Steel and Mana

Chapter 194 – Three Idiots

Inside the palace, we were having a crucial meeting with my ministers, and I was detailing our current plans and direction to them. I knew that it would stretch our industry to its limits, but with the lights installed in the factories, the night and day shifts should be able to keep up with the demands. With our recent expansions, we could instruct one factory to start the work on the first train of this world while the second one was going to continue working on our third mech.

By now, making the frame for our war machine has become much easier as people have gained experience creating and assembling it. It also helped that we have settled into a uniform base model design that could later be attached with either short, medium, or long-range weaponry. Later on, the assigned pilots will have the chance to customize them to their personal tastes, but they would be a close match while we were manufacturing them. I wanted to ensure that by the time we faced Pascal and the capital city's high walls, we would at least have five or six such machines. With that in mind, they became a priority to focus on. Until I felt satisfied, the designs of my own mech and the construction of the airship took a backseat to give way to building up the bulk of our fighting force.

As for the train, I didn't go off the rails right from the start. My design was something that was modern, tried and tested, borrowing layouts from the good old western expansion. They would do well here if they were good enough to conquer the American continent in my old world. So, I made sure my people understood the 4-4-0 design, meaning four carrying wheels, four driving wheels, and no idlers. When building our tractors, the concept of the boiler and all the bells and whistles coming with it became well-known among my mechanics, so working with steam wasn't wholly alien anymore. The new boiler was only an enlarged version and a bit more complex when delivering the power to the wheels.

"We have enough preparations for the winter." I explained, answering their questions about what to expect when snow arrives. "If we can't hold back the beasts that may try to break through, last-moment manufacturing won't help us at all. Keep to the plans, and by next year, we will have ourselves the first train ride in history!"

Building such a locomotive could be done in only two to three months, but because it was our first time, I made sure to give everyone enough time, letting them tackle it for a whole year. Still, I was hopeful that my people could surprise me and finish it in six to nine months, especially because I was placing a pretty motivated team to lead its construction!

For the first time, Kraus was challenged for his Forgemaster title. With Sasha overseeing it, she gave them enough resources and access to a set of brand-new magical formations to create an interconnected system. It was made to nullify weight and could be gradually controlled, with the user manually tweaking it by changing out CCs and returning the affected item's weight in fixed increments. We didn't give them any blueprints and were told to make it independently.

What they didn't know was that it was designed for our airship. It was the 'floating system' Merlin, Sasha, and I created, but we had yet to implement it into my blueprints. We were a bit stumped on how to handle it, and all three of us had our own ideas with their own pros and cons. After multiple failed debates trying to combine our solutions, we thought that it would be best to let a set of fresh eyes take a look at it, too. So, we gave them everything and let them devise a way to put theory into practice.

In the end, both teams performed incredibly well, and both of their creations achieved what we asked them to. What decided the winner was simplicity. Sasha didn't hide her decision, telling it straight when she gave her verdict: Kraus won because his creation was more accessible to manufacture en masse and could be repaired more easily if it broke.

I was happy to hear that the losing faction took it gracefully, and both teams hugged it out, sharing ideas with each other after it was all done. It was precisely the type of competitiveness I was looking for, so it was not a question of whether they would get to be in charge of creating the trains when I had to pick someone to lead my next big project. I gave them full authority over it and was only interested in the end product. I wasn't going to butt in and micro-managing their work and lives. I lifted up those who were competent for the reason of working for me and not for me to become their shadows and torment them with my naggings.

As for Kraus, I sent him the current prototype plans for our airship so he could have a clearer picture of what his newly made and approved system would be used for. This included all the recreated blueprints of the Ishillian ship I got to tour. I knew they weren't accurate, as I recreated them from the memory of my tour and not actual measurements, as I couldn't dismantle the ship... but they were nothing but reference materials anyway.

With everything settled on our end, my next meeting happened over our long-distance communication, contacting Elliot. He was finishing the training on the very first proper army of his region, and soon, they would be ready to come over and prepare for the winter with my guys. With autumn slowly coming up, they would spend those months here and exercise alongside my forces, the mechs, and my howitzers. I need them to get used to the noise and resounding boom of cannons so they won't break formation when shit hits the fan.

Within the Pass, my father is already using his soldiers and the Lion to prepare the valley, and we are erecting different defensive positions, marking the mountain walls for our artillery. While the beast can't read it, we can, and we would instantly know when they are within firing range. As for what will come over this time? I don't know, but we were ready to harvest them down to their bones. I was starting to realize why some Emperors led armies into their territory... they are a treasure trove of resources.

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In the Black Lands, the Tobrok family was anything but happy since their loss. The people were blaming them, and all the minor nobles were also unhappy with how it was resolved or, more precisely, how it wasn't. With the order coming from the top, they were simply told to shut up and ignore it, and they even had to now 'work' with the enemy. Never before had Vash Tobrok felt so humiliated, and his views of the Zimmermann family were no longer as kind and friendly as before.

It didn't improve his mood when he learned that all three of Matilda's sons were coming to meet with him. As a baron, he couldn't refuse to meet with them, not if he wanted to keep his position as a noble. But... he didn't need to prepare the best party either. Ultimately, they were a smaller, much poorer region, so they had to do with what little they could offer, and there could be no complaints on the trio's side.

His underlying animosity and cold decorum were kept up right until the point when the three weird young earls dropped something that made him drop his cup, letting it clank loudly on the stone floor of his castle. His first thought was that they were testing him. A jest. A bad one, but still a joke... He even took a double take, waiting to see if Matilda would jump out from the shadows, but that didn't happen.

"We are serious, Baron Vash Tobrok." Reus Zimmermann, Matilda's oldest son, explained, making the baron take another look at them.

"Yeah, sure." Maximilian, the middle child, shrugged, bored, and drew on his plate with his finger, using the remaining grease as paint.

"We are!" Reus repeated, looking at his brothers, "Don't you all understand? This is a perfect opportunity to get free and eliminate our mother's influence! When did she ever let us be us? She doesn't trust us with anything and only berates all of our ideas! She is an old granny who ate through our fathers and is now flirting with some barbarian bastard, looking to make a fourth brother for us before her womb expires... Yeah... no, thank you!"

Listening to him, Vash Tobrok was even more confused than at the start, trying his best to understand what was happening. It seemed as if the three brothers were just deciding on something perilous right before his eyes, completely ignoring him and the dangers their words could bring to their heads.

"Situations like this don't come around often... We have the opportunity to act and take what belongs to us! And she wouldn't realize it, thinking we are following her master plan."

"And it would be you who rules?" Bastian, the youngest of the brothers, asked, his voice filled with sarcasm as he looked at his eldest brother. "Because it was your genius, undeniable masterful plan?"

"We can split our home into three parts." He exclaimed confidently, "We have three baronies, and we can all work this out! As for the earldom, we can rule it jointly as a council of three. That is my best offer!" Listening to him, even the middle child, Maximillian perked up, even if he was usually the laziest of the three, wanting to do nothing.

On the other hand, Vash Tobrok, besides feeling insulted, decided to let them talk. It revealed to him that the three were not the brightest, talking it out between them right before him. All the frustration was disappearing from his mind, followed by his anger, replaced by a newfound ambition. They could be manipulated if they were this thick to ignore his presence and talk about a rebellion this openly. With a quick decision, he let them speak and convince themselves into a plot of betrayal, turning something that should have been a ploy into a reality.

Of course, he wasn't going to agree just like that. While they were going in circles between themselves, Vash was coming up with a plan for how to get the most out of it for himself. He had to have a strong position after the dust settled, so much so that he would be one of the strongest powers among his neighbors.

When Matilda's three sons finally reached an agreement and turned their attention back to Vash Tobrok, he was much more agreeable and compliant than before... but didn't give a definitive answer. Not yet. His plan was to stretch it out for multiple sitdowns, wanting to see what type of power was behind each of them. What type of forces would they be able to command and to see if their coup would work. Because if it did not, he could still turn to either Matilda, betraying the betrayers, or... go find another earl who would be interested... The news did reach him, how Matilda betrayed the Jauwn family, so he was aware that there were probably noble families looking for a reason to eliminate them.

What Vash Tobrok failed to realize was that he was way too insignificant to gather all the pieces of information and complete the puzzle to learn what happened to the Jauwn family...

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