Oskar did not stay long in Southern Bauxi Town.
A few days—no more.
Long enough for the worst of the shock to fade: the heat that pressed against the lungs like a wet hand, the insects that treated human skin as a public buffet, the way sweat never truly dried no matter how long you stood in the rain. Long enough for his men to stop flinching at every unfamiliar sound, and for the town to learn his shape—barefoot, bare-chested more often than not, always where the work was hardest.
It wasn't that he wanted to play some jungle myth. Quite the opposite. The mosquitoes drove him mad. But his body ran hot even in Europe, and in this climate clothing became a punishment. So he worked stripped down, skin slick with sweat and rain, because comfort was a luxury and efficiency was not.
He helped where it mattered.
He carried beams that normally took three men. Hauled crates until dock crews began racing him just to prove they still belonged there. He chopped jungle at the edge of the clearing with a relentless rhythm until the pace of the entire site doubled—because no one wanted to be the man who stopped while the Crown Prince kept swinging.
The town responded.
The southern bridge neared completion—accelerated by the simple fact that Oskar himself dove into the murky water to plant the first supports. The river was thick, dark, and alive with things no one wanted to think about, and the workers were more than happy to let their prince take the risk instead. The Eternal Guard worried, of course—but only briefly. Most people had already begun to doubt that anything in this land could truly kill him.
With the southern supports secured, work on the northern bridge began in earnest.
Warehouses filled with logs and beams meant for the next wave of homes. Drainage trenches deepened. And on the second morning, to everyone's disbelief, Oskar emerged from the sea hauling a reef shark nearly two meters long. The meat was cut, cooked, and shared.
It tasted good.
Southern Bauxi Town stopped looking like a bad idea—something people endured out of obligation—and started looking like something stubborn enough to survive.
---
And then the visitors came.
Not officials.
Not soldiers.
People.
Men who smelled of river and salt. Women whose eyes missed nothing. A handful of youths carrying bundles and watching the palisade as if expecting it to bite. They came in canoes and on foot, following the half-hidden paths that traders had used long before Germans had ever drawn lines on maps.
Limba from the river mouth.
Bakoko from the forest-edge routes.
Basaa men who kept their expressions tight and unreadable.
And at the front—unmistakably at the front—Duala.
They did not arrive like a crowd.
They arrived like a delegation.
The Duala did not need to announce themselves. Their manner did it for them: controlled pace, neat posture, eyes that measured everything from dock pilings to guard spacing to the way smoke drifted from campfires. Their leader—a chief with the weight of a king in his bearing, flanked by men who moved like practiced attendants—walked as if the shore belonged to him by ancient habit, even if the wall now wore German rifles.
Not an army.
A merchant power.
The kind that led not by conquest, but by networks—by who spoke first, who traded first, who decided which rivers were "open" and which were quietly closed. Venice on a rainforest coast. A Hanseatic city without stone, held together by language, marriages, trade, and reputation.
And they had brought the others with them—not as subjects, but as witnesses.
Because whatever this new German fortress-port was… it would affect everyone.
They called the island cursed.
Not as poetry. As fact.
Too many mosquitoes.
Too much fever.
Too much rot in the air.
Too close to the mouth where sharks patrolled and the river hid things that pulled the unwary under.
They did not understand why any sane people would build here.
And when they saw who was building here, their confusion deepened.
They had expected a white official.
A thin aristocrat sweating through linen, hiding behind papers and translators.
Or a fat administrator who barked orders and never stepped in mud.
Instead they found a giant.
Oskar stood in the heat bare-chested, skin still carrying the shine of saltwater, his hair pale and wet, his body too large to feel real in this place. He did not stand behind guards. He did not keep distance. He laughed easily—too easily for a European ruler—and when they spoke, he listened as if their words mattered.
He stood too close.
Not in threat.
In curiosity.
Like a man who genuinely wanted to know what people believed, not simply what they could be made to do.
Whatever he was, he did not match their experience of Europeans.
That alone made them hesitate.
Made them stay.
When the Duala leader finally said, through a translator, that the land was cursed, Oskar did not argue.
He only grinned.
"Then we'll see which of us dies first," he said lightly—like it was a joke, like it was a friendly wager made over a table.
Some of the visitors stiffened at that.
Others—especially the younger men—watched him with new eyes.
A ruler who could joke about death here either had no sense…
…or had far more than they did.
Then came the gifts.
Not coins.
Not promises.
Not "compensation."
Oskar gestured, and his men brought forward a long oilcloth bundle. He opened it himself.
Inside lay spearheads that caught the light like polished water.
Steel that did not dull under wet air. Steel that did not rust like ordinary iron. Steel that looked almost too clean—as if it belonged to another world.
Oskar offered them without ceremony.
"One per leader," he said. "Not for your young men to fight over. For you."
A status object. A statement. A recognition of authority.
The chiefs did not snatch them greedily. They examined them slowly. They tested the weight. They watched Oskar's face for hidden meaning.
Because gifts like this were never only gifts.
They were relationships.
Obligations.
Hooks.
When the first chief accepted, he did it carefully, with a nod that was not gratitude but agreement: I understand what this means. I accept it anyway.
And when they asked what Oskar wanted in return, Oskar did not smile like a trader.
He answered like a planner.
"I will build three towns along the river," he said simply. "This one, a second inland, a third far north. A corridor. Bridges. Rails. I will not take your villages. I will not tax you. I will not force your people to work."
He paused.
"But I will move through the river. And I will need peace for that."
The visitors exchanged looks—quiet, quick, political.
Then the Duala leader nodded.
"We speak for ourselves," he said. "And for those who came with us today."
He lifted a hand slightly, indicating the others.
"But upriver… you must ask again."
Oskar nodded as if he had expected nothing less.
"That's fair," he said.
And it was a victory.
Not because they had surrendered.
Because they had not refused.
Then came the second gifts.
Many.
Boxes opened to reveal bright, soft shapes—animals made of cloth and stuffing, absurd and gentle in a place where most animals were teeth and hunger. Monkeys, lions, crocodiles, dolphins… and stranger ones too: polar bears with white fur, wolves with gray backs, foxes with sharp faces, a beaver with flat tail, and one raccoon that looked permanently offended by existence.
The adults stared as if Oskar had placed spirits on the table.
"Why make an animal," one man asked slowly, "that is not alive?"
Oskar shrugged.
"For children," he said. "To hold. To sleep with. To laugh at. A gift that does not cut anyone."
They tested them.
Squeezed them.
Smelled them.
Pulled seams.
Checked for hidden objects, hidden tricks.
Some muttered that they might be charms.
Some decided they were harmless luxury.
And one older woman—watching quietly—let a child touch one, and the child's face lit up with instant, unguarded joy.
That changed the atmosphere more than any speech.
Because it told everyone something simple:
These Germans were thinking about children.
About tomorrow.
Not only about profit.
By the time the delegation left, the Duala leader's expression had not softened—but it had changed.
Less contempt.
More calculation.
More curiosity.
When word spread that Oskar intended to go upriver himself—to hunt for the red soil and mark sites for the next towns—the visitors did not warn him away.
They offered to guide him.
Not because they suddenly trusted him fully.
But because if he was going to go anyway…
…it was better to be present.
Better to watch.
Better to see, and by seeing understand who was this Prince of the German people's.
And so the expedition formed.