Chapter 44 - Plans for Expansion

Once breakfast was over I tried to find Kuroka and Valerie but had some trouble since they weren't in the castle. After a short pause, I decided to head to my herb garden, and low and behold both the girls were there talking to each other inside the gazebo.

After interrupting their talk I gave Valerie to run down on her living conditions in Haven. First, she'll have to sleep in the gazebo since it was surrounded by spirit herbs and I came to a hypothesis that this might help accelerate her recovery. Besides that, she could wander around the castle or the city during the day, but if she went out to the city she had to be with a guard. With some other small regulations, Valerie knew what she could and couldn't do in Haven.

Knowing that this I bid the 3 girls goodbye and returned to Kyoto through the relay station. With a quick change in scenery, I found myself not in my apartment but inside the Yokai Faction compound.

These past few months the relationship between Haven and the Yokai have improved greatly to the point where I even have a big transportation formation that allows people to enter Haven through the capitals east gate. This, however, is done with tight security on both sides of the formations. Just because we are allies doesn't mean we can be caught off guard. This issue caused me a lot of problems until Yasaka came up with a simple plan that I originally planned to do in the future.

It was to annex the Yokai Faction into Haven while turning the Yokai compound into a Haven stronghold on earth.

My initial plan was to start this 2 years late during my first year of high school but now that Yasaka mentioned this herself I would be a fool not to take it. Thus while I was working both as a student on earth, and a king in Haven I was also spending a fair amount of time with Yasaka trying to put our plans underway.

Doing this not only did I improve in my managing skills but so did Yasaka. When we first meet Yasaka had only just been appointed the leader of the faction because her grandfather the previous leader died of old age. Soon after that, the war broke loss, and she was stuck trying to deal with everything with no leading experience.

Before being the faction leader she was a fighter and her achievements rose her reputation within the faction thus when she took command of the faction hardly anyone was against it. Sadly for them, they didn't know that this put a lot of pressure on her. If not for my ȧssistance the Yokai faction civil war would have gone on longer than expected as well as create many more casualties. Fortunately, Yasaka is a good learner and thus was able to act more like a leader than a confused woman these past few weeks.

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Passing many Yokai I greeted some while others bowed to me in thanks since most people knew I helped play a role in the last war. With the simple hello and goodbye, I found myself in front of a Japanese style mansion. This place was previously packed to the brim with faction officers coming and going but now the place was neat and well organized.

Nobody was running around in a panic and most people were just working on their own work quietly. Rather than a faction's command center, this looked more like a company work station. Having this thought in my mind I passed by many working Yokai and found myself in front of the receptionist desk.

Yu - I'm here to meet with Yasaka can you tell me where she is right now?

Grabbing a log book from under her desk the receptionist flipped through many pages because eventually stopping a one.

Receptionist - Lady Yasaka should be in the main conference room right about now. Would you like me to take you there?

Yu - No thank you I'll be fine.

Saying this I disappeared into the void and teleported myself inside the main conference room. Inside was Yasaka and she was going over a large stack of papers. She still wore her yellow kimono while sporting a loose ponytail, and as always her two mountains were divine as ever.

Yu - Yasaka you wanted my help with some paperwork.

Yasaka - Ah~ Yu yes I need your help with these pieces here.

With that, we both started a long conversation on how we were going to proceed with the annexation. Due to the sheer size of the factions populace, it would take around a year to migrate most of them in general. Actually, due to the populaces size, I can't really fit all of them in the capital and had to resort to making a new city a little west of the capital.

The city is going to be by the mountainside and will become one of the capital's mining towns in the future. So far we have basic infrastructure almost done and by the end of the year will have a full-fledged city. This way we can work on obtaining our own materials rather than importing them from the outside.

I planned to continue to have a foothold in Kyoto so in order to keep it I had to know what was going on inside the city. As for the supply channel, Haven still required materials from the outside so we had to have a secure base to transport material to Haven.

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Yasaka - I heard you recalled all your field operatives back to Haven recently. Does this have to do with the recent incident in Romania?

Yu - Hmm ah ya it does.

Just like she said I canceled all field operations and had everyone return to Haven. The incident in Romania caused me to rethink the way I deployed my field operative while also giving me the chance to add more members into the mix.

As of earlier this morning, all the new and old operatives are in the dungeon and will stay in there for 2 weeks. While also gaining 98 days worth of experience to hone their skills and sharpen their senses. Besides that I also plan to weed out the small factions that have ill intent towards Haven, this will cause many to see us as a terrorist group but I could care less. Actually, if I'm about to pull some strings behind the scenes I could make it seem like they provoked us.

Yu - [*Shrug* I decide on what I'll do when the time comes.]

*Poke*

Yu - Hmm

Yu - Sorry I wasn't listening.

Yasaka - I was asking what's wrong you weren't responding when I called you.

Yu - Oh I was just wondering about my next move since there is likely going to be a lot of work waiting for me in the next couple months.

Yasaka - Really I kind of thought you were sad.

Yu - Why do you think that?

Yasaka - While it is faint I can smell a little bit of alcohol in your breath.

Yu - [Alcohol?... Ah! That!]

Yu - It's not what you think I just had a lot of stuff on my mind last night and lost myself while drinking under the moon. It was pretty nice actually.

Yasaka - Do you want to talk about it?

Yasaka - Thinking about a problem might make one feel at ease but it will always linger in the person's heart. However, if it is shared with someone else you'll have someone to share your burden with you, and before you know it you can face your problem head on.

Yu - That's funny coming from the girl who kept the way she feels from her clansmen while enduring the pressure of leadership alone.

Yasaka - ...

She said nothing to my comment but instead pinched my cheek. It caused a little pain due to our difference in ranks and she didn't let go until I apologized.

Yasaka - Now dumb comments aside are you going to tell me. If you do I'll let you rest your head on my ŀȧp.

Hearing this I subconsciously looked at her ŀȧp before shrugging and resting my head on them.

Yu - [I guess it wouldn't hurt to talk about this with someone.]

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Yasaka - *giggle* who knew the Great King of Haven would be having woman problems at such a young age. I don't know whether to coddle or hit you.

Yu - Haha says the lady who acts like a teenager when she's alone with me, but acts like a lady in front of her peers. Should you really be judging me?

After I had finished speaking to Yasaka about my problems with Irina what I got was her giggling at me. I acted like I was mad but in reality, I was slowly enjoying the feeling of her soft ŀȧp. Once all the jokes were gone we tried to talk about my problem but because I was so comfortable I ended up slowly falling asleep.