"It's just an old story…" he began. "About how someone hidden from sight grew greedy enough to desire the whole world."
It all began about a hundred years ago, with the story of a man kept out of sight. Maximilian Forman. That was his name back then. Forman was the son of a low-tier farmer. Nothing about him really stood out — except, of course, his greed. From a very young age, he showed an insatiable hunger, a corrosive envy. He despised everyone who looked down on him. He hated the entire village, the kids in town who bullied him just for being poor, and even his own family — for he believed they were the ones who had doomed him to such a life.
As I said, Forman was a poor child. Born the fifth son of a laborer who had no proper land to his name, who managed to buy half a hectare with a bit of factory work and a mountain of debt, and an ordinary English woman who could barely read. He was neither the eldest nor the youngest. Due to the family's circumstances, he hadn't set foot even a meter outside his village until maybe his teenage years. His whole world had been that cramped village. Like the rest of his family, he worked the fields. And he hated every second of it. Every swing of the scythe, every bite of stale bread, every bundle of barley he gathered — he loathed it all. He hated his abusive father, his alcoholic older brothers who beat or berated him daily, the younger siblings he thought were dead weight, and even his mother — simply for giving birth to him.
He hated waking up with curses on his lips, hated the thorns that pierced his feet through his torn shoes, hated the nights when his small body could take no more and simply shut down. He hated how his father disappeared only to be found in other women's beds, hated the bullying he endured in town because of his father's reputation, and most of all, hated not being able to access the books he so desperately wanted — simply because he had no money.
And the hatred in his eyes only grew, day by day. By the time he was thirteen, both of his older brothers had run away from home, his father had gone missing for good, and Forman himself had contracted tuberculosis. The burden of the entire household had fallen on his shoulders. Everyone in the family now depended on him. He had to carry it all. Feed them, run the household, keep things afloat — it was all on him.
For about a year, he endured. And in that year, his hatred only fed his greed. He thought to himself: Why should I be trapped on some wretched farm when I could conquer the world? What did Caesar have that he didn't? Was it his half-worn shoes? Or what made him any less than those conquistadors who burned with dreams of El Dorado? Every night, his plough-dreams were lit by visions of golden cities.
And eventually, he snapped. One cold winter night, he left it all behind. The same door he had stormed out of so many nights cursing — that night, he danced through it with joy. As if he were leaving a burning village behind, laughing.
When he fled, he didn't have a single coin to his name. Just the cheap dreams circling in his head and the legs barely strong enough to carry him. He knew nothing. Couldn't read, couldn't write, spoke in a thick accent that would get him mocked by any so-called gentleman. His hands knew only fieldwork.
He arrived in Manchester with nothing — zero. From the plough to the wool-spinning machines, he put his calloused hands to work. He worked until they blistered, until his mind was too numb to hold a single thought. Perhaps he was exhausted, but to him, he was free. There were thousands of taverns to waste money in, thousands of prostitutes to lie with. He could sink into sin as deep as he pleased. And that's exactly what he did.
By seventeen, he was still scraping by, living like a king in the gutter. But it wasn't enough. He was still a small man. His boss spat in his face, the upper crust mocked him, and insults trailed him everywhere. He asked himself: What's missing? Why am I not Caesar? Why not Alexander? What did they have that he lacked? Why, when others conquered empires, was he slaving away in a factory for pennies? Why was he beaten by foremen and clinging to scraps?
That question rotted him from the inside out.
Still, he carried on with his routine. Bottling everything up. He hadn't forgotten his greed — just paused it for another bottle of wine. Until, at last, things came to a head. At eighteen, despite hating the very idea of unions, he joined one — just for a few extra coins. Then one day, when the entire factory went on strike, he crossed the picket line for a promised 30% raise.
The dispute escalated. He set the entire factory ablaze. That day, he stared into the flames with hollow eyes. It was the day he finally lost whatever scrap of morality he might've had. The union declared him a hero. Manchester's most infamous man. But the city had no idea it had bred its own monster.
After that, he slowly climbed the ladder, using the union's connections. He rose high enough to start his own business. He stepped into the world of commerce — dozens of trades, dozens of deals, one after another. At first, things went quite well for him. But then came the debts — neck-deep. The loans he took to grow his business started to choke him. His investments began to collapse, one by one. Each economic tremor of the era left him wounded.
Every day, debt collectors or police showed up at his doors — either because of the horrific violence he inflicted on his workers or the revolts triggered by the wretched working conditions. True, he could bury these scandals with his growing political influence. But it wasn't enough. Each day, his profits thinned. Each day, he inched closer to ruin. He tried stepping into politics, but failed on several fronts. He just couldn't find a foothold.
The young man had burned through ten years of his life like that. And he was dangerously close to returning to where he started — to zero. Forman was a clever man, though. Around that time, he had learned the ropes of shipyard management. He moved all his investments to Liverpool. From port operations and other ventures, he began making some money again — only to waste it in wine and prostitution, just like his father and brothers had.
Whenever trouble arose, his so-called wit and political pull usually saved his skin. But none of that changed the fact that his entire fortune was melting away. So, he treated his workers with brutal contempt, paid them as little as humanly possible, and when a strike or rebellion loomed, he unleashed mercenaries on them — with no hesitation, no mercy.
He was no man of compassion. But when it came to profit maximization, he played the role of a tolerant boss well. Until he couldn't anymore. He lost all patience in those final strikes. He didn't hold back. He crushed dissent with a cold fury, didn't bat an eye even when guts spilled onto the dock. He forced workers to sign contracts under duress, preventing them from quitting.
And ironically, everything came full circle — ready to end just as it had begun.
One day, a 14-year-old boy working at the docks could take it no longer — and set the entire shipyard ablaze. Forman lost almost his entire investment that day.
But he didn't give up — not for a second. He had become obsessed with finding his El Dorado. He kept telling himself he would surpass both Caesar and Alexander. And for that, he devised one last plan.
A ship blueprint — one that could use the best of current technology at the lowest cost, easy enough to mass produce, and versatile in function. A frigate that could brave the howling storms of the North Sea, yet still navigate narrow rivers with ease.
And its first voyage would be...