Reincarnated as the Crown Prince
Chapter 62: Continued Cause

Chapter 62: Continued Cause

The Aragonese flag, once just a national emblem, now fluttered over distant horizons. In Nueva Cadiz, the lamps never flickered anymore. The generators hummed in rhythm with the pulse of progress, and every child born under their light would grow up never knowing a night without electricity. But Prince Lancelot was already looking far beyond.

Inside the steel-and-glass command pavilion at the edge of the Civic frontier, Lancelot stood before a new map. It was no longer just a chart of Sierra Leone or the surrounding regions—it was a wide, unbroken sweep of West Africa, dotted with red pins, silver glyphs, and bold blue lines stretching like veins across unfamiliar terrain.

Juliette entered with dust on her boots and a datasheet in hand.

"The ore deposits inland are better than we thought. Zinc, bauxite, and traces of gold. Enough to double the foundry output once rail reaches the river junction."

Lancelot didn’t look away from the map. "We’ll need more than rail."

He tapped the coastline north of their current operations—modern-day Guinea-Bissau.

"A deepwater port. Something larger than Nueva Cadiz. A proper city. We build it here."

Juliette raised an eyebrow. "That’s hundreds of kilometers from the current grid. The terrain’s unforgiving. Tribal resistance is stronger there. And the British already run a coastal port nearby. Are you sure that we’d want a confrontation with them?"

"All the more reason we do it first," Lancelot replied. "Before they turn their coin into cannon."

Bellido stepped in, holding a canvas scroll. "You’re both going to want to see this."

He unrolled it on the central table. It was a marked intelligence report—hand-sketched, translated from intercepted communiqués.

"What is this? Explain."

"Portuguese agents. Two detachments. Not military, but commercial saboteurs. They’ve been bribing local chiefs, promising them autonomy in exchange for exclusive mining rights."

Lancelot scanned the names. "Same ones we approached last month."

Juliette set the datasheet down. "So it begins."

"No," Lancelot said calmly. "It continues. This was always inevitable."

—

The following week, the first expedition north set out.

It was not a convoy of soldiers—but a caravan of engineers, medics, translators, and steelworkers. Over sixty personnel, escorted by a Civic security team and flanked by two armored rail carts armed with nothing more than signal flares and rotary lights.

They crossed river valleys and dense jungle paths, laying portable track behind them as they went. Each night, they set up a field generator, strung arc-lamps along the trail, and let the light announce their presence to the wilderness.

They reached the proposed site—a coastal rise overlooking the Atlantic, where cliffs gave way to a natural harbor sheltered by stone arms. The local settlement was small, but well-organized. The elders approached warily.

Juliette took the lead this time.

She knelt before the eldest chief, offering a tin box with a small copper windmill inside. It spun in the sea breeze.

The elder touched it. His expression softened. He gestured toward the cliffs and spoke in clipped phrases.

The translator relayed: "He says the cliffs are sacred. But the lowlands... they may be offered. For trade. For light."

Juliette nodded. "We won’t touch what they guard. We’ll build around it."

—

Within a month, construction began.

The new city would be called Puerto Alba—named after the dawn. It was a promise, and a challenge. Architects arrived from Barcelona, engineers from Zaragoza, builders from Valencia. Modular housing went up first, then the rail sidings, and finally, the deepwater crane platforms.

Everything moved faster than expected.

Everything—until the first arson.

A generator bank went up in smoke. The flames spread to two housing units. Nobody died, but the damage was extensive. The saboteur was caught before sunrise—he wasn’t local. His uniform bore the crest of the Royalist exiles.

Juliette stood before him in the holding cell, arms crossed.

"Why?" she asked.

The man, soot-faced and smiling despite his bruises, leaned forward. "Because you think you can erase memory with machines. But we remember who ruled before you."

She stared at him for a long time.

"You’ll be sent back to Iberia. Not as a prisoner—but as a warning."

The man frowned. "What warning?"

Juliette turned away. "That the future doesn’t need your permission."

—

Back in Nueva Cadiz, Dr. Calvet compiled reports on local customs, languages, and resource inventories. But he also recorded something else: morale.

In his notes he wrote:

"These Civic Brigades do not speak of conquest. They speak of connection. But connection itself is disruptive. To teach a child to read under electric light is to ensure he never returns willingly to the dark. The revolution here is quiet—but it burns brighter than any torch."

Lancelot read the report in silence.

He turned to Admiral Vives, who had returned from coastal patrol.

"How soon can we expand southward? Toward the Gold Coast?"

Vives replied, "Logistically? Two months. Politically? The French are sniffing around. They claim we’re overextending."

Lancelot tapped the map again.

"We build a signal tower on the cape. Not just for radio. For presence. If they want to dispute the land, let them do it beneath our signal fire. And also, please do what we have to do in this land. We were the ones with technological superiority so I don’t want us being bogged down by our neighbors okay?"

—

Meanwhile, inland, the rubber harvest began in earnest.

But the method had changed.

No forced labor. No overseers with whips.

Instead, Civic educators taught safe tapping techniques. Workers were paid—meagerly, but consistently—and given access to the clinics, schools, and food depots.

Juliette oversaw operations personally. She refused to allow extraction without education.

"If we are to take," she said, "we must also teach."

A small rebellion broke out near a river bend—Royalist agitators riling up old loyalties.

Juliette rode out with a Civic envoy, no guns, only a projector cart.

She gathered the village in the clearing. As dusk fell, she lit the projector and played a short reel: footage from Barcelona, children in classrooms, elders learning to read, trains carrying grain and books.

Then she stepped forward and said one sentence:

"Your sons can be laborers... or they can be builders."

That night, no shot was fired.

The agitators fled. The village chose light.

—

Back in Iberia, the news spread.

Foreign observers had expected conquest, corruption, collapse.

Instead, they saw lights spreading across a continent.

British newspapers debated "the Aragonese Question."

French ministries held emergency meetings on "resource competition."

The Pope issued a veiled address condemning "the seduction of progress without faith."

But none of it mattered on the ground.

In Nueva Cadiz, Juliette stood beside a group of local children as they hoisted the city’s second signal tower. One boy slipped—and she caught him by the arm before he fell.

He grinned, dirt-smudged and fearless.

"I want to build trains," he said.

"You will," she replied.

—

By the third month, the first vessel departed Puerto Alba bound for Valencia.

Its cargo: rubber, zinc, and two crates of hand-crafted copper trinkets—gifts from local artisans.

Its passengers: five local apprentices, bound for engineering training in Zaragoza.

Bellido saw them off at the port.

"You’re not just exporting goods," he said to Lancelot. "You’re exporting a new generation."

"That’s the only export that matters," Lancelot replied.

—

But darkness still lingered.

On the fourth month’s eve, a cholera outbreak struck a jungle outpost not yet connected to the water grid. Nearly a dozen dead, many more ill.

Juliette mobilized every mobile clinic.

Within a day, purification systems were flown in by dirigible from Iberia. Within three, the outbreak was contained.

At the edge of the recovery zone, Juliette met a woman clutching her daughter.

The mother bowed her head and whispered in broken Aragonese, "You brought light... and now you bring healing."

Juliette smiled. "Next time, we’ll bring both together."

—

Then came the message from Lisbon.

Official. Cold. Veiled in polite threat.

"The Kingdom of Portugal recognizes the advancements made under the Civic Brigades and wishes to open a dialogue on territorial cooperation and mineral rights. However, continued unilateral expansion into regions historically aligned with Portuguese interest may provoke a reevaluation of Iberian diplomacy."

Lancelot read it. Then burned it.

He turned to his staff.

"We double the production of copper wire. We build another relay tower. We extend the rail south."

"Should we reply to Lisbon?" Bellido asked.

Lancelot answered without hesitation.

"Tell them the lights speak louder."

—

In Puerto Alba, a grand assembly was held.

Local chiefs, Civic leaders, foreign observers.

Juliette stepped up to the platform built from native timber and Aragonese steel.

She spoke not of empire—but of memory.

"Once, this land was overlooked. Not for its value—but because its people were deemed inconvenient. We are not here to erase that past. We are here to light a path forward. Together. Not as ruler and ruled—but as builders of a shared tomorrow."

And when night fell, thousands of lamps lit the port, brighter than ever before.

A message in the dark:

The Empire had no crown.

Its anthem was the hum of wire.

Its soldiers carried hammers.

And its future, bright and restless, surged ever forward.