The Necro-Industrial Revolution

A few more weeks slipped by, and the biting chill of early winter finally settled over the valley. The morning dew now froze into a crisp, white frost, crunching under the boots of the villagers as they hurried to their daily tasks.

During this time, the massive palisade wall was finally completed. Thick, towering timber logs locked together perfectly, reinforced by heavy steel brackets and joints. It was as sturdy and impenetrable as a wooden fortress wall could possibly be.

However, standing in the courtyard, Jack watched the village guards run through their morning drills. He frowned slightly. They were still wielding their older iron spears and swords.

Despite Jack processing two massive carts of raw iron into pure steel, the supply was already exhausted. Transforming a village’s entire infrastructure devoured metal at a terrifying rate. By the time Barnaby forged the critical structural supports for the walls, the components for weapons and traps, and the essential heavy machinery, there simply wasn’t enough steel left over to arm the guards.

It was a frustrating bottleneck, but not one that panicked Jack. He had foreseen the massive demand. Back when the autumn caravan was still packing up, Jack had already pulled Merchant Yarun aside and commissioned a much larger delivery of raw iron for the upcoming spring caravan. Until then, the iron weapons would just have to suffice.

Later that afternoon, the rhythmic clopping of hooves broke the quiet of the valley. A sleek, fast-moving carriage bearing the crest of the Holy Church rolled up to the keep. Along with another carriage.

Marcus Mitchell, the apprentice of gold inquisitor Silas, stepped out. He didn’t come alone; Lord Alaric Vance rode in the other carriage with him, looking unusually smug.

Jack received them in the Great Hall, offering hot soup to cut the winter chill.

“I bring news regarding the treaty between your two fiefs,” Marcus announced, pulling a thick roll of parchment from his satchel. “The Church officials reviewed the original document. They have flatly rejected the final clause.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “The clause that transfers ownership of the land?”

“Correct,” Marcus nodded firmly. “The Holy Church does not permit a minor lord to permanently annex the territory of another noble simply over a financial debt. It disrupts the balance of regional power.”

Alaric took a slow sip of the soup even though it wasn’t to his liking, hiding an arrogant smile behind his silver goblet.

“However,” Marcus continued, unrolling the parchment on the table. “The Church suggests an amended clause. If Lord Alaric fails to repay three and a half times your total investment by the agreed due date, you will not take the title to the land. Instead, you will be granted the indefinite right to operate and control the fief’s economy until you have extracted six times your total invested amount directly into your treasury.”

Marcus pointed to a sub-section of the text. “Furthermore, the Church demands that you pay Lord Alaric ten percent of the fief’s net income, starting immediately. And since you are operating the economy, you—Lord Jack—will be solely responsible for paying the regional taxes on his land.”

Alaric leaned back in his chair, practically radiating satisfaction. To him, this treaty was nothing short of a miracle. He was inherently lazy; he hated managing peasants and dealing with their complaints. Now, Jack was doing all the hard work to drastically increase the fief’s income, and Alaric would just sit back and collect a clean ten percent cut without lifting a finger, completely free from the burden of regional taxes.

And when the two years are up, Alaric thought greedily, I will just refuse to pay the massive debt. Jack will be forced to keep working my land for me while I reap the benefits.

Across the table, Jack picked up a quill, his face was unreadable.

Inwardly, Jack was quite happy as well.

He never actually wanted the legal title to Alaric’s land. Annexing a noble’s territory brought a mountain of political scrutiny and aristocratic jealousy. Jack only wanted the economic resources, the manpower, and the political leverage. This new clause gave him exactly that, wrapped in a massive, exploitable loophole.

The treaty stated he maintained control until he recouped six times his total investment. But the clause explicitly included investments made after the initial two-year period.

If Alaric defaults, Jack calculated, I can just continuously reinvest a portion of the profits back into his fief. Building a new road, upgrading a mill, repairing houses. Every time I invest, the threshold of the ‘six times payout’ climbs higher and higher. Alaric will never be able to mathematically catch up. I will control his economy indefinitely.

Both Lords eagerly signed the amended treaty, each thoroughly convinced they had outsmarted the other.

With the paperwork finalized, Alaric took his copy and immediately departed for his carriage, eager to return to his warm castle. Marcus, however, lingered by the hearth to warm his hands before braving the winter roads.

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“The mention of regional taxes bothers me,” Jack said casually, pouring Marcus another bowl of soup. “I must confess, Marcus… my father handled all such administrative matters before his passing. Due to my long illness, I never properly learned the region’s tax structure.”

Marcus took a sip of soup, offering a sympathetic nod. “It is quite simple, Lord Jack. The Regional Lord holds a grand tax assembly every five years in the regional capital. That is where quotas are assessed and tributes are paid.”

“Every five years?” Jack asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yes. But your fief has been exempt from these taxes for the last ten years,” Marcus explained. “After your deep mines collapsed and the valley fell into ruin, your father made a desperate appeal to the Regional Lord. There were… other political reasons involved that I cannot speak of openly, but you were granted a decade of grace to rebuild.”

Marcus lowered his voice. “But that grace period is over. Furthermore, the merchants talk, Lord Jack. The guilds know your mines are open again, and they know you are spending massive amounts of gold. The Regional Lord is fully aware that the Frost Grip fief is booming.”

Jack gritted his teeth. He knew the traveling merchants would run their mouths. But it was too soon.

“The next five-year assembly is scheduled for this coming spring,” Marcus warned him. “Expect a royal invitation soon. The tax structure is reportedly changing this year, and they will undoubtedly assess your new wealth.”

With that heavy warning delivered, Marcus bowed respectfully, gathered his satchel, and left the valley to beat the incoming snow.

A few days later, a massive convoy rumbled through the southern pass.

Twenty-five heavy carts, bearing the crest of the western merchant guild, arrived to collect the massive bulk order of coal.

Down in the village, the atmosphere was tense. Jack had forced the miners to meet the twenty-five-cart quota by issuing strict mandates. Many laborers had desperately wanted to transfer out of the dark, suffocating mines to work in carpentry or other fields. Jack had flatly denied their transfers, forcing them back into the shafts to meet the deadline.

It was a harsh, unpopular decision, but Jack had no choice. The coal was the lifeblood of his economy.

When the new guild supervisor finished inspecting the loaded carts, he handed Jack a heavy, iron-bound chest.

Fifty-one thousand gold.

It was a fortune indeed. Seeing the shimmering gold instantly justified the grueling labor in Jack’s mind. With this money, he could easily cover the Church’s interest rate and fund the entire winter development plan.

“For the next delivery,” Jack told the supervisor as the carts prepared to leave, “only bring twenty carts.”

The supervisor raised an eyebrow. “Only twenty? We are willing to buy as much as you can dig, Lord Frost Grip.”

“It is winter,” Jack replied flatly. “The ground freezes, the shafts grow treacherous, and my own valley’s population has doubled. We need a massive portion of the coal just to survive the cold and run our own furnaces. Twenty carts is my absolute limit until the thaw.”

The supervisor was a reasonable man. He looked at the frost clinging to the palisade walls nearby and nodded. “Understood, My Lord. We will return for twenty carts exactly one and a half months after the first day of spring.”

Once the coal convoy departed, Jack finally allowed the exhausted miners a reprieve, permanently lowering the mining quotas for the winter season.

A week later Jack received a message from the whistle that Silas had gave him.

It was a message from Silas.

The message formally stated that, since the ‘misunderstandings’ between the him and the Frost Grip fief were now resolved, Silas was dispatching a team of Church mages to the valley to aid in defending against the winter beast tides. Silas wrote that Jack didn’t need to pay them; he only needed to provide warm beds and hot food throughout the winter months.

Jack immediately replied back.

I reject the offer, Jack said bluntly. I do not want Church mages interfering in my territory. I am perfectly capable of handling the beast tide on my own. I intend to hunt the monsters, butcher them, and sell their pelts and meat. Beasts killed directly by magic suffer tainted, inedible meat. Your mages will cost me a small fortune in lost inventory. Keep them in the church.

Silas’s response came back after few hours.

Surprisingly, Silas didn’t argue. He simply stated that Jack would have to reject the mages to their faces when they arrived.

The mages will still come, Silas’s message read. They will observe your methods. If you truly manage to defend your valley and butcher the beasts with zero casualties, they will serve as official witnesses. I will then personally submit an application to the Holy Church, promoting your fief to an autonomous defense zone.

An autonomous defense zone meant the Church would permanently stop sending mages to monitor his valley every winter. It was exactly what he needed to keep his Necromancy a secret.

The very next morning, an armored rider bearing a royal standard galloped into the courtyard.

Just as Marcus had predicted, the rider handed Jack an ornate, gold-leafed envelope. It was an official summons from the Regional Lord. Jack was formally invited—and strictly mandated—to attend the Regional Tax Assembly in the spring. Missing it would result in severe penal action against his territory.

Another massive headache for next year, Jack sighed, tossing the heavy envelope onto his desk.

As the snow finally began to fall, blanketing the valley in a pristine sheet of white, Jack walked down to the village with his armored mages for inspection.

He watched the villagers working in the distance. They were carving wooden shafts for arrows and assembling the complex gears for the new ballistas. However, Jack noticed a glaring inefficiency. Instead of one man cutting the wood, handing it to another man to attach the fletching, and passing it to a third to forge the arrowhead, individual villagers were trying to build entire arrows from start to finish.

Jack rubbed his temples. He had explicitly introduced the concept of the assembly line to them last year when they built the winter cabins. It had increased their speed drastically. But without his constant, looming supervision, the peasants had comfortably reverted to their traditional, inefficient, slow methods of craftsmanship.

I can’t just suggest good logistics; I have to mandate them, Jack realized, his corporate instincts taking over. He decided he would call a valley-wide assembly tomorrow morning to officially enforce segmented labor lines across every single industry.

But for now, Jack pulled his thick wool coat tighter around his shoulders and stared down the snow-covered southern road.

He was waiting for the Church mages. According to Silas’s timeline, they were due to arrive any day now, and Jack needed everything in his valley to look perfectly, incredibly normal when they did.