"Donate a battleship?"
Konteradmiral Ludwig von Birkenhagen actually blinked.
For a man who usually reacted to surprises with the emotional range of a stone wall, that was the equivalent of falling out of his chair.
A battleship.
Not a launch.
Not a torpedo boat.
A capital ship—tens of millions of marks of steel, guns, armor, and coal.
Even a prince of the royal house, living off dividends from Hohenzollern properties, couldn't casually finance something like that. Not alone.
"Your Royal Highness," Birkenhagen said slowly, "are you joking?"
His tone left no doubt what he thought the answer should be.
He was a rigid, old-fashioned man. In his world, a prince making empty promises to escape his studies was not just childish—it was an insult to the honor of the service. Germans did not joke about pledging ships they couldn't afford.
Oskar straightened his shoulders and put on his best "I am very serious adult" face.
"Admiral, I am not joking with you, my man," he said solemnly. "I know that with my current… abilities, I will fail."
He caught himself.
"Not school. I mean… money. Financial resources. Right now, building a battleship is absolutely impossible."
He tapped his chest.
"But, you see, my man—I will use money to make money. In these four years, I will earn enough bills for big ship. I swear in the name of Chi—" he coughed, "no, in name of… personal honor, that I am very clear-headed, very serious person, not crazy."
His face said I am determined.
His grammar said I fell down several flights of stairs as a child.
Birkenhagen studied him in silence.
He had no idea where this boy's confidence came from. To him, Oskar looked like someone who belonged anywhere but on a bridge, near a radio, or in command of anything sharper than a spoon.
Maybe, he thought, it would be best for everyone if this strange prince never joined the Navy at all.
And yet—the audacity, the sheer shamelessness of the proposal, stirred something in the old man. Amusement, maybe. Curiosity. Or the faint, foolish part of him that still believed in miracles.
Oskar pressed on.
"Admiral, compared to one big battleship, whether I sit here and learn to shout 'aye aye' is not important, yes? If I can fulfill my promise and extra battleship is built, that is great thing for the Navy. Big benefit. If I fail, the Academy loses nothing. You lose nothing. Only I lose face."
He smiled, wide and stupid and earnest.
Birkenhagen's lips twitched.
Logically, the chances this boy could pull off such a feat were microscopic. But if—by some insane twist of fate—he did manage it, the Kaiserliche Marine would gain a ship it otherwise never would have had.
If he failed, well… the worst consequence was a humiliated prince and some annoyed officers. Germany wouldn't sink.
He exhaled slowly.
"Very well," he said at last. "Your Highness, I will agree to your… proposal. But there will be conditions."
Oskar's eyes lit up.
"Hit me," he said, then quickly corrected, "I mean—please speak, Admiral."
Birkenhagen folded his arms behind his back.
"You have four years until you reach the age at which most officers complete their initial training," he said. "Within two years—two, not four—you must show me clear proof that you are making progress toward this… battleship. Real progress. Not empty words or shared dreams, but money. Contracts. Partners. Something tangible."
He narrowed his eyes.
"If you cannot show that within two years, you will return to the Naval Academy and complete the remaining two years in full—classes, drills, duties, everything. Do you understand?"
He paused.
"And if you struggle, I will find ways to… soften the academic embarrassment. For the sake of your family. But you will be here. In uniform. As a proper cadet."
This way, even if the prince was just blowing smoke, there would still be time to repair the damage. Two years of freedom to chase his fantasy, two years of mandatory training after he crashed back into reality.
Oskar's grin nearly split his face.
"Admiral," he said, "you have chosen the path of light, my man."
It was honestly a miracle he didn't add a thumbs up.
Getting Birkenhagen to agree—getting him to unlatch even a side door in the Academy's iron wall—had been harder than any boss fight Zhang Ge had ever rage-quit.
But now?
Now he had time.
Time to breathe.
Time to hunt money like it was a resource node on a map.
Time to avoid four years of marching, memorizing, and being laughed at for every broken sentence.
And yes—if there was such a thing as "schoolyard bullying" among naval cadets and nobles… he would rather not find out the hard way.
He stepped forward before his courage could evaporate, seized the admiral's hand, and shook it with such raw, boyish force that it bordered on an assault.
Karl, standing politely to the side, watched the scene with a kind of horrified awe.
It looked like an overjoyed bear trying to be friendly with a wolf that had never, in its entire life, asked for affection.
Birkenhagen permitted the handshake—because he was a disciplined man and discipline could endure many things—but his face suggested he had never been less comfortable at sea or on land.
Oskar beamed.
Then, remembering where he was, he forced himself to release the admiral's hand, bow properly, and leave.
Karl bowed too, because Karl still lived in the real world.
They crossed the courtyard in silence, their footsteps swallowed by the stone.
Behind them, Birkenhagen remained at the window, watching their figures shrink below.
The prince: tall, broad, built like a young artilleryman—more muscle than caution—and speaking German as if the language were an enemy trench he kept falling into.
The attendant: short, composed, moving at his side with the quiet stride of someone who knew exactly how many ways this could end badly, and still followed anyway.
The scene truly was… quite something.
"This Royal Highness…" Birkenhagen muttered at last, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Is he mad—or simply a fool?"
He exhaled.
Yet his eyes drifted beyond the courtyard, beyond the Academy walls, toward the distant masts and the cranes at the yard—great, skeletal shapes against the sky, the promise and hunger of steel.
"But if he truly delivers a battleship…"
The words sounded ridiculous even inside his own mouth.
Still.
A ship was a ship. Armor was armor. Guns were guns. The Navy did not have the luxury of laughing at miracles if a miracle chose to walk through the door wearing a princely coat.
Duty demanded more than hope.
Birkenhagen turned from the window, sat, and pulled a telegram form from his desk as if he were drawing a sidearm.
He wrote cleanly. Briefly. Without drama.
He reported everything:
— the prince's sudden visit,
— the bizarre request,
— the promise to finance a capital ship,
— and the conditions Birkenhagen had imposed.
He neither decorated the facts nor protected himself with excuses. He stated his doubts plainly, and requested the Emperor's understanding for a decision that had not come from weakness, but from calculation.
In his heart, the old admiral allowed himself the smallest, most dangerous thing of all:
a sliver of hope.
If the prince succeeded, the Kaiserliche Marine—and the Reich itself—would be stronger.
If he failed…
Birkenhagen's pen paused for half a heartbeat.
Then he wrote on.
If he failed, the Kaiser would deal with him.
Outside the Academy—once the heavy doors were behind them and the last of the courtyards' echoes had died—Karl's restraint finally snapped.
"You Promised WHAT?!" he hissed, voice strangled with disbelief, "are you truly planning to donate a battleship to the Navy within four years?"
As the man responsible for Oskar's accounts, Karl knew every mark that existed in the prince's name.
It was a respectable fortune. Carefully managed. Quietly grown. For the past year—while Oskar had been busy acting like a primitive man—Karl had discreetly invested Oskar's money into certain ventures.
However while he had earned a good sum of money. It was nowhere near enough to buy a battleship, it was basically just pocket change.
Even if Oskar sold everything he owned, stopped eating like a horse, and maybe even got a job, it would still not be enough.
It was insanity.
Oskar waved a hand as if Karl were complaining about the weather.
"Relax, my little man. I know the future."
Karl stopped walking.
"You… what?"
"I mean," Oskar corrected, "I know… markets. Trends. Opportunities. My current bills are far from enough, yes. But soon, they will not be. From now on, we work hard. We make big money. I do not want to break my word to the Admiral. And I definitely do not want to go to school."
Karl stared at him the way one might stare at a man calmly announcing he planned to lasso the moon.
"If you fail," Karl said carefully, "the Admiral will hate you. The Navy will hate you. The Emperor will erupt like artillery. And we will be selling newspapers under a bridge. Do you understand that?"
Oskar shrugged.
"Then failure is not an option."
Karl closed his eyes briefly.
"Yes. Of course. That is precisely what every historical disaster has said moments before becoming a cautionary tale."
Still, he followed.
Because reckless or not, Oskar was his prince.
They moved through Kiel's streets without escort, without fanfare. And that, Karl thought grimly, was fortunate.
People stared.
Not because they recognized royalty.
They stared because Oskar was tall, broad-shouldered, absurdly well-built for his age, hair slightly wild, uniform not quite immaculate. He looked like a soldier who had misplaced his regiment.
Women lingered in their glances.
Men measured him with the instinctive caution reserved for large animals.
No one bowed.
No one saluted.
No one knew.
Karl found that comforting.
The fewer witnesses to this madness, the better.
Then suddenly a small girl—no more than eight or nine—broke away from her mother's side and skipped directly into Oskar's path.
She stared up at him.
Way up.
"Guten Tag, Herr Soldat!" she chirped brightly.
Oskar froze.
The words washed over him like artillery smoke—familiar shapes, no clear meaning.
He stared down at her. She stared up at him, fearless and curious.
Karl felt dread bloom in his stomach.
Oskar nodded with great seriousness.
"Ah yes, my man," he declared confidently. "Nice day."
The girl blinked.
Then she burst into delighted laughter.
"Your weird!" she giggled, covering her mouth with both hands before darting back to her mother.
Her mother looked mortified.
Oskar, meanwhile, looked deeply pleased, as if he had just handled a delicate diplomatic exchange with grace.
Karl pressed his palm to his forehead.
Please, he prayed silently, let us reach the train station before His Highness attempts further international relations.
They resumed walking.
And while Oskar and Karl were still trying to find a train back toward Potsdam, a telegram arrived on Wilhelm II's desk.
He read it once.
Then again.
By the end, his mustache looked ready to declare war on its own.
Oskar had refused normal study.
Run to Kiel early.
Negotiated behind his back with the Academy's director.
And—most insulting of all—made promises about battleships as if steel and guns were purchased like sausages at a market stall.
"Hmph!" Wilhelm II slapped the paper down. "Oskar grows more out of line every month. Does he think he is some kind of business genius now? That studying is for fools, and money falls from trees?" His jaw tightened. "The boy cannot even speak correctly, damn it."
He paced once behind the desk, then stopped.
"If money were truly so easy to make, the whole of Germany would be rich merchants by now."
Beside the desk stood Essen von Jonarett—the Emperor's long-serving steward, and Karl's foster father. Essen bowed slightly, careful as a man stepping across thin ice.
"Your Majesty," Essen said, "it may simply be that His Royal Highness wishes to test himself. Dean Birkenhagen's arrangement is… not unreasonable. If His Highness fails, he will be compelled back into the Academy within two years. And if he succeeds…"
Essen allowed himself the smallest pause.
"…then he will have given a great gift to the Navy and the Empire."
Wilhelm II did not hate businessmen. He understood capital. He understood industry. Germany's future rested on steel, coal, and disciplined organization.
But he wanted his sons in uniform—commanding ships, leading men, showing the nation that the House of Hohenzollern bore the same weight as any German family.
And Oskar, of all of them, had become the strangest.
"Perhaps I hoped for too much," Wilhelm II muttered. "It is natural, I suppose, for one son to turn out… differently."
Then his gaze hardened again, as if tenderness itself offended him.
"Very well," he said. "Let the boy play merchant. I want to see what tricks he believes he can perform in a few years."
He picked up the telegram again, reading the lines as if they were charges in a courtroom.
"If, when the moment comes, he cannot fulfill this promise—if he brings shame instead of ships—then he will no longer hold the title of Prince." His voice went colder. "He will be struck from the rolls of the House of Hohenzollern and stripped of all claims and income."
Essen bowed his head, outwardly calm.
Inwardly, his chest tightened—because he could already see who would suffer first: the small, loyal son he had once rescued from a northern circus, now bound by fate to a reckless royal.
"After that," Wilhelm II continued, "we shall see how good a businessman he and that dwarf of his are—when they are standing on the street. Without our name."
Disappointment sat heavy on the Emperor's shoulders.
In Wilhelm's eyes, Oskar had done all this to avoid duty—to avoid discipline—to avoid becoming a proper officer like his brothers. And anyone who dared call the German Naval Academy garbage, was not worthy of being a prince of the German Empire.
Worse… the suspicion that had been growing in the palace did not leave him.
That fall on the stairs a year ago.
It had not merely bruised the boy's skull.
It had changed him.
Wilhelm II moved to the window and stared out toward Berlin, toward Potsdam, toward the station where his son would soon return as if nothing had happened.
"Very well, Oskar," he murmured.
"Impress me… or disappear."