"I have to admit, it feels nice to take some proper rest once in a while."

Lying down on a comfy bed that I made with half of the blankets available on the s.h.i.+p I pulled Elia a bit closer in an attempt to find a tad more comfortable position.

"Isn't it? I just hope everyone will be okay both in the development area and in our own lands…"

Hearing those words, I couldn't help but tense up. As soon as we boarded Governor's riverboat, I somehow managed to detach myself from the problem of leaving those important places without proper supervision. After all, there was no point in worrying over something I had no influence over.

If everything would go according to the schedule, the trip to the Krakow would take between two and three days, with just as much required to deal with the royal summons and one day less for the return trip.

In the worst-case scenario, without any additional hiccups like the King making us wait for a few days or the bad weather making it too dangerous to travel through the rivers, the entire journey would last eight days at most, while in the best-case scenario, it could be limited to just four days.

Either way, despite leaving my managers with enough blueprints for both the construction areas and the machines for the carpentry plant to keep them busy for two weeks straight, we should be able to go back to the development area before they would run out of the work!

"Look at Tarnow. While I know that the complexity of brewing beer is far smaller than what we are doing at the mines, when we first started it, Matsu was completely foreign to this business. And look at it now, she is overseeing the entire thing and even doing her best to expand it with every last bit of her strength!"

As I spoke about this, I realised that while I was trying to accomplish a stable source of materials for my own lands, the excitement from developing a land took over my mind and made me forget a rather important part.

I was too important to waste my time on managing all the projects by myself!

Just like with Matsu and the beer business, just like with the Innkeepers and the food business or just like with Vlad and the spice… or nevermind. The thing was that all the businesses and inventions I introduced to this land had to be managed by someone else, to give me a free hand in continuing my journey of modernising the entire country.

"But didn't you say that they might be unable to do it just the way you wanted? Wouldn't that waste a lot of the time you invested in making all those steam horses and setting up those factories?"

Rubbing her head slightly against my chest, Elia said with a low voice, as if trying to mask something in it. Yet her words and the way she spoke about this topic was enough to prove that she was still feeling guilty for not staying behind to take care of those projects of mine.

"Dear, sooner or later, we would have to leave them to their own devices anyway. I just wanted to finish the carpentry so that this area would get a way to pay for its own expenses. But to be honest, I think it will be better if the people who worked in their respective crafts for a long time will decide how the specific machines will work. While I can take care of the logistic as setting conveyor lines and the outline of the factory is well within my means, when it comes to deciding what kind of tools would be of the most useful for the craftsmen… They are the ones that need to decide!"

While it was faulty, it was still the best way I could come up with to make her stop blaming herself for following her emotions. After all, we were a d.a.m.ned married couple, so if I allowed my dear wife to bother with such stupid things, I would be a failure of a husband!

"Okay then, let's not talk about the past, but look towards the future. What do you want to get from this trip to the capital? Seeing how reluctant you were to leave the mines behind, I guess you were either forced or bribed to go to the capital…"

Seeing that the topic finally changed from the one that put Elia in a bad mood, I took a moment to think my answer through, before suddenly rolling on the bed and putting her on top of my chest rather than allowing her to rest her head on my shoulder.

While our excentric wish to laze around on the open board of the boat was at first met with quite a lot of surprise from the sailors, given how long they had to look at us doing nothing but talking there while enjoying the comfortable weather of the early afternoon, they didn't pay us any mind anymore.

"I can't promise you that we will manage to get anything out of it, but from the simple fact that we were summoned to the capital, I can a.s.sume that the rumours about our growth reached the Zboros family. I just hope that if we spill enough compliments on them, we will get to receive some of the crown lands and maybe an investment in the road project?"

Even if the governor were sure that we could get something out of this time that we had to waste to travel back and forth on the Vistula, I wasn't so sure about it. If Zboros family wanted to pull the two of us into their faction, then no matter what, I would have to refuse them! After all, most of their influence came from the fact they were backing the King, and with his escape, anyone attached to their power would face the same backlash that they did!