In the end, an agreement had been reached. Losus had seen the titanic trade that had sprung up in less than half a year, and he wanted in. Kyle would become the governor in all but name, and Losus would enact whatever edicts he wanted. Already, Kyle had plans to revitalize every single industry in the entire province, starting with the mines.

  New factories would be built using concrete from the mountain limestone, more sources of coal would be unearthed, and the plentiful salt mines in the area would be exploited.

  The Pechemvar province, which Altrai was the capital of, was incredibly rich in resources. Coal, oil, metallic minerals, and amazing farmland abounded. The entire region was nearly 0.8 million square kilometers, but only a quarter of that was inhabited in any meaningful way.

  According to Kyle’s limited geographical research, the entire plains region had once been an ocean. That meant huge deposits of many volcanic minerals, salt, oil, phosphates, sulfur, coal, and limestone. Not to mention the highly fertile soils due to marine sediments. And highly accessible groundwater aquifers.

  The Bolur Barony, a subject of Veskaya, lay to the west. Elnomaga lay to the north. To the west, the Iron Scourge spread like an infection. Another Veskayan vassal, Maduwan, lay to the south. Surrounded on three sides by Veskayan territory, and by murderous magical robots on the other side.

  That was still a lot of land and resources to work with. Once he fully industrialized the entire region, he would likely rival the entire industrial output of the Veskayan empire. He would then march north to the capital, or more likely drive at that point, and stake his claim globally. Then he could deal with the demons and other crap.

  Industry was a slow thing to bring en masse. Although his personal attention had quickly built factories and steam engines in New Brasilia, the trickle-down effect would take at least 2 years to fully finish. Then he could get into building some small-scale league tech, like a satellite network and an Intercontinental Explosive Payload Delivery System.

  In the short term… it was time to pay his taxes.

  ———

  The Veskayan empire operated on a complicated tribute system, where all organizations had to pay a tax based on their size and holdings. That money was then reinvested into mostly the army, as the empire let territories mostly self-govern. No need to build infrastructure when you didn’t really own the land.

  Officials with spatially enchanted containers would travel down the teleportation network, and collect the money needed. For the sake of the tribute, Kyle had organized the entire region now under his (and technically Losus’) control as the Orion Corporation. It would make the taxes much simpler.

  By the end of the two years, Kyle aimed to have a standing army of at least 6,000 combatants and a dedicated tank brigade. The other main goal was to have less than 15% of the population employed in farming, which would be a good benchmark for how many people were employed in the factories.

  Heh… I’m like a proper petty dictator now. “Two-Year Plan”! Next thing you know it’ll be the ninth “Two-Year Plan” and the economy will be in the dumps…

  The 800 or so men who had killed off the goblins a month ago would be the new core of the army. The guards and garrison of Altrai and the surrounding smaller towns would be given the option to go full-time or receive a severance package. Kyle expected to at least double the number of the army from this. The rest would be good old-fashioned recruiting.

  And so it begins. Nose to the grindstone for the foreseeable future. Kyle was really going to build something strong. Why? Because if there was one thing Kyle couldn’t tolerate, it was wasted potential. And Lindus was rich in potential.

  ————

  Month 1 of the Two Year Plan

  Kyle first focused his efforts on Altrai. Blacksmiths were hired to work in the foundries, weavers in the expanding textile mills. The administration was restructured and cleaned of corruption through Kyle using his armor's sensors as a lie detector.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Building a rail line from Altrai to New Brasilia was easy enough, as Kyle’s nanofactory still handled building steam engines. The rail line itself was really simple and a good use of the excess steel sitting in storage.

  The main event of the month was the small clan of wood elves who controlled the largest forest in the region. Good hardwoods, too. Wood elves were notoriously violent and insular, and an infestation of them often left entire forests inaccessible. The only option was fire and steel. Kyle had never liked elves anyways.

  ———

  The tank was less of a tank and more of an SPG. There was no need to withstand fire from enemies, as the enemies had no guns to fire. The design was based on the Saint Chamond tank, but more boxy and with an open top. The treads were also on separate bodies on either side of the tank, rather than on the bottom as they had been in the original WW1 tank.

  All in all, the tank cut an imposing figure on the ridge as it overlooked the wood elve’s forest. Wood elve communities mostly consisted of a few shacks carved out of trees. The largest building usually housed the communal building place, and took the form of a bigger tree.

  Even from a few hundred meters away, the Ancestor Tree was distinctly visible from the rest of the forest due to its size. Kyle had sent a messenger to the wood elves telling them to shove off, but he’d come back telling stories of sexual assault by the entire wood elve community.

  Kyle decided that these elves were a roadblock to his plans, and marshaled the expanded army. With the tank overlooking the forest, Kyle gave the order to fire. Carkh and his tank crew gingerly loaded the impact-detonation shell into the artillery gun.

  Sharply dropping his arm, Carkh’s gunner fired. The tank rocked backwards and lobbed the shell into the forest.

  With a distant boom, the shot directly impacted the Ancestor Tree and cut it cleanly in two. At that moment, a colossal howl echoed from the forest, and a flood of bears, deer, and other woodland creatures charged the lines of riflemen surrounding the woods.

  Crackling fire echoed from the lines, and the animals were stopped dead in their tracks. With another boom, the second shell launched by the tank detonated over the center of the woods. Eat white phosphorus! Brings me back, man. Committing war crimes against savages.

  The wood elves had clustered their community around the ancestor tree, and the airburst white phosphorus shell had set nearly every single tree in a small radius alight. At once, all of the animals stopped screeching, and ran back into the woods.

  Bariyon, who had been standing next to him, chimed in. “Must have gotten the caster with that nasty alchemical stuff. The manaweb between the animals has shattered. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that got all of them aside from some scouts.”

  “Hmm. That was easy. Well, gentlemen? What do you think?”

  The squad of tax collectors had gladly accepted the invitation to watch the operation. The four of them had joined Kyle and Bariyon on the ridge. Each wore fancy noble clothes, covered in a plethora of self-defense runes of varying effects.

  “Simply smashing, sir!” “These enchanted weapons are simply revolutionary!” “Your men held themselves honorably, sir. Only well-trained men could have stood still in the face of such a charge.”

  They spewed pleasantries and hot air. “Gentlemen, with these weapons, I can unify the world. None shall stand against me. Remember my name when you get back to the Tetrelta, would you? Send merchants my way.”

  The tax collectors assured him they would, and polished off the crumpets and tea he had provided.

  ————

  Month 3 of the Two Year Plan

  The integration of Altrai was slowly moving, but only the external industries had been modernized so far. Better conditions and equipment for the miners, manufactured fertilizer for the farmers, and factory jobs for the slum residents in the city.

  The middle classes had been mostly co-opted into his commercial empire. In the early industrial period on earth, countless anti-modernization groups had stemmed from old classes losing their power. By hiring the weavers and smiths, he could create both a more experienced workforce, and cut off any potential luddites from organizing.

  The rail line had connected the third largest city after New Brasilia and Altrai, a town called Woodsedge. Many used it to commute to the factories, but a new series of latheworks opening outside of Altrai had reduced the need for it once again. Many were still scared of the loud and steam-spewing machine, but they were slowly warming up to it.

  Lathes were critical to industry. Basically, once the lathes started producing pistons, screws, bolts, and steam engine components, Kyle’s nanofactory would be freed up to focus on building more League tech and slowly bootstrap to a basic colonial setup.

  Once he got some nanobot swarms into orbit, the infrastructure would rapidly and exponentially expand. But all of that was in the future.

  In the meantime, Kyle had found out who Dante’s father was. And he’d sent him a gift.