Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 760: Where the Future Was Forged
Chapter 760: Where the Future Was Forged
The morning chill clung to Innsbruck like a patient ghost, not yet winter, but close enough that breath carried on the air in faint white wisps.
The mountains were draped in a soft blue haze, the last leaves twisting down along the wide boulevards with each passing gust.
The city had grown in the decades under his rule, yet the streets felt the same as they always had in those rare, quiet mornings before the day remembered what century it belonged to.
Bruno walked with a slow, unhurried rhythm, hands in the pockets of a simple workman’s jacket.
Not princely attire, not military regalia, just canvas, wool, and comfort. The sort of clothes he used to wear as a boy in his past life, before everything else had ever happened.
Before empires. Before reincarnation. Before he embarked on a lifelong crusade to defend civilization from itself.
He seemed, on first glance, like any older Tyrolean making his way to breakfast. His hair had long turned silver, matching the trimmed beard he now kept out of preference rather than necessity.
Lines sat on his face like soft etchings, carved by a life lived twice over. His gait was steady, though heavier now, as if every memory had its own gravity.
Few people spared him more than a passing glance.
Good.
He preferred it that way.
Ahead, the warmth of a café spilled onto the street, golden light, glass windows fogged by the scents of coffee, butter, and roasted chestnuts from a vendor cart.
The tables were nearly full: workers in rough cloth, clerks in tidy shirts and suspenders, a scattering of students in uniform who whispered nervously over textbooks.
Bruno chose the outdoor seating, under the striped awning trembling lightly in the cool wind.
He set down the folded newspaper he’d tucked beneath his arm and nodded to the waitress, a girl no older than sixteen.
She recognized him only as another patron; she smiled the same way she smiled for everyone else.
He liked that.
“Coffee, black…” he said gently. “And… eggs and bread, please.”
“Of course, sir,” she chirped, and hurried inside.
He settled into the chair, adjusted his coat, and let his eyes drift down the street.
A column of schoolchildren marched past in matching uniforms, boys on the left, girls on the right, accompanied by two teachers and a trio of Catholic nuns in white habits edged with Tyrolean green.
The boys wore their cadet stripes proudly, boots polished, shoulders straight, voices low. Not soldiers. Not yet. But they carried themselves with a kind of embryonic discipline that always brought Bruno a quiet satisfaction.
The girls were moving in step with them, baskets in their hands. Each wore the emblem of Heidi’s charitable order stitched onto their sleeves: The Order of Saint Notburga.
They distributed canned food, blankets, and small parcels of winter clothing to the handful of poor and wandering souls who lingered at the edges of the district.
A policeman approached one such drifter, gaunt, wrapped in a threadbare coat, and instead of barking at him or demanding papers, he placed a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder and guided him toward the schoolgirls.
One girl offered him a tin of soup. Another gave him gloves she had knit herself. No arrests. No shouting. No batons. Just care, order, and competence.
Exactly as Bruno had intended the world to be.
He turned his gaze back to the folded newspaper. The headline was grim:
HEAVY FIGHTING CONTINUES AROUND MANILA… CENTRAL POWERS FORCES SURROUND CAPITAL
Another, smaller column reported:
AMERICAN LOSSES MOUNT IN SICILY… GENERAL STAFF CALLS FOR REINFORCEMENTS
He skimmed the text, eyes calm, detached. He had long ago learned how to read casualty reports without letting the numbers bleed into his conscience. Emotion was a luxury generals could not afford. Empires even less so.
The waitress returned with his breakfast, setting the plate and cup gently before him.
“Thank you, miss,” he said.
“You’re welcome, sir.”
As he sipped from the coffee, a few children trotted past the café, laughing. One boy wore a wooden sword at his side; another held a tattered book featuring a heroic depiction of the German Eighth Army on the cover.
A girl scolded them both for running too fast. The chastising nun sighed, muttering something about “energetic little devils,” but even her frustration was softened by affection.
Bruno let the sounds settle around him: the chatter of patrons, the bicycle bells, the distant hum of electric trams gliding down their rails.
Above, the faint shimmer of the Tesla resonance tower atop the engineering institute flickered, its web-like halo transmitting power invisibly across the city.
Airships drifted in the sky beyond the rooftops, their shapes slender, elegant, and whisper-quiet.
High-speed trains hissed along their elevated rails in the distance, carrying workers toward factories and foundries that ran cleaner than anything he had ever imagined possible decades before.
Solar panels glinted faintly on the rooftops; wind turbines turned lazily from structures designed to make them part of the architecture, not an intrusion.
Germany had modernized faster than the world could comprehend, yet still held its soul, its churches full, its families intact, its traditions alive.
A rare thing… a fragile thing.
He set down his coffee cup and whispered the words before he realized he had spoken aloud:
“I used to rule the world…”
The line drifted from his lips like an echo of a dream. He smirked, an amused, almost boyish expression he hadn’t worn in years. A song no one here would ever hear in this lifetime.
He chuckled faintly at the absurdity of it and returned to his eggs.
A pair of elderly men at the next table debated loudly about the efficiency of wireless-charging tram routes.
A woman in a blue dress fussed over her toddler’s boots. Somewhere a church bell rang, calling morning mass to its pews.
The world moved on, untouched by fear.
A peace paid for by the blood of strangers in places most Tyroleans would never see.
Bruno finished his breakfast and unfolded the newspaper again. A small article on the second page caught his eye:
KING WILHELM ADDRESSES THE REICHSTAG… “THE EMPIRE WILL NOT BE PROVOKED INTO MADNESS”
He read that line twice. And then shook his head.
As he took another sip of his coffee, someone accidentally bumped his table. He looked up, expecting an apology, and found a schoolgirl standing there, red-cheeked and flustered.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, bowing quickly. “I didn’t see you.”
He smiled gently. “No harm done.”
Her eyes flicked to the newspaper, but only for a moment; then she hurried off to rejoin her group. Bruno watched her for a heartbeat, then placed his hand flat against the newsprint.
War in the east. War in the west. War in the Pacific.
And yet here, in this small circle of civilization, life was calm enough that a child bumping into him was the most chaotic thing that had happened all morning.
He breathed in deeply and exhaled the tension from his shoulders.
A tram chimed as it passed. Electric engines thrummed. The smell of roasted chestnuts drifted from the vendor’s cart.
Peace. Not the brittle, fearful kind. A cultured peace. A built peace. A fought for peace.
A peace that existed only because he held back the darkness with both hands… and never allowed himself to falter.
Bruno folded the newspaper neatly, placed a tip beside his empty cup, and rose from his chair. His knees protested only a little. He had survived harder mornings.
He stepped into the street, blending into the slow-moving crowd of workers heading toward their shifts.
A few nodded to him out of courtesy, thinking him just another older gentleman beginning his day.
He relished the anonymity. It reminded him that the empire no longer needed him to stand on a balcony to reassure them. It stood on its own now.
As he walked past a group of students preparing to board the tram, he heard one of the boys reciting aloud from a history text:
“…and while the world plunged into conflict in the early twentieth century, the German people flourished under stability, unity, and disciplined reform…”
Bruno smirked again.
If only they knew.
He turned into a quieter street, where the autumn leaves gathered like small armies in the gutters.
Birds were chirping from the rooftop gardens above. A young mother pushed a stroller. A baker opened his shop door, letting out a wave of warm, yeasty air.
Bruno paused, closed his eyes for a moment, and let the sunlight fall across his face.
In another lifetime, he had watched his world decay, watched it rot from inside, watched civilization collapse beneath its own weight. Entropy had won once.
But not here, not now. Not while he still breathed.
He whispered a final thought to himself, soft, firm, and satisfied:
“Against all odds… the world is becoming what it should have been.”
Then he continued down the street, another old man in a peaceful city, alone with his thoughts while distant battlefields burned.
And for now, for this moment, it was enough.
