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Chapter 14 - Business As Usual

Elias returned to Cetinje as though nothing had changed.

The mountain city beat on in its familiar rhythm—church bells, arguments in the square, nobles locked in endless debates about tariffs, coin shortages, and whether the Austrian envoys had been properly honored at last week's banquet.

Elias played his role flawlessly: quiet, dull, unremarkable.

He scratched quills across ledgers, offered half-smiles when spoken to, even stumbled in debates just enough to appear human. When the Baron laughed at him, courtiers joined in, and Elias chuckled along with them. That was fine. Let them believe him harmless. After all, he could not linger here forever. A few years at most, and then he would have to vanish before anyone noticed he was not aging like other men.

Only in private did the machine hum.

Every week, Eagle Vision brought new reports. The Iron Hand was on the move, though the pace was slow—marching across Serbia toward the Danube was no small task, even with the stamina granted by the system. A month at least before they reached Russian lines. Barely a week had passed, and they were still trudging through Serbian forests, only a third of the way to their goal.

Back at home, Elias turned his attention toward winter. Harvest season had begun, and the warmth of summer was slipping away. Almost a year he had lived in the past already. Often he dreamed of the inventions he had once taken for granted—electric light, steam turbines, machine tools. He wished he could reproduce them here, but he was no scientist, no engineer. When he tried describing such wonders to his men, they looked at him blankly, unable to grasp the designs.

The system, with its cruel precision, had dinged in response, presenting him with a reminder:

[Era Advancement Available – Pre-WW1]

[Cost: 500,000 Credits]

Half a million.

At his current income, he might scrape that sum together in a century—by which point the rest of the world would already be experimenting with automatic weapons.

Still, all was not static. His second base had only just begun proper excavation. The ore veins beneath Nikšić promised richness, though the first shafts were only yielding copper and the occasional thread of iron. The original base's miners had been depleted since half the crews had marched off with the MCV. Expansion was slow, but it was happening.

His priority remained the same: grow the economy, strengthen the army, and prepare to seize whatever spoils the Crimean conflict might throw his way. The Iron Hand's weapons might look suspicious if examined too closely, but they could be explained away as Austrian imports. His men spoke a dozen tongues, and when he summoned them, he could even choose their apparent nationality. He had chosen Slavic, through and through.

That meant they would not be out of place when fighting alongside Russians. They would be welcomed as brothers, eager to spill Turkish blood and reclaim Balkan soil for Europe.

October crept closer, and with it came the unmistakable scent of war.

Even in Cetinje's narrow lanes, rumor ran faster than the mountain wind. Austrian merchants muttered of Russian redeployments. Ottoman agents whispered of invasions. Taverns erupted in drunken speculation—would Montenegro be crushed in the fighting, or ignored entirely?

Elias listened, but said little. He kept the mask firmly in place: the mild clerk, scratching figures into ledgers, a man trapped in routine. Let the nobles posture, let the Baron make boasts over his pipe. None of them understood what was coming.

But Elias did.

His men were slogging through Serbian mud, slowed by rain and swollen rivers. Endurance or no, distance remained a merciless enemy. Reports flashed across his vision:

[Legion Progress: 41% to Rendezvous]

[Morale: Steady]

He could see them in his mind: two thousand soldiers pressing forward under gray skies, boots sinking in mire, muskets resting on weary shoulders. Their uniforms must be stained with dirt by now, but their order and discipline held firm. And that, above all, mattered. By the time they reached the Danube, the Russians would already be preparing to cross, the Ottomans dug in on the far bank.

The Iron Hand would arrive nameless, masked among volunteers, but Elias knew they would strike like no auxiliary force had before.

Back home, ore carts creaked daily into Zabljak. The loads were modest—copper, iron, little else—but the second base had begun to show promise. Survey teams hinted at richer veins deeper underground. Elias marked each site with care. Ore was lifeblood. Without it, there could be no weapons, no barracks, no expansion.

And expansion was all that mattered.

The system's reminder still lingered:

[Era Advancement [Pre-WW1] Available – Cost: 500,000 Credits]

Elias had almost laughed when he first read it. A hundred years of saving, unless spoils came flooding in from war, or unless he gambled on faster economic growth—growth that might risk exposing his hidden empire. Behind that locked gate lay the future: bolt-action rifles, machine guns, the machinery of conquest. If he could seize it early, the world would be helpless before him.

For now, though, he planned small. Expand the mines. Add silos. Extend the telegraph net. Patience was survival. Austria and Russia were watching. Others too. Europe's gaze was fixed on the looming clash between Tsar and Sultan, but a single misstep could bring that gaze eastward—onto him.

The court in Cetinje might still bicker about envoys and tariffs, the nobles might pretend to understand war, but Elias knew better. His soldiers marched, his mines dug deeper, and the storm drew nearer.

Soon, the Iron Hand would taste blood.

And when it did, Montenegro's quiet little clerk would no longer be forgotten furniture in a noble's hall.

He would be remembered as the man who forged an empire in shadow.

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