Things moved swiftly over the next week as my subordinates plowed through their tasks.

  Between them, Mayor Kosfeld and Captain Hendricks had the funeral well in order, setting it three days after we returned. The result was a heartfelt celebration of the soldiers who’d given everything for their duty.

  Attending was difficult when I still felt guilty about how the battle had gone. The psychologist I’d seen twice in the previous three days helped, but the feelings were still raw.

  Despite the difficulty, the funeral helped a little more in letting go. I’d honored the dead, and I’d ensured that their families had full and generous pensions. That was all I could do.

  During that time, I also met with Mayor Kosfeld to explore the many aspects of the town I’d been putting off. Following my new methodology, I focused on how best to support her in solving them.

  The mayor had most of the everyday matters well in hand, but there were a few issues she needed help with. The biggest was the massive surge in population we’d seen.

  We’d planned to attract more workers from the beginning, but the number of people who’d arrived since the snow thawed far surpassed our estimates. I’d noticed how much larger the town was growing, but the sheer scope only became apparent when I saw the latest reports.

  We’d started with over three hundred people, all hardy settlers ready to set up from nothing. In the last set of reports I’d read, that had grown to over twelve hundred as the town swelled with people seeking farming jobs.

  That was a significant enough increase already, yet we were now closing in on three thousand citizens — a tenfold increase in a single year.

  It was staggering, and that didn’t even include the people in the subsidiary villages we supported. Adding those to the total put the population of my lands at about four thousand people.

  The numbers were almost unbelievable; however, a little investigation showed that it wasn’t just my land swelling in numbers. Our province had done better than almost all others over winter, with few people starving and fewer deaths.

  Now, it was paying off again, with a tide of people pouring in from less fortunate areas.

  And all those people need jobs, housing, and infrastructure to support them. The construction company the mayor had brought with her was building as fast as they could, but they still weren't keeping up with the influx.

  We had plenty of workers to draw on but insufficient skilled architects, builders, and supervisors. It was a problem I wouldn’t have realized she had if I hadn’t dug deeper into the workings of the town than I had so far.

  Thankfully, I had, and it was precisely the kind of high-level support I’d decided to provide. A trip to the capital found plenty of people willing to move once I’d personally assured them they would be well-paid.

  It turns out that people tend to believe you when you’re a member of the nobility. While there, I also found a proper accountant to begin balancing both my personal finances and those of the town.

  I was now dealing with more money than I’d ever seen before, and it was time to stop struggling with it myself.

  The accountant was a godsend for my schedule, freeing up most of the time I was still spending on low-level work. With the new time, I could finally begin closing items off from my to-do list, while others I delegated to someone else.

  This included setting up all the various tutors I’d been planning, covering the wide variety of subjects I needed to know for my position. I was looking forward to knowing what I was doing at last, even if it would have to wait until after our return to the mines.

  Because that, too, was going faster than I’d expected. Instead of having to train new squads of elite troops, Linnea’s mercenaries were ready by the end of the week.

  With her connections and the recognition provided by my rank, she got a meeting with the local Guild Master in record time. There, she organized for ten of the best the guild had to offer.

  Given the portal connections between major cities, these elites weren’t just sourced from our local area but from across the entire planet. The expense was extraordinary, but between the cores from our previous trip and a significant loan, I could cover it.

  While I was still reluctant to go into debt, my new accountant set me straight. Debt might be undesirable on a personal level, but it was normal on a government level.

  In service of gaining a valuable new mine, a loan was an entirely reasonable course of action. And with a massive summer harvest looming in our future, I could be confident of paying it off even if this went badly.

  With our additional support prepared and matters at home taken care of, we only needed a few days of training with the mercenaries before returning to the mines.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  The dropship was less crowded on the second journey, carrying twelve passengers instead of twenty-three — just myself, Linnea, and the ten mercenaries we’d hired.

  While it was half the number we’d had before, our training over the last few days was enough to convince me we were stronger this time. Each of the mercs was a combat monster, equaling or even eclipsing Linnea or me.

  It went to show just how powerful the natives could get through the constant struggle, even if they lacked the fine-tuned optimization we were capable of.

  The extra room made the trip much more pleasant, and the hours passed swiftly until we circled the landing zone.

  “I see people down there,” the pilot’s voice echoed from the internal speakers. “At least a dozen, possibly more undercover.”

  “Get me a picture if you can,” I ordered, talking into my watch. It appeared on my holographic display a moment later, showing a dozen troops in royal guard armor. They matched the troops Felisa had deployed, though we couldn’t be sure.

  It was always possible they’d been taken out and replaced, though I doubted it, given how powerful those soldiers were. Still, there was no reason to be careless.

  “Get everyone ready, Harold,” I said, turning toward the massive man a few seats from me. While the mercenaries didn’t exactly have ranks, Harold was the most experienced among them.

  The man was pushing sixty and had the silver hair and beard to match, yet he hadn’t slowed down an inch. Saying he moved like a man half his age would be an understatement; he moved like a world-class bodybuilder crossed with an acrobat.

  He would have been intimidating enough already, even if he weren’t almost seven feet tall and equipped with multiple weapons that usually required an entire squad to use.

  “You got it, boss,” Harold responded in his deep, rumbling voice. “Though I’d still be more comfortable if you stayed in the ship. Or better yet, went back to that town of yours.”

  “I understand your concerns,” I sighed, shaking my head as we revisited the argument for what felt like the tenth time. “But odds are that’s the real guard out there. If so, they’ll be on edge with everything going on.”

  “Seeing me in person will reduce the chances of anyone getting nervous and causing an incident.” I pointedly didn’t address his suggestion that I return home, even though the man had a point.

  With the firepower the mercenaries represented, I was somewhat superfluous. Even if I wanted someone I trusted in charge, Linnea would have been more than up to the job. There was no real need to take the time or the risk to come myself.

  Yet, I was still reluctant to stay behind. Perhaps it was a lingering need to keep handling things myself, or maybe I didn’t want to put my exploration days behind me. Either way, I had a good excuse for this trip.

  This expedition was too sensitive to entrust to everyone else for multiple reasons. The Resulum within those mines was critical not only to finishing the repairs to my frigate but also to my deal with Broker.

  The mysterious AI was cagey enough about dealing with me directly; I was sure he wouldn’t talk with anyone else. And when we found that damn ore, I wouldn’t want to waste any time flying over here before having that meeting.

  “Fine,” Harold grumbled as he pulled himself out of the extra-large chair I’d had installed. “Just don’t go getting yourself killed. I’d never live it down if I lost a high-ranking noble.”

  “I’ll make sure not to,” I chuckled as I rose and checked my own gear. Even if the guards were what they appeared to be, we’d be down in the tunnels soon enough.

  Though a little tense, our landing went without incident. After a short standoff with the royal guard, they recognized my face and proved themselves in turn with a code phrase Felisa had given me.

  With that concern out of the way, we set up our camp and prepared ourselves to take the lift down. Much like our first trip, we split into two groups: one staying on the surface and one heading down.

  Unlike our first time, they were uneven in number. With only ten mercenaries available, we were sending six down into the tunnels and leaving four in reserve. With Linnea and me going as well, that would give us eight people in the thick of it.

  I would have been concerned about having only four people guard the surface if not for the royal guard’s continued presence. We’d been able to prepare for the return trip far faster than Felisa or I had expected, and there were still weeks left until they were due to be redeployed.

  With that force in place, I could be confident we wouldn’t have any problems from beasts. Nor did it seem likely our enemy would be stupid enough to assault such a position.

  After an hour’s preparation, we were ready to go. We’d left in such a rush last time that we’d abandoned the generator, leaving it to burn fuel until it ran out. While this was a waste, my technical abilities were sufficient to confirm it was otherwise unharmed.

  Given the extra space we had on board, we'd brought plenty of spare fuel so we could run it for weeks before needing a resupply. A few weeks ago, this would have strained our reserves; now, we had plenty to spare.

  The flesh of those strange, crystalline spiders had proved perfect for rendering down into Psi fuel, and the frigate’s nanoforge had been running constantly to process them all. We might even be able to export the stuff if we picked up more corpses on this trip.

  Pulling them out of the tunnels was a thankless job, but we’d left something behind to help with that, too. As with the generator, we’d had to flee before picking up the final load of spider corpses.

  A set of the ship’s humanoid maintenance robots still stood inside the shattered dome with two full sleds. The corpses were in surprisingly good shape, given they’d been out here for ten days, and I sent them back in with the drop-ship.

  The robots I kept so we could use them for the same purpose again. While Elana stayed behind to work on the frigate upgrades, she’d given me a program to direct them toward simple tasks.

  All they needed was a quick recharge off our generator, and they were ready to go.

  Harold and his team had assembled while I looked everything over, and they were equipped to the nines in preparation to go below. The one concession I’d given the man was that Linnea and I would stay behind for the riskiest phase of the operation.

  We’d used the elevator to invade the tunnels twice now. If there were any merit to my suspicion of some intelligence behind the spiders, they would have certainly realized it was a weak point.

  They’d had ten days to prepare, and I could only imagine what kind of traps or defenses might have been put in place. With nowhere to retreat to, there was a good chance anyone opening those elevator doors would be overrun before they could pull back to the surface.

  With a final farewell, Harold’s group descended, leaving us to wait in nervous anticipation.