The spymaster's footsteps faded down the long hall, leaving a thick, unsettling silence in their wake. Alya moved to the door, her hand on the cold iron handle, her body coiled with a tension I had not seen before. She peered through a small peephole, then finally let out a long, shuddering breath.
"He is gone, my Prince," she whispered, turning to face me. The initial fear I saw in her eyes was now mixed with a fierce, almost exhilarated sense of defiance. "He will report everything. Prince Julian will not let this pass. He will see this as a game, a new eccentricity to mock."
I looked down at the bar of soap, a simple, pale rectangle in my hand, and felt a strange sense of calm. The old prince would have been paralyzed by this threat, cowering in fear of his brother's mockery. But I, Arjun, a man of logic and systems, saw it differently. Julian was a variable, a known aggressor in a game of politics. His mockery was a predictable response. My unpredictability was my greatest weapon.
"Let him mock," I said, placing the bar of soap gently on a clean wooden table. "His mockery is a sign that he doesn't understand. He sees a fool playing with soap; he does not see the foundation of a new empire. The fools are not those who innovate, Alya. The fools are those who believe the old ways are the only ways."
She stared at me, her eyes wide, a slow smile spreading across her face. It was the first genuine smile I had ever seen from her, and it transformed her features from a mask of stoic professionalism to a vision of unexpected warmth. "An empire, my Prince? From a bar of soap?"
"Every great empire begins with a single step," I replied, the corners of my mouth turning up in a genuine, confident grin. It was the first time I felt like I was truly me again. "And our first step is a good one. This soap is superior. It is cleaner, gentler, and smells better than anything the court has ever used. Now, we must scale up production."
The next few days were a blur of intense activity, a stark contrast to the sloth and indolence that had defined this room for years. My routine was now a brutal, unyielding loop. The cold baths continued, each plunge into the frigid water a test of my mental fortitude. I no longer shivered uncontrollably; my breathing was now a steady, rhythmic cadence. My mind, now more in control, used the shock of the cold to force the mana to coalesce, to stabilize. It was a conscious effort, a focused meditation on internal energy flow. The mana, in turn, seemed to reward my discipline, its wild pulse quieting into a more consistent, low thrum.
The physical training intensified. The planks were no longer a struggle; I could hold them for a full minute, my body a solid, shaking line. I began to incorporate new exercises. I used two heavy, ornate iron candelabras as makeshift weights, performing crude lifts and squats. My muscles, once atrophied and buried under layers of fat, were now a constant, screaming presence in my life. The pain was a companion, a sign of progress. I lived for the burn, for the ache, for the feeling of my body being forged anew.
I avoided the full-length mirror for a week, a deliberate choice. My logical mind knew the progress was there, but my psyche needed a profound, undeniable confirmation. When I finally stood before it again, the change was staggering. My face, once a bloated, pasty moon, had begun to regain a hint of its former structure. My cheeks were still soft, but my jawline was starting to emerge from the folds of flesh. The monstrous stomach had receded, a still-soft but now-manageable paunch where a mountain had once been. I lifted my shirt, and my chest was no longer a single, soft mass, but was now defined by a surprising and nascent musculature. The number on a scale I had requested, a crude but functional tool from a merchant, was a testament to my progress: from 167kg, I had dropped to 150kg. It was a seventeen-kilo victory, and it felt like a monumental triumph. I was no longer a prisoner; I was an engineer rebuilding his machine.
Alya was my only witness, and her reaction was one of quiet, almost reverent awe. She saw the man, not the prince, and she saw a will of iron being forged from a body of clay.
But the company needed more than just will. It needed a system. I, a man who had once built complex machines with circuits and code, now applied the same principles to soap-making. I needed to streamline the process. I had Alya procure more pots, more wood for the fire, and a larger variety of fragrant herbs and oils. I had her find old royal ledgers and records, which I scoured for information on supply chains, trade routes, and the prices of raw materials. The old prince's room was no longer a personal prison; it was a command center.
My first problem was production. We were limited by the single fireplace and the number of pots we could heat at once. My solution was a crude but effective heat exchanger. I designed a system of connected iron pipes that would run through the fireplace, heating a number of pots at once, a far more efficient method than heating a single pot over an open flame. Alya, with her network of contacts, found a blacksmith who, for a price, was willing to craft the parts and have them delivered discreetly. She was a master of logistics, her mind sharp and her movements swift. She navigated the intricate, gossamer web of palace politics and city trade with an ease that betrayed her simple position.
Our new "factory" was a wonder of rustic engineering. The fireplace, once a source of warmth for a boy in despair, was now a furnace of creation. We worked side by side, a prince and his maid, stirring the boiling cauldrons, adding the precisely measured lye, and infusing the mixture with the fragrant herbs. The air, which had once been heavy with the cloying scent of neglect, now smelled of mint, lavender, and a new, clean purpose.
Our second problem was distribution. The palace was a closed ecosystem, a place where business was conducted through favors and old loyalties, not through the open market. I couldn't simply send Alya to the city to sell our soap. It would draw too much attention. My solution was to target the one group in the palace that needed our product the most and were not beholden to my brother Julian: the lower-level staff. The cooks, the stable hands, the laundrymaids. These people had little money and were often neglected by the royal physicians. Their lives were hard, their work was dirty, and a better soap would be an invaluable luxury.
I had Alya, now my head of sales and distribution, approach these people. She told them a simple, direct story: that she had found a new, superior soap, made with pure, gentle ingredients, and that she was selling it for a very modest price. The first few sales were slow, but the product was its own best advertisement. Soon, word of the miraculous soap that didn't irritate the skin and smelled of clean herbs began to spread like wildfire through the servants' quarters. The demand grew exponentially, and our small, makeshift factory in my room could barely keep up.
This success, however, did not go unnoticed.
A week later, Alya returned from the market, her face pale with worry. She carried an empty basket, a stark contrast to the full sacks she had been bringing back.
"My Prince," she said, her voice a low, frantic whisper. "There is a problem. The merchant, the one who sells the lye and herbs... he has refused to sell to me. He said he has received a… a generous offer from a noble family, and all his stock is now promised to them."
My mind, an analytical machine, immediately processed the data. A generous offer. From a noble family. It was too much of a coincidence. It was Julian. He wasn't a fool. He had seen my unpredictability and, instead of mocking it, had decided to quietly strangle my operation. It was a preemptive strike, a subtle way of reminding me of my powerlessness.
Alya was visibly distraught. She had become so invested in our little enterprise, our shared secret. She had seen the respect and admiration in the eyes of the other servants, and it had given her a sense of purpose beyond her duties as a maid. Now, she felt a profound sense of defeat.
I, however, felt a cold, exhilarating rage. This wasn't just a political game; this was a personal attack. Julian was trying to take away the one thing that had given me a sense of purpose in this new, alien world. He was trying to take away my rebirth.
I walked over to a stack of old books I had been reading, histories and biographies of the Singh family. The royal family's power was built on a foundation of patronage, of old loyalties and the iron fist of control. Julian was playing by the rules of the old world. But I, a man from a world of venture capital and open markets, knew that there was always another way.
"Julian thinks he can cut off our supply with money," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "He thinks he can control the market. He is a fool. He is playing with a single piece. I will play with the whole board."
Alya looked at me, a flicker of hope and fear in her eyes. "What will we do, my Prince? The entire supply of lye in the capital has been cornered by a noble family. We cannot just buy it from another merchant."
My mind was already racing, a torrent of data, equations, and chemical processes. I had a solution, a better one.
"We will not buy lye, Alya," I said, a cruel, confident smile on my face. "We will make it ourselves."
Alya's eyes went wide with shock. "Make it? But how? That is a process that takes months, with special ash and… and boiling for weeks."
"Not with the wood ash of this kingdom," I said, my voice filled with a dangerous conviction. "But with the ashes of my past. My knowledge of chemistry is far more advanced than anything in this world. There is a way to make lye from a common substance, a substance Julian would never think to control. We will use a process of distillation and crystallization. It will be more difficult, more dangerous, but it will be better. It will be purer. And it will be our own."
I walked to my desk, a new energy coursing through me, a mix of mana and pure adrenaline. I had Alya bring me a variety of materials from the kitchens and the storage rooms—ashes from the fireplace, water, and various metal containers. I began to sketch out a crude diagram, a system of filtration and distillation that would turn a common waste product into a powerful alkali. I was no longer a student in a new world; I was a chemist, a systems engineer, a strategist.
As we worked late into the night, the fire in the fireplace casting long, dancing shadows on the walls, I felt a profound sense of peace. My body, which still ached, felt strong. My mind, which had once been filled with a terrifying sense of displacement, was now filled with a singular, beautiful purpose. Julian could try to control the market, but he could not control the one thing I possessed that no one else in this world did: my mind. He could corner the supply of lye, but he could not corner the knowledge to create it. He was playing a game of power and patronage, but I was playing a game of innovation and creation.
Alya, now a full and willing participant in my madness, watched as I carefully prepared a new, even more potent batch of lye. Her faith in me, which had begun as a hesitant curiosity, was now a full-throated roar of loyalty and trust. She was no longer just my maid. She was my first employee, my chief operations officer, my only confidante, and my first and greatest friend in this alien world. The company, Reborn, was no longer a dream; it was a reality, a secret enterprise of a prince and his maid, and it was about to change the face of this kingdom forever. The other princes, in their gilded halls and with their petty squabbles, were about to be caught completely off guard. The boy who was a joke was now a man on the move, and he was just getting started.