Chapter 17: Buildup

Macragge: 10:00 hrs 22/08/1538 AFK (After Foundation of the Kingdom) (Format is day/month/year and using a 24:00 hrs format):

(I choose the year based on the line "The Lugnica dynasty was founded at least a thousand years ago" from the "wiki" on: wiki/Kingdom_of_Lugnica#1000_BA I added 538 years due to the word "Least" and the possibility of the kingdom existing before the dynasty.)

(Years will be composed of 12 months of 30 days each cause I'm not feeling like making it more real.)

The week after addressing the inflation has been hellish for Subaru. He had to send a few letters asking prominent merchants in the Mathers Domain and abroad to sell their products in Macragge and micromanage the housing and distribution of the new workers coming from the slums of the Capitol.

Subaru got the shoe factory to also make clothing, but it was still insufficient to handle the demand. A new furniture factory was finished in a record time of 5 days and had been working at top capacity for 2 days. Everything was already sold before it even left the factories.

Subaru was starting to panic seeing that this inflation was not being solved and was in fact getting worse.

Also, the exponential increase of population in the last week of some 1.000 people created the threat of a looming food shortage.

Subaru: "Damn, we can't keep this up…we will have to decrease the wages of all the personnel."

Ivan: "Boss I say we throw everything we have at the railway going to the Capitol to get goods from there instead of making them."

William: "Thinking about this, we could also make some tourism to Elior Forest."

Beatrice: "About the food shortage we could probably make another railway south to the Central valley that is rich in wheat producing towns in fact."

Subaru: "William, send a letter to Elior Forest telling them to prepare everything for tourism activities. Ivan, I know what you mean but currently the railway is expanding at top speed not because of a lack of manpower but because the trains can only deliver so much material in one railway. Beatrice how far is the Central Valley?"

Beatrice: "Some 120 kilometers in a straight line, 410 following the roads I suppose."

Subaru: "It's better to just focus on reaching the Capitol just one more week and we get there."

Ivan: "Boss, before I forget. New construction teams are working hard in making new houses for the expected migrants but despite their best efforts I say we are cutting it rather close."

Subaru: "Just how close?"

Ivan: "We only have 5 unoccupied houses left…"

Subaru: "Worst case scenario we just set up a bunch of tents we have more pressing matters."

Ivan: "Agreed, but it I still think that will leave us quite exposed to any heavy rainfall."

Subaru: "Then we must trust that no rain is going to fall."

Subaru had a total of 400 men making new factories, most of them are from the teams sent by Roswaal, but they are complimented by a few construction workers that moved in recently. Some 60 men from the people that moved in were working fulltime on making new houses for the people arriving. All this construction, added to the railway expansions and the factories was consuming the wood production of the surrounding forest almost entirely.

Beatrice: "Should we also tell Emilia to stop whatever she is doing to bring people in I wonder?"

Subaru: "I am thinking of telling her to relax her propaganda. We need more steel and tool factories to make new factories faster for people to work in and for that we need time."

Ivan: "Actually, I am using help from artisans to make the simplest parts in an effort to make the machinery faster."

Subaru: "Get that operation done as soon as possible and done give them any new designs."

Ivan: "Why not boss?"

Subaru: "We need to keep the machinery, particularly the engines a secret."

Ivan: "Why so much?"

Subaru: "To prevent other countries and people from industrializing. You still don't seem to notice just what type of advantage these production methods give us."

Ivan: "I thought of it more like a way to improve the lives of the common folk…but I get what are getting at. After all Lady Emilia is competing for the throne."

At this point Emilia has the most support out of any candidate. Crusch has just gotten her memories back a few months ago and is struggling to gain the support she used to have but is almost back to before she lost her memories. Felt is more focused on helping out the slumdwellers and giving them opportunities to thrive but is surprised to see many of them are emigrating from the capitol. Anastasia has managed to ride the wave of popularity brought by the Battle of Priestella and hopes to also do so with the reveal of the Watch tower being freed, but not near to the same extent as Emilia. Pricilla has had her support within Lugnica stagnate since she decided to stay in Vollachia improving her support within the rival nation.

If the royal selection happened right now Emilia would win by a fairly long margin, but Subaru knows that all the hype would eventually die out without significantly impacting not just the people of the nation, but the society as a whole in a positive way.

'Maybe I could just wait out this week and once the train is connected to the capitol the inflation should be solved by accessing the markets there.' Thought Subaru while opening a letter he got from Emilia.

'Dear Subaru, Anastasia has arrived at the mansion with the iron fang ready and assembled to start scouting the areas near Macragge. I will warn that more like a scouting party her forces seem like an army. She brought 20 Macer cannons and about six-hundred of her mercenaries. I am really worried about her actually destroying the train. To prevent any damage, I have sent all of the camp's fighting members to Macragge. Emilia'

Subaru: "Fuck! Why now? This week keeps getting worse!"

Subaru was now really stressed out. Having to deal with the inflation and not wanting to export it to the capitol had taken a toll on him since he wasn't accustomed to this type of stress. Adding to his problems the "scouting party" of Anastasia probably planned to destroy any trains they found mistaking them for mabeasts.

Subaru: "Now we have to deal with inflation, the looming food shortage, the housing issue, get Ana to not destroy the trains and hopefully not get her to know about this project. I hope we don't end up fighting…"

(In case the food shortage doesn't make sense: The region where Macragge is situated was previously only growing cotton plants, only a few farmers had cattle, due to circumstance and the demands of the Margrave.)

Same day - Roswaal's Mansion: 12:00 hrs 22/08/1538 AFK:

Anastasia: "Why are we still held here?"

Emilia: "I'm so sorry, but the large task force you brought requires properly informing of all the lords about your presence to avoid any of them intercepting you."

Anastasia: "But when you sent the letters we could have left the day after giving the letters a day to warn the local lords."

Emilia: "I am sorry, but Roswaal said this was best and I believe him on this."

Anastasia: "How much longer will we be held back?"

Emilia: "Only one more day, by the way I will accompany you."

Anastasia: "You what?!"

Emilia: "It's not that I don't believe in the capabilities of your forces, it's just that the capabilities of the mabeast are unknown."

Emilia wondered to herself 'Should I just tell her that there is no such mabeast? Would she even believe me?'

Anastasia: "I get what you're saying, but why do you want to accompany us?"

Emilia: "It's a bit obvious that you intend to engage the beast and I want to make sure that no one will be hurt. But don't worry about me slowing you down. I have a dragon to take me and prepared supplies for myself."

Anastasia: "Still don't you want to…stay here waiting for your knight to return."

Emilia: "Don't worry we will probably meet him there."

Anastasia froze and her brain raced 'What? Am I late? Did she send him to take out the beast and take all the credit?'

Emilia: "*Gasp* I shouldn't have said that…"

Anastasia had reached a conclusion 'She…she held us back for 4 days to give her knight more time to kill the beast…does she know how expensive it was to rally all these people here?!' Anastasia was growing increasingly angry every second that passed.

Julius: "Emilia-sama could you leave us alone for a short while?"

Emilia: "Its fine Julius I already said everything that I had to."

Emilia went back into the mansion.

Julius: "Anastasia-sama is everything good?"

Anastasia: "Not at all…she said that we would probably find Subaru in the scouting area."

Julius: "What? He went to kill the possible great mabeast?"

Anastasia: "By the looks of it that is the reason we are being hold back."

Julius: "I didn't know Emilia-sama could be such a good liar I thought she would be a lot worse at it."

Anastasia: "She doesn't even know how expensive it was to rally the Iron Fang here. If Subaru kills the mabeast…I don't know just how we could catch up…"

Julius: "If he does so, I will make sure to punish him for making such a bad ally."

Same day - Macragge: 23:00 hrs 22/08/1538 AFK

Subaru and Beatrice decided to shift priorities. First of all, the issue of Inflation will take a backseat since exporting inflation to the capitol will buy them more than enough time to fix the issue in the long run. They will keep up the industrialization effort but not push themselves too hard on it. The issue of housing will take a front row seat since reports stated that within the Mathers domain at least 2.000 people were making their way to Macragge with 5.000 people well underway. But for Subaru the most important part is to keep the Anastasia camp from destroying a train and from finding out what is going on in Macragge.

'Out of all the candidates she is literally the only one that could and will try to emulate this' Thought Subaru.

Beatrice: "Do we have any idea on where Anastasia and her men will be searching for the trains in fact?"

Subaru: "Well…umm…"

Beatrice: "Did Emilia's letter not say anything I suppose?"

Subaru: "Nothing about where Ana will look for the train. But it did say that our camp's fighting members are in route to Macragge."

Beatrice: "At least we have something to fiscally stop Anastasia from destroying one of the trains."

Subaru: "We just need to find out where she will be searching. If Emilia-tan sent Ram here, we could use her clairvoyance to pin-point her location."

Beatrice: "What do you mean with if I wonder?"

Subaru: "Well…Emilia-tan didn't say exactly who she sent here…but Ram is combat capable if I or Rem take her burdens."

Beatrice: "All this uncertainty is quite unsettling in fact. How much time do we have before Ana is in the nearby area?"

Subaru: "It also didn't say but we can ask whoever arrives first."

Beatrice: "And what if they say something like "Ana will arrive in an hour!"? How do we hide and freeze the factories in time I fact?"

Subaru: "Anastasia is moving basically a small battalion she can't be as fast as Garfield."

Beatrice: "Now about our camp's relationship, we are currently in an alliance I suppose. We have to try to keep it. Preferably by making the search for the train fail."

Subaru: "I would prefer to let her know that there is no mabeast actually."

Beatrice: "I believe it is better to keep her thinking it is a mabeast to keep her deceived."

Subaru: "But by letting her know she won't attempt to kill it."

Beatrice: "Then she will attempt to replicate it and we will have to explain everything. She will eventually know, but I want to delay that as much as possible in fact."

Subaru: "I agree with you on the last part, I really don't want her to send in spies to our factories. On the other hand, we can't just keep the trains in the yard and stop them from moving anything if Ana is here for too long."

Beatrice: "The situation is complex, but we have to at least try to deceive her I suppose."

Subaru: "Let's keep discussing this tomorrow I'm feeling kind of tired."

Next day - Macragge: 10:00 hrs 23/08/1538 AFK

Subaru had woken up to start planning ahead. He was finally convinced that they should focus almost entirely on making consumer goods factories and occasionally make other heavy industry. At least until he found out the exact proportions of heavy and consumer industries. Subaru read a note on his desk 'People that work do so to buy stuff be it a necessity as food or a commodity as a pencil or book, if they can't buy stuff because they don't get paid enough the economy slows down. On the other hand, if people are paid too much money, they buy up everything and money ends up being worth less and less creating inflationary pressures.' Subaru thought about the real necessity of expanding so rapidly in the consumer goods area.

Ivan: "Boss a group of people say that they know you and want to see you."

Subaru: "It better be important I'm in the middle of something."

Garfield: "I don't know if receiving us is important actually."

(I feel terribly sorry Garfield fans, I just can't write him in a way that makes sense and isn't such a pain to read.)

Subaru: "Garfield? I missed you a lot lately. Are the other here?"

Garfield: "Yeah cap they are outside. We have a message for you from Emilia."

Subaru: "What is it?"

Garfield: "She said that she would travel with Anastasia and her mercenaries on her way here, she will give us her location as soon as "the metia" is in range."

Subaru: "Do you know how much time we have before Ana is here?"

Garfield: "4 or 5 days, could be 6."

Subaru: "I'm glad we have enough time to prepare at least something."

Garfield: "Yeah captain we should discuss it with the others."

Subaru: "Then let's go."

They go to meat the rest of the members sent by Emilia. The task force was composed of Garfield, Rem, Ram and Frederica.

Subaru was still flooded with emotions once he saw Rem but managed to contain himself quite well.

Subaru: "Hmmm…When I read "all of the camp's fighting members" I was also expecting Roswaal to be here."

Ram: "Worry not Barusu, he had some business to attend, once he is done, he will arrive."

Subaru: "Let's get to planning then, we are few and we have to make sure Ana doesn't divide her men into many small groups."

Rem: "If she does it will be troublesome. But we only have to protect one train, right?"

Subaru: "Yeah…about that, we have some 5 trains running and one in reserve to replace any train that malfunctions."

Ram & Rem & Frederica & Garfield: "¡¿What why so many?!"

Subaru: "Calm down, we can just make the trains stop moving while Ana and her men are here, if they don't stay for much time. For now, let's wait for Beako to come back, then we can set the objectives."

Once Beatrice arrives, she and Subaru start to explain the plan they had drafted and the objectives they had established previously. The objectives being in order of highest to lowest priority are:

'To avoid any damage from befalling the trains. To keep Anastasia from knowing about any of Subaru's meddling in Macragge. To keep Anastasia from seeing the factories. To keep Anastasia from seeing the trains.'

After that Subaru and Beatrice let the other camp members propose slight changes to the plans they had envisioned. To adjust it better to what they saw from Anastasias forces and mood.

Subaru and Beatrice correctly conclude that this is an attempt from Ana to gain some prestige and catch up to Emilia, so she won't have her eyes open to the industrial developments in the town other than the trains.

The two then start to plan the way and time to stop the trains and factories to keep Ana from seeing them, noting another way to combat the inflation. By closing the factories and the railways the workers won't get more money thus reducing the inflation.

Subaru also goes to see how the mass production of Ivan's printing press was going. He saw that it was already starting to make a few of the artifacts, but Ivan told him that his design still needed to be changed to accommodate for mass production. Still Subaru took the ones that where finished and successfully tested to another building where they would start printing books, first of typical stories from Lugnica and as soon as Subaru decided to translate it, the digital copies of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings present in the computer. 'Books are another consumer good. This will help deal a big hit to inflation...wait…do our workers know how to read?' Thought Subaru.

Subaru then organized a survey that will check the literacy rate in Macragge and all the incoming people from abroad. 'If it turns out many of them don't know how to read, then books will have a smaller impact than expected…and we will have to organize a schooling program to increase the literacy rate…why can I only see problems?' wondered Subaru.

Same day - Roswaal's Mansion: 10:30 hrs 23/08/1538 AFK

Anastasia was finally going to leave at midday today, albeit with Emilia, which somewhat made her uncomfortable. She decided to distract herself by talking to Julius.

Anastasia: "So Julius, have our listeners heard anything new from the beast?"

Julius: "Yes, for the most part it seems to be peaceful and is well liked by the locals."

Anastasia: "If it's to peaceful then it can be killed easily in a trap, do we know of any weak points?"

Julius: "It has a head…and its breaths, no one has seen it swimming or clos to water so maybe we can drown it…also there maybe more than one…"

Anastasia: "Then they are a plague…an invasive species maybe?"

Julius: "Actually seeing that its well-liked by the locals and considering the monstrous increase in productivity of the region it could be a benevolent being."

Anastasia: "Are you saying that maybe we shouldn't kill it?"

Julius: "I am saying that we should probably look at it, an see what it does."

Anastasia: "If it can somehow boost productivity then we should try to capture one to boost my company's artisans."

Julius: "Seeing that its huge I doubt we could capture and haul one of them."

Anastasia: "If we can't then we kill them to win the spotlight."

Julius: "And what if it's a great spirit? We can't harm one of them if that's the case."

Anastasia: "Hmm…well we do have you. Can you establish a contract with it if that's the case?"

Julius: "Maybe? It would certainly make it easier to move and earn us a lot of problems and prestige. Anastasia-sama is something bothering you?"

Anastasia: "I'm just worried that Subaru may have already dealed with the beast."

Julius: "Thinking about it I don't think Emilia-sama would send him in such a dangerous mission without accompanying him. So maybe it's just a coincidence."

Anastasia: "Thinking about that way…she probably sent the other members of her camp before us to tell Subaru of our intentions and to help us out."

Julius: "Emilia-sama tends to be quite selfless after all."

Like that the two arrive at a wrong conclusion. At mid-day the small army leaves in direction of Macragge. Emilia who is at the center alongside Anastasia and Julius is having fun talking with Mimi and her brothers while occasionally checking her Metia to see if it was in range of the other Metias.