Fred had a headache, he didn’t know what to do at the moment with the management of the cities, he should first return to Bristol and speak to Isabella about this. He had a lot of other projects to start and should be able to get some of them up and running when he returns.

“Right then we should move back to Bristol, I have a lot to work on,” Fred said,

“Hold on a minute,” Henry said, “you need someone to govern Ludnus,”

“Thomas,” Fred stated.

“Thomas? he’s busy running Summerset,” Daniel said.

“I have plans for Summerset, plus Ludnus’ side is technically under my father, so having Thomas manage Ludnus for a bit will be fine,” Fred answered.

“That will work,” Henry said,

“Excellent let’s go to Bristol,” Fred commented.

They took 600 troops with them to Bristol, leaving 500 to garrison Ludnus,

___

They arrived at Bristol at the start of Harvest season,

“Hi mom,” Fred called out to her as she ran over to give him a hug, he had turned 13 now and was now a couple of inches smaller than Isabella,

“I missed you so much,” Isabella said while still hugging,

“Alright, Alright, I can’t breathe,” Fred said, as Isabella was hugging him tighter, once she loosened up Fred continued. “I’m back now, how have you been,”

“I’m exhausted, trying to deal with your constant requests you’ve been sending every week over the last year,” Isabella moaned, to the amusement of Daniel, Henry, and Mendes, watching,

Jacques, Jean, and company were sorting themselves out at the lodging next door. Fred had had it redesigned when they moved over the castle, now it was more accommodating for important guests,

Isabella gave Daniel a hug, he had turned 21 recently, “How have you been little Brother” it was quite comical for her to call him little brother when he was a head taller than her,

“I’m fine, we won, so that’s great,” Daniel replied.

During dinner, everyone came to the room, Thomas, Daniel, Jacques, Jean, and Arthur and the two sons as well as Charlie, George, and the two barons, as well as Isabella and Fred,

After a light-hearted meal, they moved over to the lounge to discuss the next steps.

“So, I take it everybody has heard about the king’s return?” Henry asked, everybody, nodded their heads in agreement, “So, what is our next plans,” Henry looked at Fred and Isabella.

“We need to deal with the captives, they are costing me money,” Fred complained.

“What cant you afford a few captives.” Daniel laughed.

“Of course, I can, you doughnut, doesn’t mean I want to pay for their living expenses” Fred argued,

“Doughnut?” Daniel didn’t know what one was, but he could tell it was an insult.

“Never mind, look, the point is can we start ransoming them back, we could do with the money,” Fred stated.

“Yeah, I think we can, I can arrange that for you, I doubt Normandy will continue this war now,” Henry said,

“Great, although we should really get Derek to sign an official peace treaty,” Fred commented.

“Don’t we already have that?” Henry Stated.

“Well, yes but, it would be better to for a more official treaty to end all hostilities,” Fred argued. “It would hinder the mainland’s family plans with Albion.”

“I see,” Henry muttered,

They continue talking about other matters throughout the night. Fred returned to his dungeon turned workshop the next morning. He needed a better workshop, especially for metal works, he had with him a few thunder and metal crystals and mana crystals, with some spare metal ingots,

He started he spent the good part of the morning turning the copper ingots into wires, through the use of his lightning and metal Esper, although he could bend the metal with just his Metal Esper power, it was a lot easier when it was molten,

He spent a week working on this project, he was making an electrical generator, he wasn’t going to introduce this to the public, they should be able to start heading in this direction anyway, it was a small device and right now it was operated by hand,

After he completed it, he had other work to do, so he left it for now,

___

Fred moved over to the Steel complex, they had churned out 30 of the mark 1 steam engines and was in the testing phase for mark 2, which was using more metal cylinders for the water tanks, and boiler,

“How’s it going, Jay” Fred greeted.

“Ah, young master Fred, this is going great,” Jay responded, they were watching the test run of the steam engine, “this is the 4th test, so far we were able to observe that this engine, has got 7x more power than our current engine, it is extremely revolutionary,” Jay said, he was quite amazed at what Fred had come up with so far,

“That’s great,” Fred was pleased with what he was seeing and hearing, they continued to watch the experiment until it was finished, then moved back to the office, “Jay, the plans for the industrial complex, do you still have them?”

“Yeah, 1 sec,” Jay responded, and moved over to a cabinet, he pulled out the plans from one of the shelves in there, Fred could see that all of the shelves were full of paper. “Here we go,” he said as he lay them on the table and sat back down.

“See these parallel lines, that you’ve asked before, have you built anything over them?” Fred asked.

“No, you told me not to,” Jay said, “In fact, I’ve barely moved away from your plans, you have left me with a lot of wiggle room with how the workshops would be designed,”

“Excellent,” Fred said, “We are going to start laying them down,”

“Laying them down?” Jay asked, “What are they?”

“They are tracks; you’ve seen the ones for minecarts haven’t you?” Fred asked.

“Yes, actually, we have a workshop producing then as we have been opening up a lot of mines, and expanding them at a rapid pace.”

“Great, only these tracks are going to be bigger, wider, and much much sturdier,”

“Why are we building minecart tracks in the middle of the city?”

“It’s not for minecarts and it’s not just for the middle of the city, I need a factory dedicated to these tracks, maybe even 2 factories, I am going to run them up to Oxford.”

“To Oxford, are you mad, that would be a huge endeavour,”

“I think we can do it; I also want a workshop built for my use, it needs to be connected to the track system, I’ll draw the plans for the workshop,”

“You are mad, I tell ya,” Jay felt a headache thinking about this project,

“Haha, you haven’t heard the best part,” Fred chuckled.

“What?”

“I plan on having every town linked up to these tracks, in the future, but first, I need to make a profit off of it to fund its expansion.”

“Fine, fine, leave it to me, I need those plans though, and I will need help with the land rights to build on top of it,”

“That’s fine, I plan on using the imprisoned soldiers to lay the tracks while we wait for their ransom,”

Fred spent a week drawing up all the plans and blueprints for the projects, he was now in trouble financially and was regretting the tax cuts, but this was something he needed to reduce the unrest in the lands and help the towns grow,

Once that was set in motion, George came over to Fred, “Fred we have an issue,”

“What is it?”

“We are missing equipment, 2 cannons and 7 muskets are unaccountable, it was hard to keep track of everything during the war, and we hadn’t really put in a plan to track them, usually we operate with the same weapons as our enemy, so stolen equipment wasn’t as big of a deal compared to losing the new weapons,”

“You think they are stolen or just put down somewhere by mistake?”

“We don’t know, it’s hard to tell, but it’s better to presume stolen,”

“I understand, it should take any thieves a while to replicate them, but we have teams working on developing new cannons and muskets as well,” Fred paused to think, “Double the guards for the industries sector, stealing the manufactory secrets would make it easier to replicate, over just having the item.”

“I’ll get right on that, also I heard you have the prisoners working on some type of metal road to Oxford, is that worth the resources,”

“Yes, definitely, I need to speak to Charlie about that, I want him to open up a coal mine on that nature mountain he has, it would make our steam engines more effective, the fire crystals are just not available in high quantities at the moment.”

“Ok, I will send a letter over for a visit, when would you be available,”

“Next week,”

They parted ways after that.

Fred had managed to find a source of tungsten in the market for ores, however, the seller had mistaken it for Iron ore, he managed to grab a few chunks for what he needed.

He headed back to the castle, and visited the barracks as well,

“How are recruitment and training going” Fred spoke to Daniel and Henry,

“It could be better, we have a lot of muskets now, but they are not always effective, especially against heavier knights, they will struggle on the mainland, Normandy alone had 5 times the Noble guards than what you fought against,” Henry answered.

“We are currently improving the muskets, for now, do we have enough for each soldier?” Fred asked.

“Yes, the production has ramped up recently,” Daniel said,

“Make all battle line infantry into Heavy halberdiers, with muskets, they can always switch roles when needed,” Fred said. “Also, I’ve got new regiment doctrines I want them to train in,”

“These from your old world, you’ve mentioned you fought in a different style to us, will it be effective,” Henry asked.

“It should be, these are designed for muskets, and pike infantry, also, I want medium cavalry units, equipped with sabres and 8 pistols,” Fred stated.

“6 pistols, why so many?” Daniel asked.

“They are slow to reload, with 8 pistols they can fire one and then pull out a new one to fire,” Fred explained, “Here I have a doctrine for them as well,” he handed over more papers,

___

Three months went by, his meeting with Charlie was successful, the gravel for the tracks were all laid down, and the first parts of the tracks were being laid, Fred was in his new workshop when Mendes came to see him, “Fred, we have news, wait what are you working on now,”

Fred was surrounded by metal parts, there was metal wheels bigger than carriage wheels and a lot of metal parts laid out on the floor, “No, never mind, I have news to tell you, the king is back.”

“What?”

“He came back last week,”

“Has he made any statements yet?”

“No, but we are expecting some soon, also, Normandy has started spreading rumours about you being an Astartes,”

“What? What happened?”

“We think it was the commander who you faced, he is a martial prodigy, and we believe he may have either figured something out in the battle against you or, he’s claiming it to downplay his loss.”

“Fuck, how big of a problem is this going to be.”

“Well, more spies will be coming to gather information, furthermore, Harold, your brother has let it slip in conversations, he is appearing to be an exploitable weakness for you,”

“Shall I just kill him now?”

“What, no, he is still a descendant of the duke.”

“What now then?”

“He has been grounded, but this has just made it look more believable.”

“Alright, keep me updated with the king, I want to know about anything he says,”

“Also, it will be the first new year’s party after the war,”

“Yeah,” Fred sighed.

“However, there are new plans for this year.”

“What plans?”

“We are going to the mainland; Isabella’s Grandfather is hoisting it.”

“What?”

“Yep, so you better be on your best behaviour, it’s going to be a big one, all three heads of the families are going to attend. And they won’t be so easy-going with your current attitude at such a formal event.”

“When are we going,”

“3 days’ time. It will take us 4 days to reach there by boat, then we will have a week and a half before the party,”

___

Fred rushed over to the distillery, where he found Delphine,

“Delphine, long time no see,”

“Fred, it’s good to see you,”

Delphine was starting to grow into a young lady now,