Cold white flakes are falling outside-it's snowing.
In a daze, I gaze at the city as far as I can see. The landscape is becoming increasingly ethereal white on the horizon.
"Getting too cozy, are we?" came a cheeky voice from behind me. A woman with fiery crimson hair, pale white skin, and ruby eyes that perfectly matched her hair, basically a younger version of her mother, except much more mischievous and a walking disaster, stood there with stacks of papers in hand.
"You're here." I immediately frowned at her as she delivered almost a ruler-thick stack of paperwork for me.
"Do me a favor and hide your irritated face," she said, shrugging. "Isn't it horrible to make me do menial tasks like this?"
"Isn't it dumb for an imperial princess, heir to an empire, to keep pestering me in her neighbor's land?" I parroted in retort.
"I'm your fiancée, though," she said provocatively.
"Ex," I emphasized, "and Mila, you're a landmine. I'm not going to hook up with you." I shook my head in response.
Hearing it, she sighed. "Your vassals literally asked me to accompany you because you seem to have no plans to get an heir or be in a relationship." She held her head as she sat in a position that dangerously showed her thighs.
"They're not vassals but government officials, and I am no king. I can be replaced once an election happens..." I stopped abruptly in my thoughts.
"Can you?" she asked straight to my face, with a grin as if mocking me.
"I can't..." It's annoying. "If I take my eyes off for a brief week, it results in some random senator bringing a submachine gun last year and killing 20 other people in the Federation Senate." My head spun and hurt from their stupid and moronic actions.
"See?" She crossed her legs to the other side, trying to flash something at me, which I averted my eyes from. It was more of a gesture that she was having fun.
"I'm trying to make them normal, so a new president can come and replace me peacefully."
"I haven't heard any," she paused and mischievously put her hand to her mouth before broadly smiling. "Progress."
"There is progress," I responded.
"You're spectacularly failing to leave your position because you have no opposition. How can my mom be like you?" She looked as if she was wondering. "My mom had to crush dissent and rebellions left and right, conduct massive purges, and wipe out several lands to guarantee no fools could continue to resist and to set an example for everyone who opposed her rule."
"That's extreme," I said to her honestly. "Like mother, like daughter, hu-hot?!" I stopped as a ball the size of a match flame appeared on my cheek. "You crazy brat!" I shouted at her as she cast a spell on me. "I said don't casually use magic! Did you forget how hard it was for me to cover your freaking mess a few years ago?" She immediately averted her face.
"I'm getting assaulted, you see?" She said, clearly having fun. "So I burned him as charcoal."
"My head is not braining from your logic." I facepalmed at her response. Two years ago, she was dispatched to the Federal Western Territories. Some country bumpkin federal noble's son attempted to assault her, and she burned him to a crisp beyond recognition. As I was her fiancé at that moment, and because that moronic bumpkin noble's son also insulted me, he and his family disappeared from the federal noble registry and literally vanished from the world.
"Aren't you happy?" she said nonchalantly. "Several leeches and ungrateful dogs were wiped out by my actions. Those ingrates weren't worth feeding." As she spoke, I couldn't deny that the so-called wannabe gods in the Western Territories were not using their brains. They didn't even recognize their ruler's face. It was also normal for their family, especially the sons, to take any woman they set their eyes on. Unfortunately for them, they stepped on a landmine called Mila, my fiancée, and slandered my name. A triple offense that could unanimously make my warmongering, war hawks, conflicting, and fractured senators and representatives agree on aiming an 'absolute deletion beam' towards their entire family.
"Ha. Ha," I replied emotionlessly. "Yes, yes, I'm grateful." Nonchalantly, I began to take the papers she brought and started reading them.
"Half of these are for the construction of railroads and locomotives for the expansion projects," she said as she walked to me, standing next to my side, very closely, where our skin was touching.
"Can't you be mindful there's a man here, and you still keep clinging to me."
"Does that bother you?"
"You're a woman, be conscious."
"That's my plan."
"You..." I began, but she interjected and cut off my response.
"The high elves have requested to be contracted for beam-making in the quarter fiscal of FY 7. There are around 500," she said, continuing and completely blocking my words. "It appears the metal-bending spirit users of the high elves are taking another month of break to return to Mineas after laying 750 kilometers of rails over four months. The replacement must be approved immediately."
She explained that until five years ago, my subordinates from the science university had come up with steam engines for trains, creating our very first steam locomotives. Prior to that, we discovered the metal-bending abilities of the high elf spirit users. They could bend metal, even scraps, into hardened, artistic, and intricate works.
With that, experiments were conducted until we realized that by simply placing a mountain of wrought iron ingots next to them, they could casually turn them into rails, as long as they knew the dimensions, requested strength, and appearance. Although the rails still required some heat treatment before being laid by normal construction workers, it was very fast and easy to produce. Before I realized it, there was already a large-scale locomotive operation throughout the country in just a few years.
"Understood." I looked at the request board, and it really contained some out-of-this-world requests. "Insemination..." I said. It appears the majority of high elves found the idea of marrying a Legrandian repulsive and disliked it. For some reason, it could make them pregnant in the blink of an eye. For a race with a small population and very low fertility rate, some even had to wait for decades just to get pregnant.
Yet, a one-night stand with a Legrandian could result in pregnancy. There are many specific reasons for these choices. One, they think they are a higher species, and two, humans have a short lifespan, and they don't want to be attached to them. After all, a race that can live over 500 years marrying beings with an average life expectancy of 80 years old would be too difficult for them, as they tend to be very close to their betrothed - In essence, they don't want to get hurt.
"Same reason as your harem?"
"What?" I stopped.
"Don't you have a circle of harem of demi-humans?" She said, seeming to enjoy the topic.
"Funny."
"Except for that lamia and arachnid, that harpy seems loyal to you, wanting your seeds," she said to me. "The first two can lay eggs without you, but that harpy can't and is always waiting for you."
"Lerea, huh?" The first time I met her, she was 8 years old but already an adult by their standards. Harpies have a life expectancy of around 30 to 40 years, with most only living into their mid-20s. It's been 8 years since then; she's now 16, a year younger than Mila. Practically, she's already halfway through her expected lifespan and probably has only a few years left.
She seems to be pursuing government work in Mineas as a representative on the Council of Races. We haven't seen each other for several months, with only a brief exchange during a meeting a few months ago, and a proper conversation over a year ago. Somehow, guilt gnaws at me. She's always waiting for me, even though I can't reciprocate her feelings.
Zamia and the others finally gave up on having my child, but Lerea is the only persistent one who hasn't given up. I haven't yielded or returned her feelings, yet she continues to work for me and my country.
"So that's why you kept pestering me after we broke up two years ago?"
"Yes, I definitely want your child," she said, browsing through the papers she had given me. "That's my mother's order, and my will. But if you're unable to do it, well..." She grumbled in annoyance. "As the next empress, I can choose any noble in our country, make him a consort and a tool for producing an heir. There would be no hard feelings-I didn't like you when we got engaged in the first place. If he becomes too ambitious or useless, I'll dispose of him after our heir is born. It's annoying being subordinate to a consort, after all," she said to me.
"So there must be a lot of marriage proposals for the single heir of Valur, right?" I said, but she stopped rummaging through the papers and looked at me with a glare.
"Obviously, there aren't any, right?"
"Eh?"
"Can't you even react?!" she shouted and began pinching my cheeks. "You think I have one! You're stupid! Because of you, I can't even get one!"
"Why?! I didn't even know what you were trying to imply!"
"Because of rumors in Valur that we're still engaged, so no nobles want to send proposals!"
"How would I know?!" I pinched her back. "You kept pestering me in my office when we're already broke up! Of course!" I rumbled at her. "Definitely people will misunderstood, ah! Stop pinchoooing miieee!"
"Olibeer Spoopid!"
Both of us continued pinching each other, awkwardly stretching our cheeks, as she sat on my lap. Just then, the door opened and Nathan entered.
We both stopped at his entrance. "I'll request to have the door specially opened and closed by His Excellency, electronically, similarly to Assemblage. Please pardon my intrusion," he immediately said, then left, leaving Mila and I looking at each other in silence.
"You stupid moron, do you now understand why people keep misunderstanding our relationship?"
"Because you're such a wimp."
"Now, now, get off my lap," I said as I reached for my phone on the desk. "Make sure to return Nathan to the office," I added before putting it back down. "Do you plan on leaving my lap?" I asked her.
"It's comfortable," she said, leaning into my chest. I tried to push her away, but she cast a spell-a thin binding that shackled us to the seat. I tried to resist or break free, but I couldn't. I sighed in resignation. "Your magic is cheating," I muttered, while she just giggles in response, casually helping herself to candies from my table as she leaned comfortably against my chest. Moments later, Nathan returned, his eyes widening briefly before he continued walking towards my table.
"Nathan, I'm being magically pinned down illegally by a 17-year-old princess," I said to him. Nathan only responded with a wry smile. "I'm the president, you know... Get this moronic brat off my lap!" I demanded, but Nathan couldn't reply, averting his eyes.
Massaging my throbbing head from the headache called Mila, I turned to Nathan. "So, what's the situation?"
"Your Excellency Oliver," he began, his gaze shifting to Mila. "It's a bit classified," he said, directing his response towards her. Mila started to stand up promptly, but she visibly hesitated, her face paling slightly at Nathan's presence. It piqued my interest, I surprised her by hugging her immediately, causing her eyes to widen. It was somewhat enjoyable to see her caught off guard like this occasionally.
"Your Excellency, I'll excuse myself," she attempted to say with a smile, but her expression quickly crumbled to one of disgust and irritation.
"No," I firmly replied, ignoring her pinching my side. "Nathan, go ahead," I urged, prompting him to continue with his report.
"Currently, the army's 5th, 7th, and 8th Panzer Divisions are being deployed to Nightmare Firing Range for routine military exercises. They are accompanied by the 3rd to 6th Infantry Divisions, supplemented by the 144th, 188th, and 199th Light Fighter Wings. The 23rd Transport Wing and elements from all three rail garrison regiments, along with two divisions' worth of Federal Guard, will be participating in the 3rd Combined Arms Exercises," Nathan explained.
"Oh, so what's the issue?" I asked. It's been seven years, and military matters should be handled internally without needing my direct intervention through High Command, as long as they're within their bases and operational zones.
"Kashim, smaller countries in the northeastern regions of the continent, and the surrounding islands on the eastern continent, have expressed their concerns and disapproval of our military buildup," Nathan explained.
"Isn't this dumb argument been going on for the last three years?" I asked.
"It appears their respective spies within our borders are highly alarmed. For the last two years, we concentrated on training with a dozen aircraft for CAS, infantry formations with artillery, and involving thousands of soldiers and some divisions of guards, peaking at 20,000 soldiers. Now, they seem to have caught wind of the movements of our tank divisions and aircraft being repositioned in northern and central air force command bases. Almost 95,000 soldiers are set to participate in these military exercises - probably due to the frequency of transportation of assets and personnels through military trains."
He added, That's very reasonable. Even normal deployment commuter trains tend to share the same rails as military transport trains, so spies sitting in stations can gather a lot of information. "We can't possibly hide tanks either. They're alarmed to see such more organized, mechanized, and larger military exercises compared to previous years," Nathan elaborated.
"Is that so?" I pondered. "What's the big deal with our military exercises? Valur frequently does that too, right?" I asked Mila, who was still on my lap. She looked at me with disbelief.
"True, we have military exercises, but they are on a smaller scale, involving a few dozen at times, with a few hundred to over a thousand soldiers trained, but never reaching nearly a hundred thousand men, with hundreds of aircraft and tanks on the ground in a single day, and blowing up entire mountains like you guys do," she responded.
"Is that serious?"
"Of course, a large unknown isolationist country, maintaining a large army and casually shuttling off a hundred thousands soldiers, and aircrafts that surpasses all know aerial knights, even falcons the most numerous ridable flying beings are only believed to be numbered at 600 at the entire continent, you guys just threw almost half of number in a military exercises."
"Is our military large?" I tilted my head in wonder. "It's proportionate to our population, and they're multirole, working in both government and civilian capacities." Our federal guards are construction workers, civil servants, helpers-a Swiss army knife at the community level, constituting almost 60% of our active personnel. "I mean, it's just 900,000 men," I uttered.
Mila looked at me in disbelief and muttered, "Good grief." She continued, "My country has double the population of all of Cignus and barely maintains 150,000 soldiers. Kashim has an estimated double that because of their tech inferiority, so they compensate with numbers. Their territories are vast in comparison, and more than two-thirds of their forces are still armed with swords or haven't even seen guns in their entire lives. They're a bunch of primitive countries bundled together. You have a military force exceeding anyone else on the continent, and you have several hundred thousand in spare without entering war footings. Can't you see? Maintaining a standing professional army is expensive. Most countries only raise and train soldiers a few months before entering a war. Conscripts can patch them up, but it takes weeks, perhaps a month, to assemble them, another month to move them, another month to equip them, and another month to fight. But your country has a permanent standing army peaking at 900,000 men."
She had a lengthy talk there, making her point clear. "And who casually says they have an army of almost a million?!" She hissed at me afterward. "You're really stupid! Oliver stupid! That's a state secret!." She looked at me with irritation.
"It's called transparency," I said, pinching her cheeks to shut her up.
"So, our counterargument, Nathan?"
"We'd like to invite them to our military exercises and even let them join. Our suggestion is that we tell them it's only for defense rather than offensive situations."
"Oh." I nodded in response and looked at Mila for her opinion. She is a native of this world, after all. "What do you think?" After pinching her, I poked her reddened cheeks.
"You're toying with me. Give me some respect," she sighed. "Inviting them would only aggravate them further. It's like saying, 'See our great military, don't do anything dumb or it's just a straightforward saying - submit to us!' unless you're very close. But if you still take that dumb isolationist path, even the Valur Empire, the predecessor to the United Kingdoms, had to maintain diplomatic cooperation to everyone! You guys just throw nonaggression pacts and consulates out there, and then you proceed ignore every single invitation, talk, meeting, and conference involving the entire eastern continent for the last seven years." She hissed at me.
"It's our choice," I said, recalling the events of the past year. "Those insects keep demanding financial and tech transfers, acting all high and mighty when they're just lower lifeforms in the eyes of my people." I murmured. It was getting annoying. "Why should my country follow their conventions, rules, and orders? When we suggested banning slavery, 20 random insignificant countries raised a hand against it. But when they suggested Cignus demobilize it's armies, 30 hands went up to approve it. It's just plain dumbness. If they can't respect our choices and options, then we won't cater to their opinions."
Mila looked at me with resignation. "I get it. Go along with it. Play deaf and blind when accommodating them-and carry a big stick when they step on their boundaries."
Nathan nodded. "Indeed, I concur, Lady Mila. We can't remain in this position forever, it's becoming detrimental in the long run, Your Excellency."
I sighed, leaning back in my chair. "Fine." I glanced at Nathan, then grinned. "Bring the most massive dick representative as our delegate to the next Eastern Continent conference." I smiled broadly, the grin creeping into a wide crescent. "Make sure everyone understands that minding their own business is their only optimal choice."
Mila facepalmed, leaning back on me. "Look at you, you're literally asking for another war," she said, massaging her throbbing head. I enjoyed the rare sight of Mila getting a headache. "You're good at taming your people and handling domestic issues, but you're giving me an aneurysm with your approach to diplomatic talks."
"Don't push it," I replied, pinching her cheek again. "Nathan, draft the script for our representative. Make sure they understand that we won't attack unless attacked, but we will not tolerate or wait to be attacked, whether by words or literal armies. Have the 1st Fleet sent to the Marjorie Holy Kingdom."
"Understood, Your Excellency," Nathan replied, bowing slightly before leaving the room.
As the door closed, Mila settled back against me. "I bet they'll be pissed off enough to declare war on you."
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, they will." For sure, they had the IQ of room temperature for being a low-level civilization. "Just don't expect it to last for a week," I murmured as she shook her head at my words.
"You're playing with fire, Oliver," Mila said, her voice softening. "You need to be careful. The world is watching, and your actions have consequences."
"I know," I said, sighing.
"Just promise me you'll be cautious," she said, looking up at me with a hint of concern in her eyes.
"I promise," I replied, "We'll handle this - very carefully."
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Vol. 1 Arcs
1st - Transfer Arc
2nd - War Against Vokaltia and Valur
Vol. 2 1 Arcs
3rd - Holy Kingdom Arc [Ongoing]