In Europe, long before the literal flames of war erupted, an ominous haze of tension and the bitter scent of burning expectations filled the air. While everyone anticipated that conflict would ignite eventually, few truly grasped the sheer scale or the horrific brutality that awaited them. They were too busy salivating over the spoils they intended to seize once the dust settled.

They yearned for the glory of victory—a glory destined to be immortalized in history’s pages, a legacy that would endure long after their own lives had faded into oblivion. With an unwavering, feverish determination, they relentlessly pursued it.

Meanwhile, within the territories of the Continental Covenant, a similar impulse was taking root. The wealthy were looking for ways to preserve their own prosperity and prestige beyond the span of their natural lives.

It had been thirty years since the founding of the Virginia community. The apostles who once boasted of their youth were now entering their twilight years; some, like John White, had already passed away. The infants born in the first days of the Roanoke colony were now thirty-year-old adults, and those who had been thirty then were now sixty, surrounded by growing broods of grandchildren.

For many, the time had come to contemplate what lay beyond the threshold of life.

The newly affluent, having finally awakened to the full extent of their own desires, sought to manage the wealth they intended to pass down to their kin. But they faced a fundamental problem: they lacked a reliable vessel for accumulation.

“Do you have any Pounds on you?”

“Are you joking? Gold coins are so rare these days you couldn’t find one if your life depended on it.”

Currency was the most intuitive means of accumulating wealth. Following the recent unrest in England, exiles and immigrants had flooded into the Covenant’s lands, bringing their life savings with them. Naturally, most of that wealth was in the form of gold—precious metals were always the priority for migrants due to their high value-to-weight ratio.

Between the hoards brought by newcomers and the small piles of gold and silver coins saved by earlier settlers, foreign currency became the primary target for those looking to build an estate. However, the supply was finite. Aside from what immigrants physically carried in, there was no established channel for Pounds or Livres to enter the Union’s internal economy. As a result, the value of foreign coins plummeted into the realm of the impractical for factory owners and Abbots. After all, one had to be able to actually acquire an asset before one could speculate on it.

Then, people’s eyes landed on something else—an asset that was durable, portable, and, unlike gold, seemingly limitless in its potential for compressed value.

“Say.”

“Yes?”

“How many Othellos do you have in your possession?”

The Othello.

To Nemo, they were merely plastic game pieces from a 21st-century board game, but currency has always been driven by credit and belief. Since Nemo had originally introduced them as a medium for French merchants to exchange high-value gold Livres, their worth was instantly guaranteed.

Add to that the symbolism of their origin—the Angel’s own residence— and the “Othello coin” became a coveted prize. Everyone collecting the black-and-white discs believed their value would be shielded by celestial authority and that they were, quite literally, impossible to forge. It wasn’t just blind faith; it was a verifiable fact. The Othellos were products of 21st-century manufacturing, a technology far beyond the reach of any 17th-century counterfeiter.

Yet, even this wasn’t enough to satisfy the hunger for growth.

While the Othello was a stable store of value, it offered no hope of appreciation. It wouldn’t lose value, but it wouldn’t grow, either. For the Virginia elite, stability was a comfort, but they craved something that would increase in worth as it passed from parent to child.

“This whiskey was distilled nearly ten years ago in the Wild Chicken region near Pamlico Sound,” a merchant pitched. “We harvested local oak for the barrels, and as it aged, it developed this remarkably sweet yet spicy aroma…”

“Hmm.”

Even as they speculated, they continued to indulge. They ate, they drank, they wore fine fabrics, and they decorated their walls.

“Lately, the Angel himself has been requesting this spirit,” the merchant continued, sensing interest. “Now that he’s named it ‘Bourbon,’ it’s being traded not just here, but in France and Florida as well.”

“Is that so?”

One day, the wealthy stopped looking toward the horizon and began to scrutinize their own homes. They looked at the things they consumed and displayed with a new, mercenary eye.

“I must thank you for visiting our spirit shop,” a proprietor told a customer. “You’re quite lucky. We’ve been flooded with orders for our Bourbon, and this bottle is the very last of its batch…”

“How much?”

“Well…”

“As long as it’s within the limit of my Othello balance at the Chesapeake Central Market, I’ll take it.”

It seemed like a sound investment. And so, the era of the collector began.

***

It started with whiskey.

It was a relatively untapped field, and with the opening of trade with France, it was growing at a breakneck pace. The trend had been sparked by Henri IV, who, having been outmaneuvered by Oitotan, had begrudgingly marketed Bourbon as a “royal spirit.” The unfamiliar yet captivating flavor profile of “Virginian Whiskey” ensured the fad only intensified over the years.

If I buy this now, people mused, won’t its value hold—or even grow—long after I’m gone?

The realization spread like wildfire. Soon, liquor stores were stripped bare, and desperate investors began storming distilleries to buy up entire stocks of whiskey that hadn’t even finished aging.

The news eventually reached Taron, the Welshman who had climbed the social ladder from carpenter to shopkeeper to factory owner. “They say the King of France is buying up every drop of the sweet-tasting batches! If we buy a few barrels of similar quality and let them sit, we’ll be sitting on a gold mine without lifting a finger!”

“Oh!” his peers cheered.

Taron was a man easily swayed by the winds of profit. He scraped together every cent he had, amassing a significant sum. When he arrived at the distilleries, the Scottish workers treated him like royalty—a far cry from his days as a simple carpenter. The attention went to his head. He joined exclusive clubs, frequented high-end taverns, and began “accumulating data” on whiskey.

In this context, “accumulating data” meant one thing.

“To success!”

“To success!”

It meant drinking.

But it wasn’t all just revelry. Taron watched as taverns sprouted like weeds around Glenangel, a once-desolate Scottish settlement. He saw the local Scots build inns next to their distilleries to accommodate the influx of enthusiasts. They opened their facilities for tours and even purchased small steamboats to ferry guests back and forth with ease.

Taron was witnessing the rapid innovation of an industry suddenly flooded with capital. As the money poured in, people began the meticulous work of assigning specific values to different blends.

“There are notes of pepper, a hint of vanilla, and a very strong cherry finish,” an amateur sommelier noted.

“Weak vanilla? Then it’s inferior.”

“Ugh, this one smells of the sea. Discard it immediately!”

Collectors began to distinguish between the sublime and the mundane. Initially, it was just a matter of following general tastes, but once each bottle became a serious investment, the standards became exacting. A tiny variance in flavor could result in a price difference of an entire Othello chip. Enthusiasts paid handsomely for these nuances, savoring both the complexity of the spirit and the thrill of the profit margin.

A new class of professionals emerged—tasters who could expertly grade dozens of whiskeys and set their market value. They, too, made a fortune.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Oitotan said, visiting a local gathering. “Do you drink whiskey here as well?”

“Haha, indeed we do. We hope the Ambassador enjoys it…”

Oitotan took a sip and winced. “Faugh. This is low-grade swill. The bite is too aggressive.”

The hosts paled.

“Drink this instead,” Oitotan offered, producing a bottle. “The apple aroma is much more pronounced.”

These strict, refined standards formed in Virginia were soon exported back to the Old World through Oitotan. People in Scotland, Ireland, England, and France began to consume Virginian whiskey with religious fervor. As the demand grew, so did Taron’s expectations.

I wonder how much my barrels have appreciated? I bought them for three Othellos apiece… surely they’ll fetch at least eleven now…

“Two point four Othellos,” the appraiser said flatly. “That’s the best I can do.”

“What did you say?” Taron stammered.

“The batches aged the following year were significantly richer and had a more distinct character. The value for this entire vintage has plummeted…”

“That’s bullshit! You’re lying!”

“…”

“Noooooo!”

Alas, not every investor finds their fortune. But even as bubbles inflated and burst, the whiskey industry continued its relentless expansion.

The craze didn’t stop at spirits. Investors poured their wealth into art, recognizing that as people expanded their original colonial homes, they needed decorations to fill the walls. Others collected high-end camping gear and related crafts, mimicking the tastes of the Nameless One, whose penchant for the outdoors had turned leisure camping into a status symbol.

Others still looked toward the more traditional havens of gems and precious metals. This sector was dominated by English exiles, who recognized that the residents of the Covenant—many of whom came from “gentlemanly” stock—secretly longed for the “aristocratic” and the “ornate.”

In every field, the same transformation occurred: clubs formed, producers aggressively expanded, and rigid, detailed evaluation criteria were established. Extravagance bloomed across the Union, and the mansions of the wealthy became increasingly crowded with finery. Since labor was scarce—no one in the Covenant was particularly interested in being someone else’s personal servant—the houses remained modest in size but grew exponentially in opulence. Cabinets were packed with paintings, crafts, whiskey, and wine.

The value of these items fluctuated wildly, yet the general trend was upward. These were assets that would hold their worth long after their owners were in the ground. Simple desires coalesced into bold ambitions. The hope for wealth that would not only endure but multiply over generations took deep root.

“Lord Nemo, are you concerned about this spread of luxury?” a concerned citizen asked.

“Pardon?”

“Many monasteries are loosening their ascetic rules. There’s drinking and dancing everywhere…”

“It’s fine,” Nemo replied with a shrug. “I like it when people are happy and enjoying themselves.”

***

I wasn’t a historian, but after living in this era for thirty years, I had a decent grasp of the last few centuries of European history. I often thought of Zurich under Calvin—a city governed by pious, ascetic, but soul-crushingly strict and boring rules.

Whenever people like Hewitt or the more devout Puritans suggested we should regulate luxury, I’d picture that version of Zurich. To a man who had lived in a secular, modern society, it seemed like an absolute nightmare. I had no intention of building such a world.

In truth, I didn’t even have the power to do so. Not that I lacked authority or influence, but rather because this society functioned in a way that was fundamentally alien to my East Asian upbringing.

We all view the world through the lens of the society we know. East Asians, including Koreans, are accustomed to a world where the state defines everything. We often project that framework onto other societies, distorting them to fit our expectations.

Take the role of the Church in pre-modern Europe. A modern Korean might think, ‘Oh, the Church was part of the state and handled certain administrative duties.’ But the reality was the opposite. The Church was not part of the state; it existed as a separate entity entirely. The state simply outsourced certain functions to it.

It’s the same with education. In Joseon, the Seonggyungwan was a state organ for training bureaucrats. If the state fell, the Seonggyungwan vanished. But Oxford and Cambridge do not exist “under” the Kingdom of England. They are independent organisms, living with their own DNA, like mitochondria within a cell.

In that sense, our society is more European than East Asian.

The Agricultural Knights. The Nameless Church. The Union Trade Company (formerly the Virginia Trade Company), and the Navy that shares its fleet. These groups weren’t created by me to fit into a pre-designed master plan. They formed themselves. They are not organs of a single state; they are different organisms living in a symbiotic relationship.

The Knights, who handle production and land distribution, might look like a government agency, but they are autonomous. They simply cooperate with the central administration. The Trade Company, which holds the monopoly on British trade and distributes the profits, is only loosely allied with the government.

It’s like the Demodex mites that live on human skin. They eat sebum and secrete acids that protect us from bacteria, but they aren’t “part” of the human body.

Our community is not a single organism where the brain (the government) sends commands to the limbs (the agencies). It’s an ecosystem.

When the Knights produce, the Trade Company sells and distributes, and the government steps in only to resolve disputes over that distribution. When the Trade Company expands its “multi-level” network to distant tribes, the Church follows, and the Knights eventually settle the land. If the government goes to war, it sends a request to the associations. The Trade Company donates ships to the Navy, and the Knights refit their tractors for combat to protect the community.

There is no single brain in an ecosystem. There is no absolute ruler.

I am not the head of this state. I am simply the gardener who pulls the weeds and prunes the branches.

This garden won’t look like this forever. Just as the seasons change and different flowers bloom and die, the Agricultural Knights will eventually evolve. How long can we keep giving away twenty-five hectares of land for free? Perhaps a day will come when the Virginia government is forced to levy taxes on its citizens.

Who knows how long this spiritual and social fervor will last? Who can say if the Industrial Monasteries will maintain their current form? Like all societies, this one will change over decades and centuries.

In the meantime, I will watch and offer help where I can. People continue to grade fine wines and whiskeys and hoard art. I watch them, but I don’t interfere.

It was a good sight to see.