Chapter 15: Rich in Steel
When the light of dawn appeared the following day, as it did every morning, Rose was the first to wake up and begin his exercise routine. Even though he had recovered good physical condition and solid health, that was no excuse to slow down; on the contrary, he needed to maintain it.
Once his daily routine was finished, the first thing he did was take his morning bath. He flatly refused to spend the entire day covered in sweat. By this point, everyone in the castle was well aware of his bathing habits: for thirty minutes before breakfast, the bath was his exclusive territory.
That day, however, he was particularly excited. After a couple of weeks of pleading, blackmail, and dirty tricks—such as forcing Henrietta to use the infamous and deadly puppy eyes in the rain—he had finally convinced his father to have a private onsen built within the castle walls. And this was its first day of operation.
Upon entering the new bath, the young heir noticed that the spacious room was divided into three sections: the changing area, the washing area, and finally the hot spring… which wasn't actually thermal, but rather a large stone tub filled with hot water. Still, it was as close to an onsen as one could get.
He spent the next fifteen minutes relaxing in the bath, which was large enough to swim in. That reminded him that he should start integrating sports into society; perhaps building a pool and stealing football from the English should be added to his list of priorities.
He set that thought aside for the moment, got out of the water, and dried himself with a towel. Then he went to the changing area, dressed properly, and once ready, tied his now-longer hair into a low ponytail before heading to the dining hall.
There, he joined his family and his fiancée for breakfast. While enjoying his favorite meal—once again without cowboy eggs, due to the stupid absence of potatoes—he observed Adela, who was wearing an exuberant smile. Apparently, she had completely fallen in love with the gastronomy of the small barony. And honestly, that made him happy; who wouldn't like having their work— even if they weren't the original inventor of the dishes—be appreciated?
"Father, Mother… I must say the bath was excellent. It was truly a wonderful investment," he commented enthusiastically, choosing not to stare too intently at his fiancée. He wasn't entering prolonged-staring territory; after all, he wasn't Lucifer with his voyeuristic tendencies.
Sieghard, for his part, had to bite his tongue when he heard the word investment come out of his son's mouth. That bathhouse had cost a fortune, and he had no idea how in hell they were going to recover from such an expensive luxury. He still couldn't believe Rose had convinced him to build it… and he placed the blame squarely on having taught Henrietta the shining-eyes trick.
Either way, the baron was convinced it would take quite some time to recover from such an expense. Or at least that's what he believed, since he was completely unaware of his son's recent business ventures. He didn't know that they now possessed such a large steel reserve that, in terms of that resource, Rose was practically the richest man in the region.
In fact, there was barely any iron left stored in the barony at all: it had all been transformed into high-quality steel ingots.
"Father, you look a bit unwell. Are you feeling alright?" Rose asked upon noticing his father's expression. He wanted revenge through jokes and by teaching Henrietta how to wrap him around her finger—not kill him with a heart attack. After all, he liked the man well enough.
Sieghard took a moment to compose himself. When he did, he looked at his son and swore to himself that he would never forgive him for that monumental financial loss.
"I'm fine," he growled. "It's just that that bath, which you obtained using every dirty trick imaginable, cost us a fortune. I don't know how we're going to recover."
It sounded less like a statement and more like a lament.
Rose once again suffered from something that was becoming increasingly common in his new life: his brain connecting the dots far too late. Not out of stupidity, but due to his terrible habit of failing to explain things with the level of detail his father demanded for absolutely everything. When points A and Z finally connected—without passing through B all the way to Y—he couldn't help but laugh at how badly he had handled the situation, which only intensified Sieghard's furious glare.
"Is poverty amusing to you, boy?" he asked, his face practically boiling with rage.
"Father… if only you knew that even before meeting Adela, we already had several steel ingots in storage. Ludwig finished the work yesterday," Rose replied, still struggling to contain his laughter. "You wouldn't say we're poor at all. At this point, we're probably the territory with the largest steel reserve in the entire empire!"
He might have been exaggerating a little. But in his defense, he was more focused on trying not to laugh himself to death. He hadn't recovered this body's health just to die for the stupidest reason possible… well, the second stupidest. The guy who broke his leg by slipping on an orange peel was hard to beat.
But even if he was exaggerating due to his hysterical fit of laughter, the truth was that he wasn't lying. If Ludwig had truly finished the work—and Rose was completely certain that he had—then at this very moment they possessed one of, if not the largest steel reserves in the entire county.
The irony of the situation was obvious from a certain point of view: two counts were trying to marry their daughters to the two sons of House von Kufstein in order to place their prospective sons-in-law in power, explicitly because they wanted control over the region's iron deposits.
And that was precisely why Adela—who hadn't been paying attention to the conversation, nor to her fiancé's unhinged laughter—ended up spitting out her food at the impact of the statement. Damn it, if her father had been willing to sacrifice her happiness by marrying her off to a lazy, petty, and sickly young man just to gain access to those resources… the thought of what he might be willing to do now terrified her.
Worse still: if her father found out that her fiancé had converted all of the barony's iron reserves into pure steel practically overnight, he might be tempted to invade Kufstein and seize the stockpile immediately.
Sieghard, for his part, was left utterly stunned. He hadn't followed his son's ventures closely; in his view, the machine Rose had presented to him was interesting, yes, but its claims had sounded far too outlandish to be taken completely seriously. Still, his most trusted expert had confirmed that the machine worked, so he had seen no harm in allowing Rose to continue with his "little experiment."
But if what his son was saying was true, then they should now have dozens of tons of steel stored away, ready to be sold or processed. And honestly, he wasn't sure he could believe it without seeing it with his own eyes.
Adela was no better off—if anything, she was worse. She knew perfectly well that her father and older brother coveted Kufstein's iron mines. She knew her father intended to use her to place her fiancé on the baronial throne. But now Rose had completely ruined that plan by transforming warehouses full of iron into warehouses packed with refined steel. If this was true, she would need to write to her father as soon as possible and convince him to reconsider his intentions.
In contrast, Henrietta remained completely calm. To her, everything went in one ear and out the other. It wasn't indifference so much as trust: she trusted her brother, and she saw nothing wrong with doing so. In fact, she was far more excited about the fact that the new bath was finally ready, barely restraining the urge to run off and try it immediately.
Rose, meanwhile, couldn't stop laughing… though now for a different reason. At last, points A and H had connected, and he couldn't believe his father had thought he would force them to spend a lifetime's fortune on a trivial luxury without having a clear plan to recover the losses.
What they had spent would be recovered by selling part of the steel reserve, and they would still be left with more money than they had ever had—enough to invest in mining and fund other projects. The remaining steel would be used for his own initiatives… and come to think of it, why did he even want to conquer the world now? Yes, he wanted to bring peace, but he was young and had an entire life ahead of him. He could conquer the world in his forties. For now, he preferred flirting with Adela, improving his people's quality of life… and continuing to humiliate Lambert.
As for the latter, steel was a key component of his plans: new irrigation systems for the entire barony, improvements to other agricultural fields, plowing machines, harvesters, grain elevators—though he still didn't entirely understand how that last one would work—and many other inventions meant to trigger a large-scale agricultural revolution.
But before all that, he needed to start with the basics: manufacturing steel pipes for the irrigation systems.
Sieghard finally recovered from his initial shock and decided that the best course of action was to abandon breakfast and immediately consult Ludwig about what the hell they had been doing over the past month. More than anything, he needed to see the steel reserve with his own eyes to believe it.
"Excuse me, my dear family, but I have important matters to attend to. I'll see you at dinner," he announced.
With that, the baron left the dining hall and hurried toward the warehouses where the iron ore had once been stored. After that, he would spend the rest of the day with Ludwig, finally hearing the full process and the ideas his son had presented to the old engineer to make use of the steel.
Shortly after his father left the dining hall, Adela finally recovered from the shock and turned to her fiancé, a clear question on her lips.
"Rose… what exactly do you plan to do with all that steel?"
Rose, now recovered from his fit of laughter, gave her a calm smile and affectionately patted her on the head. To hell with manners—he wasn't quite ready yet to go back to being the proper, perfectly polite noble.
"I'll sell part of it. I'll use the profits to strengthen the mining industry. The steel that remains… well, I have several projects to improve agriculture. I'll explain them to you later," he replied. "Right now my stomach hurts from laughing so much, and I probably shouldn't keep talking."
It had been thousands of years since he'd last had a laughing fit like that.
As for Adela, at that moment she had no idea what the hell Rose was explaining in technical terms, but she had understood the essentials: his ambitions were limited to his own territory. He had no intention—at least for now—of conquering other regions armed with steel. He simply wanted to generate profits and strengthen the agriculture and mining of his barony.
After spending her entire life—or at least her young life—listening to her father's grandiose ambitions of becoming Duke of Austria, she felt deeply relieved to discover that her future husband was not a power-hungry megalomaniac like him. May her father forgive her for thinking so, but it was the truth.
She found it far more endearing that Rose simply wanted to improve the quality of life and economic activity within his territory. She had never before met a noble who was content with his place in the world. Little did she know that Rose had quite literally decided just minutes earlier that he would conquer the world in his forties—and that he would spend his twenties and thirties peacefully enjoying his youth and early adulthood.
She was now convinced that she needed to persuade her father to abandon his claims over the region's mining rights. She was certain her future husband would make far better use of those resources. She needed to convince him that the most sensible course of action was to negotiate a fair price with her uncle and future son-in-law for a steady supply of steel. After all, her father would not be satisfied without the iron and steel necessary to equip his troops.
"Well, since my father is going to keep Ludwig busy, my schedule is free… would you like to go for a walk through town?" Rose asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.
Adela accepted immediately, and they spent a good part of the afternoon riding through the town. She felt like a princess the entire time, even when they stopped to speak with common folk. This time, she was far more sociable with the villagers, who were already beginning to treat her as their future baroness.
When they returned from their second outing and passed through the castle gates, they parted ways. Rose needed to design an irrigation system to implement large-scale watering as quickly as possible, and although he had enjoyed his time with Adela—more than he was willing to admit—he had work to do.
Adela had also enjoyed her time with her fiancé immensely. In fact, she felt as though she were living a dream. The past two days had been surprisingly calm and filled with joy, something she was not accustomed to after years of living under the yoke of her father's control.
They reunited at dinner with her future in-laws, and later that night Adela retired to the new baths, where she finally understood her future husband's habit of bathing twice a day. She felt the tension, sweat, and accumulated exhaustion melt away in that relaxing bath.
It wasn't until half an hour later, as she exited the baths, that she discovered Rose waiting at the entrance. Although she was fully dressed in a nightgown, her hair was loose and still damp, which for some reason filled her with overwhelming embarrassment—something the young man, born in an era where girls wore short skirts and revealing blouses, did not understand in the slightest.
Even so, Adela could do nothing but flee and hide in her room. Once she locked the door behind her, she finally calmed down and remembered that she still needed to write the letter to her father.
She spent the remaining hours before sleep drafting it. What began as a formal request to change plans and purchase steel at a fair price gradually turned into the letter of a young woman in love, who went on and on with enthusiasm about her first love. Only at the very end did she manage to compose herself enough to express her original intention.
Shortly after finishing it, she handed it to one of her knights and ordered him to deliver it to her father as soon as possible. She then returned to her bedroom, where she quickly fell asleep with a satisfied smile on her face.
End of chapter.