(a few days before the 2nd knock)

At the Kingdom's capital in your personal, you read the latest report from the continent; the emperor has seized yet another of your factories. He now controls almost all of your business assets outside of the kingdom.

The “emperor” is nothing but an upstart general who seized some neighboring kingdoms and declared himself “Emperor,” only your kingdom’s navy is what stopping his legion from crossing the channel and taking your kingdom and everything you own.

You’ve never been this stressed, not since you came out of that damn cave, your once simple magical life has been complicated. It’s partly your fault as you used your knowledge in metallurgy to acquire wealth and status and with wealth and status comes responsibility and headache.

As you rub your head, you hear a knock on the door.

“Come in!” You say as you try to put a smile on your tired face.

“Dear, some men from the court are here to see you.” Spouse’s voice is always enough to turn a fake smile into a real one.

“Thank you, dear; I’ll go down to meet them” you don’t want anyone to see your study or try to steal some of the inventions and ideas you have here.

“Colonel” Samuel, a captain in the royal guard, always insists on calling you by your honorary military title; you learned better than trying to correct him.

“Captain Sam,” you salute, “all is well?”

He’s too professional to shuffle nervously, but you see the uncertainty in his eyes. “You better come to the palace, colonel. There have been some updates in the war.”

---

The new, improved royal palace has not been entirely your doing. Many great architects and artists worked hard to make it one of the most beautiful buildings on the continent and maybe the world, but the magnificent structure wouldn’t have been possible without your steel and inventions.

The innovations that you stole, your guilty conscience reminds you as if you needed reminding.

“Her Majesty Queen Emilia the 2nd, protector of the realm, defender of the faithful,” the herald announced, and you bow slightly, the Royal study room was empty, so there was no need for too much formality.

“You’re late,” the queen, your friend, tells you. “Did they tell you?”

“The Grey ship was lost at sea?” the Grey ship was the most advanced steamship that you personally oversaw its construction. It had some of the most advanced guns and cannons in the world. This world. You remind yourself. “A great loss for sure, but we are already building two more that are even more advanced, not to mention that the Blue and Red ships are still operational and more than enough to hold the Imperial fleets.”

“The Grey ship wasn’t lost at sea” the queen bites her fingers, a habit that she mostly stopped doing in public but still forgets herself in private “It was captured. We’re not sure how but our spies have spotted it in the Imperial shipyard.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The new weight heavily on you, you did not expect that, and you sit down.

“I am sorry,” she tries to comfort you, “and I know I am in no position to ask after all you did to the kingdom, but we need another miracle, my friend. Another great invention that can win us this damned war, or at least keep it away from our shores.”

You gulp. That ship was it. It had all the things you could make and could recreate, a powerful but light steam engine, Gatling guns, improved canons, incendiary ammunition. You shudder at the thought of those weapons turning against your friends and family in the capital.

“I shouldn’t have given you those weapons,” You whisper, imagining those incendiary bombs burning the beautiful palace, your house, all that you’ve built throughout your life.

The queen sits next to you. “I know, but if you haven’t, they would have come unto our shores years ago” she turns your face to face her. “If it weren’t for you, this kingdom wouldn’t be the rich place it is today.”

“If it weren’t for me, this kingdom wouldn’t be such a tempting target,” you say glumly.

“Maybe,” the young queen shrugs, “But what’s done is done, now are you going to help me defend our home or mope around?”

“I don’t know what to do, Emilia” You only call her by her first name when you’re alone. “I genuinely don’t have anything more to give, and I put everything into that ship. If the emperor manages to reverse engineer it, he will be having both of our heads soon.”

The queen is silent for a while. “Well, the imperial navy hasn’t fully reversed engineered it yet, and even with those steam engines, they won’t be able to cross the channel in the winter. Their sailors aren’t nearly as good as our countrymen.”

“And women,” you absently correct.

“I hate your ‘feminist ideals, but yes, you have at least till next spring to find your next great idea,” she grows serious and adds, “the kingdom depends on you, my friend.”

You smile weakly, her confidence in you should be encouraging, but you find it exhausting right now, “I’ll try my best, your majesty.”

“Go with luck, colonel. And talk to Grand Magus Alan; he wanted to talk to you,” she tells you as you leave her study.

----

By the royal garden, you meet Alan the Grand Magus, the old bear of a man who was throwing bread crumbs to the ducks in the pond.

You sit next to him on the bench.

“Did you hear about the ship?” You ask him.

“Yes,” he grumbles. “This is why I hate technology. If they captured one of my mages, they would have never been able to ‘reverse-mage’ him.”

“Well, I didn’t go to a magical world,” you say quietly. Besides your spouse, the old magus was the only one who knew about your trip into the magical cave.

“You didn’t miss much” The mage himself went to the cave too as a child but to a ‘high magic world’ whatever that means.

“Do you think we should go back to the cave?” you ask. “To him?”

The old magus looks at you. “What is this ‘We’ Talk? This is all your fault! I didn’t just give that short upstart of an ‘emperor’ the most powerful weapons in the world.”

His harshness shouldn’t shock you; you should’ve been used to it by now, but it seems the old bastard didn’t need magic to cut with words.

“You could go in and learn new magics too, old man!” you say a bit too loudly, then lower your voice. “I don’t know what happened to you there, but the kingdom needs you too.”

You expect the old man to get angry, but instead, he looks sad, and you regret your words. “You told me about your life there, abusive parents, a boring, mundane life, it’s bad true; but you haven’t seen true horror” He stares in the distance and continues, “I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine, lived pains that I doubt exists in this world, I don’t care if this emperor kills me and everyone in the kingdom, some fates are worse than death.”

You sit quietly for a while; then he finally says, “You should go. You’re young and can handle it, but remember this. Don't tell him that you’re looking for a weapon. I made that mistake ages ago, and I will always regret him giving me the means to find one.”

You leave the court, and the next day you leave the capital telling your spouse that you’re going to see your parents.

You hide the fact that you’re visiting him, visiting Mr. Vorlds.