Road to the Crown

Chapter 284: Scheming together

25th August 1574

"So that's what you wanted to do!"

After making sure that all of the workers that participated in the voluntary civil duty of apprehending the assailants, the two of us returned back to the mansion. Given the circumstances, I wanted to have a talk with Constanty to explain the matter regarding the letter I received from his father, but doing so before consulting Elia would be highly unadvisable.

After all, what if her plan required Constanty and the one, old man that she deemed to be innocent to remain oblivious to what was happening? Since I already gave her the free rein over this matter, I should at least stop myself from butting in the middle.

And from what Elia said as soon as we were sure that no one could eavesdrop on our discussion, this decision of mine was the best out of all I could take!

"I have to say that, I'm starting to regret that I didn't ask you to involve yourself in all those political games before Who knows how far we could get if you were to employ that scheming mind of yours for our cause!"

Exclaiming with astonishment, I could see how Elia's face tourned to a mix of sourness and happiness. Thinking about it as soon as I said those words, I could see how happy she was for receiving the praise, but reluctant to accept it due to what I praised about her! 

"This way, rather than learning something that he will deem that we want to hear, we will get him to pass the false news to the Ostros instead. After all, what's the point of learning about about their plans? In the current situation, if they have any ambitions to survive, they only have one way to expand, and it leads directly into our own route of invasion."

Shrugging her arms, Elia most likely pushed the idle thoughts about judging whether she should be happy or not with my praise aside. With how we have yet to decide what kind of bullshit we would let the spy learn before our guards would just so happen to sleep on the duty, allowing for the man's escape, there wasn't really that much time for us to spare it on idle thoughts!

"Anyway, did you receive the news about the military plant?"

It was something that I initially wanted to discuss right after we would be done with our lovemaking that we started before, but with the matter of spy appearing right on our plate, I had to push this topic aside. But given our current situation, it could potentially present us with a perfect opportunity to bank on taking over that spy!

"You mean about the new warcar model?"

Just like with everything that holds a rather long name, all the war carriages developed in my military district plants were now commonly called warcars. In fact, it was a pity that they would never get to be called a tank at this rate, but with how I massacred the original name of the steam engine turning it into a steam horse, I had no right to complain how the wording developed in a more natural way.

"Not really."

What Elia meant, was most likely the first prototype of the proper tank-like warcar. Despite all my reservations against including a proper cannon within the warcar before breechloading ones could be developed, after several visits from Henry and his valid points about making the sieges quicker and safer, I finally caved in. But as great of news, it already was, what I had in mind held far greater importance.

"They finished the development of the logistic vehicle."

Looking at how most of the carriages developed and produced by my military plant were outfitted for the war purposes, we were in the dire need of something that both civilians and the military could use for the more mundane aspects. After all, with how focused warcars were on their defensibility, every single one of them was way too costly to be used for the stuff that horses could take care off!

That's why, rather than focusing all the energy of the people working in that plant on developing new machines of death, I tasked them with the creation of a carriage so simple, that even a single steam engine would be capable of propelling it!

With the power unit generating the most cost out of all the parts due to how complicated it was, limiting the general weight of the vehicle and turning it into a slightly improved version of what others would attach to the line of their horses, not only all the problems of moving the staff around would just disappear but I could also see how drastically those simple vehicles would change every single part of the economy, from farming through trading all the way to creating the first type of public transport!

"That one aimed at lowering the cost? What does it have to do with the matter at hand?"

Raising her lovely hair from the papers that she was looking through, Elia looked at me with her curiosity-filled eyes.

"Didn't you say that we can use him to send some false info to Ostros? We can't hide the extent of our industra let's say, development. So rather than trying to achieve something that can only turn futile, how about we just swap some details around And make them think that our sacred weapon is actually wooden carriage propelled by the steam horses?"

The problem with passing the false information to enemy ranks lied in the extent to how much one could lie. If the information was made too good or too bad to be true, then it would be discarded as the misinformation it in fact was. That's why I personally believed that using those logistic vehicles aimed at the civilian market would be believable enough for Ostros to swallow, especially once they would learn about how populous and advanced New Tarnow already is!

"Woah, I didn't think about this! It might actually work!"

Seeing how I managed to surprise my dearest wife, the corners of my lips inadvertently started climbing up my face. But before a smile could be achieved, I realised that within her surprised expression, some hints of disappointment were hidden.

"Dear, mind telling me what you initially wanted to feed the spy before letting him go?"

And here I stepped on the landmine. With how the creation of the logistic vehicle's prototype only arrived recently, Elia have yet to learn about the news. This might been one of the reasons why she didn't take this possibility into account, resulting in me stepping up and stealing the spotlight from her!

But that didn't mean that her idea, that I was still ignorant about, was wrong. In fact, even if it were to prolong the war for a week or two, I didn't mind lying that what Elia came up with initially was actually a better option than what I came up with right now!

"Well If you insist"

Seeing how apparently reluctant Elia was to spill the beans, I should normally think that she already judged her plan to be worse than what I proposed, but with how her lips curved just a little, I realised that it might not be the case!

"Before you came up with that idea of yours, I thought about letting them know that the entire train aspect was nothing more but a ruse, aimed at making them drop their defences so that our swift attack wouldn't have any troubles shattering their weakened guard. I hoped that this way we could make them wary of their every move, buying us a lot of time to train and equip more troops."

Hearing Elia's plan, I realised that in fact, it was far better than what I myself came up with! But the best part about it lied in the point that we could merge our ideas to feed something far more believable to the spy!

"Dear Do you think about the same thing as I do?"

Finally, I could use this comic overused quote. Since I couldn't read her thoughts, there was no point to tell what she was thinking, nor whether it was even close to what was strolling through my mind. But in reality, this sentence of mine was only aimed at hinting Elia towards the idea of merging our plans, so that she would keep the achievement of coming up with the combined plan!

"You want to have sex too?"

Woah, in all honesty, I didn't expect this kind of response as we were in the middle of planning our next move! But before I could actually respond to this question, Elia burst out with laugh os hard, that she had to support herself on the table in order not to fall down to the floor.

"I'm sorry but your face when I said this It was one of a kind!"

Keeping herself stable with one hand on the desk while holding her own waist with the other, Elia continued to mesmerise me with her soft giggle, as if she wanted to replicate the future courses of ASMR personally for me in the era where ASMR couldn't even happen. 

"But being serious now, I think I know what you meant."

Finally calming down after a moment, Elia rose back to a proper standing position while wiping a tear of joy away from her eye.

"We can tell the spy that we are going to use those logistic vehicles, or rather, cutting-edge military transportation vehicles to execute a swift attack on their lands."