Finding the metal I needed to fix the frigate’s hull would not be easy.

First, it wasn’t on any of the public databases that my scanner had access to. I might find something using my authority as a Count, but if that didn’t pan out, finding it was going to be rough.

Even if I got enough details to pick it up on a scanner, I didn’t have a solid idea of where to look. So far, most of my valuable finds had come from general exploring, I’d never really tried to find something in particular.

Sure, I’d gone into the mountains looking for ore before, but it had just been a random search rather than for anything specific. I had been lucky to get as good a find as I had, and that was only because I could sense the rift.

If just continued wandering around, it might take months, or even years, to find exactly what I was after. Then when I found it, it might not even be in sufficient quantity to fix the ship. There were significant holes in the outer hull, and without patching all of them, the ship’s stealth effect would be as good as ruined.

It was a bleak picture, but at least I had somewhere to start. Professor Henceforthe was my best contact at the palace for intellectual queries, and I sent him a message asking if he knew anything.

Even when he hadn’t known much about agriculture, he’d been able to find someone who did. Hopefully, he could do the same now.

I also asked if he needed help with anything, I’d relied on his goodwill too much already and it would be rude to not offer anything in return.

In the meantime, I checked in with the Explorers Guild about the help I’d organized. They had been doing good work in exploring the plains but had found nothing truly extraordinary.

There were good patches of resources here and there that I could send people out to, and a few solid village locations, but no particularly strange occurrences or patches of odd metal. On a brighter note, there also weren’t any powerful beasts nearby either.

I didn’t know if that was the usual state of the plains, or if it was because of the army patrols, but I was thankful that my soldiers wouldn’t be stuck with anything too dangerous straight away.

If they got in too much trouble, I could try to bail them out, but I didn’t always plan to be here to do that. It would be better if they got used to operating on their own when I didn’t have them with me for a specific operation.

With little else to do until I heard from Henceforthe and with my work in the real world still a few days away, I asked Linnea how the interviews with potential frigate recruits had gone.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear they went well given Brian’s recommendations, but I’d still somewhat expected to hear bad news. That wasn’t the case, however, as she had two people that were worth talking to further.

That gave me something to do, and I booked them in for tomorrow before heading into the town. It had been some time since I’d talked with the people here, and it was worth using my spare time for an afternoon of answering questions.

I trusted the Mayor was doing a good job, but it was also good to double-check these things. Besides, I’d seen how much of a morale boost talking with the people caused at my introduction.

The Q&A session I organized turned into a busy afternoon but had the effect that I’d wanted. The people of the town were happy for the most part, though still worried about the same general issues as most people I’d met.

No one was going to feel safe until the space lanes were open, and many still thought that the so-called pirates were actually working for a foreign power. I’d seen rather significant evidence of that myself, but telling them that would only cause panic.

Instead, I worked to reassure people it would be handled in the next year. Another winter without outside supplies would be hard, but not catastrophic. Another one after that might not be.

Thankfully, everyone had seen the frigate I’d parked near the town by this point. While the external damage was still very significant, it was a potent symbol of power to back up what I was saying.

It was enough to calm most of the more worried individuals, I felt that the effect would only grow once I finished fixing it.

Apart from their primary worry, I mostly dealt with questions about the growth of the town. Some were still concerned about the massive expansion I had planned, but most were hopeful about the future.

Word of David’s farming experiments had spread, and if that worked, there was little risk of anyone in the town growing hungry again. While the fishing was great, it was hard to live on nothing but fish forever.

Worse, people were worried about the lake freezing over in winter. No one had been around it last winter to check, so it was unknown whether it would. That was something I hadn’t even considered, and I sent a message to the Mayor to make sure we were stockpiling enough food for the winter.

She reassured me she was on it, but that it was cutting into our exports. That hurt, but there were ways around it. In particular, fishing in deeper waters was an option if the tentacle beast problem was fixed for good.

The squad the Duchess had sent had been down there for a week already, and I was expecting them to be back before another had passed. If they gave the all-clear, the entire lake would become open to us.

Seeing large underwater creatures on the ship’s radar was the main reason that the sailer had been avoiding it so far, and without that, we might significantly increase our food output.

That would be for another day, however, and I finished answering a final few questions before returning to the frigate. I shared a quick meal with Linnea and a highly distracted Elana before we retired to bed.

The next day, I had two interviews with potential recruits. Arron and Frederick had both been auxiliary fighter pilots in the Navy, before retiring to work on civilian aircraft much like Brian had.

Both the older men had kept themselves in fairly good shape and were excited to fly military aircraft for real. They weren’t a hundred percent sure about my eventual plans to leave the planet but were more than willing to fly against the pirates.

That was enough for now, and I eagerly signed them on under Linnea, who I listed as the flight leader. While she likely had less experience than these men, even if they hadn’t flown fighters for real, I frankly trusted her a lot more.

To their credit, neither man complained about this, and I hired them on the spot. We didn’t have a full set of intact fighters yet, and fixing them wasn’t my highest priority. But we did have one good one, besides Linnea’s, so I authorized them to train on it.

They couldn’t both fly it at once, but they also had at least basic engineering skills from maintaining aircraft. When they weren’t flying, I assigned them to work with Elana on fixing the ship.

She could always use the extra muscle, particularly if we were going to house more crew. After the interviews, I sent a message to her about the recruits and asked her to work on the living situation.

I got a distracted message back saying she would put the new guys on it, but nothing more. I guess she’s still working on that blueprint, I thought with a shake of my head.

There was really no reason to push it so hard when we didn’t even have all the materials, but I’d noticed more than once that Elana could get lost in an interesting project. If that was the way she wanted to work, then I was happy to leave her to it.

The latest message I’d received from Cyrus was that his advance team was working their way through the tunnels towards the Altheium deposit. It would take some time to mine it and drag the ore back, but I expected at least an initial load within a few weeks.

By that point, his track network was due to start construction, which would speed things up when it was completed. After that, it would be easy to ship in people and supplies to build the village on the surface.

So far he’d shown himself to be as competent as promised, and I was looking forward to the day that the new village would be complete.

That evening I got a response from the Professor, with a link to a restricted database. While I couldn’t access anything else in there, a particular entry was now open to me.

I eagerly skimmed through it, finding a metal named Resulum listed. It had most of the stealth properties that I was expecting, and the entry had enough data that we should be able to match it with scans of the hull.

While it was vague on the locations, it had several know deposits listed. All had been discovered under ancient Arkathian mining sites. It seemed that they had highly prized the metal, and most of the deposits had been more than half mined out.

That was a clue, at least. Finding ruins on the surface would at least be easier than finding mineral deposits. It was a shame I didn’t have access to the facilities anymore to check, though I doubted they would have any.

They had an obvious purpose already, and from what I’d read, the Arkathians liked having specialized facilities focused on a single task. Some scholars had speculated this was due to them being highly paranoid, and from what I’d seen with Mira, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that they were true.

It was honestly more than I’d really had any right to hope for, and I sent a message back thanking him profusely and reiterating my offer of any help he might require.

A few moments later, I got a response saying that he required nothing, but that he would appreciate it if I opened trade negotiations with his nephew, Count Henceforthe.

I thought about it for a minute, before sending a response saying that I would be happy to. The Professor wasn’t asking for any preferential treatment, just that I was open to talking. That was a perfectly reasonable request and might be very useful to me as well.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the other Counts were looking to stock up on food for winter as well. If they were offering something useful in return, I would be more than happy to help.

From what I had read, trade would involve us working out better prices for each other’s goods. This would allow us to get what we needed cheaper, though some of the profit would be offset by a reduction of the amount of taxes we levied on those goods.

Since the goods were owned by the people who gathered them, we couldn’t just lower the price without re-reimbursing them for the loss. In the end, this would mean there wasn’t much extra money to be made, but it was a way to guarantee access to certain goods.

With how much in demand things were right now, that was valuable on its own. I doubted anything would happen too quickly, but it could be an excellent thing in the future.

After responding, I forwarded the message to Elana, who quickly reported that the materials matched what we had.

Now all I had to do was to find an Arkathian mining ruin somewhere on my vast lands. That would be a tall order, but there was a certain shadowy information broker that might help.

I had once purchased the location of the first facility from a mysterious figure on the explorer's board. Pulling it up on my watch, I was pleased to see I still had access. My profile was marked as an ‘Honorary Explorer’ and I could still make requests, though I couldn’t take any jobs.

Thanks, Bradford, I thought with a grin as I pulled up the contact details for the person I’d talked to last time. They were still active on the board, and I sent through a direct message asking if they had any more ruin locations to sell, particularly mining ruins.

I was expecting a response to take a few hours, at least, only to be shocked when a response arrived before I could even close my watch’s display. I opened it quickly, only for a chill to go through me as I read it.

I may have what you are after, but first I have a question. I understand you retrieved an intact AI from a ruin. I wish to know how they are doing.

“How could anyone possibly know that?” I asked thin air, suddenly worried about exactly who I was talking with.