Chapter 182

After weeks of field duty, I slumped onto my sofa, feeling as though my very bones were turning to jelly. I tossed the smartphone I’d been idling with over my head and let myself dissolve into the cushions beneath a heavy blanket.

“Haaaaah…”

For months, I had been scouring the frontier, dismantling cults and forcibly stuffing economic aid down the throats of the recalcitrant. Regardless of their original creeds, the likelihood of them congregating into a radicalized cell had plummeted. Of course, the chance wasn’t zero, and many remained stubbornly outside the Nameless Church—but what was the alternative? Was I supposed to massacre them? On what pretext?

The Continental Covenant was a state built on the separation of church and state. Most of the population viewed me as little more than a singularly powerful spirit, and those same people occupied every level of government. Was I to execute seventy percent of my own people? Preposterous.

Beyond politics, I simply lacked the stomach for it. I loathed the idea of slaughter for any cause. I hated the thought of forced imprisonment, coercive conversion, or killing those who wouldn’t listen. If a man from the twenty-first century is going to go through a trans-dimensional trip, he should at least pack a little integrity. Since I had been granted the power to shift the gears of history, I wanted to leave this world better than the one I found.

Whatever, I thought, pulling the blanket tighter. It’s not even my problem anymore.

They were citizens of the Covenant now, enjoying its bounty. The federal government could handle the rest. Their lives were improving, and as long as no one persecuted their faith, the desire for rebellion would surely wither away.

…

…

…

Wow.

Am I actually thinking about work on my first day off? Have I finally lost it?

Appalled, I kicked off the blanket and gave myself a sharp slap on the cheek. I hadn’t fought for this free time just to spend it worrying about the future. I immediately rolled over and flicked on the television, syncing my phone to launch Net-X-flix.

Unfortunately, the streaming service had stopped updating the moment I was pulled into this era. Since I watched it whenever I was bored, I had seen programs like Culinary Class Wars or Money Heist dozens of times; I could recite every line of dialogue by heart. For thirty years, this stagnant library and my game collection had been my only windows to the modern world. I had even resorted to devouring the lowest-tier B-movies and trashy dramas.

Lately, I had taken to stuffing my head with historical documentaries.

—”And so, the passenger ship carrying Leon Trotsky and numerous volunteers into exile in France was eventually sunk by an unidentified torpedo while en route to Spain. Here is the final communication record…

…We interviewed Professor Jameson of the Brown University History Department regarding the incident:

‘The most startling aspect remains the fact that the wreckage of such a massive vessel has never been located. Whether the attack was carried out by the Spanish Nationalists or, as some suggest, was an intentional move by the dictator Stalin to eliminate a rival, remains forever—'”

Click.

Dull.

I shook my head as I turned off the Net-X-flix Original: The Spanish Civil War—Prelude to World War II. What was the point of watching a documentary about a war that would never happen now? Whether Stalin exiled Trotsky or they danced a jig together didn’t matter in this timeline. Besides, documentaries were far less information-dense than my history comics. I disconnected from the service immediately.

I didn’t want to reread the comics I’d already memorized a hundred times, either. I was truly running out of entertainment.

But doing nothing is agonizing, I mused.

I had introduced soccer to the settlements once, spending years watching the tribes kick a ball around. That had lost its charm after a decade. I was bored of the knitting set my mother had left behind; I already had a stockpile of fifty sweaters. I had spent thirty years mastering swordsmanship and self-defense to ensure my safety, and while I took pride in my skill, I rarely had a reason to use it while holed up in Croatoan.

I was down to my final few stimulants.

First, there was camping. My gear, which had been gathering dust, finally found its purpose in this era. This continent was a camper’s paradise, incomparable to the cramped infrastructure of modern Korea. The New World was teeming with untouched natural wonders. I had visited the Grand Canyon during my time in California and had seen Niagara Falls during my trek to the Great Lakes. Sitting by a fire and grilling a steak amidst such grandeur was my primary solace.

Then, there was exercise—the quintessential hobby for the idle. It was easy enough to do indoors, but it presented a unique problem.

Has my muscle mass actually increased?

This body was static. While lifting crates felt easier than it once had, I had no objective way to tell if I was gaining muscle or losing fat. I only had the subjective sense that my dumbbells felt lighter and my movements were crisper. As I understood it, muscles grew by repairing micro-tears sustained during exertion. But since my body recovered instantly, did it actually strengthen, or did it simply reset to factory settings?

I kept at it, but the lack of visible progress was frustrating. I had tried everything from sipping whiskey to tending to vineyards, but everything was limited by materials and the slow crawl of time. High-age whiskey and fine wine were still decades away.

I needed a new spark. Maybe I should take up cooking again? No, I’d abandoned that ten years ago. What was the point when the local ingredients tasted like—

Knock. Knock.

The sound jolted me upright, my body rising from the sofa of its own accord. Assuming it was more work, I sighed and shuffled toward the foyer. Not wanting to look disheveled, I kept my voice tired but firm through the door.

“What is it?”

“My Lord, the fleet we dispatched to Asia has returned.”

“Oh?”

A new spark had arrived, and it couldn’t have been more timely. My eyes snapped wide, and I rushed to the bathroom to tame my messy hair. This was the second voyage. During the first, we had been so preoccupied with the Dutch East India Company’s demands that we hadn’t had the chance to secure it. We’d been forced to wait.

I changed into my traveling clothes with a heart full of anticipation and stepped outside to find the neighbors waiting to escort me to Croatoan’s eastern shore. Several ships sat anchored in the bay—clippers, sleek and majestic.

My hands trembled as I approached the docks. Sailors were busy unloading luxuries for the residents, while the captains stood in a tight huddle. Upon seeing me, they broke their meeting and hurried forward.

“Apostle! You’ve come to meet us personally?”

I took their hands, shaking each one with a solemn nod. “Think nothing of it. How could I do less for the heroes who have carved a new trade route for our Covenant?”

Their lips quirked with suppressed pride at my praise, but I was the one who truly wanted to laugh. I knew they had brought it—the one thing I had craved for decades. Of course, as a symbolic leader and head of state, I couldn’t abandon all decorum and ask for it immediately. I had to maintain my poise.

“And the clocks?” I asked, forcing myself to start with a different topic. “Did they serve you well?”

“Marvelously, my Lord! To know the precise time with such accuracy even on the high seas… it was staggering. It made the crossing safer than I ever imagined possible.”

The vessels of the Continental Covenant could traverse the oceans with an speed and safety that dwarfed other nations, and not merely because of the advanced design of our clippers. Even a common carrack or caravel would be transformed in our hands for three specific reasons.

“The clock,” the captain whispered, carefully returning a wrist-mounted device to my palm, “is a truly magnificent innovation.”

The chronometer. In the original timeline, a clock precise enough to withstand the vibrations and temperature shifts of a ship wouldn’t exist for another century. We had forcibly accelerated that history. With such a clock, a navigator could determine longitude; with longitude, a man knew exactly where he stood on the face of the earth.

“We stopped at the island near Madagascar, roughly at one hundred and thirty degrees East…” the captain explained, pointing to his charts.

That was the first advantage. The second was even more potent when combined with the first.

“On our return, we sought out that continent you named ‘Australia.’ The coastline was indeed immense!”

We possessed a complete map of the world’s continents and islands in an age where Europeans didn’t even know Australia was a continent or that Hawaii existed. The Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans were full of uninhabited islands waiting to be claimed as staging grounds for water and supplies. Knowing exactly where every reef and hazard lay allowed us to sail with impunity.

I had edited the world maps before distributing them, scrubbing twenty-first-century borders and place names and adjusting the longitudinal lines. The reason for the former was obvious; the latter was a matter of practical necessity. The Greenwich Observatory, the standard for the Prime Meridian, wouldn’t be built until 1675. I couldn’t use a non-existent landmark as a reference point. Our navigators needed something intuitive.

I chose Croatoan Island. In our world, this was Longitude Zero.

“And how long was the journey from here to the Indonesian archipelago?” I asked.

“Indonesia… ah, yes, as you call the East Indies. Including our diplomatic delays, it took roughly a month and a half.”

That was the final element: the routes. The currents taught in modern geography and earth science classes—the ones mapped in every school atlas—were the keys to the sea. We were the only maritime power on the planet that understood the global flow of the oceans, the location of every reef, and the means to determine our exact position.

I couldn’t help but offer a satisfied smirk. Within three or four months, our ships could complete a round trip to Southeast and East Asia. Which meant…

“Ah, I nearly forgot! The first commodity we secured from the Asian mainland…”

“Finally!” I blurted out, interrupting him.

“…”

“Finally,” I repeated, smoothing my tone, “you’ve found a crop suitable for cultivation in California! Excellent work!”

Unable to contain my excitement, I snatched the bundle from the captain’s hands. I showered them with praise and hurried through the ceremonial pleasantries before racing back to my house. Finally!

With a thumping heart, I tore open the package. Inside was rice.

My hands shook. It was unpolished, with the husks still attached. How do I do this? I wondered. Pound it in a mortar? Then winnow it to remove the chaff? Yes. Soon, very soon, I would be eating real rice instead of oat porridge.

…

…

…

I picked up a single grain and peeled it with my fingernail. It was long. No, it was… slender.

“…”

Surely not.

I spent two hours pounding the rice like a man possessed. I placed it in my electric rice cooker and offered a silent prayer as it hissed to life. Forty minutes later, when the cycle finished, the truth was revealed.

It was long-grain Indica rice. The dry, fluffy kind.

***

“Daddy! I heard Mr. Nemo crying again last night!”

“Hush, child. Those are tears of joy. He is weeping because those who were lost to the Lord’s word have finally found their way to repentance.”

***

…Those shameless long-noses. Of all the things to get mixed up…