Stripped down to their sweat-soaked linen undershirts, Aldo, Hano, Comtois, and Adelberd haul supplies in heavy, rhythmic labor. Their skin glistens under the fierce light, dirt and salt caking their shoulders. Heavy wooden longboats rock against the stone steps, their hulls dipping low under the expanding pile of supplies.
Hano heave a fifty-pound sack of grain off a wooden pallet, his face flushed deep red. His knee wobbles slightly as he slings the rough burlap sack over his left shoulder, the rough fibers digging into his damp shirt. He staggers toward the boat's edge, his chest heaving as he lets the heavy sack fall with a dull, dusty thud onto the wooden planks below.
"Damn it," Hano wheezes, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of a calloused, dirty hand. He drops his hands to his knees, leaning forward to catch his breath as his dark hair hangs in damp, matted clumps across his forehead. "I was an ordinary high school kid in Tokushima Prefecture! I spent my afternoons hanging out at convenience stores, drinking iced tea, and worrying about how to talk to the girl sitting two desks away in class. How did I end up carrying cargo in an alien port? No Elf, Catgirl. Life is lame..."
Beside him, Comtois approaches the edge of the wharf, his big frame dripping with perspiration. He barely pauses before bending down and hoisting a fifty-pound wooden barrel of freshwater onto his broad shoulder with a single, fluid thrust. The heavy timber barrel settles against his neck as if it were filled with light feathers. A broad, easy grin breaks across his face, his dark eyes gleaming with energetic humor as he flexes his right biceps.
"Consider it a free gym membership, Hano!" Comtois chuckles, his voice booming across the water. He drops the barrel into the longboat, where it lands with a heavy, hollow boom. "Back in Incheon, I was a total gym rat. While you nerds were ruining your eyes over textbooks, I was doing deadlifts and training in combat sports. Honestly, coming to this world was a relief—at least here I don't have to listen to old men preach Confucian garbage."
Adelberd, standing nearby in the shade of a stacked row of armory crates, pauses in his work. He holds a heavy iron-bound wooden box filled with spare crossbow bolts in both hands, his knuckles turning white under the weight. He blinks, his bright blue eyes narrowing in genuine confusion as he tilts his head toward the muscular youth.
"Confucianism?" Adelberd asks, his voice crisp and even despite the muggy heat.
"Don't get me started!" Comtois scoffs, waving a dismissive hand as he turns back to the quay. He grabs a second barrel, lifting it with a swift, explosive pull. "I hate Confucius! All that endless, suffocating nonsense about absolute obedience to elders, filial piety guilt, age hierarchies, and suffering quietly for 'societal harmony.' It's a system designed to crush a young guy's spirit! Give me physical strength, simple logic, and a world where no one tells me what to think."
He slams the second barrel down beside the first, causing water to splash through the bung hole.
Aldo steps up to the edge of the stone terrace carrying a heavy flour sack across his shoulder. His face remains entirely blank, his features set in an unreadable mask despite the thick beads of sweat dripping from his chin onto his collar. He tosses the sack onto the growing pile, the white powder puffing up into the stagnant air, before pulling his damp collar away from his neck to let the faint sea breeze touch his skin.
"You talk too much, Comtois," Aldo says flatly, his dark eyes fixed on the longboat's load line. "Muscle doesn't buy grain when the harvest fails."
Hano lets out a weary laugh, leaning his lower back against a stacked wooden crate. He crosses his arms, looking up at Aldo with a raised eyebrow and a mocking grin.
"Oh, right, the robot speaks!" Hano teasingly says, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Come on, Aldo, what was your grand life before this?"
Aldo doesn't blink. He steps under the shade of a canvas awning, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks out over the crowded harbor.
"I was a straight-A student in Tuyen Quang province, Vietnam," Aldo says flatly, his voice devoid of any nostalgia or emotion. "I studied sixteen hours a day. National exams, advanced mathematics, macroeconomics. I didn't have friends, I didn't go to convenience stores, and I didn't lift weights. I studied systems. And that is why I know how we are going to survive in Heilop."
The four young men move toward a row of thick oak casks resting in the shadow of a warehouse wall, sinking onto the rounded timber staves to catch their breath. Around them, the harbor hums with activity: sailors singing monotonous work chants as they haul on thick lines, iron hammers ringing against steel plates in the shipyards, and the sharp whistles of harbour officials echoing off the high stone batteries.
Hano leans his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs as he stares out at the sparkling blue waters of the bay. His smile fades, replaced by a quiet, contemplative air.
"So what is our actual philosophy here?" Hano asks, turning his head slightly to glance at Aldo. "We keep talking statecraft, but what do we stand for?"
"Pragmatism," Aldo states instantly, his tone razor-sharp and without hesitation. He looks straight ahead, his dark eyes cold and focused. "Moral principles are luxuries for states that aren't broke or at war. If a policy secures food, maintains order, and guarantees our survival, it is correct. That is all."
Hano shifts on his cask, crossing his arms over his chest as he shakes his head slightly.
"I call it Utilitarianism," Hano counters, his voice firming up with intellectual conviction. "The greatest good for the greatest number. State Capitalism works because it builds a material safety net for the broad masses. If we have to restrict political rights early on to prevent chaotic feudal civil wars, the net result for human welfare is still positive."
Comtois leans back against the stone wall, reaching into his pouch and pulling out a piece of hard, dry hardtack biscuit. He pops it into his mouth, the loud, dry crunching sound filling the quiet space between them. He shrugs casually, his broad shoulders rising and falling.
"I'm apolitical," Comtois says around a mouthful of crumbs, his tone completely unbothered. "I just want a state strong enough to keep collars off our necks, where I can work out, eat fresh meat, and beat up anyone who tries to oppress us."
Hano turns his head sharply toward the far end of the row of casks. His eyes lock onto Adelberd, who has been sitting completely silent, his posture straight as a ramrod, his gaze fixed on the iron fittings of a nearby cannon.
"What about you, German?" Hano asks sharply, his voice cutting through the ambient harbor noise. "Back on the ship Julia, you were talking about Prussian discipline. What's your actual ideology?"
Adelberd hesitates for a fraction of a second. His bright blue eyes narrow slightly, cold light reflecting off his pupils. Slowly, deliberately, he stands up straight from his seat, his heels coming together with a faint click as his posture turns instantly rigid, his chest thrusting out.
"I was a Gymnasium student in Schweinfurt, Bayern," Adelberd says firmly, placing heavy, deliberate emphasis on the word Bayern. He looks down at them, his eyes hard as flint. "I was training to be an industrial engineer. I do not care for western liberal slogans or socialist pipe dreams. Freedom without order is just chaos."
He steps forward, his boots planting firmly against the stone dock. He looks each of them dead in the eye, one by one, his voice dropping an octave into a cold, unwavering rhythm.
"As for My values, they are simple," Adelberd declares, his jaw tight with unyielding conviction. "Anti-Liberalism, Anti-Socialism, the absolute Supremacy of the State, a State-Directed Economy, and the Leader Principle. A nation must function like a perfectly engineered machine. If Heilop is to survive, we must forge it with iron discipline, unyielding authority, and absolute civic duty."
Hano stares at him for two full seconds, his jaw slightly slack, before he lets out a dry, breathy laugh, shaking his head in absolute disbelief.
"Unbelievable..." Hano mutters, a faint, sarcastic smirk playing on his lips. "Three earthlings, three total dictatorships in the making."
As dusk falls across the Almathea Archipelago, the deep orange glare of the setting sun paints the sky in bruised shades of purple and gold. The stifling midday heat gives way to a cool, damp sea air as the tide begins to turn. Down in the dark, dry lower holds of the three galleons, the last of the wooden crates, flour sacks, and water kegs are lashed down tight with heavy hempen netting and thick rope knots.
The three hundred and twenty young slave-soldiers assemble on the wooden decks of the Julia, Cealina, and Maria, standing in quiet, orderly ranks as the evening shadows stretch across the water.
On the quarterdeck of the flagship Julia, the female captain stands leaning over the heavy teak railing. In her right hand, she grips a newly stamped clearance document from Mayor Fontana's office, the heavy red wax seal gleaming under the stern lantern light. She reaches up, adjusting her tricorn hat until it sits low over her eyes, then looks down at the assembled recruits filling the main deck below.
"Listen up!" the captain shouts, her deep, raspy voice carrying clearly across the still, dark water of the bay. "We've cleared Almathea harbour duties! Make fast the lines and haul the anchors!"
She unrolls a crisp leather sea chart against the top of the binnacle, pointing the heavy brass tip of her telescope toward the darkened southeast horizon, where the open ocean meets the night sky.
"We set sail immediately for the sugar plantation colony of Ambustus, four hundred and thirty nautical miles southeast!" she bellowed, her voice cutting through the sudden rush of the rising evening wind. "Five days to Ambustus, followed by Lactuca Island four days after that, before our fortnight-long trek across the open ocean to Sapocitradansia! Secure the riggings!"
A flurry of sharp action bursts across the three ships. With a deep, groaning metallic clatter, the heavy iron anchor chains are hauled up through the hawseholes, the capstan bars creaking under the strain of muscles. High above, sailors scramble along the wooden yards, cutting loose the gaskets.
Massive canvas sheets drop down from the towering spars with thunderous snaps, instantly catching the powerful offshore trade wind. The heavy wooden hulls of the galleons tilt gracefully into the rolling ocean swells, slicing clean through the dark, foam-flecked water.
The three ships glide past the volcanic headlands and the flashing optical signal towers. Behind them, the glowing yellow lanterns and the sweeping white light of Almathea City slowly shrink, fading into the dark, misty expanse of the night sea.