things that you did in New Tarnow or now, in the eastern colonies, just our Tarnowian beer alone would turn this place into a prosperous one. But then, after it became a hit on the markets, you invested in a trading centre. Even though so far, it''s intended purpose of luring the Hungarian merchants in kind of failed, when our drink flooded its shelves, Tarnow became the actual centre of the province. Yes, I actually confirmed that."


    Seeing the confused look in my eyes, Elia smiled a bit before poking her finger against my cheek in a cheeky act.


    "You might have failed to notice it, but if you think back, didn''t Krakow seemed to be a little less lively than before?"


    Elia''s lips parted as her mouth twisted in a cheerful smile. Seeing the sparks of joy in her eyes, I wouldn''t dare to interfere in her story.


    "Yes, now that I think about it, it seems to be the case."


    Limiting myself to just confirming what she wanted, I continued to stare at Elia''s lively expression. Just this alone was enough to fill me with happiness. With the lights outside shining like a lake filled with the stars, with the two of us cuddled in our thick, soft clothes, the atmosphere in the wagon was truly magical.


    "Oh, it''s eleventh of Novemberˇ­"


    Suddenly, a realisation struck me.


    In the current world, this date meant absolutely nothing. For the first big thing in the current calendar to happen, one would have to wait for the Christmas. Yet, for me, that date had a special meaning, that would be born only a few hundred years to the future from now.


    The independence day.


    The day that came down in Polish history as the day when the nation reclaimed their freedom from the hands of the three oppressors that failed to eradicate them over the last one hundred and twenty-three years!


    Even though as I grew up, the situation both in the country and in the world as a whole continued to deteriorate to some unimaginable lengths, leading to my feeling of attachment to the entire idea of a country to waver, when I realised what day was todayˇ­ I just couldn''t stop the shock that went through my soul and my heart.


    "What''s wrong, dear?"


    Nearly instantly noticing the change of my expression, Elia looked sharply at me, as if trying to find the potential wound that could be the effect of my sudden reaction.


    "Wrongˇ­ A day to celebrate independenceˇ­ What about making it the day when its independence would be ultimately preserved?"


    Rambling the strange words that were coming to my mind like crazy, an idea started to form in my head.


    What if Poland would never face those hundreds of years of war, slaughter and slavery? What if, all those tragic events that buried the legacy of Commonwealth would never happen to begin with? What ifˇ­


    It was my great wish from the very beginning to preserve the future of this country during the turmoil of the future. But never before did I experience this sudden longing so damn hard!


    And from this clash of the new idea and old approach, a new determination was born in my soul.


    "Dearˇ­ I do not intend to become the king of Poland."


    Rather than putting that topic off for later, I decided it was better to come clean right away. Given how we only had two weeks remaining before the fate of the Commonwealth would begin to change, I didn''t want them to be soured by the hidden guilt of keeping secrets from Elia.


    "Dear?"


    This girl understood me well too great. Without even a hint of hesitation, she simply stared at me, awaiting the follow-up sentence. It seemed that speaking in a manner that would increase the tension of those who were listening to me already ingrained itself in my blood!


    "I will put someone of my choosing on the throne, and become his chancellor. This way, we won''t face any obstructions while changing this place, while avoiding the bothers of wearing the crown."

 324 Changes to New Tarnow

    A week spent in the Tarnow exclusively allowed me to finally grasp the essential details that allowed for the insane growth of the city, despite my attention being directed in other places for most of the time.


    It was just like Elia mentioned it some time ago. Even if unintentionally, all my project seemed to complement each other.


    With the growth of the beer industry, the northern side of the Town that even in the future would remain relatively empty was now bustling with activities. As the main source of the money that was slowly reaching the point of bringing nearly a tenth of all the money that would appear in my coffers, the area where all sorts of breweries were set up and working was insanely huge. It wouldn''t be a mistake to say that it stretched all the way from the foothold of the Saint Martin''s hill where my castle was located, to the outskirts of the town proper!


    Filling in the spot, the groups carrying out the task of bringing the dinners to all the hard-working people of the city already turned into a more stationary form of meal-making. As long as one was able to see a single production or trading building in the proximity, the chances were that a cheap restaurant subsidised from my coffers directly would be somewhere close!


    It was those small advantages that grew up on each other that created the current picture of Tarnow, being the financial centre of all my lands. Even though I would be far from calling it the development centre of the country, with how nearly all of the materials that travelled on the train between my colonies had to pay its respects to the merchants in Tarnow, the profits from the trade centre set up on the nearby river and outfitted with a huge cargo terminal for the trains already made up for up to the half of my total profits, turning this home city of mine into the most profitable piece of all the lands that I governed over!


    "To think that it all really started hereˇ­"


    As much as infatuated I was with the progress that Tarnow made, there was no denying that without the lands that Jan Bone offered to me in my wedding gift, I would be far from being able to accomplish as much as I did and at a pace that I did so.


    Looking down from the elevated part of the train station in New Tarnow, I couldn''t help but notice the changes that I orchestrated from the eastern outskirts of my land that were nearing its middle-point of work by the time I finally arrived in this industrial heart of the world.


    The time that passed between the order to relocate the basic production to the outposts in the east and my visit in new Tarnow resulted in at least a third of the buildings already ending their production, with most of the machines that powered them up already being backed up on the train.


    "And now it would be hard to even point out where your first steam engine stoodˇ­ That is, if not for the statue you ordered it to becomeˇ­"


    The atmospheric steam engine, the very first machine that utilised the natural powers of the world to bring forth the first kind of mechanic energy was a grain of salt in my eye for a long time already. Taking up an insanely huge amount of space when compared to what it was responsible for, I would long get rid of it if not for the sentimental value it had both for me and for the people living and working in the colony.


    It was the very first step that the pioneering first group made on our road to achieving what we had today. That''s why, instead of just demolishing it and freeing up a huge chunk of space, I forced the idea of creating a huge plaza all the way around now stalled engine, turning this place into a social centre for all the future businesses that would open in the land around.


    "You know I''m not happy with that either. If anything, I would put the first real steam horse on the pedestalˇ­ but we have to agree that its size would make the monument quite laughable."


    Shaking my head in a clear disappointment, I looked at the area below me. With the prosperous city and the ruins of the old industrial area in the background, the vincity of the cargo terminal was truly magnificent. With no signs of unfinished or hurried work, the insane amount of goods that were already flowing down the train route to this place made a short work of all the rubble in the area.


    Thanks to my growing influence, there was no merchant or craftsman in the country that would turn a blind eye to the opportunities that my lands offered. With the order to rebuild the colony, nearly the entire area around the station outside of the special logistic lane I left reserved, was already occupied by various owners, supplying some kind of insane amount of money for the further development of the place!


    As if some wildflowers, shops, workshops and small service areas were popping up like crazy everywhere that wasn''t restricted for the industry. This process only accelerated once the first merchants started to invest in various projects set by my economical officers. While only a few, there were already some businesses operating on the imported materials to turn them into a valuable new product.


    Given how the entire problem of logistic was solved by the appearance of the cargo terminal, all that a craftsman would have to care for would be doing his part of the job!


    The splurging growth of this place also leads to the resurrection of the two other parts of my economy that I failed to turn successful to that point. For the first time ever since I set up the market for the steam engines, those miraculous machines found the investors that were willing to make use of their incredible properties!


    Thanks to the huge amounts of coal coming to the area nearly every-day, the problem of lack of fuel and receding tree-line was solved, allowing for even quicked growth of the place!


    "I know, I knowˇ­ But how long are you going to stare into the distance? If you are that eager to see this place growth, why won''t you go and put the bricks for the new buildings yourself!"


    Poking my side with her finger, Elia pouted a bit. Given how this was the second and last week of our vacations before the second meeting at the senate would start, I could understand why she was unhappy with me focusing my entire attention at the mundane matters that busied us all the time!


    "Don''t worry dear. I will pay proper attention to you from now on as well!"

 325 Just do it!

    "Do we really need to?"


    Elia''s pleas all fell on the deaf eyes, as while we were cuddling, we were doing so in the private wagon that I ordered for my own travels. With every second, the steam engines installed at the front of our train were bringing us closer and closer to the capital, for the hopefully ultimate solving of the entire royal election matter.


    "The sooner we are done with it, the quicker we will be free to return to our lives."


    The last two weeks that I spent in Elia''s company allowed me to see the world through a slightly different perspective. All the rush that I felt so far in terms of both defeating my opponents and even more so when it came to developing my lands, was gone. I really had to let this girl show me how everything looked from the perspective of a normal person.


    The changes that happened to all my lands, eastern colonies including, was insane. One could say that while my holdings advanced two ages, the rest of the country was still lagging behind, unable to grasp the concepts necessary to move on. From how nearly half of New Tarnow reached the point of operating again within just the week that the two of us spent there, through how the spoils we got from conquering Ostros quickly caught up to the former output of New Tarnow and were now well on the way to double itˇ­ Even the growth that happened to Tarnow itself was worthy life-long praise.


    In any normal situation, growing one''s lands required not only a lot of concessions in terms of taxation and policies beneficial for the lord''s coffers so that he could lure the new settlers in. Yet my case proved that one could ride on the rapid growth caused by a completely different approach to the economy, striking it rich even despite keeping the subject financial obligations low!


    Right now, if not for the profits from the export of my products, I would tread on the line dangerously close to complete bankruptcy and collapse of my projects. Given how I was the only guarantee for people to receive their wages and maintain the rapid growth of the market, once my treasure would dry out, there would be no coin to move the things around!


    Yet, even in that case, I insisted on keeping the taxes abysmally small, to the point of periodically abolishing them for those who could contribute a lot to my lands. Additionally, I didn''t really bother with implementing any form of policies or schemes that could bring me some of my gold back!


    But even despite how financially strained everyone could consider me to be, especially with all the ongoing costs of developmentˇ­ Or so one could think about my situation if he failed to notice one of the most important aspects of my lands.


    Right now, when someone was settling down in my lands, he or she would have a relatively simple choice. The basic and simple one involved employing oneself in the general workforce, agreeing to be relocated whenever there was a lack of hands for work. With this approach, one could afford to get a cheap house in the areas that would otherwise be as costly as the middle of the capital due to their financial potential, while maintaining a productive and beneficial job.


    Yet, as needed as this part of the recruitment process was to maintain the stable pace of growth, it was actually the other option that was the main source of my current rise.


    The other option involved taking the advantage of the insanely generous taxation policy to join the insane drive and open up one''s own business. Obviously, one had to buy the land for the manufactory or a shop, organise the worker himself while offering even better wages than my officers, place orders for the steam machines to keep his workplace profitable against one''s rivalsˇ­


    All of those actions resulted in a stable influx of red goldens to my coffers, with my administrative workers instantly injecting it back into my the development of my own!


    Thanks to this policy, while my colonies took the brunt of providing any amounts of any industrial material, my furnaces turned it from a worthless ore into valuable ingots, and then either a private business would buy it off the market for their own purpose, or the new factories in New Tarnow would turn it into few products that I managed to gain a nearly complete monopoly over!


    Just like the wood factory allowed me to take all the European furniture markets by the storm, I could already see in my reports how some of the weapon factories and automated carriage factories requested more and more expansion due to being unable to keep up with the orders!


    With the high-end manufacturing developing into those two branches, the growth of the countryside could also be observed. As the population of the cities and settlements continued to sky-rocket, the demand for food also increased. Thanks to that, the process of resettling the formerly Ostros land that I gave up my rights for was a lot quicker, only resulting in another boost to the orders of the steam machines, sponsored by the Cheerio family!


    Our initial idea to establish a trading outpost with the cossacks and gain financial leverage over them failed on the dry land, with how everyone rushed towards the colonisation projects. While it was only a hearsay, the terms that Cheerio family offered for the outcasts and other inhabitants of the wild borderlands were soo insanely good that only a few, hard criminals bothered to remain in the underdeveloped lands!


    "Are you sure you can achieve what you want, though?"


    After a long moment of not saying anything, Elia seemed to be awoken by the lights of Krakow that announced our arrival to the city. Even though the influence of my ideas was pretty limited in this capital city of Commonwealth, I could already see how it continued to grow, although at a much smaller scale.


    "It''s not a question whether I can. This is something that I have to do."


    Shaking my head, I couldn''t help but feel annoyed and sobered up by reality. Given how I most likely wouldn''t have any problems with reaching for the crown, it sounded extremely stupid to just give it up. Even as a grey eminence behind the court and the politics of the king, I couldn''t expect for my legacy to last long. After all, a King was the only figure in the entire politic scene that could curb my growth at this point!


    But ultimately, it would be just too wasteful to put my efforts anywhere else. Given how busy managing my own lands was making me, if I were to split my attention to something as grand and important as managing the entire country, then even if I could push my weight far further than I could currently, the real range of my moves would be grossly limited!


    "Then, don''t try to figure out how to do it."


    Closing in on me, Elie grabbed my face between her hands before placing a gentle kiss on top of my mouth and pushing herself into my embrace right after.


    "Don''t let your dream be just a dream. Do it. Some people wake up every day, thinking about achieving something, while you worked hard for everything that you have here. I saw your rise with my own eyes. Even though I experienced your actions first-hand and from the best possible point of view, I still can''t believe or fathom how much did you change this world already."


    Rubbing her cheek against my chest, Elia continued to push one word after another from her mouth, smashing down the walls of my anxiety one by one.


    "That''s why I can tell or ask you only one thing now."


    Suddenly pushing her body away with her hands, Elia looked me in the eyes before bringing a lovely smile on her face and gracing me with another moment of her insane beauty.


    "Just do it!"

 326 Back at the summons

    "Welcome back in the capital."


    Even though I used the train, for some reason, I ended up being the very last one who actually entered the chamber of the senate. Looking through the faces of the people gathered there, I could recognise both those who would usually side with me, those who would be quick to oppose anything that I would bring up, and all four of the other royal candidates.


    "Before we begin, would anyone be so kind as to inform me why this entire meeting started before the date that I was given?"


    Pulling out the invitation, the same letter that was passed to me exactly two weeks ago that outlined the date and time of this meeting, I swung it through the air before throwing it on the floor and steeping on it.


    "How are you guys willing to precede royal elections if you can''t get the time of the summons right?"


    Even though I knew that acting so aggressively would instantly take away some of the brownie points that I scored with some of the neutral senators, I couldn''t really care about this thing less. By bringing me to the summons at a later time than everyone else, this government body already made its statement about how it was going to treat me, most likely because of my refusal to take up their offer of becoming the highest general of the state.


    "And who told you that you were necessary before? While we all recognise all the achievements of yours, please, mind your place when you are in the face of the acting regent of the King!"


    My words quickly brought up some reaction. Before I could even swallow my saliva and prepare another tirade to prompt the senators into actions, one of the old men stood up and pointed his finger at me while shouting.


    "This is the matter regarding the royal selection. The last time I was here, I refused an offer of the high chief of Commonwealth armies because I considered it to be unfair for the other candidates. Should I take the current situation as your attempts to leverage someone else for the throne? If you don''t mind me askingˇ­"


    Ignoring all of the senators, I moved my eyes on the group of candidates, sitting in a row in the middle of the huge chamber. With one chair left, it was obvious that everyone expected me to just sit there and watch over the proceedings, yet I was as far as doing what the senate wanted as a man could be in a commonwealth!


    "... who was the first one to arrive out of the candidates?"


    Looking over the faces of the fellow royal elects, I quickly noticed an embarrassed and anxious smile of the noble that decided against partaking in the election all the way back during our first meeting. With how jiggly he was on his seat, it was obvious that he either felt uncomfortable with being the person I asked for, or that he was bothered with something entirely else.


    "I get it. Let me ask you one thing, then."


    "Are you willing to stand by what you announced during our meeting? Are you willing to repeat the words that made everyone in that room we met, disregard you as a potential opponent for the throne?"


    Ignoring the chair that was luring my tired legs like some kind of immortal courtesan from the eastern fantasy novels I used to read back in my original timeline, I looked in the eyes of the jiggly noble, not allowing his eyes to escape to the side.


    "Iˇ­"


    As soon as the young noble made his first attempt to speak out, his voice cracked and broke down, burying the noble''s face under an immense blush. Seeing that trying to force him into anything would be counterproductive, I decided to drop the matter. Turning around, I nodded to the rest of the candidates to express my respect before turning back to the primate sitting on the regent''s chair.


    This was the only element of the outburst of that old noble from before that I could agree with. During the interregnum times, Commonwealth would crown its primate as the royal regent for the entire duration of the troubling times. Yet, as much as this man had power in his hands, I wasn''t willing to compromise and give him the respect that only a king would deserve.


    "Let''s not stall this any longer. What did you summon me here for? Initially, I thought that everyone was done with their assignments and you were about to announce the day of the official elections, but seeing how little respect you have for fairness that should be given to any Catholic, I no longer have the wits to try guessing what you are up to."


    There was no denying that my words were oozing with toxins. Each and every word that I spat was coated with the intent of reaching the borderline of being insulting, without actually making me say anything that would be officially considered to be insulting.


    "Sit down, as the primate is about to speak."


    Reacting to my aggressive words with even bigger hate behind his voice, the same old senator that dared to go against me a moment ago, spoke up.


    "If that''s the will of the senateˇ­"


    Using this opportunity to confuse those damned politicians even more, I instantly sat down on the chair, glueing my eyes to the posture of the old bishop at the regent''s chair.


    "This wasn''t the will of the senate, but it could very well be. Either way, I guess it''s time for the huge reveal. We gathered you all here because we received aˇ­ strange offer from the Muscovites. Given how one of you will soon become our king, it''s a good moment to see what you will think about it."

 327 The truth behind the proposition

    "Offer? Stop putting us on edge. We are not in a theatre for you to play around with tension when speaking to us."


    This sudden revelation seemed to bring more harm to the primate plans that it brough benefits. While it was certain that he managed to catch nearly everyone by a surprise, but the looks of fury visible on the faces of some of the high nobles clearly indicated that they weren''t happy with this kind of withholding information from them.


    "Alright, alright. To put it in short, they somehow came to the conclusion that if we want to end the war, then we could as well unite our two countries in a royal marriage. And given the terms that were offered alongside the marriageˇ­"


    Shaking his head, the primate clearly couldn''t stop himself from enjoying the moment. It seemed like both the poor organisation of the summons and the withholding of the information were all the results of the primate messing around instead of some kind of organised ploy aimed at putting me at a tactical disadvantage in this game of chess.


    "But what''s important here, is what it means for us. To put it in short words, I do believe that we should add another restriction for the royal election, and that is for the candidate to beˇ­ unmarried."


    Once again, the entire place stood still. For a few moments, no one dared to even bat an eye. And then everything erupted.


    "What do you mean?!"


    "How is that fair?!"


    "Did you sell yourself to the muscovites?"


    Once by once, voices of process shook the entire hall, ranging from the dissatisfied candidates who clearly played for my side with how I was the only one that this new restriction would exclude, through the high nobles that already foresaw the treasonˇ­ All in all, for everyone the situation seemed as if it took turn for worse for me, while I could only secretly rejoice at the sudden blessing!


    So far, I couldn''t do anything that would undermine my position during the elections because that would not only lessen my chances for the crown but more importantly, it would affect my ability to influence the outcome of the election. If I were to put my money on one candidate only for another one to win, my entire scheme of becoming a person behind the shadow could instantly fall apart!


    "That proposition does seem reasonable."


    As I was the biggest potential victim of the new rules, my voice right now was the most important. Everyone understood this reality, hence allowing me to freely speak up when I decided it was the time to do so.


    But instead of praising this point that could potentially solve a lot of my problems, I had to take a hard stance instead. Allowing for this new rule to come into being just like that would be akin to intentionally sabotaging my own chances at reaching for the crown! Sadly, this wasn''t something that I could do just like that!


    "But why do you consider marrying our nations to be a good idea?"


    To be frank, I was perfectly conscious of what the primate and the current royal regent was hoping for. Reuniting muscovite lands with the roman patriarchy was one of the long-lasting dreams of the clergy. By putting the great schism behind and joining hands, the position of the catholic countries would surge, quickly leading to the end of the Protestantism in the face of the overwhelming popularity of the holy see.


    But that wasn''t something that I could wish for. No matter what would be the way in which the shared rule would work, it wasn''t something that could put Commonwealth in a good position. With how young this confederation of two different countries was, it was incredibly hard to speak about any unification between different folks. If yet another massive group with completely different culture were to join the commonwealth, then as a huge opportunity as it would be, there wouldn''t be huge chances that the current, relatively peaceful atmosphere in which I could prosper would turn to the country ravaged by protests, uprisings and ineffective administration.


    In short words, if that was the response to the proposition I passed back during my meeting with the muscovite diplomat, then it would mean nothing else than how Muscovites hoped to turn the tables and assimilate the entirety of the commonwealth into their growing empire!


    "They proposed something unheard off. They proposed to repeat the thing that our nations managed to pull off already, but in a greatly different situation. Right now, we are not Muscovitan allies. Our interests clash instead of working together. Our avenues of expansions are exactly the same. I think that muscovites caught news of what I did at with the Ostros, along with the methods that I used. We could summarise this proposition in a single sentence. They just want to catch up with what we can offer and then swallow us all at once."


    That was more than I had to do to convince everyone how far I was from accepting the terms proposed by the Primate. No matter what were the details of the Muscovite proposition, just the point of marriage alone was enough to prove that they planned it precisely beforehand. People like that diplomat I met should be competent enough to know that I was married. WIth how they used the marriage as the main point of the proposition, it was clear that the muscovites themselves didn''t wish to see me ascend to the level of royalty!

 328 Elias question

    Rejecting the Senate''s idea of joining hands with Muscovy through marriage was something that I simply had to do. Even if it was in my best interests for this solution to take place.


    "I''m sorryˇ­"


    As we walked out of the Senate hall, Elia was clearly in a foul mood. Her head hanging down, her hands caressing her rounded up belly in a sign of worry.


    "I have no idea what you are supposed to be sorry about."


    This wasn''t exactly the truth. It wasn''t that hard to figure out what was plaguing my wife at this moment. But even by acknowledging that this kind of fault had any right to existence, I would already fail to act like a proper husband and lover.


    "I know that you are not really interestedˇ­. In you know what, but still. If not for me, your chances at winning would be way greater!"


    At this point, I was struck with a simple realisation of how much Elia changed during our marriage. Starting as that rowdy and kind of arrogant girl, she quickly turned into a fiery court lady once I provided her with the proper tools for her revengeˇ­ But after that, an irreversible process of turning meek took place. It seemed that the longer she spent with me, the longer she wielded the role of queen of my insane lands, the greater the influence this position had over her personality.


    I couldn''t imagine the Elia that I meet all those months ago to just take the insult and hang her head before the humiliation. The girl that I met would spit at the people that would dare to even bring up something like this to the Senate, before storming out of place in an act of defiance.


    But the reality was greatly different. Right now, Elia looked as if she just took a beating, and was heading for her execution. For some reason, the weight of all the responsibility that pinned her down made this once energetic girl unable to defend against the cruelty of the world.


    And as a proper husbandˇ­ No, as someone who loved her to no ends, I couldn''t allow for this situation to linger.


    "Eliaˇ­ I think we seriously need to have a talkˇ­"


    Muttering those words to my wife''s ear, I only realised what she could think about the meaning behind those sentences of mine once her entire body started to shake.


    "No, no! I didn''t mean that in this way!"


    I wanted to comfort her and help her to carry the burden that was putting her down, but I achieved something completely opposite! As pleasant as it would be for any man to hold his dear wife closely while trying to calm her down, the fact that I was responsible for her trembling was enough to make me consider suicide as the way to atone for my sin.


    "What?"


    "Listenˇ­ I don''t really know how to put it in words, but I just realised what a great failure of a man I am."


    Grabbing Elia by her shoulders, I turned her around to make her face me properly. Surprised by my sudden actions, Elia could only obediently follow my movements, shyly raising her face to look me in the eyes in order to gauge my intentions.


    "A moment ago, I lied to you. I think I know perfectly what''s going through this silly head of yours, but I wasn''t willing to acknowledge that you would be so burdened to even consider it as a possibility. Only when I saw how you reacted, did the reality dawned up on me."


    Ignoring the fact that we were standing in the middle of the corridor, I held Elia''s in place while staring intensely into her eyes still brimming with tears.


    "Okayˇ­"


    Responding to my voice with just a single, fleeting world, Elia''s face cleared out from the sadness, now replaced by the curiosity. From underneath loads of anxiety, I could once again see the sparks that made me interested in her all the way back when we first met!


    Pulling my wife by her hand, I slowly walked towards one of the chambers of the castle. Given my new status, no one would really mind if I were to borrow one of the empty places in the building, so I smashed the doors open without even a shred of hesitation.


    After securing the doors and bringing Elia all the way to the huge window as to make looking at each other easier with no other source of light in the room, I could finally sit her on the edge of a bed that just so happened to be there, kneeling in front of her right after.


    "My love, I once again neglected you. Never in my worst nightmares, I wanted you to take the burden of our current standing. I didn''t realise how big of a toll helping me manage our lands would be on you, especially now that you are in a blessed state. But all of this aside, I would never ever even consider an option of divorcing you just to get more chances at reaching for the crown!"


    Given how both of us knew that I never intended to strive for the royal throne, this last sentence of mine had a bit different but still clear meaning.


    "What''s more, I feel guilty for the situation where you can consider being my wife, something that would burden me. Even if I was given a choice right now, to unify the entire commonwealth under my absolute rule but for the cost of losing you, I wouldn''t even hesitate when throwing the prospect of power away."


    Even though it wasn''t even a year since I appeared in this world, to say that everything was happening quicker and quicker wouldn''t be an overstatement. The times where I could calmly develop my lands were now gone, replaced by the reality of the ongoing court intrigues and politic schemes. While this was an inevitable outcome of the situation where my personal power and wealth would grow, it wasn''t something that I was willing to cater to all that much.


    Outside of securing my essential interests, the entire politic of the country could just go and fuck itself. Given my current development stage and rate at which it was improving, just the waves that I created in the country would elevate it to a position where for the next one or two hundred years no one would dare to challenge Commonwealth''s standing, saving it from the turbulent ages that were about to come. With that secured, no one would have any right to blame me if I were to soon withdraw from the court and politics completely, focusing just on living off the spoils of all the work that I did so far!


    Sadly, I already fell into the trap that caused the very first great economical depression across the world. Given the current rate of growth, the amounts of products that could be created within a single time-frame only continued to skyrocket. While the new markets of Commonwealth middle and high class just opened to me, if my expansion wouldn''t stop, then even the entire Europe would soon be too small to cater to the production capability of what I had right now and what I would obtain in the future. At some point, there just wouldn''t be enough gold in the entire continent to buy all my products at a satisfactory rate, nor there would be any customers looking to stock on the products they already bought!


    Thankfully, this kind of problem was something that descendants of my descendants could teach their own grandkids how to deal with. For now, just by sitting back, pushing two or three reforms that would strengthen the power of the country and keeping up the innovation rate was enough to turn my lands into the golden cities of the world!


    "If that''s what you sayˇ­"


    Looking at my face with a strange expression, Elia brought her hand up to gently caress my cheek.


    "But have you ever thought about what would happen if your own scheme were to fail?"

 Chapter 329: Crown?

    17th November 1574


    Even after two days, the question that Elia asked me back in the Royal Palace in Krakow still bothered me.


    What if my scheme to become the grey eminence of the entire country and the most important backer of the king were to fail?


    While the question was fairly simple, the drawbacks of the conclusions that any of its answers would provide were more than worrying. From a lot of problems appearing in terms of further developing my lands and possible taxes that could thwart any attempts at growth, through forcing me to enter the games of political struggles and waste my precious time on anything other than my work or wife, all the way to either being completely ostracised due to my sudden growth or in even worse scenario, the entire country breaking apart in a civil war.


    As much as I didn''t want to allow myself to even think of a situation where the peaceful Polish hinterlands would turn into fields for bloody and completely pointless battles, just the perspective of my actions actually hastening the deconstruction of the organised Commonwealth state was enough to sap me out of all my energy.


    "You are still sulking?"


    Entering the room without even pretending to knock or announce her entry in any other way, Elia quickly reached the bed on which I was lying and sat beside me. Her hands quickly found the way to my own, turning our fingers into an entangled mess of delicate handholding


    "Sulking? No. I''m just worried."


    Looking at the beautiful landscape of the thriving Tarnow right outside of the window of my chamber, I silently congratulated myself for deciding to leave the Krakow right away after my fiery refusal to accept Muscovite proposition. Doing so would leave a huge statement of my outlook on the topic while leaving the senate free to do anything they wanted without any threat of my interference.


    Even with that, over the past few days, I had to refuse a new diplomatic mission urging me to go back to the capital nearly perfectly according to the schedule of the train that connected the two cities. As unimportant as it was, while my insane logistic investment was already approaching the regularity of the trains that I used back in my original timeline, the time of the travel was still sadly nearly twice as long as what I expected from any rational train line back in the days.


    "So you are still sulkingˇ­"


    Ignoring my own response, Elia only pulled my head into her bosom and forced me to enjoy the softness of her supple breasts. Hearing the gentle beating of her heart through her skin, I indeed felt as if everything around me was slowing down and finally resuming to move at a normal pace, rather than the breakneck speed that was my constant companion in everything that was happening over the past few months.


    "Listen."


    A single word. It was just a single word, yet somehow Elia managed to harness all of my attention, even to the point where I didn''t consciously enjoy her closeness.


    "What happens now, is not in your domain of choice anymore. With the statement that you gave back in Krakow and how you refused to return over and over again, I wouldn''t be surprised if they just ignored your presence and went through with the peace and election talks. But that''s not what''s important now."


    Finally letting me go and take a breath of fresh air instead of the sweet smell of her skin, Elia brought her small hand up and pushed my chin up. Forced to look into her deep, mesmerising eyes, I couldn''t help but wonder what else would she have to say.


    "The last year was full of hardships and problems, I''m not going to deny it. Heck, just thinking about how far we came from our starting point makes me wonder whether everything around us is nothing more but a pleasant dream that will soon end, forcing me to go back into being lone fugitive escaping from my own family."


    Even though Elia took a short break to take a proper breath, I didn''t dare to interrupt her words. The seriousness on her face and return of the slight boldness that charmed me all the way back during our first meeting was enough to keep me silent.


    "Right now, even if your great plan fails, it won''t change the fact that we are already one of the richest people in the entire Commonwealth, if not in the entire world. And you can trust me on that, I spent more than enough time managing our lands to notice this fact. While the constant growth and spending connected to it makes it hard to notice, when I had some free time, I actually checked what the estimated value of our household would be. And it''s nearly triple of what the Cheerio family has!"


    Pushing this insane reality right into me, Elia made it impossible to refute her words. Mostly, because I myself knew that even her estimations were bound to be grossly underestimated. Generally, it was hard to guess how much all my projects were worth. Going by the standard term from the future where the project would be considered to be passable if it could return the costs of investment in ten years, then by downgrading everything that I had to that level would mean that my monthly income was less than a single percent of the net worth of all my businesses, lands and manufactories!


    Knock, knock.


    Suddenly, the sound of someone''s fists smashing against the door broke the stupor that the two of us fell once we started to gauge the worth of our wealth. Given how we were in my private chambers at the Tarnowian Castle, something really huge had to happen for the servants of mine to actually dare to disturb our rest.


    "Come in."


    If someone had balls big enough to knock on those specific doors, then I didn''t really mind allowing him to enter. After all, there was nothing wrong with a married couple to cuddle together! Additionally, with Elia bringing up a tough topic so suddenly, we didn''t even make the first step towards undressing each other for the obvious sake!


    "Sir, a delegation from the capital is at the castle''s doorstep! Matsu already allowed them inside, but they are insisting on personally meeting with you, sir, and the lady!"


    This already sounded ominous. I could understand the Senate attempts to bring me back to Krak¨®w with simple diplomatic missions carried by an average noble as those messengers didn''t hold any prestigious position that would force me to respect them. But for the senate to send an entire delegation?


    That had to mean that something actually huge has happened!


    "Lead the way."


    Not daring to waste any time, I could feel all the anxiety and worries that I cultivated over the past few months and took special care off for the last two days nearing its boiling point. Instead of allowing those bottled-up emotions to grow even more only to explode taking my sanity away, actually learning about the purpose of the delegation could at least allow me to realise what I was actually against!


    After a few moments of fixing our attires, I grabbed Elia''s hands and forced the servant to adapt his own energetic pace to the speed that Elia could safely move at. Even with that, due to how relatively small Tarnowian castle was, it took us only about two minutes to appear in front of an enormous delegation.


    Looking at the faces of my guests, I could recognise several notable figures. Amongst them, the grinning smile of the Bone Governor flashed, only to be replaced by the serious face of Cheerio''s patriarch that disappeared in the crowd the very next moment.


    ''Just what the heck is going on?''


    Standing in front of this crowd, I could only watch how the primate himself emerged from the crowd with two random nobles holding a long and thick, ceremonial cape behind him.


    "Sir Mike Tarnowski, of the Tarnowian household. Kneel."


    Still stupefied by the situation, I could only follow the orders of the primate spoken with an uncommon authoritative tone of his. Only now did I understood how this otherwise calm man could serve as the Royal regent without anyone opposing him!


    "You are hereby named as the new King of Commonwealthˇ­"


    With my head lowered as it was expected of me while kneeling, I could only feel a strangely dangerous weight appearing over my hair. Spreading the weight of the objects over its entire circular base, it would take an idiot to fail to recognise what was currently happening!


    But this was all wrong! ;


    Becoming a King right now would foil all my plans, and force me to actually waste my efforts on the court games! This was the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen!


    Raising my headˇ­ Or rather, I attempted to raise my head in order to stop the ongoing makeshift ceremony before it would be too late. Sadly, strange dizziness made me fall right back on my knees after just the single attempt at standing up. ;


    "Mayˇ­ reignˇ­ in gloryˇ­ peaceˇ­ landˇ­"


    The next sentences spoken by the primate were already turning incomprehensible. Out of the entire crowd, only Elia seemed to notice that something strange was happening. With my vision turning blurry, I could still notice her falling right on her knees beside me while ignoring the entire ceremony, instantly disturbing the awestruck peace in the castle.


    "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"


    Her shout was the last thing that I could fully understand. With all my senses quickly dulling up as if I was either disconnecting from this world or simply dying, I desperately reached out for her hand. ;


    The warmth of her fingers intervening with mine brought me peace only for a moment.


    "We are almost ready!"


    A new, strange voice shook my entire self. Form the speech mannerism and the accents alone I could tell that this voiceˇ­ came from my original timeline!


    "Eliaˇ­"


    Unable to even form a single word in my normal voice, I could only whisper my wife''s name, while I could still feel the warmth of her hand wrapped around my fingers. ;


    My vision completely ceased to work, shrouding me with pitch-black darkness. Only the heat of Elia''s hand still accompanied me on this most likely last route of mine. ;


    "Hit it!"


    Blast.


    All at once, all my senses returned in a single wave that nearly eradicated my consciousness. With the feeling of something being brutally torn away from my self, all my senses exploded with information, instantly putting my brain into the state of permanent confusion.


    "Stabilise him!"


    Those strangelyˇ­ familiar voices were the only thing that I could somehow understand. But the meaning that was most likely hidden beneath them, was far worse than anything that I could imagine.


    And then, everything suddenly stopped.


    Opening my eyes, I saw a perfectly white ceiling, one that one could experience only in high-end private clinics. For some reason, my body felt way better than before, no matter whether I would compare it to how it was during my original timeline or how I felt in the body of Mike of Tarnow. ;


    "Welcome back, Mike."


    The state of my emotions was critical. As much as I longed to go back to the normal times just for the sake of doing so and only for a while, I never considered this to be something that I could achieve. All the things that I wanted to experience at least once in modern, civilised society, were nothing when compared to the things that I lost by leaving the earlier timeline!


    "Eliaˇ­"


    A soft whimper escaped my mouth, with my mind fully occupied with the attempts to fall back into sleep as if returning back to the world that I already considered to be my reality would be possible just like that.


    "Mike, I won''t infringe on you right now. Take proper rest, try to sort everything in your head, and then we will have a long, long talk."


    Following those words, I felt a quick, sharp pain in my arm, before the world that I just returned to once again melted down and turned into endless darkness.

 Chapter 330: The owner

    Sitting down on the bench in the small park beside the institute, I was slowly sipping on the starrybucks coffee. In reality, I could never guess what made it so popular. For my own tastes, it wasn''t any different if not worse than the coffee that I could get from any other coffee-shop. ;


    Sadly, every single consumable product that I could get in the institute was imported, making it impossible for me to order any other type of coffee. ;


    "So, did you manage to sort through all the stuff in your mind?"


    Suddenly appearing beside me, the same man that attempted to calm me down back when I woke up, sat down on the same bench as me. Keeping a respectable distance of one meter away, he started in the distance while ignoring the probing glances that I kept sending to him literally every second.


    "More or less. But I still can''t wait for you to actually explain everything to me."


    Under the pretence of my calm demeanour, I was actually full of anxiety and fear. There was definitely something in the sedating material that they used on me that managed to block those feelings, turning my head to be far calmer than it would be in this peculiar situation.


    ''Eliaˇ­''


    The first thing that I was told once I woke up, was that I took part in the testing of the super-new alpha version of the virtual reality product. The man sitting beside me was not only the singular owner of the entire company, but he also held the ownership of this countryless island lost on the pacific. ;


    From one side, if I were to treat everything that happened to me over the past year in that apparently virtual world, then the outcome of the entire situation wasn''t that bad.


    Recalling the moment when I tripped on the stairs only to appear in that different timeline of mine was quite hard after all the time that passed for me since then, but after long mental training, I managed to bring back all the details of that moment. But what was the most surprising about this, is that my memories of my real-world didn''t end there at all!


    Every time I returned to the attempts of recalling my real past, I could peer further and further into my actions. From receiving a strange job offer, through over a year of preparing to take part in it, all the while all my living costs were covered by the Institute along with a huge, monthly premium on top. ;


    Yet, I still had to be told literally anything. Was that world that I lived in for nearly a year, real? Or was it just a product of the supreme computer calculations? Or maybe it was a mix of the two?


    The idea that it was all just an illusion could be ignored right away. There was no way that Elia was fake. Sadly, I was too scared to ask about it as I knew that either I wouldn''t receive the answer at all, or it would break my heart despite all the drugs currently tempered my brain activity.


    "Let''s start the explanations then. Sorry for doing it out in the open, but surprisinglyˇ­"


    Suddenly, the CEO and owner of the entire island and institute on it stood up and pulled a small, half a litre big bottle with a strange, yellow liquid. Uncorking it, he splashed half of its content on himself without even a shred of hesitation, before doing the same to me!


    "Whaˇ­"


    "... this is the only place and way for us to talk comfortably and without someone listening to us."


    The rest of the man''s sentence managed to quickly shut my mouth. Right, there is always a bigger fish. This was something that everyone who ever worked in any company knew. After all, even the owner of the countryless island had to be responsible to someone, even if one was seemingly as powerful as the man that stood before me right now!


    "First off, let''s get to know each other. I''m Bart Hecˇ­ Katernari. I''m Bart Katenari."


    As the man uttered those words, a strange aura of insanely deep sadness appeared in his eyes, as if just mentioning his own surname brought up some incredibly unpleasant memories to him. The fact that he stuttered while saying what his surname was didn''t escape my attention either.


    "I don''t think there is any need to introduce myself. I have this lingering doubt that you know more about me than I do know myselfˇ­"


    Uttering this slightly ironic sentence, I noticed how the light returned to the man''s eyes as if I just said something incredibly funny.


    "That is most likely the case. But going back to the topic. By now, your real memories should already start returning to you. You shouldn''t worry about this, as it''s pretty normal for the artificial amnesia drug to be cleared out of your mind. As strange as it sounds, if not for my own ambition, just by selling that chemical I could become the richest man in this worldˇ­"


    Sighing out deeply, the man in front of me seemingly lost all his energy, powerlessly clasping his body down back on the bench. Even if it was only virtual, the last year that I spent in the other timeline taught me how to judge the character of someone that I interacted with. It was a skill that I simply had to pick up in order to not be eaten alive in the political games of the senate. Yet, for some reason, I couldn''t see through this man at all.


    As if he was some kind of black hole, or as if he wasn''t a human in the first place.


    "Moving on, I will speed up the process of you recalling your true memories. The moment that you remembered last, happens about an hour before you received the package with the explanation letter and the first dosage of the amnesia drug. Form that time onwards, you forgot everything that happened the moment the drug was activated. But thankfully, the story isn''t long or hard. To put it in short words, after a year of training to prepare your body for the stress of our little experiment, you took the plane here, decided what kind of system you would like to have and entered the world that we constructed for your sake. That''s the gist of it."


    The story of that man was pretty on point with the memories that were slowly returning to me. It was true that the one thing that I could vividly remember about the time after tripping on the stairs was how extensively I trained my endurance and strength as if there was no tomorrow and my life depended on it. ;


    Well, according to the content of the letter that I could somehow fully remember, it was actually the case.


    "You are speaking a lot, but you have yet to answer the two, three questions that actually are important to me. Was thatˇ­ place, real? Can I return there? And most importantly, Elia. Was sheˇ­"


    Before I could even finish my sentence, the man suddenly reached with his hands towards my mouth, forcing me to stop talking.


    "The blockade is about to dry up, meaning the electronics in our clothes will start working again soon, so we need to hurry. The world that you were in, was completely virtual. It was somethingˇ­ that appeared when your consciousness filled the physical frames that we set for it, basing on the guidelines we could implement inside it. Butˇ­"


    Taking a deep breath, the man scanned his own outfit in search for some kind of clues about something. Suddenly raising his eyes, the owner of this island looked at me with a mischievous smile on his lips before asking me a strange question.


    "But, does it make it any less real?"

 Chapter 331: Epilogue (1)

    "Does it make it any less real?"


    Repeating those words, I had to force myself to not pounce on the man. Just the picture of wrapping my fingers against his throat and tightening them brought me a bit of relief from the fury that his mischievous smile caused.


    "Now, you need to make a choice. Would you prefer to go back to your real life, in this world? Even with all the money that you earned by taking part in the project, at some point, you will have to go back to work. Be it for earning your keep, or just to save yourself from going insane with all the thoughts that will keep plaguing your mind."


    I can''t say that I felt it. I can''t say that I noticed it, smelled it or anything else that would require me possessing a tangible proof of my words. But when I hear Bart saying this last sentence, I somehow knew that he wasn''t speaking like some kind of psychiatrist.


    I just knew that he was asking this question because he went through something similar himself!


    "And what''s the other option?"


    As soon as I asked, a huge smile appeared on the man''s face. Standing up, he gestured at me to follow him without uttering even a single word. Only after we went to the park''s exit opposite to the one I used to get here in the first place, Bart suddenly pulled a phone out of his pocket and passed it to me.


    "Here. Call your parents, siblings, friends or whoever you want. This might be your last chance to do so."


    The moment my fingers grabbed the cell-phone, Bart picked up his pace, leading me closer and closer to the edge of the island. During the few days that I spent here already I managed to get the general information about the outline of this piece of land lost in the great expanses of the ocean, allowing me to notice that in the direction that we were going, there was absolutely nothing.


    "Nice beach, isn''t it?"


    Finally stopping himself at the edge of the sandy beach with the water already dirtying his clearly expensive shoes, Bart suddenly turned around with a strange glint in his eyes.


    Hearing his words and seeing his expression, I quickly wished my parents all the health before saying the goodbyes and ending the call. The reason for appearing in this place would be clear in any other scenario, but given how our clothes were apparently rigged with electronics, it didn''t matter whether we were at the beach, in the park or in the middle of a busy street.


    "Let''s go for a swim. The cold water should help you calm your nerves."


    Bart''s smile remained exactly as sluggish and mischievous as it was ever since I asked for the other option. Following his example, I quickly stripped to my undies before following him into the water. But I still couldn''t understand one thing. If all our clothes were rigged, then it would be idiotic to assume that our underwear was clear of the electronic equipment. Additionally, Bart used some kind of special specific to block it from working for a short amount of time, so I couldn''t really believe that plain saltwater would be capable of doing the same!


    Sadly, none of my worries was addressed, with Bart starting to move his arms and legs, quickly gaining a relatively huge distance for me. Curious about what the heck was going on, I could only follow him.


    "We are going to dive here. After sleeping for so long, straining your lungs a bit might help you to force them into working properly again."


    Not even waiting for my response, Bart graciously moved up, as if some strange force lifted him almost above the line of water, only to dive headfirst back under the surface of the ocean.


    Strange. I didn''t have any problems with my lungs or breathing at all!


    Since I already went out of my way to follow this quirky and almost insane man, I could as well just keep following him to see what the heck he could want. Diving into the water, I was somehow able to see his body, already several meters below me. Following the trail of the disturbed water that Bart was leaving behind him, I continued to swim in his direction, quickly realising that we were actually going back to the shore!


    Or at least, that''s what I thought before I noticed a small source of light coming off from seemingly underground!


    The mystery revealed itself when Bart suddenly touched the bottom of the ocean, grabbing some kind of line. With his head moving up to check on me, he quickly gestured at me to get a hold of the rope as well.


    Feeling the first spasm that indicated that my body was starting to suffocate on the carbon dioxide in my lungs, I could only see how Bart sharply pulled on the line we were holding. The next moment, a sudden burst of momentum nearly caused me to lose my consciousness, as the water pushed my eyes deeper into my skull!


    An insane headache instantly gnawed on my sanity, only to disappear at the same time as a sudden bout of coldness attacked my entire self.


    "Whaˇ­"


    Stupidly opening my mouth to voice out my protest, I realised that contrary to my instant reflection, the water didn''t gush into my throat. Carefully opening my eyes, I slowly could make out just where the heck I was.


    A cave.


    Most likely connected by some sort of machinery or natural holes to the dry land, the entire cave was filled with unstable, electric light. And right in the middle of it, Bart was standing, with his back resting against the edge of exactly the same type of bed that I lied on while in the apparently virtual world!


    "Before I get started, you need to understand one, very important thing. I''m not a God."


    Spouting something obvious to any rational man, Bart smiled when seeing the look of scorn on my face. It seemed that getting angry at this kind of silly jokes was exactly what he expected.


    "You better wash out that smug face of yours, as no matter what kind of religion you would take, I fulfil all the requirements of being the God."


    Raising his hand, Bart sharply pulled it down. All at once, all the electric lighting in the cave disappeared, shrouding the cave in pitch-black darkness. At the same time, an electric current shook my pants, painfully reminding me of the presence of a certain body part that I held particularly close to my heart.


    But as if nothing has happened, the light returned to the cave in the very next moment. The only difference laid in fact, that not only was its source nowhere to be seen, but there wasn''t a single shadow in the entire place to speak off, as if the light was produced by the walls of the cave itself!


    "You see, for you, this is the real world. This is the world that you were born in, that you grew in. But for me, this entire world is no different from what that virtual reality of yours was to you. Just an illusion? Or maybe a fake one?"


    Completely ignoring the fact that he was levitating in a relaxed pose about a meter above this strange bed of his, Bart didn''t even bother to check how I would react to this sight.


    At this point, to say that I considered the option that I was actually going insane would be a gross understatement. If this was the real world, then there was no fucking way that magic allowing someone to levitate would exist!


    "Don''t worry, it''s not a trick or anything. This is a real magic, that only I in this entire world can use. And the reason for that is simple. When creating the basic settings of this entire universe, I made sure that no magic would exist in it."


    Spreading his arms in a gesture of helplessness, Bart made two barrel-rolls in the air before finally deciding to stop playing with my sanity and descending on the soft mattress of the bed. Putting his leg on the other, he rested on the hands that he outstretched to the back, picking up the topic right where he left it, as I was way too stunned to react to his actions or words in any way.


    After all, how could a human react to someone not only claiming that he could use magic, proving it right away and then claiming that he was behind the creation of the entire world?! Just to save myself from just cancelling my mind out, I didn''t dare to ask him to prove his last claim!


    "You see, even with all the magic in the worldˇ­"


    Suddenly stopping, Bart looked at me with a sad smile before winking at me.


    "And by all the magic in the world, I mean far more than this world''s physics has discovered to exist, I meant that in a literal sense. But going back to the topic, even with all the power that allows me to eradicate this entire universe with just a snap of my fingers, I''m unable to solve one problem. That''s why, I created this entire universe, dabbled my fingers in it to make sure that everything was going exactly as I remembered from the history and geography lessons back in the school of the world that I hail fromˇ­ I did everything that I could, to recreate the world that I was born in."


    Sentence by sentence, Bart was breaking all the shreds of what I still considered to be a common sense. But from his words, an obvious question appeared in my head.


    "Why?"


    At this point, I couldn''t decide whether to believe those incredible stories that this man was telling or not. I was simply too overwhelmed with everything that was happening to the point that seeing Bart play around with a ball of fire as if it was some kind of tennis-ball didn''t seem to phase me at all.


    "Isn''t that obvious from what you saw already?"


    Smiling dearly to me, Bart''s ball of fire suddenly turned into the last image that I could remember from before I woke up. On it, Elia''s teary face was leaning over my lifeless body, with the crown stuck in a position indicating that it fell off my head when I lost my consciousness there. An entire crowd of nobles surrounding the two of us, with all sort of expressions on their faces.


    In one word, he was showing me an image, that all the technicians and workers of the institute commonly agreed was impossible to produce. After all, according to their words, the entire world that I saw, was nothing more than a projection of my mind framed in the virtual structure they created!


    "It''s because I hope that magicless technology, mixed with an honest dose of magic will enable me to solve my problem."

 Chapter 332: Prologue (2)

    Given how everything that Bart said to this point rested on the border of fairy tale and ridiculous novel, I had no mental capacity to judge how logic his words appeared to be. But without any attempts to place his story in the frames of my own common sense, it appeared as if what he said actually was right on the point!


    "That leads us to the question you asked me before, where I couldn''t reveal who I am in order to keep this world running in the way it should. The world that you descended to thanks to the technologyˇ­ Wasn''t virtual at all. Or rather, while parts of it were created thanks to the technologyˇ­ Did you really believe that human technology is capable of transferring one''s consciousness into a virtual system? Into a machine?"


    Looking at me with a ridiculing smile, Bart suddenly switched our position. Right now, he appeared as if he was the rational one between the two of us, dropping hits of reality right against me!


    "Did you know why big companies of this world dropped the ideas of creating a proper virtual reality and switched to its shadow in form of VR lenses or actually doable augmented reality? It''s because no matter how developed the technology is, some things are just impossible."


    Once again throwing a huge bomb on me, Bart actually clearly indicated that this wasn''t his first attempt at conquering his problem with technology! Otherwise, how could he say with such confidence that future technology would be incapable of doing what he just described as impossible?


    "The world that your consciousness was transported into, is as real as the one that we are in right now. While I had to allow the existence of those rotten systemsˇ­"


    Despite not stopping mid-sentence, the expression that appeared on Bart''s face was so incredibly full of different emotions that I felt as if the entire cave suddenly shook!


    "... to satisfy the institute that still thinks we are creating a proper virtual reality, onceˇ­ or rather, if you were to return there, I will influence that world to make sure no system would remain in it."


    Over and over again, the limits that I had to constantly create to stop Bart''s words from literally exploding my mindˇ­ were broken. Every time when I thought that it would be already the end of the insane news, this fucking man would bring something else that would once again prove how unexpected and complex his plans were!


    "I understand that you are confused right now, but it''s actually the best way for you to make a decision that will truly reflect what your heart actually desires. Tell me, do you want to go back to that world? Do you want to go back to your Elia?"


    This question had an obvious answer. If the world where I met Elia was real, then I wouldn''t need even a single moment to consider my options. But the question whether that world was real still stood!


    "I will ask once again and please, explain it to me in a way that won''t break my mind apart. Is that world where I spent the last year of my lifeˇ­ real?"


    Seeing my hesitant response, Bart at first smiled, only to let out a deep sigh before raising his head and looking at me sharply.


    "If I were to attempt explaining what exactly is that world that you spoke about, then I would have to take about thirty years to explain just the basics of the mechanics behind it. That''s why, in order for you to understand, I will have to make my answer so wrong, that it won''t be any different from a lie because you lack the terminology, knowledge, perspective and even the proper senses to learn the full truth. But in your terms, yes. That world is real."


    This answer, as convoluted as it was, settled the deal. With all the wonders that this man shown me in the last few moments, with everything that I heard from him in the last few moments, I didn''t dare to doubt his words. That was how a human like me could respond to a being that exceeded the limits of what I could understand. ;


    With faith.


    "Yes, I want to go back." ;


    That was what I truly wanted. After saying goodbyes to my parents that I never was too close with, a thing that would hold me back from returning to Elia simply didn''t exist in this world. Even without her in the picture, living the life of a respected, powerful and famed noble seemed to be way better than being just a simple nobody in the current world that I knew!


    "Good. Lie down on this bed then. Given how that world of yours was constructed with partial help of technology, I can''t move you there with magic alone."


    Yet another wink.


    "After all, magic has rules just as strict as the technology, just in a different sense."


    Ignoring the last bit that Bart said about magic as this topic was completely out of my scope of understanding, I obediently laid down on the bed that this strange being just moved away from.


    "Listen. Right now, I''m doing you a huge favour. If not for how I grew to like you while watching your exploits back in that world of yours, you would never get the chance to go back there. You could say, that I''m solving a similar problem that you have to what I''m struggling to solve myself. That''s why there might or might not be a time when I will appear before you to ask for your turn to help me. Do you agree?"


    This question was as startling as much as it was calming. For the first time today, I managed to hear something that I could understand.


    Something for something. I help you, but you will have to help me in exchange. A simple exchange of favours. Even if I had no idea how someone as powerless as me could help a godly being like him, as long as I was capable of paying the price of going back to Elia and living my life properly with her, I didn''t mind the cost no matter what it was!


    "Yes."


    Looking around as I gave my reply, I saw Bart smile a bit, before moving on to dabble in various cables that busied the area around my bedˇ­ Or should I call it a final resting place?


    "Didn''t you say that you need to use the technology to bring me back there? How are you going to do so without electricity?"


    No lights in the cave turned on after that strange current that killed everything current-based in the cave. Yet, it didn''t seem as if Bart was bothered by it in the slightest! At this point, with my decision set in stone, it was just the last sign of curiosity that I could display before cutting the wire and jumping on the grenade by thrusting that this man''s words were actually true.


    "Producing electricity from magic is one of the easiest things that I ever learned. It''s a pity you don''t have the ability to learn magic. I would love to see how you would react to how interconnected the thing that we call magic for the simplicity sake is with all the other aspects of the true physics of the world."


    Still smiling with a small hint of longing for something visible in his eyes, Bart looked at me for the last time, not even attempting to hide the jealousy seeping out of his eyes.


    "May your life be fulfilling and peaceful, brother."


    Hearing his wishes, I finally understood all the hints that he was dropping about his situation through the course of our discussion. I understood why I could see the jealousy in his eyes. It was all because he was in a relatively similar situation to me, just that he didn''t have a friendly god-like presence that could solve the problem for him!


    "May you find a way to get back to your loved ones."


    Whispering lightly to him as the light of the cave started to fade away when the familiar feeling of my consciousness shifting hit me with all its might, I could barely see a small smile appearing on his face. ;


    "Thanks."


    Just like Elia''s shouts from before, this was the last word that I heard in my world of birth before a sudden plethora of lights nearly caused me to vomit from the senses oversaturation.


    "BART! ARE YOU OKAY?"


    Hearing the soft, familiar voice, now filled with the tones of utmost desperation and terror, I realised that everything was now back in the place where it belonged. ;


    No.


    I was back in the place where my soul and heart truly belong.


    I opened my eyes only to see Elia''s face, tearing up in exactly the same way as in the picture that Bart has shown to me just a moment ago. Raising my hand, I caressed her cheek.


    "I''m back."


    *


    *


    *


    *


    The end?