Reincarnated as the Crown Prince
Chapter 63: Iron Roots, Burning Soil

Chapter 63: Iron Roots, Burning Soil

The sun rose over the Atlantic like a molten coin, casting long shadows across the crimson banners now fluttering above Nueva Cádiz’s civic tower. It was the third month since the first Civic Brigade set foot on African soil, and already the shoreline resembled an industrial frontier. Not just tents and pylons—but cranes, workshops, trade depots, and transmission towers. Iron roots were pushing inland.

Prince Lancelot stood on a scaffold above the port, watching as a new steam dredger carved out a wider channel for Aragonese freighters. His coat smelled of engine oil and salt. Below him, dockworkers—some from Valencia, most now locals—shouted in two languages as crates of copper cable and prefabricated turbines were offloaded.

Juliette climbed the steps beside him, her sleeves rolled up, fingers still stained with graphite and sweat.

"We just received confirmation from Camp Delta," she said. "The inland expedition has reached the river fork. They found limestone and clay near the ridge. Bellido recommends building a cement factory there."

Lancelot didn’t answer at first.

He was watching a group of village boys—barefoot, no older than ten—learning to assemble a Dynamo crank light under the guidance of a Civic engineer. The lamp lit, and the boys shouted in delight. No soldier could have conquered them as fast.

"Then tell Bellido to proceed," Lancelot said at last. "We’ll name the new settlement Fort Alba."

Juliette nodded. "We’ll need more power stations. And a rail link. The jungle’s thick between here and there."

"Then we lay the tracks thicker," Lancelot replied. "If the jungle resists, we answer with steel. We are a modernized state. Doing things that was hindered a decade ago wouldn’t be an issue today."

By the end of the week, Fort Alba rose out of red soil and broken stone. The first to arrive were rail surveyors and construction brigades, followed by medical units and two dozen local laborers trained in Nueva Cádiz’s civic workshops. What followed was methodical: perimeter trenches for drainage, reinforced bunkhouses, turbine pylons, and a mobile communications tower hauled in by ox-drawn sled.

The telegraph line buzzed to life on the fourth day.

Then came the mines.

Near the hills south of the fork, surveyors discovered significant deposits of bauxite—aluminum ore. The announcement electrified the expedition’s command. Juliette dispatched metallurgists immediately.

Bellido, arriving on-site by handcar, stood with his boots ankle-deep in red dust and declared, "We’ll need an entire smelting line. Preferably by next month."

Juliette muttered, "You ask for miracles."

"No," Bellido said. "I ask for empire."

Further inland, in territories once lightly touched by Portuguese trade and later forgotten by imperial maps, emissaries from Aragon now moved faster than flag or coin. They carried blueprints, contracts, portable lighting systems, and educational pamphlets in three tongues.

Local chieftains responded not with suspicion, but pragmatic caution. They had seen others come with guns. The Aragonese came with tools.

One chieftain, an elderly matron named Bintu, listened quietly as a Civic envoy explained the mutual-benefit model—schools, clinics, roads, and civic representation in exchange for resource access.

At the end, she asked only, "Will our children be taught to read?"

"Yes," replied the envoy. "And to weld. To draw maps. To treat wounds. To build."

Bintu agreed. Her mark—an inked thumbprint—was pressed on the document beside the Civic seal.

—

As Civic influence radiated outward like spokes from a wheel, the Kingdom of Aragon did what no other colonial force had dared: it standardized infrastructure. Every outpost followed a modular blueprint—power station, depot, hospital, school, radio tower, barracks. Within six weeks, three more such hubs had been established: San Lázaro, Ember Ridge, and Port Mirasol.

But progress bred envy.

One morning, Juliette received an urgent dispatch: a Franco-Portuguese merchant convoy had been stopped 20 kilometers east of San Lázaro. Armed guards accompanied the caravan. They claimed to be "inspecting unlawful development."

Juliette summoned Lancelot. They rode out by rail.

When they arrived, the convoy had formed a blockade across the nascent rail line.

The leader—a French officer in colonial khakis—stepped forward.

"You are operating outside the boundaries set by the Congress of Vienna," he barked. "This is recognized Franco-Portuguese economic territory."

Lancelot dismounted calmly.

"Do you see any borders here?" he asked, sweeping an arm toward the jungle.

"This land is mapped," the officer said.

"But not wired," Lancelot replied. "We bring power. Schools. Industry. Where are yours?"

The officer sneered. "Your civility is a mask for conquest."

"No," Lancelot said, stepping closer. "It’s a replacement."

Behind him, an Aragonese generator roared to life, and one by one, the outpost’s streetlamps flickered on. The officer flinched—just slightly.

Juliette stepped forward.

"This isn’t your war," she said. "But if you insist on making it one, understand this: we fight not with bullets—but with blueprints."

The convoy left by dusk.

They did not return.

—

In Valencia, news of Aragon’s African expansion spread like wildfire. Newspapers printed headlines with reverent awe or burning fury:

"Electric Empire Rises in the Jungle!"

"Steam and Steel Cross the Continent!"

"A New Rome, Forged in Copper!"

But not all responses were celebratory.

A coalition of Catholic bishops issued a statement condemning "Aragon’s godless crusade of wires and wheels." In London, Parliament debated whether to issue formal protest. In Rome, the Vatican summoned its Aragonese ambassador for questioning.

And in Paris, diplomats called Aragon "the silent invader."

Lancelot read the papers in the command tent at Fort Alba and said nothing.

Juliette folded hers. "We’re forcing the world to speak a new language. Of course they’re choking on the grammar."

"Then we keep writing," he said.

—

The empire’s next goal was the interior. Juliette pointed to a region farther inland—hilly, fertile, and mineral-rich.

"High altitude. Cooler climate. It could support permanent settlements."

"Too far from the coast," Bellido warned. "Supplying it would be a nightmare."

"Not if we connect it by rail," Lancelot said. "A true arterial line. Nueva Cádiz to the Central Range. With spurs to the bauxite ridge and rubber valleys."

Juliette’s eyes narrowed. "It would take two years."

"Then we begin tomorrow."

—

By winter, the Central Range Campaign was underway.

Surveyors scouted ahead, mapping soil stability and elevation gradients. Engineers laid steel with brutal efficiency—eight kilometers a week. Massive cranes were assembled from kits. Trestles crossed ravines. Dynamite cleared out ridgelines.

Along the way, more settlements bloomed. Children born in villages without even a wheeled cart now rode railcars and helped load copper drums. Girls who had never held books now attended vocational workshops with hand-cranked electric chalkboards.

Civic schools even held the first "Electro-Fair," where students displayed small inventions—water filters, light-powered cooking plates, mechanical fans. Lancelot himself visited the fair and awarded a local girl, Asha, for her design of a wind-powered grain sorter.

"It’s not a prize," he said as he handed her the wrench-shaped medal. "It’s a beginning."

—

But beginnings, too, could be bloodied.

The sabotage came not in the form of bombs or guns—but sickness.

A shipment of tools from a Lisbon merchant firm arrived with crates packed in rotted hay. Within a week, dozens of workers in Port Mirasol fell ill. Fevers. Lesions. Half the local clinics were overwhelmed.

Juliette responded ruthlessly.

She ordered a complete quarantine and traced the source. The merchant’s name was flagged. Future trade shipments were inspected with triple protocols. A new facility—half hospital, half lab—was ordered to be built outside the city to prepare for future biosecurity threats.

"It’s not just empire we’re building," she told the council. "It’s immunity. To ignorance. To sabotage. To the rot of the old world."

—

And then came the envoy from Britannia.

Not a diplomat this time.

But an officer.

General Morton Godfrey, silver-haired and stoic, stepped off a steamer in Nueva Cádiz flanked by armed marines. The message was clear.

Lancelot received him in the generator hall. Sparks flew behind them as workers tested a new coil array.

"Your Majesty," Godfrey said.

"Prince," Lancelot corrected.

"Not yet an emperor then?"

"Not yet crowned," he replied. "But we act as one."

Godfrey’s tone was sharp. "You’ve tripled your territory in under six months. Your rail lines intersect British trade routes. And your presence undermines standing treaties. What is your endgame?"

Lancelot looked him square in the eye.

"Integration."

Godfrey frowned. "Of what?"

"Of people. Of power. Of purpose. Let others fight for flags. We build futures."

Godfrey left with no formal threat.

But none was needed.

Aragon was now the power no one could ignore.

—

That night, as lightning split the sky over Nueva Cádiz, Lancelot stood alone on the observation tower. Below him, the city gleamed—steel, light, and ambition made manifest.

Juliette joined him.

"It’s spreading," she said. "Like fire."

He nodded. "A controlled burn. One that clears the old growth."

Juliette said nothing for a while.

Then, quietly, "Are we still builders, Lancelot? Or have we become something else?"

He didn’t answer right away.

But at last, he said:

"We build because the world forgot how."

And below them, beneath the storm, the empire pulsed—alive, luminous, and rising.

Not by sword.

But by circuit.