Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

Chapter 119: Home

I kissed my cute chubby-cheeked Roland one last time the day of our departure for the Kanta Mountains. It had been a long and uneventful winter, making last minute preparations and negotiations with Franz for proper restitution.

The baby was nearly a year old and was crawling everywhere. My heart ached that I would miss his first steps and likely never hear him call me "Ka-ee" again. He had been the closed thing I would ever have to a nephew unless the du Pont children decided to stay in touch after I left.

As predicted, the countess was absolutely distraught. We made sure to head out before she could fuss too much.

"Take care of yourself Katie," Mariela said with a sad smile. "You too, Al. It will not be nearly as lively around here without the two of you."

"You say that as if it is a bad thing," Franz muttered under his breath, which made me laugh. We had caused an awful lot of trouble for him but hey, we had helped him gain the throne too. It all evened out in the end, didn't it?

"The builders and knights who will assist with the rebuilding efforts shall accompany you to the mountains," he said formally. "Feel free to send me word if things are not going smoothly and I will send someone to remedy that."

I gave him my best curtsy since we were in formal diplomatic mode now. "Thank you Your Majesty. May we have a fruitful alliance."

Al rolled his eyes at me and gestured for me to come. He gave his foster brother one last stiff nod before we walked away from the palace forever.

We met up with Ayana and all of her children's families with the caravan full of supplies, things we brought from the palace, and people. The other occupants of the slums looked at us with both confusion and awe.

"Where are you going, Ayana?" one of them dared to ask.

She beamed at her old neighbor. "Home."

The journey was not so simple. It took weeks to move that many people and objects from the coast to the countryside to the mountains. Whatever roads had once been there were now overgrown so we had to travel on foot or horseback once we reached the mountains.

Ayana led the way to where her old village, Ilmir, once stood. There wasn't much left after more than two and a half decades of neglect. A few crumbling buildings remained that didn't look safe to step inside.

"This is it," she said in a choked voice. "My home."

All of her children looked around curiously at the place where their mother had once lived. Al did too. A sense of loss clouded his eyes for only a moment before I could see the wheels turning in his head. He could imagine what this place would become from our efforts.

Right now there were only eleven adults if you didn't count the people Franz sent over to help us. We had an awful lot of work to do.

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Construction was slow but steady. We started with homes for each of the four families who had come before building things like roads and buildings for other purposes, such as a granary and the library I wanted to run.

A few weeks into our endeavor we were joined by six other families. More would join in the weeks to come. It seemed like a new group of former refugees showed up every time I turned around. 

More hands helped with the construction efforts but we had a very hard time keeping all of the small children occupied and safely out of the way. Everyone took turns babysitting.

I had thought we would have a hard time with all of the clashing cultures considering we had people come in from Annalaias, Rowenhilde, the Ruby Islands, and Shibatsu already. But everyone was respectful and treated Al with the deference Ayana had promised they would.

He was more than a little overwhelmed by the attention. All of the older generation who had known his parents was amazed by how much he looked like his father.

Once the basic construction was done and a squadron of knights was charged with keeping watch around our borders, we had to deal with the struggle of assigning everyone jobs. A lot of the people who had come shared a profession.

In a village this tiny, we couldn't afford to have two cobblers or two blacksmiths at the expense of not having someone else we needed. Many people ended up requiring retraining of some sort, especially when it came to operating the mines.

It was stressful because many of the people were resistant to change. Having adolescent boys who were old enough to take on a new trade helped a bit but didn't fix everything. Al and I had to put out a lot of fires.

Setting everything up from scratch because we couldn't have large things transported up the steep inclines of the mountain was even worse. We didn't have enough stone masons or lumberjacks present and had to call on Franz for more help.

Building up our tiny country was the biggest challenge I had ever facedeven more than the semester I took fifteen credit hours and ended up hospitalized so I barely passed everythingbut it was rewarding. The people came to trust us and depend on us more quickly than I would have expected.

Being the second most popular person in town was a new experience for me since I had never been the most social. But everybody loved me because I usually had solutions to their problems.

I struggled with both the attention and the expectations. I may be from a different world but that didn't make me all-knowing! I did my best but I was totally winging it. Thankfully no one seemed to notice and continued to be impressed by my impromptu ideas. 

As time went on I grew used to it. That wasn't the sort of thing my former self would have ever imagined getting used to but a lot had changed since I ended up in this novel world. I had gone from someone useless to someone dependable. Strange as it was, I was rather satisfied with how things turned out.