They couldn't actually have flushed red from anger, could they?
Yet not the slightest change came over Sophia's expression; she merely swept a detached glance their way, and those several female lieges lowered their heads.
Beneath the spacious vaulted dome of the Hall of State Affairs, seventeen heavy national seals lay heaped crisscross upon the long table, refracting a glaring, icy light in the dazzling summer morning glow.
These tokens of authority, which had once symbolized the supreme sovereign power of seventeen independent nations, were at this moment like nothing more than a pile of cold, unwanted copper scrap, quietly awaiting the verdict of their new master.
The administrative officer Willow, wearing her signature gentle smile, used a pair of hands sheathed in white silk gloves to gather these heavy great seals one by one into a brass tray, her movements exceedingly light and graceful.
Upon the throne atop the high dais, Sophia slightly lowered those pale-gold pupils, casting a cold, detached glance over this heap of supreme authority that represented a full third of the Northern border's map, upon her cold, deadpan face not even a hair's worth of emotional ripple to be found.
Yet beneath that placid-as-water exterior, deep in the heart of the One who had been reborn, a heavy operating ledger had once again been flipped open.
By now the situation was no longer one of being so short of people; instead, the problem of a shortage of grain had once again surfaced.
Today she had taken in seventeen national seals....
This meant there were seventeen different local administrative districts that needed to be re-planned.
If Sophia were now to go along with these natives' fear—strip them all of their titles, demote them to commoners, or even drag them straight off to the mines—then the lowborn liege-subjects of these seventeen cities would inevitably sink into immense panic owing to the vacuum left by their old management layer.
Under such panic, never mind pushing forward the planting schedule of the new high-yield wheat—the internal attrition from merely quelling local friction alone would cause her main warehouses to lose a colossal amount of grain and bread.
Turning it over and over, the most cost-saving and also the safest asset-revitalization scheme was, on the contrary, to let this group of original masters—who were already familiar with the terrain—stay on as senior workers.
Use the Black Rose identity cards to lock down the lowest tier's economic lifeline; use Willow's auditors to sever their financial embezzlement; so long as defense fell into Delilah's hands, they would have no capital whatsoever to turn the tables, and could do nothing but honestly farm the land for Mason.
By then everyone would be fed full, and when the weather was favorable, the pace of development would only accelerate.
Thinking of this, Sophia reined in her somewhat scattered thoughts.
Those fingertips, fair as porcelain, lifted lightly against the armrest of the carved throne, and a sweep of black silk skirt-hem fell neatly into place with the motion.
Her cold, clear voice, like fine snow falling onto an ice sheet in the dead of winter, thunderously tore apart the suffocating dead silence within the hall.
"Willow, hand the documents down to all the City Lords."
"Respectfully obeying Your Majesty's imperial command."
Willow bowed slightly, then gave a flick of her slender hand.
A dozen-odd cold-faced inner guards holding their black muskets level immediately strode forward with heavy, exceedingly methodical steps.
With utmost cruelty, they slapped down seventeen fully transcribed copies—giving off the fresh scent of ink—of the Crimson Vulture Duchy's defensive loopholes and asset-confiscation inventory before these seventeen monarchs kneeling upon the ground.
King Berick trembling extended his fat hands and cradled that document in his palms.
When he saw recorded upon it the detailed accounts of how not a single grain of oats nor a single gold coin in the Crimson Vulture Duchy's storehouses had escaped being wholly sealed off by the Mason garrison camp, along with the brutal fact that the far western defensive line had been utterly destroyed by the white powder, his two thigh-bones could not help but begin once again to slam frantically against each other.
"From this day forth."
Atop the high dais, Sophia opened her mouth once more, that signature cold and detached vocal line carrying not a single trace of mortal impurity, so steady it made one's scalp tingle:
"Rhodes, Goran, Black Stone... these seventeen names, upon the map of the Northern border, have their independent ducal legitimacy fully abolished.
Your territories, from this morning onward, are entirely downgraded to cities directly subordinate to the Mason Duchy.
The Golden Lion, the bird-of-prey banners, and the like, which once represented the honor of the old era, are by decree to be burned on the spot in full within three days.
Replace them with the banner of the Black Rose, and merge into the unified circulation model of the new Order."
Hearing those words—downgraded to cities—the lips of the dozen-odd Old Kings kneeling below trembled in an instant beyond all semblance of composure.
They closed their eyes, having already prepared for the worst reckoning—that in a moment they would be chained up by the inner guards and escorted off to a lightless dungeon.
And even if they were not detained, surely they would be demoted to ordinary commoners?
Never mind—so long as the green hills remain, there's no fear of running out of firewood.
Had they not gathered here precisely to preserve their own lives and the lives of their families?
However, the silver-haired girl's next pronouncement struck like a divine grace bestowed by a god amid the ruins, leaving every mind utterly blank.
"As for you all."
Sophia propped her cheek with one hand, those pale-gold dead-fish eyes overlooking the crowd below without the slightest ripple:
"In view of the fact that your sincerity in handing over assets and submitting your national seals this morning was passable, This Queen permits you to remain in your original posts in your respective regions, not demoted to commoners, serving as the first generation of City Lords under the new Mason Order."
Sophia's fingertip rapped lightly against the long table, giving off a crisp sound.
"But within your cities you are no longer permitted to retain any private guard; all defense matters must, within one week, be entirely taken over by Delilah's force.
Shortly, Willow will dispatch resident administrative auditors into your City Lord's Mansions, to calibrate on a monthly basis your granaries, taxes, and the labor credits of displaced-people identities.
If, within this winter's autumn-harvest schedule, the new wheat output under your governance exceeds the workshop's baseline budget, Victoria will, as the situation warrants, record for you in the ledger a rather decent dividend appreciation.
On this, do any of you have any objection?"
The entire west Hall of State Affairs, in this instant, sank into a near-absurd silence.
King Berick even thought that his ears, owing to his all-night frantic dash, had produced some kind of mental hallucination.
Not killing them?
Not confiscating their estates?
And even...
their status as City Lords and their lives of fine clothes and rich fare had been preserved completely intact?!
And on top of that, they could even plant Mason's new wheat?
"N-no... no objection!!
Rhodes City accepts!! Long live Your Majesty!!"
That hoary-white-haired Old King reacted within one ten-thousandth of a second, his whole person trembling all over from the extreme excitement of having survived against all odds.
Even as he slammed his withered forehead viciously against the marble floor, he erupted into a voice-cracked, near-frenzied loud cry.
"By the Holy Light above!
Your Majesty's mercy is simply broader than the Rose Deity in the heavens!!
This old minister had originally thought that this very morning this head of his would be hung upon the city wall of Yurilland, yet Your Majesty is actually willing to let this old minister go on guarding the gates for the Black Rose's new Order!
What manner of epoch-transcending imperial magnanimity is this!
From this day forth, should anyone dare show even a hair's worth of discontent toward Your Majesty's rules here in Rhodes City, this old minister, forgoing food and sleep, will personally use the gallows to clean him out!!"
The crowd's switch in self-address from "This Queen" to "this minister" was, in fact, exceedingly smooth.
"Goran City fully honors Your Majesty's handwritten decree!! Long live Your Majesty!!"
King Berick too kowtowed with all his might, his fat cheeks smacking against the floor with a slapping racket, tears and snot smearing his whole face—that was a gratitude weeping forth truly from the depths of his soul.
For these small-nation rulers scraping out survival in the cracks of the old era, the illusory, intangible legitimacy of an independent kingdom, before Delilah's greatsword and the black muskets, was simply waste-paper too stiff even to wipe one's backside.
So long as they could preserve their families' lives, preserve their existing wealth and ruling position, they would even be willing to call Sophia their dear mother!
What was more, what had Her Majesty just said?!
So long as the new wheat's output reached the target, in the future they could even, within Mason's macro grand ledger so vast it had no edge, get a share of the dividend surplus belonging to the Black Rose identity card?!
How was this any kind of bankruptcy liquidation!
This was clearly this silver-haired Great Emperor leading this band of her underlings off to live the true god-like days of eating honeyed bread every day and drinking salted meat broth every day!!
And amid this flood of grateful thanksgiving that nearly overturned the dome of the Hall of State Affairs, the female liege of Black Stone City, prostrate at the very front, had at this moment in her pair of eyes an intoxication and fervor so thick it seemed about to draw out in threads.
She clasped a pair of plump, fair jade hands tightly together before her, her whole person as submissive as a deep-purple Persian cat that had been utterly tamed.
Listening to the commotion of those fools all around violently bawling their thanks, this shrewd middle-aged beauty let out, deep in her heart, a long sigh near to a moan.
Sophia, she truly is Divine Miracles.....
This is what a supreme empress who has toyed with the human heart and with power to flawless perfection truly looks like!
She does not even deign to use violent erasure to make manifest her authority.
She knows that demoting us to commoners would produce turmoil, so she uses this kind of vast mercy—near to a god overlooking the mortal dust—to turn us, these kings who originally harbored ulterior motives, this very morning, all into the most loyal, most incapable-of-betrayal senior slaves under her Black Rose system!
Dispatching auditors, taking over defense, using identity cards to control the lower tiers....
With this smooth set of maneuvers crashing down, apart from desperately helping her farm the land and dig the mines, we cannot even give rise to the faintest thought of resistance!
Yet what most stirs my heart...
is precisely this coldness of hers—treating us entirely as chess pieces, too lazy even to spare us a single ripple of emotion.
To be able to serve as the first City Lord of Black Stone City, forever watching the flow of that black skirt-hem of hers from below this long table—my half a lifetime's political scheming has at last found its true place of belonging.
Off to one side, another young queen of a small nation—
no, she ought to be called a female City Lord now—at this moment had also gone utterly limp before the steps, that pair of moist, big eyes locked dead upon Sophia's exquisite, deadpan face.
Heavens, I truly can't believe the Queen is only a year younger than I am.
Owing to excessive heart-stirring and trembling, her fingernails dug deep into the cracks of the marble, and that flush upon her cheeks had utterly transformed into the most absolute worship and dependence toward this silver-haired girl.
So long as it was a target set by Your Majesty, even if tomorrow she were made to personally take up a spade and turn the soil in the reclamation district, she would without the slightest hesitation hike up her skirt and charge to the very front!
Thinking of this, her eyes could not help but fall upon the several people behind Sophia, wondering in her heart: how on earth had these several women managed to stay at Your Majesty's side?
Atop the high dais.
Sophia still maintained that elegant posture of propping her cheek with one hand, her long lashes blinking faintly, those pale-gold dead-fish eyes quietly watching the scene of thanksgiving below churned into a pot of gruel.
Looking at those people kowtowing their heads against the floor with thudding cracks, and then looking at the several female City Lords in the front row—their faces so red they nearly gave off substantialized heat-steam, their gazes at her so sticky they could not be pried apart—Sophia, deep in her heart, silently let out her thirty-seventh sigh.
Though she had bought up all seventeen of these tariff fortresses in full without spending a single coin of military funds, which was indeed rather reassuring.
But... This Queen hadn't even said a single harsh word, so how was it that these people were each and every one as worked up as if the main warehouse at home had caught fire?
Sophia, rarely somewhat at a loss, rubbed her somewhat sore temples with her fingertips, looking at those few female City Lords in the front row whose very necks had flushed utterly red.
Look at how red their complexions were—even their breathing had quickened.
It seems....
Though their mouths offered a thousand thanks and ten thousand gratitudes, fully acknowledging the debt, deep in their hearts, over this compulsory transaction of This Queen forcibly downgrading their kingdoms' legitimacy into local cities, they had in the end still flushed red with anger right there on the mental plane.
The self-respect of these old royal houses of the Northern border was truly as sensitive and fragile as a piece of broken porcelain just out of the workshop's kiln.
But flushed red or not, they'd still have to go honestly plant wheat for me.
In their Mason, anyone who is a person has to work!
"Since there are no objections."
Sophia once again resumed that all-dominating, cold and detached air, slowly rising to her feet from the black-lacquered carved throne, her black Gothic gown casting beneath the morning light an exceedingly elegant slender shadow brimming with absolute majesty.
"Then sign your respective inventories, and before noon today, all of you roll back to your own territories to reconcile the figures for This Queen."
"Yes——!!
We ministers respectfully obey Your Majesty's imperial command! May the Black Rose forever bloom undefeated!!"
When those seventeen trembling, varying-faced City Lords had withdrawn—cradling documents stamped with the new Black Rose seal, bearing a near-frenzied awe and a tangle of complicated thoughts—everything that had transpired at the Yurilland Temporary Palace turned into an invisible blizzard that, at a suffocating speed, swept in full across the entire wilderness of the Northern border.
In the span of mere days, the utter destruction of the Olan Empire, the fifty thousand elites laying down arms along the long street, the three thousand far-western Crimson Vulture deathsworn reduced to ashes.
Along with the news of seventeen miniature nations submitting their national seals overnight and self-demoting into cities, this utterly shredded every last placid illusion of all the remaining old-era rulers of the Northern border.
And along the path of this storm's spread, the Mafen Duchy, somewhat farther from Yurilland, was at this moment sinking into an unprecedented terror and upheaval.
The Mafen Duchy had, throughout the entire map of the Northern border, always been an exceedingly peculiar existence.
Here there were neither obsidian fortresses as sturdy as Olan's, nor mineral-vein assets as rich as Black Stone City's.
For a long time, the reason the Mafen Duchy had been able to maintain a transcendent neutral position on this war-torn wasteland rested entirely upon their one set of survival principles that took flattery and submission to the utmost extreme.
In the hearts of the Mafen people, they had one forever-unshakable supreme faith—
and that was the Imperial Capital, seated in the south, which had ruled the entire continent for several centuries.
They firmly believed that the Imperial Capital's majesty was forever invincible, and that the Empire's rule would inevitably stand firm for ten thousand generations.
So long as Mafen, every year, on time and in full quantity—or even proactively doubling it—transported south great batches of glistening white refined rice, mellow wheat ale, and the furs peculiar to the Northern border, they could exchange it for a sheet of protection from those grand old lords of the Imperial Capital.
Even when Olan and Mason had earlier fought until their brains nearly spilled out, even when the Black Rose's paper slips had already flooded in disastrous abundance among the common folk, the royal house of the Mafen Duchy had never once wavered in the slightest.
In their view, that silver-haired little girl in Mason's territory was nothing but a grasshopper after autumn; the moment the south's Empire regular legions arrived, all rebellion would be cleansed away in an instant.
However, this morning, the sealed secret letter rushed in by express from the border smashed a great crack, raw and gaping, into their final harbor of refuge.
Within the Mafen Palace's resplendent yet somewhat gloomy Council Hall.
"Report——!!
Your Majesty! Disaster has struck!!"
A herald with battered armor on his body, his very helmet lost who-knew-where, smashed headlong through the heavy palace doors and skidded a dozen-odd steps across the smooth marble floor in utter disgrace, his voice carrying an undisguisable shrillness and terror:
"Goran, Rhodes, Black Stone City....
The seventeen duchies around Yurilland have, as of yesterday morning, all surrendered in full to Mason for reorganization!
Seventeen national seals have all fallen into Sophia's hands; their lands... have all been changed over to the mark of the Black Rose!!"
"What?!!"
Upon the head seat, the King of Mafen was so shocked his whole person shot abruptly to his feet, and owing to the excessive range of his motion, he even kicked over the long table before him bearing exquisite Imperial Capital silverware, the glazed cups and goblets shattering across the floor.
This supreme ruler of the Mafen Duchy was a middle-aged man of extremely gaunt build, sporting a long, drooping goatee.
Upon that face of his—already somewhat puffy from years of indulgence in pleasure—at this very moment, the color of blood drained away clean in an instant, ghastly pale as a dead man's straw-paper.
"Seventeen nations...
without even resisting, just knelt en masse like that?!
What about that fat pig Berick?
Doesn't he still have two thousand heavy-armored spearmen in his hands?!"
The King of Mafen slapped a hand against the armrest of his own throne, and owing to extreme shock and dread, he even tore loose several strands of that long beard he most treasured, the pain of it making him suck in a cold breath.
On either side of the hall, several dozen Mafen ministers clad in lavish robes had also fallen utterly into chaos, their originally elegant noble bearing vanished without a trace in this moment, cries of alarm and wails of grief rising one after another.
"Your Majesty! Whatever shall we do!!
That Witch of Mason has already merged all our close neighbors into her territory!"
"The Olan Royal City has fallen, and Queen Tina has even had her very head chopped off by that red-haired demon Delilah!
Now even those seventeen fence-sitters have changed their banners; the next one... the next one to fall will be us, Mafen!!"
"Those traveling merchants who fled back from the front line say that Sophia, that sixteen-year-old yellow-haired girl, holds in her hands a forbidden sorcery able to summon high-heat steamers from within the earth!
The Crimson Vulture Duchy's three thousand elites were scattered with a sprinkle of the earth's , and not even a fragment of bone remained—all of them were vaporized!
Your Majesty, what are we to use to hold them off!!"
Listening to his ministers' panicked mental embellishments beside his ears, nearly enough to overturn the dome, the King of Mafen felt only that his temples were throbbing wildly, throb after throb; his legs went weak, and he slumped feebly back into his throne.
Below the long table, the Minister of Internal Affairs trembling drew from his bosom a transcribed copy of Mason's Autumn-Harvest Management Regulations, his terror-widened eyes staring, and in a trembling voice began his overclocked analysis.
"All of you... take a look at this administrative document Mason has newly issued!
That Sophia—she isn't at all after some kind of territorial dispute!
She is using a contract rule we have never seen before, carrying out the most thorough formatting of the entire Northern border's population and land!
Those surrendered nations, though they retained the status of City Lord, have had the armies in their hands emptied out entirely, and even the grain in their home warehouses must accept monthly calibration by Mason's civil officials!
How is this mercy?
This is clearly a death-trap laid by that silver-haired girl!
She deliberately uses that honey-laced Black Bread and refined salt to gnaw away at the hearts of the lowborn displaced people, making everyone, without even realizing it, into slaves of her Black Rose paper slips!
If we do not declare our stance now, then once her new wheat is sown in those downgraded cities, our Mafen's lowborn liege-subjects will likely come crying and screaming to smash our palace to pieces in exchange for her identity card!!"
"Your Majesty! It is time to make a decision!!"
The Minister of Finance, too, eyes reddened, flung himself forward and clung to the King of Mafen's knees, weeping bitterly.
"The carriages now queuing at Yurilland already stretch several li out; if we wait until the remaining twenty-odd nations have all handed over their national seals, then our Mafen will become an island utterly isolated within the Black Rose's iron curtain!
By then, with the slightest stir of those slender fingertips of hers, Sophia could dock the grain-circulation quota of us and Sachi City, and our duchy, without need of Delilah's greatsword, would simply starve to death on its own!!"
Looking at the ministers below churned into a pot of gruel, the King of Mafen clenched tightly that long beard of his, his gaunt body trembling faintly without cease from extreme dread.
Go to Yurilland and surrender?
Go become a senior worker under the hand of that sixteen-year-old little girl?!
No, he was unwilling!
Though the Mafen Duchy was not large in scale, they were a legitimate tributary state registered on the rolls of the Imperial Capital's commercial guild!
In their royal bloodline flowed an absolute loyalty toward the supreme core of the south!
If this very morning he too, like Berick, went scrambling and tumbling to kneel before a sixteen-year-old deadpan girl, then the old-era honor his family had accumulated over several centuries would utterly become the laughingstock of the entire continent!
But....
if he did not surrender, this high-burning, fast-running Mason meat-grinder before his eyes could roll up to the foot of their city wall this very afternoon!
They would absolutely not live to see the day the Imperial Capital's grand army marched north.
Within the Hall of State Affairs, after enduring a deathly, prolonged stagnation, in the King of Mafen's somewhat murky eyes there at last flashed a trace of the ferocity and resolve of a dying struggle.
He abruptly jerked up his head, tore off the elaborate crown of pure gold atop his head with one hand, and slammed it viciously against the long table, giving off a piercing metallic clang.
"Every one of you shut up for This Queen!!"
The hall fell silent in an instant, all the ministers somewhat terrified as they watched this gaunt monarch of theirs.
"Go to Yurilland and submit our national seal?
Go eat the honeyed bread that yellow-haired girl doles out as alms?!
This Queen says bah!!"
The King of Mafen's long beard trembled violently with his furious roar, though his eyes were still brimming with terror at the three thousand people steamed to death by quicklime.
But at this moment, blind faith in the great Empire had in the end forcibly seized the upper hand.
"So what if that witch Sophia is methodical?
So what if she can kill people with ease?!
Upon this continent, the true rules are forever decided by the Imperial Capital of the south!
She has now swallowed Olan and subdued seventeen close neighbors—this is no kind of reshaping a new Order at all; this is a blatant provocation against the supreme legitimacy of the entire Grand Ducal Empire!
This is the forcible severing of the Empire's large annual tribute surplus from the Northern border!!"
The King of Mafen rose from his chair, his gaunt frame in an instant standing ramrod straight, and in a hoarse voice that brooked no doubt, sternly handed down the final command.
"Convey This Queen's imperial decree!
Activate the royal Royal Guards' highest defense-alert state, lock down every city gate utterly with portcullis-stones, and have everyone change into the thickest dust-proof wet face-masks, on strict guard against Mason's sorcery!
As for This Queen..."
The King's fingertips dug hard into his palms, his eyes filled with an all-or-nothing madness:
"Minister of Internal Affairs, at once prepare for This Queen the fastest horned-horse carriage convoy!
No need to bring any heavy chests or trunks; This Queen will set out in person right now, forcibly cross these thousand-some li of wasteland, and go to the Imperial Capital!!
This Queen will personally go strike the everlasting bell of the Empire's central Council Hall, and present, word for word, to that great Majesty of the Imperial Capital the crimes by which Sophia has, in the Northern border, beguiled the people's hearts with paper slips, destroyed Olan, and confiscated the Crimson Vulture!
This Queen will use Mafen's several centuries of loyalty to apply to the great Empire for the most top-tier expeditionary liquidation mechanism!
Let the south's hundred-thousand temple legions and heavy-armored knights grind Mason's Black Rose, together with that sixteen-year-old yellow-haired girl, all into fertilizer upon this wasteland!!"
"Your Majesty is wise!! May the Imperial Capital's divine radiance forever shield Mafen!!"
Watching the decisiveness this gaunt King displayed in dire straits, the Mafen ministers below erupted in an instant into a near-collapse of frenzied cheering.
And on this morning, several horned-horse war-chariots bearing no emblem at all, their speed so fast they nearly struck sparks against the ground, came roaring out of the south gate of the Mafen Duchy.
Carrying the old era's most stubborn delusion and terror, they swept madly, winding their way, toward the ancient core at the southernmost end of the continent—the Imperial Capital.
----------
At the Yurilland Temporary Palace, sunlight passed through the bright, clear floor-to-ceiling windows, lighting the spacious conference hall's long table a stretch of glowing red.
Having just sent off those seventeen neighboring monarchs who had rushed over through the night to pledge their submission, nearly scared out of their wits, the heap of heavy national seals and official documents upon the long table had already been methodically gathered and stored away by Willow.
The air within the room still carried a faint, clear fragrance of Black Rose herbs; the heavy atmosphere, taut all morning, in this moment at last utterly relaxed.
At this moment, several people were gathered around the enormous panoramic-map long table of the Northern border.
The pink short-haired Irene, in a thoroughly unbecoming manner, was sprawled at the table's edge, holding a charcoal pencil in her hand and, on and off, drawing circles in the blank regions along the map's margins that had not yet had Black Rose banners planted upon them.
Suddenly, her pencil-tip stopped upon a somewhat remote territory symbol northwest of the Olan Royal City—one that had all along maintained a bizarre neutrality.
Irene tilted her head, looking at the ancient lettering marked upon it, those sapphire-like eyes filled with simple curiosity, and couldn't help muttering softly under her breath:
"Mafen Duchy?
Mafen....
This name, how come it always sounds so soft and squishy—rather like the name of some little cake just taken out of the oven, slathered all over with cream and Red Maple honey-syrup.
Your Majesty, provoked by this name, the bacon in my belly seems to have emptied out; I've suddenly gotten a bit peckish...."
Listening to this flighty, tension-free chatter, the Third Princess Victoria—seated off to one side, habitually pinching an ivory folding fan in her hand—couldn't help covering her mouth and letting out an elegant low chuckle.
And Sophia, seated in the head seat of the long table, slightly lifted her long lashes, those ripple-less pale-gold pupils falling coldly and detachedly upon Irene's little face full of innocence.
Having shed the dark leather armor of when she faced the enemy, and changed back into a comfortable and elaborate black silk nightgown, the silver-haired girl's exquisite, flawless deadpan face remained as still as an ancient well.
Looking at the pink-haired girl before her—rosy-complexioned, spirited as a little kitten—Sophia, deep in her heart, silently let out a sigh, yet her tone carried a wisp of helplessness and doting tenderness that even she herself had not noticed:
"In a while, have the kitchen use the newest-model iron stove to make some of that Red Maple honey-syrup cake you like, and send it over.
Once you've eaten your fill, this afternoon go honestly back to the workshop for This Queen and verify those smelting blast-furnaces that were just hauled back."
"Wow! Long live Your Majesty!!
I knew Your Majesty cherishes me most!!"
Hearing that there was dessert to eat, those sapphire-like eyes of Irene's in an instant burst forth with boundlessly excited light.
Her whole person let out a cheer, and she leaned right in along the edge of the long table, her fair little hand grabbing onto Sophia's slender silk sleeve, happily nuzzling her own cheek against it.
Watching this somewhat girls'-love-tinged intimate interaction, the administrative officer Willow, standing off to one side, wore her signature gentle smile, growing all the more profound.
It had been a long time since there had been such a relaxed moment.
Seated on the soft couch, Victoria—watching Sophia's imperial bearing, cold as frost even while doting upon her subordinates—had that fervent admiration in her pair of golden eyes once again irrepressibly surface.
What a vast and terrifying imperial magnanimity.....
That was the Mafen Duchy, after all—an ancient regime that clung to the south's supreme core and paid year-round flattering tribute to the Imperial Capital.
Yet in Sophia's eyes, was such a nail driven into the northwest really fit only to be treated as a little cake that could be sliced open at any time, used for an idle diversion in the afternoon?!
This seemingly helpless doting of hers was clearly proof that she had long ago made the most absolute backstop for the asset flows of the entire continent!
A mere Mafen, within that vast liquidation table of hers that devoured the entire old era, did not even have the qualification to make the coldness upon her face shift by a sliver!
To be able to follow at the side of an empress destined to stride toward legend—the future of this Northern border was destined to be able to do nothing but change over to the rules of the Black Rose!!
Just as Victoria was still frantically conducting in her mind her mental embellishments concerning the macro grand situation.
"Great victory——!!
A full express great victory from the front line!!"
A coarse, soaring shout, accompanied by the urgent thunder of war-boots trampling the gravel road, abruptly shattered the calm outside the long corridor.
The doors were briskly pushed open by two solemn-faced inner guards in ink-black chainmail, and a flying-cavalry messenger covered all over in dried white lime and mud-water strode swiftly into the conference hall.
He could not even spare the time to wipe away the fine cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead from the long-distance frantic ride; he knelt on one knee on the spot, lifting with both hands a refined-iron message-cylinder sealed tight with brass and fire-wax high above his head, his voice brimming with irrepressible fervor and excitement:
"Reporting to Your Majesty!
This morning's express handwritten decree dispatched from the Temporary Palace to the far-northern defensive line was personally signed for by Commander Bardess two hours ago!
After receiving Your Majesty's command, Commander Bardess, without the slightest delay, personally led ten thousand elite garrison troops re-equipped with the new-model black muskets, marching south in ranks!
One hour ago, upon the main thoroughfare of the Olan Royal City's west main gate, she formally completed the most perfect victorious grand convergence with General Delilah's main force!!"
This crisp battle report, like a heavy hammer-blow, made the expressions of Willow and Victoria beside the long table snap to attention as one.
"The two Lords have already jointly taken over the nearly fifty thousand surviving defenders of Olan; the city's defense great-seal has been fully stamped with the emblem of the Black Rose, with no superfluous hidden danger whatsoever!"
The messenger, owing to extreme excitement, had his whole suit of armor trembling faintly with his breathing, and continued his report at an extremely rapid pace:
"General Delilah has already begun personally organizing the men and horses to carry out standardized packing of all the refined steel and Alchemic Copper Mother in the Royal City's main warehouse.
Commander Bardess, meanwhile, leads ten thousand men in branding the contract seals throughout the city at full speed!
The two Lords' intention is that, once the battlefield over there has been entirely set in order and the fifty thousand surrendered soldiers fully organized and settled, they will immediately set out, return in triumph, and hand over the grand asset ledger to Your Majesty in person!!"
"Good!! Beautiful!!"
Hearing the words that the refined steel and Alchemic Copper Mother had already begun being packed, Irene, sprawled in Sophia's arms, grew so excited she nearly jumped up off the ground, her pair of eyes full of fervent anticipation for the future surge in the arsenal's production capacity.
And Sophia, seated in the head seat of the throne, after listening to the messenger's entire report, had upon that exquisite, flawless deadpan face her long lashes tremble faintly in the morning light.
She slowly withdrew her sleeve from Irene's embrace, those porcelain-fair fingertips rapping lightly against the edge of the brass tray on the long table.
Those pale-gold dead-fish eyes quietly reflected the message-cylinder in the messenger's hand; though outwardly she still appeared as cold and detached as a cold-jade sculpture devoid of mortal feeling, in the deepest depths of the reborn one's heart she had, in this instant, let out a long, long breath of relief.
Wonderful—the Olan side has at last all been fully settled.
She had all along feared that those fifty thousand soldiers might suddenly pull some stunt again, in which case even Delilah leading ten thousand men would still suffer some small losses.
Now that Delilah and Bardess, these two sharpest blades, had converged into one place, it meant that the five military arrays Tina had left behind had utterly lost any room to stir up trouble; the Northern border's single greatest uncertainty could be counted as utterly written off and cleared.
However, this sense of solid ease produced by the crisis's lifting lasted, in Sophia's extremely rational mind, for less than two seconds before being forcibly hedged back down by a string of even more headache-inducing, vast liquidity crises that came in its wake.
The girl's pretty dark brows knit, imperceptibly and exceedingly faintly, just once.
No—she'd celebrated too early.
Nearly fifty thousand Olan recruits surrendering in good order...
This meant that, from noon today onward, Sophia's ledger would, for no reason at all, gain a full fifty thousand bottomless pits, each needing to consume wheat, refined salt, and bone broth every day.
The Olan Royal City had already gone hungry for a full week to begin with; if tonight she could not get the fresh Black Bread from the main warehouse hauled over to them in ranks, these fifty thousand workers who had only just been branded with the Black Rose contract would likely, in short order, produce irreversible management chaos owing to hunger.
Sophia rubbed her somewhat sore temples, feeling that the trace of coolness the black tea had just brought had, in this instant, again been evaporated clean by the vast pressure of provisions.
This won't do—the new high-yield wheat planting schedule for Red Maple Valley and the area around Rhodes City, originally set for next month, must this very afternoon be forcibly moved up by Willow onto the agenda.
Not only must it be planted; she must also make those seventeen lieges who self-demoted into cities this very morning lead all the dirt-legged peasants under their governance to labor together!
In my territory, I do not keep idlers who generate no profit.
If these hundred-some thousand mu of wasteland were not all planted full of high-yield oats, then the moment this winter arrived, the Black Rose notes' credit would surely be eaten into bankruptcy alive by this swarm of soldiers.
At one side of the long table, watching Sophia—after receiving the great-victory battle report—not reveal even a hair's worth of worldly joy, but instead knit her brows faintly, her expression growing all the more cold and profound, the administrative officer Willow and the Third Princess Victoria exchanged a subtle glance of long-since-tacit understanding.
In their view, this silver-haired girl's dead-water-like calm at this moment was precisely the most absolute trampling of the entire continent's old-era laws.
"Your Majesty plans deep and far; it seems Olan's fifty thousand troops, within your war-game sandtable, are likewise nothing but yet another chess piece used to lure the great crocodile of the south into the game."
Victoria slowly spread her ivory folding fan, covering that sweep of red lips somewhat flushed from extreme worship, her golden eyes full of an utterly fallen fervor.
"With this convergence of Bardess and Delilah, the entire Northern border's most hardened defense has already been joined into a single slab of iron.
Those lieges now queuing before the Temporary Palace gate to present their national seals—when they enter the hall in a moment and see this battle report, they will likely be so frightened by Your Majesty's majesty that they forget even how to write their own names."
"Willow."
Sophia could not be bothered in the least to correct this Third Princess's macro mental embellishment that had already veered off beyond the horizon's edge.
She slowly rose to her feet, her black silk skirt-hem sweeping a soft rustle across the plush carpet, that exquisite deadpan face radiating an all-dominating cold and detached pressure.
"Convey my command to Bardess and Delilah.
The packing of supplies must be swift, but the pacification work within Olan City must not produce any oversight either.
As for those seventeen cities that surrendered this morning..."
"Have Willow hand down the new wheat's cultivation manual together with this noon's city-entry contracts to them.
Tell them that within half a month, This Queen wants to see the wheat seeds blooming across every last corner of those seventeen cities.
If anyone at this juncture attempts to slack off, or still clutches the arrogance of the old era and refuses to work.....
then when Delilah and Bardess return, This Queen does not mind sending them underground to drink with Tina."
"We ministers..... respectfully obey Your Majesty's imperial command!!
May the Black Rose forever bloom undefeated!!"
Amid cry after cry brimming with the utmost faith and fervor, the sunlight grew all the more blazing.
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