Reincarnated as the Crown Prince-Chapter 56: The March South

The sun refused to rise cleanly over Madrid the next morning.

It was as if the sky itself had become unsure—ash-colored and slow, casting a pallid light over the rooftops of a city that refused to sleep. Smoke from foundries mixed with mist in the avenues. Telegraphs clattered nonstop from the central station, relaying reports from every corner of Aragon and beyond.

In the palace war room, Lancelot sat surrounded not by nobles or ministers, but by spies.

The walls were shuttered. Chandeliers dimmed. Maps replaced by blot-stained scrolls and intercepted communiqués. Seated across from him were four men and women—no names, just code designations. They worked in shadows, spoke in facts.

"Multiple stockpiles confirmed," said Falcon, pointing to red ink circles along the southern coast. "Manzanera, Ubrique, Carmona. Mostly black powder, but some foreign-grade rifles. Smuggled in through old Bourbon networks."

"Foreign support?" Lancelot asked.

"Ships bore Britannian registry. But it could be a ruse," Raven added. "Or worse—it’s real, and Britannia’s hedging its bets."

"And the peasantry?"

"Agitated," said Wolf. "Priests preaching anti-machine sermons. Nobles funding pamphlets warning against ’iron tyranny.’ It’s working. Small towns are already turning."

"They’re trying to redefine progress as oppression," Lancelot murmured.

"Exactly," said Raven. "They’re making the engine a symbol of conquest."

The chamber door opened. Juliette stepped inside—no gown, no tiara. Oil-stained overcoat, a canvas roll under one arm, and steel in her posture.

"You’re discussing retaliation," she said. "Let me speak about reconstruction."

Lancelot nodded. "You have the room."

Juliette unrolled her canvas across the war table. It wasn’t a battle map—it was a town plan. Roads. Aqueducts. Schools. Power stations. But also watch towers. Medical tents. Trenches. And a new symbol: Civic Brigade Headquarters.

"We’ve left behind builders. Dreamers. Teachers. But they’re defenseless. So we train them. Uniform them. Arm them not just with rifles—but responsibility."

"You’re proposing a militia?" Falcon asked warily.

"A civil corps," Juliette corrected. "Workers who protect what they build. Not soldiers with blueprints—citizens with shovels and rifles."

Raven leaned forward. "You’re trying to make the worker the new soldier."

"No," Juliette said. "The new leader."

There was silence. Then Lancelot spoke:

"Approved. Begin recruiting in towns already connected by rail. I want thirty brigades in place within two months. Let Madrid become a training hub."

"Already underway," Juliette said. "They started before I even suggested it."

Three days later, the wires from Arcos del Sur went dead.

No signal. No telegraph clicks. A lone rider arrived, clothes torn, face ashen.

"The town has fallen," he said. "Reformist mayor hanged in the plaza. The water station set on fire. The aqueduct smashed with cannon fire. They’ve raised the old banner—the red and black eagle of the ancient feudal houses."

Juliette gritted her teeth. Lancelot folded the message.

"Did the people resist?"

"They tried," the rider said. "Students. Engineers. But there was no time. No support."

Lancelot turned to Alicia. "We leave by nightfall. Get the Iron Serpent ready."

The Iron Serpent—Madrid’s armored train prototype—was originally built to move heavy equipment through bandit territory. It had been reinforced with steel plating, outfitted with emergency searchlights, and refitted with basic medbays and a mobile telegraph room. It had never carried royalty before.

But it would now.

Juliette refused court garb. She wore her welding coat and boots. Her gloves were slung on her belt like pistols. Lancelot wore the gray-and-black uniform of the Civic Commission. The crown remained behind in a drawer.

They boarded the train as dusk fell, steam hissing from the undercarriage. Workers lined the platforms—some saluting, others silently watching. None cheered. But all followed with their eyes.

The Iron Serpent rumbled south into the dark.

***

The smell hit them first—ash, oil, burnt paper. The fields had not been harvested; the trees had been cut for barricades. Black smoke clung to the rooftops, and every window was shuttered or broken. The once-beautiful town square was scorched, and the aqueduct had been deliberately collapsed at the central arch.

The Iron Serpent halted two kilometers outside the town. Lancelot, Juliette, and their armed engineers disembarked.

They marched not in ranks—but in resolve.

There were no trumpets. No fanfare.

Only the clatter of tools and boots.

At the gates of Arcos, resistance fighters stirred—young men armed with rusted muskets and armbands bearing the noble crest. One stepped forward.

"You come with tools, not guns," he sneered.

Lancelot didn’t answer. He handed the man a folded blueprint.

The man scoffed, glanced—and froze.

"This is..."

"A plan for water," Juliette said. "For light. For a future. You burned it once. You’ll rebuild it now."

"You think we’ll follow?"

"No," Lancelot said. "I think your neighbors will. We’ve already started in Carmona. And Ubrique. We’re not here to negotiate. We’re here to fix what you destroyed."

A long silence passed.

Then, behind the speaker, an old woman stepped from the shadows—followed by two children, soot on their cheeks.

They held broken lanterns.

"I don’t care who rules," she said. "Just bring back the light."

And with that, the spell of resistance broke.

The speaker lowered his gun.

And the Civic Brigades moved in.

They didn’t arrest. They rebuilt.

Power cables were rethreaded. The aqueduct’s breach measured and scaffolded. The town square cleared.

And everywhere Juliette went, they followed.

They did not call her princess.

They called her Ingenera—the Builder.

***

While the Iron Serpent crawled across the southern frontier, the embassies of Britannia, Glanzreich, and Napoli met in secret behind velvet curtains.

"He’s bypassing trade," the Britannian ambassador said. "Routing infrastructure through rebel territory. Ignoring customs."

"He’s not ignoring," the Glanzreich envoy replied. "He’s replacing."

The Napoli delegate slammed a fist on the table.

"This isn’t modernization—it’s annexation through plumbing."

They passed around the newest telegraph intercepts—Juliette’s field declarations, Lancelot’s call for regional planning councils, and civilian-military school blueprints.

"He’s not just changing Aragon," the Glanzreich envoy said grimly. "He’s changing the language of power itself."

The meeting ended without resolution.

But outside the building, protestors had already gathered—some chanting "Clean Water for All," others waving noble flags.

The storm had grown international.

***

Juliette oversaw the first water flow into Arcos del Sur’s newly rebuilt cistern. It was not grand. It was not pretty.

But when the valves turned, and the fountain hissed back to life, the crowd didn’t cheer.

They cried.

The first cup was handed to the same old woman from the plaza.

Lancelot watched from a nearby rooftop.

He said nothing. free𝑤ebnovel.com

But he felt something shift—not just in Aragon, but in himself.

This was no longer a campaign.

It was a reckoning.

And far off, beyond the horizon, smoke curled over yet another town.

More ruins. More fires.

But the Iron Serpent was already preparing to move again.

And Aragon would not stop.

Not anymore.

***

That evening, as twilight settled over the ravaged rooftops of Arcos del Sur, the bells rang for the first time in weeks.

They didn’t ring for a mass.

They didn’t ring for nobility.

They rang because the engineers had reconnected the automated hammer-clocks to the central grid, and someone—some anonymous hand among the workers—had pulled the activation lever. One by one, mechanisms stirred to life. The gears of the clock tower groaned, then turned. The old bell tolled across rooftops and alleyways like the voice of a city waking from a long coma.

Children peeked from behind shutters. Women emerged from cellars. And men who had once raised muskets now raised their caps in silence, heads tilted toward the sky as if the sound itself was sacred.

Juliette stood beneath the tower, staring up at the chimes.

"Do you hear that?" she asked softly.

Lancelot stood beside her, arms crossed. "Hope has a sound."

Juliette turned toward him, face streaked with soot and rain. "They’ll fight harder now. Because they’ve seen that we won’t just promise change—we’ll dig it out of the rubble with our bare hands."

Lancelot nodded. "And that frightens our enemies more than rifles ever could."

From the hills beyond Arcos, Civic Brigade scouts arrived breathless and mud-stained.

"Sir," one saluted, handing over a message canister. "Dispatch from Carmona. Another water relay bombed. Saboteurs caught fleeing toward the coast. They carried Glanzreich documents—naval vouchers."

Lancelot opened the note. The writing was coded but clear.

Sabotage confirmed. Arms via Britannia. Funds via Napoli. Local execution by loyalist priests.

He passed the paper to Juliette, who read it in silence. Her eyes narrowed, not in fear—but in focus.

"They’ve stopped pretending," she said. "The old world isn’t just reacting anymore. It’s retaliating."

"Then we stop pretending too," Lancelot replied.

He motioned for the Iron Serpent’s operator. "Ready the next phase. We don’t just repair now. We connect."

"Connect?"

"To Granada. To Seville. To the holdouts. No more waiting for invitations. The revolution isn’t local anymore."

Juliette laid a hand on the Iron Serpent’s hull, the steel still warm from its journey.

"We’re not building for Aragon alone."

"No," he said. "We’re building for every nation still held hostage by the past."

—

Two nights later, Juliette stood alone beneath the reconstructed arches of Arcos’s aqueduct, now reinforced with steel girders and lantern wiring. The wind carried the scent of rain and coal. In the distance, the Iron Serpent released a long, slow whistle—a call and a promise.

She reached into her coat and pulled out a charcoal pencil.

And on one of the bricks—hidden but not secret—she scrawled:

"They burned the bridges.

We built railways."

—J

Then she stepped back, let the rain begin to fall, and walked toward the waiting train.