Reincarnated as the Crown Prince-Chapter 34: They Are Afraid of us Now

The morning sky over the Gulf of Valencia was clear—almost painfully so. A mild breeze rustled the Aragonese flags lining the observation deck of the coastal command tower, and the sea glistened like polished glass beneath the rising sun. Small patrol boats bobbed near the docks, their signal flags fluttering, while farther out in the distance, the massive silhouette of the INS Resolución cut an imposing figure on the horizon.

It was the day of the naval demonstration.

On the rocky terraces of the command post, foreign observers gathered in tight knots. Military attachés, naval officers, ambassadors, and even a few civilian dignitaries stood behind the brass railing, peering through binoculars and exchanging hushed remarks in a cacophony of accents. The islet slated for bombardment—Isla Negra—lay twelve kilometers offshore, barren and jagged, its rocky spires like broken teeth waiting to be obliterated.

Prince Lancelot stood front and center, flanked by Admiral de Castro and Alicia. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp and calculating. He watched not just the sea, but the observers.

He was here to measure reactions.

The first to approach was Sir William Hargrove, Britannia’s ambassador, dressed in a formal naval coat and monocle. He gave Lancelot a curt bow.

"I see your monster has stirred, Regent."

"She’s not a monster," Lancelot said. "She’s a mirror. What you see in her depends on what you bring to the reflection."

"Philosophical," Hargrove replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "But I do admit—I’ve never seen a dreadnought in the flesh. None of our ships can match her by sheer tonnage."

"No one’s can," Admiral de Castro muttered proudly.

Farther down the deck, the delegate from Glanzreich, Colonel von Rheingold, kept a stiff expression as he scribbled notes on a small leather-bound pad. His uniform was spotless, his mustache waxed to perfection, but a faint sheen of sweat glistened at his temple.

And then there was the Francois representative—Ambassador Gérard Villon. A thin man in a black cravat, he looked utterly out of place among the more robust military men. He had declined the binoculars offered to him and instead leaned quietly on the rail, staring at Resolución with hollow eyes.

"She’s turning," Alicia said softly, nodding toward the ship.

Far offshore, the dreadnought began a slow pivot. Steam vented from her turbines, and spotter balloons drifted lazily in the sky. Her gun crews, drilled for weeks, manned their positions with precision. Each turret moved in coordinated sequence, their barrels rising in slow arcs to align with the target.

The entire ship looked like a living weapon.

"Signal from the flagship," announced a radio officer behind them. "They’re beginning calibration."

Lancelot stepped forward. A podium had been prepared with a speaking trumpet and a red lever—decorative but symbolic. He gripped it firmly.

"To our guests from across the continent," he began, voice carrying over the crowd, "you stand today not just on the shores of Aragon, but on the edge of a new era. One forged not by decree, but by discipline. Not by legacy, but by labor."

He nodded to the signal tower.

A green flag unfurled.

"Let the demonstration begin."

BOOM.

The first salvo shattered the air.

From twelve kilometers out, the Resolución’s forward turret unleashed both barrels simultaneously. The twin muzzles erupted with fire and smoke, and the shockwave hit the mainland seconds later, rumbling through the bones of every man on the platform. Birds scattered into the air. Waves rippled violently around the islet.

Through their binoculars, the observers saw the result: the islet’s tallest spire—once a proud slab of stone—was gone, pulverized into dust and rubble.

The next salvo came from the aft turret. Another boom, deeper and longer, echoed across the gulf. This time the impact struck the center mass of the islet, tearing a crater into the rock that sent debris flying into the sea.

By the fourth salvo, even the most stoic observers were visibly shaken. Sir William lowered his binoculars with trembling fingers. Colonel von Rheingold stared in mute silence. And Ambassador Villon’s face had turned a shade of gray, his knuckles white as they clutched the railing.

"She could level a coastal city in an hour," Villon murmured, almost to himself. "No fortifications would hold."

Lancelot didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

The final demonstration was a full barrage. All five main turrets opened fire in succession, their thunderclaps overlapping into a single, drawn-out roar. A haze of smoke blanketed the horizon. Isla Negra ceased to exist. What remained was a burning, cratered husk half-submerged in seawater.

A silence fell over the observation post.

Alicia stepped closer to Lancelot and whispered, "We’ve made our point."

"Now let them speak."

It was Sir William who broke the silence first.

"Regent Lancelot," he said, voice carefully composed, "I must say—your navy has... exceeded our expectations."

"You were right to doubt me, five years ago," Lancelot replied calmly. "Everyone did. But I had no intention of winning the last war. I prepared to win the next one."

Colonel von Rheingold gave a stiff bow. "I shall inform my Emperor of what I have witnessed. Prussia is grateful to have Aragon as an ally."

Then came Ambassador Villon.

He approached slowly, his expression unreadable.

"When I was posted here," he began softly, "we still believed you to be a prince playing at king. That your railways, your electricity, your factories—they were parlor tricks."

He turned to look out at the column of smoke where Isla Negra once stood.

"Now I see that you’ve built something terrifying. Something relentless. You’ve made war... industrial."

Lancelot met his gaze. "And your Republic has made war personal. We simply chose to scale it."

Villon swallowed. "Will you strike our city?"

"I’m not here to answer tactical questions," Lancelot said. "But if your capital sleeps peacefully tonight, it’s only because I haven’t given the order."

There was nothing left to say.

As the foreign guests departed for their carriages and ships, the sky above Cádiz shimmered with smoke and sunlight. The sailors aboard Resolución stood proudly at their stations, and below decks, engineers fed coal into still-hungry furnaces.

Lancelot remained at the rail long after the crowd dispersed.

He looked to the sea and imagined the horizon as it might one day be—not empty, but full of ships like Resolución, sailing beneath the Aragonese banner. Not to conquer. But to remind the world that some nations refused to be small.

Behind him, Alicia spoke.

"They’re afraid of us now."

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