“That tyrant James survived the blast at the Earl of Crawford’s residence?”

“Damn it all. That trick won’t work a second time. Our chance to sweep James aside with a single strike has vanished.”

The conspirators muttered in disappointment as the news reached them. In their grand design for the British Isles, assassinating James was merely the opening act—the necessary precursor to installing a new monarch and reorganizing their forces. Only then could they launch a full-scale offensive against the Liverpool Faction, normalize relations with Spain to secure foreign aid, and finally restore the Catholic Church to its former glory in this land.

But James had walked out of the ruins alive.

“Let him live!” one of them spat. “What can that tyrant actually do? He’s lost the very assets he used to bribe the great lords of Scotland!”

“He’s right!” another added. “Besides, the Liverpool Faction has been decimated. At least a fifth, perhaps even a quarter, of those self-proclaimed ‘members of parliament’ are dead!”

Their spirits remained high. Even a partial success was a massive victory in their eyes. The Liverpool Faction was paralyzed by chaos, and Scotland was currently a boiling pot of unrest. This was their moment.

“Brothers and sisters in faith! Rise!” the call echoed through the streets. “Rise and restore the teachings of the Lord to this land!”

Catholics across the country rose in rebellion. Their forces were fragmented, and personal ambitions prevented them from forming a unified front, yet this very lack of cohesion made them harder to eradicate. James and the Liverpool Faction couldn’t even identify the ringleaders, let alone arrest them.

“This is our only chance!” Guy Fawkes bellowed to his followers. “Take up arms now!”

“But, Mr. Fawkes… the timing…”

“I said rise now! Time is not our friend, but for this fleeting moment, it is our greatest ally!”

Fawkes was right. This was the critical window. While the King and the Liverpool Faction were locked in a stalemate, watching each other with suspicion and unable to move, the Catholics had a golden opportunity to liberate the English countryside and expand their influence.

“Long live His Holiness the Pope!”

“Long live the Faith! Death to the power of the Devil!”

They erupted in cheers, creating a massive wave of insurrection. The grievances suppressed through decades of persecution finally burst forth like a dam breaking. They were a numerical minority, but then again, the Protestants had once been a minority as well before Queen Elizabeth’s reign flipped the script. They had hope—or at least, they believed they did.

With ambition burning in their hearts, Fawkes’s followers took to the streets, occupying villages and towns, their voices raised in triumphant shouts.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Nemo let out a low, guttural groan.

“I’m going to… kill them…”

He hissed curses at the radical Catholics across the Atlantic, men whose faces he had never seen, but whose actions had just ruined his life.

***

Nemo wasn’t the only one in the Continental Covenant wishing death upon Guy Fawkes. In fact, he had plenty of company. Walter Raleigh’s situation alone was enough to explain why.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Raleigh asked, staring at a mountain of paperwork.

“I don’t know,” his subordinate replied, his voice trembling. “We’ve already promised so many trade goods to the tribes, and now we have nothing to give them.”

Ever since Nemo had explained the geography and potential of East Asia, Raleigh had been obsessed. Currently, the route from the Covenant to East Asia was agonizingly long. The western part of North America was a patchwork of sparse Spanish military outposts and indigenous tribes ravaged by disease and invasion. Central and South America were firmly in the hands of the hostile Spanish and Portuguese.

The path was blocked. To reach East Asia, one had to cross three oceans—the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Pacific—rounding the Cape of Good Hope and traveling more than halfway across the globe.

I don’t like it, Raleigh had thought.

But there was another way: pushing west. If they could reach the western coast of North America, they could trade directly with the East Asian world via the Pacific! Had Lord Nemo not revealed that wealthy yet militarily weak non-Christian civilizations awaited them? To Raleigh, it was a literal New World of trade routes.

The former privateer had already sketched out the grand framework for reaching the Pacific. But then…

“You’re saying we have no supplies to distribute?” Raleigh demanded.

They were trapped. The Continental Covenant’s expansion functioned on a very specific model:

—“I just have to leave my mark here?” 

—“Exactly. Do that, and these axes, knives, and mirrors are yours.” 

—“And if you bring the neighboring tribes into the fold, we’ll include muskets and glass beads as a bonus!”

First, they used a “multi-level” trade scheme to hook the indigenous people on modern goods. They were generous with their products—even to a fault—but it was always a profitable venture for the Covenant, as they received precious furs and exotic luxuries in return. Once a relationship of trust was established and the tribes became dependent on Covenant trade, they expanded the trading posts and began their missionary work.

—“We believe God descended in human form to atone for our sins. That is—“ 

—“Wait. He killed his son because someone ate a piece of fruit? Why didn’t he just forgive them? That seems like a lot of extra work.”

The missions didn’t focus on rapid conversion. Convincing people from an entirely different world to accept a foreign god was impossible in the short term. Instead, they focused on teaching the Covenant’s culture and customs to prevent misunderstandings, weaving religious explanations into the narrative. They didn’t destroy idols; the Covenant respected freedom of faith. If they had clung to hardline Christian dogma, they would have branded the natives as devil-worshipers and slaughtered them, but that wasn’t the way of the Nameless Church.

They chose to dye the cloth slowly, like a gentle drizzle soaking through a garment. It was the only way to spread influence in a society where non-Christians were the majority. Once a tribe was thoroughly integrated into the network, they were offered the chance to join the Covenant formally. If they met the requirements—a democratic political structure, a ban on slavery, and a minimum population—they became a member state.

By that point, the multi-level network was usually too deeply rooted to resist. Most tribes founded their own nations with the help of advisors from the Continental Congress and joined the Union without a second thought. Alternatively, they could merge with existing member states, which was how the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Shawnee, and the Iroquois League had grown so massive. Once the land was officially part of the Covenant, the Knights established their strongholds, the tractors rolled in, and the land was cleared for cultivation.

Expansion to the west of the Appalachians was an organic machine: the Navy and the Trade Company handled the multi-level commerce, the Nameless Church handled the proselytizing, the Continental Congress managed the political integration, and the Agricultural Knights handled the land.

But the first gear—the gift-based trade—was grinding to a halt.

They needed luxury goods from Europe to keep the tribes enticed, but their aggressive expansion had left them overextended. Now, tribes from all directions were demanding to know when their “gifts” would arrive. Local sentiment was turning sour, which paralyzed the missions. The Continental Congress’s expansion projects were falling behind schedule, and the Agricultural Knights were left sitting in their fortresses with nothing to do.

They were out of resources. The westward expansion had effectively ceased.

And the problems didn’t stop there.

***

The economic center of gravity for the Continental Covenant was shifting. In the early days, the continent-wide fur trade had been enough to sustain the community. Furs from across North America were sent to Britain, and luxuries from Britain were distributed back to the tribes. The Federal Trade Company raked in massive profits through this middleman role, providing the capital to order more ships, hire more laborers, and attract more immigrants.

But the share of this transit trade was shrinking. When the community numbered only tens of thousands, those profits guaranteed a life of luxury for everyone. But you couldn’t feed millions with fur trade alone. Nowadays, that trade was relegated to a tool for bringing new tribes into the fold and providing operational funds for the Trade Company.

The true pillar of the Covenant’s prosperity had become something else: the Agricultural Knights.

Their overwhelming productivity stemmed from the most mechanized agricultural system in the world. Each citizen was granted twenty-five hectares of land, and the Knights received thirty percent of the harvest as a “gift.” From that, the citizens gifted ten percent to the government, leaving sixty percent in the hands of the individual landowners. This ratio had been refined through years of adjustment.

The harvest was then converted into gold coins and luxury goods through trade with Britain via the Trade Company, which took a small commission for transport and brokerage. In short, the Knights grew the crops, and the Trade Company turned them into cash for distribution.

This federal agriculture, spearheaded by the Knights, generated astronomical profits. Britain was perpetually plagued by food shortages, and the Covenant’s cash crops were always in high demand.

But now, the trade with Britain had been severed. The cycle was broken. The Knights’ salaries, the citizens’ profits, the Trade Company’s commissions, and the government’s operating budget—all of it had vanished overnight. Since the current crisis fell under the Trade Company’s jurisdiction, they were forced to dump their massive reserves into keeping the system from collapsing entirely.

They were broke. Both the westward expansion and the community’s entire economy had ground to a halt.

***

“Lord Nemo? We don’t know how to handle this chaos…”

“…”

“Lord Nemo?”

It’s fine, Nemo thought. It’s just that the Knights, the foundation of our Covenant, are shaking, and the credibility of the gift trade, which is vital for our expansion, is crumbling. Nothing big.

The situation was dire, but he had a plan.

“Is it absolutely necessary to give them luxuries from across the ocean?” Nemo asked.

“Pardon?”

The subordinates had been operating on the multi-level system for nearly twenty years; most of them didn’t even remember how it had started. But Nemo did. He hadn’t aged a day in thirty years, and he hadn’t forgotten a thing.

“We just need to give the people in the interior what they actually want, don’t we?”

“Yes, that’s why we give them glass beads and mirrors and—”

“No,” Nemo interrupted. “Remember that our ironworks have expanded significantly and our productivity has been revolutionized. The natives have always prioritized iron tools. Why don’t we just substitute the luxuries with those?”

Tools had become a smaller part of the trade over the years because they were durable and didn’t need constant replacement, so everyone had overlooked them. But for those who didn’t have iron yet, a sturdy shovel was just as valuable as a silk ribbon.

“And send livestock,” Nemo added.

To people without domesticated animals, horses, cattle, chickens, and sheep were priceless. Distributing the community’s surplus livestock and teaching the tribes how to raise them would be a welcome change. Furthermore, helping those hunter-gatherers settle into a sedentary life wouldn’t hurt his long-term goals either.

This would patch the hole in the trade network for now. It was a card he could only play once, but that was fine. By the time they needed to provide new gifts, the current chaos would have been sorted out.

But there was still the issue of liquidity. The circulation of funds between agencies had stopped, and he needed a way to keep the engine running. It wasn’t just about the gifts; he had to pay the Knights, fund the public works, and manage a mountain of other expenditures.

The government was out of cash. Whether it was the administration trying to secure resources for road paving and cathedral construction, the Knights needing payroll, or the Trade Company running on empty—everything was about to stop. And if those three stopped, the nation was finished.

Fortunately, there was a way.

***

In a musket factory near Chesapeake, the gears were turning. This facility had seen explosive growth during the Florida War of Liberation. Founded by Scottish immigrants, the factory had been quiet since the war ended, but now it was bustling with activity again.

“I’m here on behalf of the Federal Trade Company to settle the accounts,” a clerk announced. “Is the proprietor… Mr. Jameson, present?”

“Ah! Come in, come in! I was starting to get nervous!” Jameson hurried forward.

News of the Catholic terror in England had spread through Virginia and Florida like wildfire. Everyone knew the Trade Company’s funds were frozen and that the government and the Knights were currently penniless. Jameson, who had a stake in the gift trade, had been terrified of a massive loss. But now, money had arrived.

“Here is the payment for the flintlock muskets the Trade Company collected,” the clerk said.

“Thank you! Thank you so much—wait, what is this?”

Jameson’s grin faded as he took the item the clerk held out. He felt a sense of wrongness. He pulled a crisp envelope from the clerk’s hand and broke the seal. Inside were several fluttering slips of paper.

—10 Othellos, issued by the Federal Trade Company.

Othellos? These?

Jameson waved the papers in the air, his confusion mounting. “What… what is this?”

“Exactly what it says,” the clerk replied calmly. “A bond.”

“Whose?”

“A bond of the Federal Trade Company. They’re calling it a ‘Government Bond’.”

And so, the bonds issued by the Federal Trade Company began to circulate in place of Othello coins and Pounds. It was the first bond ever issued by a public institution in this world.