Kyle had taken a walk down the main road of the new town. The main apartment buildings were centrally located, with the soon-to-be staffed factories closer to the city eastward of the manor. The entire area was fertile, so farms just surrounded the city in a vague circle.

  The main road had once been surrounded by a small village, but the villagers had received a single higher-quality apartment structure farther from the industrial area.

  Wagons full of food and basic goods delivered loads to apartment buildings, people were settling in, and the sick finally received treatment.

  Kyle’s medical nanites were an, albeit rather weak, cure-all treatment. Everything from cancer to indigestion could be at least partially healed by them due to the adaptive machine intelligence governing their swarms. However, they weren’t even ten percent as effective as a full league suite of health tech. Until he could start mass-producing penicillin, it would have to do.

  Kyle continued to wear his armor in public, now decorated with the heraldry of the Great House Jessek. He also had a snazzy blue cape that went over one shoulder.

  ———

  Meters away, in an alley where some trash had piled up-I have to start a sanitation agency-he heard a whimper. His hearing was enhanced by implants, as was his ability to comprehend the signals sent from the Advanced Cochlear Fidelity System, allowing him to pick up the noise.

  Kyle walked past the narrow entrance, and saw a smaller black-haired woman being kicked on the ground by a few other people, mostly men and a few women.

  Kyle immediately tromped loudly over to the alley, and gently picked up one of the larger men. The rest gasped in shock, and immediately sprinted past him. He threw the large man out into the street.

  The woman was out cold on the ground, one of the thugs had kicked her directly on the forehead before he arrived.

  Kyle picked her up in a fireman’s carry, and took her out of the alleyway. The few farmers moving from their apartments to their pre assigned jobs immediately moved away from him, and looked on fearfully.

  Kyle gently carried her up to his manor, which had been untouched by the construction of the last weeks.

  ———

  Kyle had too much to do. He’d pumped the bruised and cut-covered girl full of medical nanites, and had the mercenaries put two men on watch at the manor at all times.

  He’d then immediately headed over to the first experimental textile factory he was going to set up.

  Inside the huge room, three long rows of looms stood. All Kyle had done was take 30 looms, and modify them to make the heddles steam powered.

  A huge steam engine sat at one end of the room. While local carpenters and smiths had helped him make the gearbox and shaft system that would transfer the mechanical power from the engine’s flywheel to the looms, the engine itself had just been all him.

  The nano factory had made sheets of decent quality steel used for the engine. He’d welded them together with his armor’s inbuilt plasma cutter, adjusted for melting metal together.

  There were some coal deposits in the rockier areas close to the manor, which had officially been named Free City by a group of the former slaves.

  Groups had been sent to mine the region using modern mining tactics to increase production; like drainage adits, reasonable shifts to increase efficiency, and ventilation safety measures.

  Simple things that required no technology and could be implemented easily with a simple slideshow prepared by the armor’s AI.

  Kyle spoke to the assembled group of adults, mostly humans with a few Folk mixed in as well. “This machine powers the looms. Two workers will keep if fed full of coal and will alert the rest if something goes wrong. The rest of you will do this:”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Kyle proceeded to use some of the prepared linen cloth to demonstrate the entire process. He didn’t know a thing about weaving, and followed his corneal implant’s HUD instructions he’d prepared earlier.

  Eventually, some of the prospective factory workers followed his lead and started making a basic weave. Early steam looms had a few problems-namely, their warp threads, the ones that ran straight and didn’t get weaved, getting tangled or messed up.

  With a few modern advancements applied, that problem was mostly resolved-simplifying the process greatly.

  Nearly 3,000 of the former slaves, mostly women, had weaving experience. They would be working in his textile industry. He stayed in the factory for a few hours, before he was confident the women could do it without issues.

  For an experienced weaver, using a steam loom wasn’t a huge leap, as the construction was similar in general.

  Kyle took a moment to examine the health of the weavers. Most had some kind of long-term health condition from their years of slavery, but most of the obvious things like bruises or visible ribs had disappeared over the month.

  Quickly checking the steam engine for problems using his scanners, he walked out through the huge double doors that could let his armored body out.

  Outside, one of the mercenaries-a future officer named Berohn-waited for him.

  “The girl you’ze taken’n ‘as awoken, M’lord.” The man’s thick drinker’s tongue made listening to him an interesting experience. He was still one of the smarter mercenaries in Kyle’s opinion.

  “Wonderful.” The man looked around conspiratorially, and whispered to Kyle, “‘E’s quite the looker, M’lord. You’ze got good taste.” Kyle sighed and walked away from the chuckling man.

  ——————

  Sophen awoke in a dusty but comfortable bed. The countless aches and bruises that had been a constant companion in her life had suddenly disappeared-she hadn’t felt this good since she was a young child.

  The last thing she remembered was her former tribe mates cornering her and knocking her out in an alley.

  She had been about to do some stretches to see how effective the miracle healing was, when someone knocked on the doorframe.

  “Who are you?”

  A tall young man with a light brown complexion and flowing black hair stepped in. “I found you in an alley, with some other people kicking you while you were down. I’m the lord-I was passing by and saved you. They probably would have killed you, based on how… energetically… they were attacking you. Why? Who are you?”

  Sophen had decided at that moment that lying was pointless. “I’m Sophen, most gracious and generous lord. This servant thanks you dearly for saving her life. This servant will do anything in return,”

  The lord cut her off. “I thought I freed you? Just call me Kyle. Talk to me normally; all that formality isn’t needed. I’m a person, same as you.”

  Sophen had fallen back on instincts from her life as a slave. Begging and offering any kind of thanks usually ingratiated her to male masters in the past.

  “When my tribe was free nearly a decade ago, I was the chieftain's daughter. In return for avoiding the utter destruction of my people, I offered myself.” “Let me guess. The Veskayans betrayed you?”

  “Yes. They enslaved me and my people, many of whom wanted to go down fighting. It was a great betrayal to them; they all have a burning hatred for me.” Her voice strained slightly as she told her sad tale.

  The lord, whom she now knew was named Kyle, considered her words. “Do you think it’s unsafe for you to live in the public housing?” “Yes. They want my head on a pike. Please, milord, spare my life-” Kyle cut her off again. “I was going to anyways. Get rest-my healing is intense on the body. Don’t try to walk, and keep drinking that water.”

  He walked away. When Sophen had been told she’d been bought, she had expected just another pig of a man ready to abuse her. When she’d heard that they were all freed and would be paid for living in the growing town, she’d thought it was too good to be true.

  She still didn’t fully believe what was happening, but it seemed more plausible by the day.

  ———

  Kyle’s plan in general was simple. First, teach experts in several fields how to automate them using steam technology. Those experts combined with his educated overseers would hopefully be enough to get the rest of the freed slaves working.

  The hoard from the dragon was not infinite. After selling the enchanted items, artwork, and jewels to the Magocracy, the total gold was near 9 million Deacons. So as to not get assassinated for destroying the gold based economy, he was obviously keeping his spending slow and maintaining efficiency. A team of about 80 former slaves with administrative experience were installed as a council of ministers to keep the government running.

  The Magocracy could only do so much for him, and they had already moved mountains in return for the hyper valuable corpse. The final ask he had for them was to connect him to commodities traders in the region. They’d visit a product showing at the end of the year to see his low prices.

  He was bringing industry to the world for a reason. The hoard money wouldn’t last forever. In fact, he’d already used nearly a million deacons worth of the gold to get this far; he overpaid for a lot of necessities to smooth over the process.