Chapter 8:

Once they made it back to the house with the steel fabric machine Subaru was informed that the steel mill is finished only waiting for the foundries, machinery and steam engines. He was also told that the cotton factory would conclude its construction in 4 days. He decided to put the cotton factory on standby and was informing so to the others.

Subaru: "Due to the steel mill being ready we will stop making more cotton related machines for now."

William: "Sir Subaru I understand that you want to start using the new installation asap, but it took us a long time to make the first machine. Shouldn't at least I be left to keep making progress?"

Subaru: "Now that you actually have the molds ready, we could go quickly but more than half of the time was used to make the steel for the machine."

Beatrice: "So you want to cut time losses by starting to mass produce steel."

Subaru: "Exactly. Will have you tried applying the method mentioned on the letter?"

William: "Yes sir. But like the letter said the method is better for large amount to be made at once not the small amounts I was making. I think I have an idea on how to apply it to the big installation we have."

Subaru: "Tomorrow we will start installing the big cauldrons and furnace I got us then."

Beatrice: "By the way Subaru, Otto will arrive tomorrow to."

Subaru: "Perfect, just in time."

Ivan: "May I ask who this Otto is?"

Subaru: "Otto the man we called to find the lost iron mine."

William: "And why is he just in time?"

Subaru: "Well…you see…how do I say this?"

Beatrice: "My contractor is helpless in fact. It is because to iron shortage is reaching critical levels in the town. It will soon hamper the production of rails. Also, William you won't be capable of making more steel until more iron arrives, I suppose."

Subaru: "Beako, I didn't want to tell him the bad news like that."

Soon after that update everyone goes to bed waiting for the next day. Once the day starts, they go to check and start planning on how to lay out the stuff inside the mill. After a couple of minutes of planning they settle for a solution and start working. A while latter Otto arrives just in time for lunch. In lunch time they decide to leave Ivan, William and a few construction workers to install the stuff while Otto, Beatrice and Subaru will go to find the lost mine, starting at the place Emilia reported the anomaly. They soon depart ways and once the scouting party reaches the abandoned settlement they start discussing the finding.

Subaru: "How could Emilia-tan even tell there was a settlement here?" Subaru was looking at the mangled woods arranged in a square shape.

Beatrice: "I don't think a single foundation can count as a settlement in fact." She started walking around the mangle woods. "Maybe we should bring an archeologist I suppose?"

Otto: "This actually seems like a…"

Beatrice: "Aaaaaaa!" She tripped over some hardly visible wood on the ground.

Subaru: "Another square? I say this is it." He rushed over to pick up Beatrice.

Beatrice: "This…ug…Any way Otto."

Otto: "Yes."

Beatrice: "If this is the settlement then the mine must be nearby, I suppose. Right?"

Otto: "Well actually it not a necessary outcome…"

Beatrice: "Just get looking for it in fact."

The party had Otto ask the local fauna about the location of a mine and followed the animals. They stumbled upon many holes the fauna believed to be mines, and after a few hours of searching they actually found the desperately needed mine. They spend a few minutes figuring out where they are in the map and mark their finding. After that they head back to the town to start preparing mining operations.

Subaru: "Mister, my company will claim the mine as rightfully ours. Any problems?"

Leader: "Very well, but you must buy the terrain and help provide iron, for some reason we are critically short on iron."

Subaru: "I do not know the reason of the shortage, but if you expect me to provide iron then I will ask for some tax exemptions."

Leader: "Best I can do is exempt you from local tax. Domain and Kingdom tax I don't have any say."

Subaru: "Then it's a deal?"

Leader: "Deal." They shake hands.

Subaru reunites with Otto and Beatrice who had been assigned to fulfill a different role.

Otto: "It's done Natsuki-san we posted the jobs."

Beatrice: "We also convinced a few merchants to transport the iron while there is no road in fact."

Subaru: "Wow, you two outdid yourselves I wasn't expecting any merchant to go off-road, also I hope we get men wanting to work in the mine I would hate to enact plan b."

Otto: "What is plan b and why does it sound so sinister Natsuki-san?"

Subaru: "In case no one wants to work for the company Ros chi gave me this letter."

Beatrice: "The plan will only be used if other methods of recruiting workers don't work. We will just conscript people into the company using Roswaal's authority."

Otto: "Isn't that slavery?"

Subaru: "No, it's conscription, they will be paid fairly but if they don't comply, they will be punished."

Beatrice: "And I do not think we will use it any time soon. Unemployment here is high in fact."

Subaru: "The only problem is that there are no miners in town so we can expect a few accidents and reluctance to work in the mines."

Otto: "Still don't you think it's a bit of a harsh approach you make Natsuki-san?"

Subaru: "If we did not have the iron shortage, I would take time to bring professional miners, but time is limited and I did not think we would find the mine so fast, the shortage it somewhat unexpected I thought we would have some iron reserves in towns."

Otto: "That is exclusive to towns expecting a siege."

Subaru: "It still weirds me out the state of unreadiness in the kingdom."

Beatrice: "You didn't even spend that much time in Vollachia I suppose."

Subaru: "It felt like an eternity. Maybe because of all the action and movement?"

They continued to talk a while longer and then decided to head back, the first thing they see is that the mill had a chimney, and it was smoking. They rushed to the mill to see what was happening and found a William covered head to toe on leather protecting him from the heat looking into a cauldron and Ivan with a long shovel throwing coal to the fire under the furnace. It was loud and the 2 men did not notice the visitors, so Subaru decided to approach Ivan. As soon as he took a step forward, he felt the heat slapped him and almost fell back in surprise. He kept encroaching Ivan who was furthest from the furnace and closest to him while fighting the heat. Otto and Beatrice where behind them and where also having trouble with the heat. When Subaru approached Ivan, he yelled to get his attention, but the fire was too loud, so then he tapped his shoulder. Ivan saw him and made a sign to wait outside, Ivan then went to William to give him a written message telling him that he would go see the boss. Once outside Subaru and Beatrice started to interrogate Ivan.

Beatrice: "Why is only one window open I wonder?"

Ivan: "You see the construction workers got something wrong with the frame and will be working on it by tomorrow."

Subaru: "At least if going to get fixed. Still, I knew it was going to be hot, but why so much?"

Ivan: "It is a requirement to make steel like the letter said, normally it would take some 6 people to make, but the engines help a lot."

Subaru: "Where did you get the iron for that anyway?"

Ivan: "William had some spare iron he was keeping away, and we used that, it was enough to fill the cauldron."

Subaru: "And the results?"

Ivan: "Unknown, but right now I need to go back in to help William in about half an hour we should be finished."

Subaru: "Then go, we will prepare diner in the meantime."

Ivan went back into the fray while the others prepared dinner. After 37 minutes Ivan and William were done and went inside to eat and talk about the results. Once they finished eating, they all talked about the day, and the apparent success of the foundry. William was still waiting for the steel to cool down to assess the quality of the alloy. He had done in one afternoon what amounts to 3 days of making steel by hand with this method and these machines. Once he assessed the quality, he was more than happy, the steel had even less impurities than the one he had previously made. 'A faster and better way to make steel I only wished the windows would have opened.' He thought to himself on his way back to the house.

Subaru: "So you're saying that with this way to make steel we can make one fabric machine every 2 days instead of every week? I knew it was good but not this good."

Beatrice: "Beaty is impressed with the progress in fact."

William: "That is without the iron shortage, we do not have more iron sir."

Subaru: "Do not worry this man here saved the situation."

Otto: "What do you mean Natsuki-san?"

Subaru: "Come on, you found the iron mine, didn't you?"

Otto: "Y-yeah, but it wasn't that big of an accomplishment. Right?"

Ivan: "Why do you belittle yourself mister? If it wasn't for your finding, we would be stuck waiting for iron for a few weeks until merchants finally brought some."

Subaru: "Well about that…How do I put this?"

Beatrice: "Truly helpless in fact. Roswaal gave us authorization to fully mobilize the town, if we run out of iron, we have the option to confiscate every iron utensil and tool the locals have for our project I suppose." Everyone turned to look at Subaru.

Subaru: "I-it's not what you think, I discarded that option from the start, we can't risk causing unrest now."

Otto: "And if there wasn't an iron mine close?"

Subaru: "We force them to sell all the utensils and tools they have." Otto started to cough as soon as Subaru finished his statement. "What did I say anything weird?" Everyone started to laugh or giggle.

They soon finished talking, Subaru, Beatrice and Otto went into the map room. They where to plan the road to connect the iron mine to the house, not the town, the iron would first serve them. They also planned the next day, Otto wanted to see the railway and the train in action, so Subaru would take him to see how they moved the workers in the morning. Otto also gave advise on what other products Subaru could expand operations towards, of all the products one caught Subaru's attention, 'We could make paper, this world still makes it by hand and it is quite expensive, but that has to wait for now.' Subaru buried his thought but took note on his notebook. For now, he needed to focus on the problem at hand, they would be frozen by the lack of iron for a few days until a reliable rout could be made to the mine for the merchants to move the iron. The railway had a decent number of spare rails, but Subaru feared it would get delayed. They had used already 10% of all the coal they had and Subaru did not want to buy more if he had Elior forest to exploit. So along with a running factory and steel mill, the railway to bring coal for both processing centers was a top priority.

If they managed to not draw attention with huge coal and iron imports, they should be clear from any big and established commercial group. Subaru was particularly worried about a certain greedy merchant princess finding out and starting to industrialize herself.

Soon the day was finished everyone was in sleeping, except for Subaru. He started to wonder what he would do if Emilia did not win the royal election. Would he leave a partially industrialized country to however wins and hope they manage industrialization well enough to avoid a revolution? Should he take the country by force by mass producing advanced weapons? Should he have the Mathers domain claim independence? Would Emilia approve of such actions? He then started to wonder what he would do if Emilia won the selection. Should he make advanced weapons to defend the nation against aggression from both Gusteko and Vollachia? Should he invest into special operations groups to kill Vollachian nobles pushing for war and free Vincent from declaring war unwillingly? Should he focus on the economy and convert Lugnica into an essential part of the economy of other nations to discourage any wars? Should he do all of them? Can he even do one of them?