Oskar lay on his back in the wet sand for a long moment, chest rising and falling as the rain cooled the heat still trapped in his skin.
The taste of salt still clung to his lips.
His heart still hammered with the aftertaste of stupid courage.
And in his hand—like proof the sea had not swallowed him—was the torn remainder of the reef shark.
He stared at it, then at the gray sky, and laughed once, breathless.
"Crazy bastard," he muttered at himself.
Then his stomach reminded him of something far less poetic.
He was hungry.
That was the part the world always forgot when it wrote about heroes. It forgot that heroes had bodies—and bodies ran on fuel.
Oskar was a man built like a siege engine: over two meters tall, close to two hundred kilograms of dense muscle and bone, a metabolism that burned like a furnace. On heavy days—training days, fighting days, days like today—ten thousand calories was not gluttony. It was maintenance.
So, without ceremony, he brought the shark meat to his mouth and bit down.
Firm. Dense. Chewy.
Raw flesh that should have tasted like horror… but didn't.
He chewed, swallowed, and felt a strange, ridiculous satisfaction bloom in his chest.
It tasted… fine.
Not delicious. Not "civilized."
But not disgusting either.
Like chicken, in the blunt way the mind translated everything it didn't want to think about.
He ate until the strip dwindled to nothing, until only bone and ruined cartilage remained. He tossed the remains aside, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and let out a satisfied burp that felt almost comically human after what he'd just done.
The rain thinned. The clouds drifted inland.
And then the sun broke through.
Warm light poured down over the coastline, turning the wet sand into gold and his pale skin into something almost luminous. For a heartbeat he simply sat there and let the heat sink into him, watching the convoy's dark shapes draw closer as tugboats guided them toward the half-built harbor.
He almost forgot himself.
Almost.
Then the sound came.
A soft, familiar buzzing.
Oskar's whole body twitched on instinct—one ugly flash of memory from another life: drones, rotors, death falling from the sky.
But this wasn't a drone.
It was worse.
It was a mosquito.
The little bastard settled on his left shoulder as if it owned him. Oskar watched it calmly, almost curious, as it pressed its needle nose to his skin and tried to pierce.
It failed.
The tiny proboscis bent slightly, like a weak blade meeting armor.
Oskar smirked.
Then the mosquito tried again.
And again.
Stubborn. Patient. Infuriatingly confident.
On the fourth attempt, it finally found a softer angle and pierced.
Oskar felt the faintest sting—and then the insect began to drink.
Slowly.
His blood was thick—dense, heavy, almost wrong in its richness. The mosquito's abdomen swelled with effort, like it was hauling a stone up a hill through a straw.
Oskar let it have one second.
Just one.
Then his hand came down with a flat slap.
A tiny burst of blood speckled his skin.
He stared at the smear, then cursed softly.
"Damn mosquitoes… little bastards."
And as if the sea and jungle heard that curse and took it as a challenge—
more came.
One. Two. Five.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
The air around him began to buzz as if the world itself had turned into a living hive.
Oskar slapped, flailed, snapped at them with irritation rising into genuine fury.
But it didn't matter.
This place didn't have "mosquitoes."
It had mosquitoes the way war had bullets.
An environment weapon. A constant pressure. An enemy you could not intimidate.
For the first time since diving into shark water, Oskar's confidence cracked into something closer to disgust.
Tarzan fantasies died fast out here.
"Alright," he muttered. "Enough."
He grabbed what remained of the shark bones, then immediately realized there was no point—he wasn't going to stand here and eat while being drained alive by a swarm.
He dropped the bones and ran.
Barefoot, half-naked, in white underclothes, hair still wet, Oskar sprinted down the sand like a lunatic prince fleeing a war fought with wings and needles.
The buzzing followed him.
Not a few insects.
Not an annoyance.
It thickened.
The air itself seemed to vibrate, a living haze rising from wet ground and rotting vegetation. The mosquitoes did not scatter when he ran—they pursued, relentless, tireless, born for this place in a way no man ever was.
The "swarm" became a cloud.
Oskar cursed and plunged forward without thinking, diving toward the river mouth as if it were salvation.
It wasn't.
The water swallowed him, warmer than the sea, thick and brown-green, carrying the weight of the land itself. Silt clouded instantly around his body. Visibility collapsed to arm's length. This was no clean river—this was brackish water, the uneasy marriage of salt and fresh, a place where rules blurred and predators adapted.
Something brushed his leg.
He kicked instinctively and pushed deeper.
Under the surface he caught glimpses of life that felt wrong in its abundance:
fish flashing like silver knives; pale, jointed crabs clinging upside-down to mangrove roots; long, smooth shapes slipping away into the murk; something flat and wide—stingray-like—pressed against the bottom, so still it looked like part of the mud until it shifted.
The water was alive.
Hungry.
He powered through, lungs burning, muscles driving him forward as if force alone could make this place obey. The current tugged at him sideways, trying to pull him into channels he could not see, into darker water that smelled faintly of rot.
Then his feet hit something solid.
He surged upward and hauled himself onto the opposite bank.
The ground was not real ground.
It was sand mixed with roots and mud, half-solid, half-living. His weight sank an inch with every step. The surface squelched and shifted as if it resented being trusted. Mangrove trees clawed at the shoreline, their exposed roots arching like ribs, slick with algae and insects. Everything smelled wet—wet wood, wet leaves, wet decay.
This land did not dry.
It fermented.
Oskar took three steps before a sharp movement caught his eye: a snake sliding off a low branch, body thick and patterned, dropping into the undergrowth with a sound like wet rope. Another rustle followed—something heavier retreating just out of sight. He felt eyes on him that he could not locate.
Then the mosquitoes found him again.
Instantly.
Not drifting in.
Not approaching.
They erupted from the shadows as if the forest itself had exhaled them.
Oskar slapped his neck, his shoulder, his ribs—blood smeared across his skin, not all of it his. He hissed in frustration and pushed forward, deeper, where the vegetation grew thicker and the air heavier.
And as he ran, it became brutally clear why no one lived here.
Not because of a single great danger.
But because of everything.
Water that drowned slowly.
Ground that never truly held.
Insects that drained you while you slept.
Snakes you never saw until it was too late.
Heat that never relented.
Rain that never truly ended.
This place did not kill quickly.
It exhausted.
It infected.
It eroded.
And only men foolish, stubborn, or powerful enough to fight it every single day could hope to stay.
Oskar ran anyway.
Because somewhere ahead—beyond the buzzing, beyond the roots and mud and hidden teeth—there were axes.
Steel on wood.
Human noise.
Order being forced into the green chaos.
And then, between the trees, he finally heard it clearly.and loudly.
Axes.
Saw teeth.
Someone yelling, "Ah fuck!"
But mostly, he just heard the rhythmic crack of wood splitting—steady, relentless, like a heartbeat made of iron and labor.
He followed the sound like a starving man follows firelight.
When he broke out of the rainforest into a cleared lane, the world snapped into focus.
Not wilderness.
Work.
A thousand men—no, more now, because the convoy behind him was bringing another wave and turning this place into something that could actually grow. For three months the island had been under constant assault: day shifts, night shifts, rain shifts. Every hour wrestled from rot and insects. Every meter of ground fought for and made to hold.
German workers moved through the clearing in disciplined chaos.
Teams hauled logs thicker than a man's torso. Others drove stakes and laid crude frames for future structures. Lines of men dug drainage trenches and ditches that cut the earth like scars, directing water away from where crops would one day grow and where foundations would someday need to stay dry. The work was muddy, humid, punishing—and yet the system held.
Because the men weren't barehanded peasants.
They were equipped.
Waterproof leather boots—thick soles, reinforced toes.
Gloves that covered wrists and forearms.
Goggles against sawdust and insects.
Helmets… and on top of the helmets, mosquito veils—nets hanging like ghost fabric around faces.
Even the children had netted hats, moving between adults like little beekeepers, eyes wide, cheeks smeared with sweat and curiosity.
And everywhere, smoke.
Campfires ringed the work sites in dozens of small circles, fed stubbornly even after rain—wet wood, oil-soaked scraps, whatever would burn. The smoke hung low and bitter, stinging the throat, clinging to clothes, soaking into hair.
It wasn't comfortable.
But comfort wasn't the point.
It drove back the mosquitoes—at least enough that the men could work without going mad.
Oskar felt his breathing ease the moment the smoke touched him.
Disgusting.
Wonderful.
Smart.
Good discipline.
Then the workers saw him.
The entire clearing froze in a ripple.
Because the Crown Prince of the German Empire—huge, pale, scarred, bare-chested, wearing only white underclothes—stepped out of the jungle like some myth that had gotten lost and wandered into the wrong story.
Wet blond hair slicked back.
Icy blue eyes calm.
Rainwater still dripping from his skin.
For a heartbeat nobody moved.
A foreman opened his mouth, unsure whether to salute, scream, laugh, or call the doctor.
Oskar lifted a hand casually.
"At ease," he said, breathing hard, smiling as if this was completely normal. "I'm just checking how you're doing."
Several men exchanged looks that said: That is not a normal sentence.
But it was a normal prince, they realized.
Their prince.
The one who did stupid things and survived them.
Behind the line of workers, the real machines of the operation moved.
Trucks.
Not many, not yet, but enough to matter—Muscle Motors work-trucks with thick tires and high clearance, roaring and coughing through mud, dragging loads that would have taken fifty men and a prayer in the old system. Some were fitted with crude makeshift cranes: timber frames, pulley blocks, chains, and winches, lifting cut trunks up onto flatbeds.
Steel and rope. Human ingenuity. A bridge between eras.
Oskar's eyes tracked it all automatically.
This wasn't a colony scene.
This was an industrial front line.
Karl wasn't here yet. That was obvious. Karl would have already been shouting, already trying to wrap him in a towel, already turning this moment into paperwork and a medical report.
Without Karl, the men simply stared.
Oskar walked past them along the logging trail, ignoring the stares, ignoring the mud sucking at his feet, ignoring the heat and humidity clinging to him like a second skin.
And with every step the reality of the place became clearer.
He had chosen this island because it was empty.
Because no village hugged this ground.
Because no nearby tribes farmed it, lived on it, buried their dead here, or marked it as sacred. There was nothing to "take" from people—only the raw, hostile geometry of nature.
And the geometry was perfect.
Ten kilometers long from the sea mouth to the inland river narrowing. Two kilometers wide at most. A long, narrow cucumber of land pinned between the Sanaga's branches and the Atlantic itself—river to both sides, sea to the west.
A natural lock.
A choke-point that could be held with walls and guns and bridges.
A port that could become the mouth of everything inland.
A corridor that would one day carry rail, trucks, and bauxite—red soil turned into aluminum, aluminum turned into aircraft, aircraft turned into power.
He had chosen it because it was the best foundation.
Now he understood something else.
It was empty for a reason.
This place wasn't "unused."
It was unwanted.
The ground was too soft. Too wet. Too shifting. The air too thick. The heat too constant. The rain too stubborn. The insects too violent. The water too full of things with teeth.
A man could die here in a dozen ways without ever hearing a gunshot.
Shark water at the mouth.
Crocodiles upriver.
Stingrays in the shallows.
Snakes in the roots.
Bees or wasps that hit like flying knives if you disturbed the wrong tree.
And mosquitoes—an army so small you could not fight it, carrying sickness like invisible bullets.
A death trap.
A slow grinder.
A place that didn't kill quickly—just steadily, through rot and fever and mistakes.
No wonder nobody lived here.
Oskar's mouth curled faintly.
"Good," he murmured. "Then we won't be displacing anyone."
And in the old world—in his old life—he had learned the only way human beings ever defeated places like this.
You didn't "live" in a swamp.
You remade it.
His mind flashed to China, to the city of Suzhou—built in the marshland and waterways of the Yangtze delta. A city that had no right to last, no right to become stable, no right to become wealthy… except that people had forced order onto water with canals, piles, drainage, stone, and patience.
Then he remembered the stories of the Finish capital Helsinki—marshy, cold, awkward ground—turned by the Russians into Finland's capital because location mattered more than comfort. The foundation wasn't the soil. The foundation was the position—what it controlled, what it connected, what it protected.
That was what this island was.
A foundation of geography, not comfort.
And geography could be exploited.
Comfort could be engineered.
This island would not remain nature's.
If they stayed, it would become theirs.
Ahead, the clearing widened.
And there it was.
Southern Bauxi Town.
Not a town yet—not truly.
But the bare roots of it.
On the western end, close to the sea, the harbor works were already visible through gaps: piers, stacks, cranes, warehouses half-framed. But most of it was hidden behind the outer ring—because the very first priority had been defense and control.
A wooden palisade wall—simple for now, but functional—wrapped the core like a crude fist. Guards with mosquito net hats, and dressed in gray coats and black boots stood on platforms with rifles ready, scanning treelines and riverbanks as if expecting the jungle itself to attack.
There was only one main gate open—a thick wooden throat in the wall—and from it a dirt road ran inland to the logging site.
That road forked.
South: a bridge nearly complete, reaching toward the southern bank—timber and iron, still raw but holding, the first link of expansion.
North: nothing but cleared ground and stumps. Survey stakes. Men with axes still fighting to make room so the northern bridge could even begin.
Around the town itself, another project had already started:
Drainage.
Ditches and pipe trenches fed into channels, redirecting water away from where foundations and crops would be. And near the town's perimeter, the first concrete and stone works had begun—an early sea-wall and flood barrier, not yet encircling the whole island, but enough to protect the core where people slept, stored supplies, and built the port.
Oskar felt something settle in his chest.
Satisfaction.
Not because nature was being destroyed.
But because nature was being replaced—not with chaos, but with order.
Here, there would be fewer mosquitoes.
Not because God had blessed the land.
But because men had built fire, smoke, drainage, walls, and discipline.
Soon it would be steel pilings driven deep until the swamp screamed.
Stone embankments.
Concrete sea walls.
A raised city that could withstand floodwater and tides—so long as it was maintained like any machine worth keeping alive.
And Oskar knew, looking at this hellhole, that there was only one word for what would have to happen next.
Not "settling."
Not "building."
Terraforming.
Oskar walked toward the unfinished fortress-port, rain drying on his skin, mosquitoes thinning behind him in the smoke.
Hellhole or not…
He had chosen this place.
And now he would force it—slowly, brutally, intelligently—to become livable.
He would remold it into his image.