Ch.19 Mechanical Reaper (Patreon)

I had agents scour through Verdanthall and purchase all the information I could from information brokers along the trade route. Based on what I gathered, King Redfield secretly expanded his army but lacked the means to compensate the workers.

No money = no wages = no army.

Sometimes, I daydream about his reaction when he realizes how badly I’m strangling him.

-

"Raise an army!"

“Sir, we have no gold to pay them.”

“Then mint more!”

"Gold has a finite supply. We're already mining our gold—”

"No, I mean barter for it! Borrow! Take some action!"

"Y-Your Majesty. Surely you don’t propose we should borrow millions of gold from our rival nations! We’d have to put our lands up as collateral, provide our adversaries with political leverage, and furnish everyone a justification for war!"

-

King Redfield might possess all the crops and trade goods in the world, but they're useless without money. And he couldn’t acquire money on favorable terms unless he traded with me. I had him by the throat.

This was the true reason the British waged war over black tea. They blundered by allowing their nobility to deplete all their silver on luxury black tea from the East India Company, leading them into a state of economic instability with a limited war chest, incapable of lending money for domestic investments, and an inability for its citizens and businesses to afford goods and services.

However, unlike the Opium Wars, I was promoting trade with Valeria. Nevertheless, King Redfield would be aiding an adversary encroaching on his territory.

Whether it was imprudent or not, they had no choice. To secure loans, they needed to pledge margrave territory lands as collateral, inviting war from all sides if they defaulted. Not trading with me jeopardized all their border territories—not just the Everwood territory.

It was splendid.

Best of all, assassinating me wouldn’t aid them. The money was secured in Elderthorn, and retrieving it could lead to devastating losses if my people could safeguard the funds, and King Redfield was aware that I possessed large bows that fired spears.

"Why are you smirking?” Thea asked, bringing some coffee into my room. It was early morning, and we had just finished our breakfast.

“I was just thinking about how hard we screwed Redfield over,” I replied, accepting the cup. "It gives me butterflies in my stomach."

Thea giggled and sat beside me in a chair I had reserved for her. “Don't you feel even the slightest bit guilty?" she inquired.

“Bad?” I asked. “I have nothing but those cozy feelings you get when you eat fresh cooked bread made by a mother or touch a feline’s ears.”

She giggled until she fully understood the implication of my statement, turning crimson. “What’s that?!” she asked, swiftly pointing at my sketches.

I gently stroked her ears, which made her giggle and purr. She gently clasped my hand with both of hers, smiling brightly. After a few moments, I answered.

“It’s something that you’ll have to see to understand,” I chuckled. “Otherwise, your eyes will just glaze over. But trust me, Thea. Now that we have land, the inventions we’ll introduce will be nothing short of revolutionary.”

Thea’s eyes sparked with excitement. “I can’t wait until the world recognizes your brilliance.”

I ruffled her hair. “Stop flattering me, and let’s head to the Elderthorn Steel Works.”

She puffed out her cheeks in a mock sulk. “I wasn’t flattering you.”

I extended my hand to help her up, which instantly lifted her mood. She happily grabbed it and then scampered off with the dishes in preparation for our journey.

***

I couldn't help but smile at the new Carter’s Steelworks building, which had recently become a product line of the Everwood Company in return for substantial investment and promises of increased innovation.

When I arrived in Silverbrook, Carter was operating with six people in a stone building the size of a house with a single forge. Two people worked tirelessly to feed fuel into the blooms while Carter and his journeymen pounded molten iron on large anvils with heavy hammers, causing sparks to fly everywhere.

Things couldn't be more different now. The company was situated on the main river, connected to several waterwheels that powered bellows for blast furnaces round the clock. Thick black smoke belched from the area from multiple forges, painting a grim image of a potentially severely polluted river.

However, implementing modern improvements and planning ahead have been prerequisites for construction near a river in my domain, especially for blacksmiths.

The plot of land they occupied was fitted with numerous erosion control barriers that prevented sediment from leaving the work areas and entering the river. It also included stormwater management systems like ditches, sedimentation ponds, and erosion control blankets. All these measures ensured that the heavy metals could be disposed of appropriately instead of being washed into the river by the weather and rain.

Inside, the building looked entirely different. Twenty burly men moved between various stations, striking steel on anvils to shape weapons, feeding the forges with flux and coal for the steel production process, and operating large barrels of water where red-hot metal was being dipped, creating plumes of steam that raised the temperature of the room.

Far from a handmade operation, there were dozens of metal molds into which purified steel magma flowed, creating shapes for metal bars, rebar, spears, mortar shells, cannon balls, pots, pans, and countless other metal works that people were ordering.

Carter wiped his hands on a rag, so dirty it was questionable if it left him cleaner than before, and walked up with an exasperated expression. “Look, guy, I’m behind on these orders as is,” he pleaded. “Have mercy.”

I returned a wry smile before handing him a sheet of paper. “I need one team working on this,” I said. “Everything ‘revolutionary’ we’ve made so far is child’s play compared to this. This product alone will change the entire world and make Carter’s Steelworks a legendary innovator for the rest of history.”

Everything I had been introducing probably existed somewhere in Solstice, albeit with less advanced use cases. However, from refrigeration to the telephone, this place would be modernized to the 20th century before the war began. Today I was introducing my first modern revolutionary invention.

Carter furrowed his brow and looked at the drawing that I made. “More than the mortars?”

“More than the mortars,” I confirmed. “This machine will single handedly allow one person on a horse to do the work of fifty people in a grain field. Then we can take those fifty people and make them more productive. In the next five years, each one of my baronies will produce the flour output of an entire kingdom.”

He gave me a suspicious look with a slight frown. “Can’t you… just for once… sound halfway reasonable when you talk?” he asked. “At this point, if you said you were going to bed the queen, I wouldn’t feel that shocked. That’s how crazy you sound.”

I chuckled and looked away. “The irony is stellar, because that’s literally what I’m going off to do.”

Carter’s eyes widened as far as possible. “W-Wait, what did you say, boss?”

“It seems you’re not exaggerating,” I smirked. “You really do think I’m capable of that… huh. The more you know.”

With those words and a comforting hug to Thea to calm her panic, I turned and walked out the door.

---

Carter watched King Everwood walk out of the door with a strange expression. “God damn it, does that mean I gotta call him ‘king’ now?” he huffed, wiping sweat off his brow. “I can’t even call this kid ‘lord’ seriously.”

“Mech-an-ni-Kal… ree-per….” He studied the drawings pensively, spending a few minutes assembling them in his mind and imagining it working in practice. Then he rang a large bell on his desk.

“That was King Everwood!” Carter yelled. “You know the drill. Finish up your work, and then put everything aside. We’re about to make history!”

People cheered and groaned simultaneously, sweat dripping down their bare upper halves from the nonstop heat. Hearing that there was another Everwood order was both a badge of pride and a guarantee for sleepless nights.

“What are we making, boss?” one of his men asked.

“The hell if I know,” Carter gruffed. “This is some crazy warlock stuff. It probably sacrifices every generation's firstborn in exchange for bountiful harvests.”

The men snickered as the asking man looked at the ground sheepishly.

“You know the drill, people,” Carter clapped. “King Everwood gives us drawings of smart-people things, and we, the not-so-smart ones, make them. He’ll make us look smart, and we’ll avoid talking about them in public. Just another day in the life of this madhouse.”

The blacksmiths chuckled amongst themselves and then began to roar in assent.

“That’s right! We’re about to make history… somehow!” he yelled, eliciting an explosion of roars. “So let’s get to—”

They were ready to get to work. However, a pleasant breeze blew into the room, abruptly turning everyone’s heads to the door.

“By~the~way~!” Thea chimed, sticking her kitty ears into the room cutely. “King Everwood is the best king ever and has brought tasty delights for everyone outside! So come have some!”

All the enthusiasm that Carter somehow managed to muster in his overworked employees was instantly lost when she chimed in. Instantly all of the men cheered even louder.

After all, Thea was their queen, so what she said was law.

Carter’s eyes glazed over when they ran past him, and he grumbled as he joined them. However, when he saw a feast and baked goods outside alongside watermelon and crushed ice for water, he couldn’t help but smile. “I suppose I should thank him… of course.”

His sharp eyes became gentle when he looked into the distance and saw Thea scampering back to King Everwood, twirling her maid dress with a radiant smile while giggling.

“It’s easy to forget they’re still kids, ain’t it?” Carter chuckled, returning to his men taking showers of ice water outside. He grabbed a mug and tapped a keg. "Well, I’m not, so screw it.” He lifted his beer mug. “You heard the little lady! Drink up and get back to work!”

Everyone cheered as they began eating and drinking to start their road to history.

----

A week flew by, and five mechanical reapers emerged from Carter’s Steelworks as expected. While inventors like Jo Anderson, Cyrus McCormick, Obed Hussey, William Manning, and Patrick Bell required thousands of iterations and trials to create mechanical reapers, I had the blueprint for one down to the exact measurements in my head. Therefore, Carter and his team focused on making the parts to specification rather than through trial and error, and the final product was perfect—as usual.

Thea and I were greeted with loud applause when we picked up the mechanical reapers. I gave a speech, promised them more beer, and once that was done, we loaded the reapers onto Zenith's back and flew towards Goldenspire in the west.

***

Novena, the continent that Valeria resides in the center of, is surrounded by nine kingdoms, including our freshly-annexed territory. To the west lies Goldenspire, a kingdom renowned for its rolling wheat fields and grasslands. This makes it the breadbasket of Novena. Our territory extends to its southern border, putting us in competition in an area largely overlooked by the kingdoms and only separated by the Solsa River, a significant divide akin to the Rio Grande separating Mexico from the United States.

As we flew over the endless Crimsonwood forest, we entered a gradient between green and gold, separating our long, flat plains of gold from the beast-ridden forests of the Everwood Kingdom. Our territory covered about thirty miles of grain fields in this region before the Solsa River cut through it, separating us from the golden expanse that spread out for hundreds of miles beyond.

Here, we planned to introduce our mechanical reaper, ensuring to keep as far from Goldenspire’s territory as possible.

As we flew over the golden fields, we stirred up quite a commotion among the serfs, who tended to their fields with scythes and wheelbarrows on large plantations overseen by manor houses occupied by bailiffs.

In the center, approximately ten miles from every major manor was a large town called Sundell. Sundell was home to a large church, a bustling marketplace, a grand fountain, and now thousands of panicked people begging for their lives as our friendly neighborhood wyvern barreled into the territory, showing no respect for those with heart conditions. Zenith was a piece of work.

---

“Mayor Alderic, what are we going to do when King Redfield sends troops to our door?!” a woman with a tightly wound hair bun demanded, jabbing an accusing finger at a weathered man. “We’re Valerians! Sundell is a Valerian town. Are we really going to fight for a child who declared himself king?!”

Mayor Alderic, a man with a leathery face and balding hair, wore flowing robes made of rich, golden fabric. He rubbed his temples, looking weary and stressed as he sat at a table surrounded by other town council members, who were just as rattled. “I've already told everyone,” he replied. “I've pledged my loyalty to Margrave Leonard Everwood, and Margrave Everwood has declared his allegiance to his son, King Ryker Everwood. How many times must we go over this?”

A clamor broke out, with members scoffing at the minor issue of who was in charge and shifting the discussion back to the major problem at hand: When Valeria sends troops to reclaim its southeastern breadbasket, how were they supposed to defend themselves?

“Margrave Everwood has assured me their military might is substantial, Elana,” Mayor Alderic stated. “That's all I know.”

“That's a terrible answer!” Elana, the woman with the hair bun, hissed. “When Valeria comes to hang us and our children, you will burn in the underworld! I can't wait until—”

The door burst open violently. “Mayor Alderic! DRAGON!”

“WHAT?!” Elana shrieked, trembling next to the other town council members. “Mayor Alderic! What are you waiting for?! Do something!”

Mayor Alderic’s weary, bloodshot eyes looked toward the sky as if he wanted to simultaneously scream, “Why me?” and “Oh, thank god!” Ignoring the pleas of his constituents, he walked out the door, seemingly unfazed by the hysteria, violence, and panic unfolding outside the town council building.

“GYARRRRRRRRRAAAAH!”

The mayor grimaced as the blood-curdling roar of an azure wyvern echoed through the air. Behind the town's main grain silo, a makeshift militia of terrified soldiers gave chase, spurred on only by the town folk's desperate cries for them to do their jobs.

Mayor Alderic ignored the crowd's pleas, walking through the sea of terrified people who were running in the opposite direction. He continued towards the grain silo with a melancholic expression. When he got there, he saw a group of young men with subpar equipment, holding rusty spears, waiting for the massive, fire-breathing wyvern to reappear.

“Don’t waste your breath,” he said, patting one of the recruits on the back. The recruit jumped in terror, but the mayor simply walked past.

“W-Where are you going?!” Elana screeched. She had demanded that he do something, not throw himself to the dragon as a sacrifice! If he did that, she'd be left to clean up the mess!

“To meet our guests,” Mayor Alderic replied wearily, approaching the grain silo. Instead of a giant lizard, he found two beautiful women and a teenage boy. One had cat ears and wore a maid’s dress. The other was an older woman with silver hair and was very, very... naked.

“Of course I'd die today,” Mayor Alderic muttered, walking away as if accepting his impending demise. But his fate turned when Zenith, realizing she had been seen naked, attempted to conjure a fire attack. However, the male teenager beside her intervened, sparing the mayor's life. With death averted, the mayor moved aside and waited.

A few minutes later, a voice called out to him. “Smart man.”

Mayor Alderic turned his head slowly as if to confirm that he wasn't dead. “I’m just very… very… tired.”

----

As I gazed into the mayor's eyes, I was overcome by a feeling of... empathy? I'm unsure if that's the correct emotion, but I might have felt guilty for causing him such stress if I were a regular person. Instead, I was mainly thinking about introducing him to the profound benefits of drugs.

“Please, have this,” I said, brewing coffee in a pot and handing him a steaming cup. When Mayor Alderic took it, I added sugar—more drugs—and stirred it.

“Is this poison?” Mayor Alderic asked bluntly. “I’d rather die a swift and decisive death, King Everwood.”

I frowned. “I’m not here to kill people, least of all someone with the common sense to connect a blue wyvern to me. You’d think it’d be fairly obvious.”

The mayor snorted with laughter before taking a drink. “Wow… this tastes pretty… awful.”

“Wait for it,” I replied.

“Wha…..t?” Mayor Alderic’s pupils constricted, and his blood felt like it was surging with electricity. “What is this madness?”

“It’s called coffee, but you can call it an energy elixir if you wish,” I chuckled. “Please introduce me to your people. We’ll stay for a few days to show off the new technology we’re bringing you.”

Mayor Alderic nodded and avoided eye contact with Zenith before turning. “Right this way.” With brisk steps he wasn’t known for, he led us to the other side, where a militia had gathered, spears out, waiting to strike. “Spears down, gentlemen!” he announced briskly. “You stand before your new king!”

I walked forward with Thea gripping my arm, excited that soldiers and townsfolk were staring at me with awe, and some were already kneeling.

“W-What are you doing, Alderic!” Elana snarled. “This isn’t the time to play politics! We still haven’t—”

Mayor Alderic pointed at the woman with an energy she never thought he possessed. “And you, Elana,” he declared. “You’re fired.”

The woman’s expression crumbled in an instant. “You can’t fire me… I’m an elected…..”

“We’re representatives of our leader—not a democracy,” Mayor Alderic said, swaying side to side with a grand smile. “Otherwise, people might be tempted to hold a vote on treason.”

Blood drained from the woman’s face when she looked around and saw all the soldiers had taken a knee before me, a person wearing the Everwood insignia. “I-I….”

“You’re fired,” I confirmed. “So become a… soap maker or something. I don’t know what you people do, but you’re out of politics.”

With those words, I passed by her. Of all the things that I despised about being a ruler, hearing people grovel was the worst.

Mayor Alderic hurried to me with a beaming smile.

“Are you satisfied?” I asked.

“Yes, My Liege,” he confirmed with a hard nod. “I’m indebted to you forever.”

“Great….”

After glancing at Thea at my side, I sighed and pulled out a pouch of coffee grounds. “I will give you more if you help make all our political problems disappear.”

Mayor Alderic’s eyes sparkled with fervor. “You will not face political opposition in the slightest.”

“Good to hear,” I grinned.

With those words, we set to work.

***

The next morning, we woke up before dawn and ate breakfast provided by Mayor Alderic’s wife, Susan. It was a simple meal consisting of bread with butter and jam and a side of eggs. It was modest but already a lot for people living on the plains.

We would soon improve these people’s standard of living.

After we were done, we hit the wheat fields.

“Harvesting wheat is simple,” Mayor Alderic said, walking through three-foot-tall grain stalks with a scythe. “Each one of these stalks has a wheat head with the grains we use to make flour for bread. Our serfs use a scythe to cut the grains near the base.”

He demonstrated by cutting at the bottom, toppling a swath of stalks, and then pulling out some twine and crouching, grabbing the stalks, and tying them up. “Once you tie up a bundle, it’s called a sheave.”

***

“Next, we stack them,” Mayor Alderic said, guiding us into a granary. “By standing sheaves upright in small groups, leaning them against each other, they form ‘shocks.’ This allows them to circulate air to dry for a few days to weeks, depending on the weather. We don’t want mold on our crops.”

Thea’s eyes sparkled as she looked at all the stacks. I could almost hear her thoughts: “Look at all the wheat your people are harvesting for you!” That’s definitely what she was thinking.

Mayor Alderic then led us into a room full of women in peasant dresses beating the stalks on a table, causing the grains in the wheat to dislodge from the chaff holding them. After carefully separating every last grain, the women discarded the stalks. “You’re watching threshing,” he explained. “We’re separating the grains from the stalks. We hear that Goldenspire has technology that does this more efficiently, but right now, we have enough people that it’s unnecessary.”

I rolled my eyes in disdain, making the man nervous.

“Lastly, we winnow the grains,” he quickly continued, leading us to a large flat table outside where people were tossing the grains into the air. “Winnowing is the process of separating the grain from the chaff, the husk surrounding the seed.”

“Why are they throwing it?” Thea asked.

“Because they’re savages,” Zenith asserted.

“To let the wind blow away the chaff,” I corrected.

“Indeed, My Liege!” Mayor Alderic gulped. “The seeds are heavy, and the chaff and stalk are light. So when there’s a light wind, tossing them up in the air lets the wind blow them away.”

I turned to the man with a serious look. “Why aren’t you using winnowing forks?” I asked. “Surely you have something so basic.”

A winnowing fork throws large amounts of chaff into the air to have it blown away in bulk. It’s been around since before the times of the Bible.

“As I said, we have a lot of people here and not a lot to do besides farming wheat,” he gulped.

“That changes today,” I replied, stepping out of the building and reaching into a large, backpack-sized bag. I pulled out a machine with a trailer hitch the size of an RC car and threw it like a football.

THUD!

Dirt billowed around the area when the device instantly enlarged, forming a massive steel contraption.

“This is a mechanical reaper,” I announced. “You’ll be using it to harvest crops from now on. I’ll find other work for your surplus labor.”

A mechanical reaper, or combine harvester, could be compared to a very large, oddly shaped tractor. At the front, you see the header—the part that cuts and gathers the crops. It's a wide, horizontal attachment that resembles a whale's open mouth. The "teeth" are like a long row of scissors or knives, moving back and forth to cut the crop stalks. These are then gathered into the "mouth" by a kind of conveyor belt system—think of a supermarket checkout belt, but instead of taking your groceries to the cashier, it's taking crops into the machine.

The center of the machine, where the driver sits, is the control center. Inside, the harvested crops undergo threshing and winnowing. Like a studded rolling pin, the threshing drum spins and knocks the grain loose from the stalks. Then a built-in fan separates the heavier grain from the lighter chaff.

In short, it cuts the stalks, threshes, and winnows them all in one go!

Behind the cab is the grain tank. Picture a giant storage bin or a large container, like the ones you see on cargo ships. This is where the cleaned grain is stored until it’s ready to unload.

Projecting from one side of the combine, you'll find the unloading auger. It's like a long, mechanical arm that swings out when it's time to unload the grain. Imagine how a crane at a construction site moves to place its load. When the time comes, the auger swings out and unloads the grain into a waiting truck, similar to how a water slide in a water park directs water to a specific point.

Lastly, at the back of the harvester, the leftover parts of the plant, the chaff, and the straw are ejected. This is similar to how shredded paper is discarded out of a paper shredder.

Even without a modern engine, the mechanical reaper I recreated, designed, and built in 1834 could cut, scoop, thresh, winnow, store, and unload wheat kernels, all while a farmer sat in a chair pulled by a horse! It was absurd!

“Hook this up to a horse,” I said, grabbing the metal bar that acted as an old-timey trailer hitch connecting to a horse and lifting it effortlessly. “Then drag it through the field. It’ll do everything in one step.”

Mayor Alderic watched in disbelief as I walked through the field, and an entire five-foot section to my right was cleanly cut through, leaving nothing but leftover stalks in a neat line. He was left stunned. It wasn’t until I returned down the same path, parked in front of him, reached into the drum, and pulled out a handful of seeds that he snapped back into focus. “These are….”

“Wheat kernels,” I smiled. “You’ll feed these into a windmill I’m having my carpenter build that will process them into flour in bulk. As for your unemployed people, I’ll put them to work on your cotton crops next season. We’ll have another machine that’s similar for processing the cotton, and all of your people can work in the mills and create textiles for clothing.”

He listened to my words in a haze, unsure how to react, so I simply told him:

“You’re going to be wealthy, Eli.” I smiled and grabbed his shoulders. “You can finally rest.”

Light tears appeared in his eyes at the sound of my words, killing my enthusiasm.

“Now gather your people here,” I commanded. “I’m teaching them how to do this and finding them work elsewhere.”

“Y-Yes….” Mayor Alderic gulped. “I’ll get them right away.”

***

We spent the next three days teaching people how to use the mechanical reaper—hook it up, unload the drum, clean it, and store the grains. I also guided people on properly drying the seeds, which should be dried from their initial, undried state.

After that, I addressed them, letting them know what to expect.

“As always, you will be paid for this work,” I explained. “My team will arrive soon to construct kilns in bulk. They’ll teach you how to make clay pottery from deposits I’ll find this week. The men will collect and process the clay, while the women will make the pots. In the future, your work will diversify, encompassing textile and food production.”

The villagers were shocked. Everything was happening so fast. They had been doing things the same way for decades, and everything changed overnight. They were farmers; were they now to be potters? Miners? They were staggered by the change.

“I would like to remind everyone that you’re getting a percentage of the exports here, so long as you work your second job,” I said. “Therefore, you’ll enjoy twice the income you had before. So work your job with joy, as you’ll reap the rewards!”

Everyone’s attitudes quickly shifted after that, and people cheered with delight. A new era of agriculture was upon them, and they’d soon appreciate the immense satisfaction of having most of the work done by the mechanical reaper. The biggest challenge was keeping them employed while I was away, so I brought in additional people to develop the town.

***

Over the next two weeks, I brought potters from pottery guilds to help teach the women how to make pots. I had quarry workers arrive and teach the men how to find and extract clay from the earth. They also taught them how to remove the soil, soak and slack the clay by immersing it in water for hours or days to make it softer, decant the water to remove impurities and dry it.

Keeping them active was better than having them do nothing.

The price of progress is problem-solving, and there was plenty of work to be done. However, once I get things settled here, I’ll teach it to others and spread the word next year when I introduce the seed drill. There was plenty of work ahead.

“Gah! You’re such a genius, Ryker,” Thea hugged me suddenly, catching me off guard. She was an incredibly strong cat woman, so taking Thea's embrace head-on took my breath away. Nonetheless, I smiled warmly and hugged her back.

“We’re just getting started,” I chuckled. “I’m sure most of these things I’ve created existed in Solstice somewhere, but you have to walk before you can run. There are countless things that we’ll introduce into this world.”

I was rebuilding modern society from scratch. From glasses to bullets, refrigeration to the telephone, I’d create it all from the ground up. But to do that, I had to prevent a resistant world from trying to kill my people for upending everything and fight to protect the ones I loved.

It wasn’t just Valeria. Soon, Goldenspire, the breadbasket of the world, would face flour prices that they couldn’t compete with, and they'd come either to steal our technology, trade for it, or outright attack us.

“Would you like a castle?” I asked Thea, rubbing her ears and making her squeal in delight.

“Like a real castle?” Thea asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “We’ll call it Lockheart Castle and put a grand throne in it for Thea Lockhart.”

“As long as there’s a throne for Ryker Everwood next to it,” she said with a touch of anxiety, worried I’d leave her. “Because I’d rather be your maid than accept an entire dukedom without you.”

“I’ll be right next to you, you silly woman,” I said, smiling while ruffling her teal hair. “I’ll never leave your side. So, do you want a castle?”

“Yes, please!” Thea beamed, her expression as adorable as could be.

“Okay,” I chuckled. “Then let’s build a castle and load it with enough weapons to fight back against Goldenspire, Valeria, and Sunset Shore.”

Sundell was located in the southeast corner of the Valeria territory, on the edge of Goldenspire to the east and the Sunset Shore kingdom to the southeast. Therefore, we were in the center of three kingdoms, which would make a stellar, self-sufficient military outpost for the future. So I was about to equip the place with enough artillery to survive armageddon.

Just the thought of it made me grin.

—

[A/N: Ask, and you shall receive! People have asked for POVs (as much as possible in a story this fast), and I've given it to them. Someone asked for information on how Carter was operating, so I showed them. Another pointed out that most of these "inventions" existed for a long time. Sort of. The most important thing here is that pointing out how a person immediately creates a crankshaft for a steam engine would cause people's eyes to glaze over. By pointing out how a waterwheel works, people can understand that a steam engine is a waterwheel that uses steam pressure to spin it. Obviously, it's a bit more involved, but that's the concept. Therefore, this story is crafted as a journey that takes people to the heart of civilization from start to finish, giving people the impression that they, too, could do this if they went back in time. So keep that in mind.

I've also foreshadowed that magic production is on the horizon, as asked by someone else.

In short, if you have suggestions and I don't reply to them, that doesn't mean that I didn't read them. This is your story, so don't be a stranger. Hope you're enjoying it!]