Chapter 5: The Forest of Madness

After the snap, Isaac found himself in the shoreline of a forest, only with the 5 androids. It appeared to be around midday.

After taking a first glance around, Isaac realized that he was in a military outfit, but with a single different detail from his normal General outfit, he had 6 stars, not 4, on his shoulders.

"General of The Armies, huh…"

"Sir, please give us some orders."

Finally noticing the androids, Isaac said "Huh? Yeah, yeah. Josiah, order one of the robots to build a temporary settlement. Nothing big. As for the others 3, I want them to go around the closest resource deposit and…" suddenly, he realized that his voice didn't appeared to be from a man with almost 100 years. "Come here, I want to use your polished finish as a mirror."

"Here we go, sir."

Looking at the mirror-like finish, Isaac realized that he didn't had the usual appearance of a 92-year-old, but like someone with, at most, 25.

"ha..haha…hahahaha!!! Young again!! At least my back doesn't hurt anymore! Hell yeah!!!"

"Sir?"

"Ahn, uhh… Nothing. Please, relay my orders for the team. Also, I want to know how you multiply. I want to get as many of you as possible."

"For us to multiply, we only need enough resources. We can do the rest autonomously."

"Excellent" Isaac said, satisfied "Can you fetch me a map, please? I would like to make a war plan. I intend to march south, to the Duchy of Swor. While on the topic of the Duchy, please, can you tell me some statistics about that country, if you now any?"

"No problem, sir." Josiah responded. "It is a country located in the middle region of the continent. Has a middle grade coastline, with two great port cities. Occupies around 50 thousand square kilometers. Has a population of 1 million, and a small army of 50 thousand. Has a lot of natural resources, including oil, silver-"

"Hold up, Hold up!!!" Isaac yelled "Have you said oil?"

"Yes."

"Can we manufacture biodiesel and combustion engines with the resources we have around here?"

"Yes, sir. But why are you so happy because of oil?"

"With oil, we can export plastic and make pavement and gasoline."

"Oh, that is why." Josiah said "Anyway, continuing… silver, tungsten, niobium, silicates and other minerals like salts and enormous hydric resources. I also has an enormous amount of arable land, and great electric potential. As for its politics, it is very bureaucratic, feudalistic, corrupt and is poor, even in this world metrics. The top 100 richest individuals hold up to 70% of the country's total money reserves. The army is inexperienced, and poorly maintained. Over 50% of the defense budget is diverted to the nobility's pockets. The people of the country suffer with hunger, even though they are one of the most productive countries in the world, with a small population."

"Haha, excellent. Poor, hungry and defenseless. Perfect." Isaac said while laughing "By the way, how do you know all that?"

"During ownership transfer, our previous lord uploaded all these informations to my database."

"Oh, I see." Isaac said and the he heard a sound coming from behind. He looked back, and saw something akin to a pig.

"What is that?"

"It is a black hog. Very aggressive."

"Unn. How one conjures magic?"

"If I'm not mistaken, if you can see something clearly enough in you mind while thinking of making it appear, you can cast magic."

"Let's give it a test." Isaac attentively looked at the hog, and started to imagine a black spike coming out of the hog's shadow and penetrating it. Until suddenly…

"stab"

It stabbed directly trough the hog's neck, and decapitated it almost instantaneously. A clean an precise cut. After that, the black spike retracted.

"Excellent…" Isaac was in awe.

"Congratulations on using magic, Sir" Josiah congratulated.

After about more 2 or 3 hours of experimenting with magic, Josiah informed.

"Sir, the shelter you requested has been completed"

"Great!" Isaac exclaimed "Lead the way!"

After walking to the beach, Isaac saw an middle-sized house with a rather modern design. It didn't have any glass windows, however, there were spaces for them.

"Excellent house!!!" Isaac said with a wide smile "Way better than what I expected."

"Sir, there are also reports from the the units dispatched to the closest resource deposit. They found it to be a deposit of iron."

"Perfect!!! I want them to get as many iron they can. I want it to be refined and, if possible, be turned into steel. With that steel, I want to make as many guns as possible. I want one of the androids to go to the saltpeter deposit."

"Sir, would you prioritize android production or gun production?"

"Androids. How much time would you give to replicate one unit?"

"If we find enough gold and lithium, half day."

If I'm not mistaken, there is a great deposit of gold in about 300 km north. Does It have lithium?"

"According to my memory bank, yes it does, although in not extremely high quantity, it has more than enough to make about 2 million androids."

Isaac was stupefied "How much lithium does one of you take?"

"Not more than 50 grams."

"Oh, I see." Isaac said while calculating how much lithium would it take to make 2 million androids. "How far south is that oil deposit you said before?"

"About 500 kilometers. Why you asked such?"

"When we start invading Swor, I want an fleet of bombers prepared. They must be armed with chemical weapons, specially Chlorine and Napalm. I pretend to bomb some cities as an example. I will need the oil to fuel this fleet. "

"Would you like for us to make a research team to go ahead and study the reserve?"

"It isn't needed. We can make such when we get to the region."

"Yes, Sir."

"I would like some privacy now. I want to sleep a little."

"I will call you, sir, when the first batch of androids is ready."

"Excellent." Isaac smiled and went into the wooden house.