283 Vivian and the mole

The room was filled with the smell of Lavender. The scent of Lavender and the cold climate made her sleepy. But the stack of reports she had to check prevented her from taking a long nap on the silk sofa in her room. Outside of her window, the recruits were honing their close combat skills under the tutelage of Nanbu.

Her office was located in a compound not far from Emir castle which was previously occupied by the Lambert family. Of course, most of the Lamberts were hanged and beaten to death by Arrora because of their participation in Heaven's gate. The remaining Lamberts left Emir after this and their houses and buildings now belonged to Don.

The continuous rustling sound of papers and the whistling winds outside the window constituted two different worlds. She was struggling to write on a wooden table fully covered with reports and scrolls. There were two low-lying long tables beside her, which were also filled with stacks of reports. When it was necessary, she would call the recruits to work at the low table to arrange information or compose drafts.

The candle on the ceramic holder had already been changed three times. Apart from getting up to replace them, she did not stop writing. Time was precious for her. There was a pile of reports waiting for her to deal with, and 

The abilities and skills of the new recruits also needed to be carefully reviewed before sending assigning them to a unit in the Everlight army.

Now she worked an average of 15 hours a day, but she did not feel tired at all. Instead, here she was able to work freely and had continual energy to work. This was because she loved what she's doing here and at the end of the day, she would go to her home in Everlight and have a family dinner with Nicolas and Riya. Although she missed going out on adventures, after what happened last time when she was on an adventure, she didn't regret not doing it anymore. Besides, she loved everyone in Everlight and treated them like her own family and she didn't want anything to happen to them on her watch. Aside from Nicolas, she loved spending time with her friend Knight as she treated him like her little brother. Since she was shaping a new type of military to deal with internal matters, she had more responsibility.

She was handpicking the best recruits as her lieutenants and almost finished forming the unit. After forming the unit, she wanted to make her unit the best. There were already three units competing for the best; Arrora's Dark angels, Arwen's Archers, and Stodemar's infantry.

"Hmm, a letter from Knight"

Looking at handwriting that looked like a drunk chicken's scramble, she knew it was from Knight. Even though he knew how to write and read, his handwriting skill was not as refined as his battle skills.

"How am I going to read this?"

Vivian playfully giggled and opened the letter. When she laid her eyes on the letter and reached the end of it, dark lines appeared on her forehead.

The letter in her hand had a request to send a group to Mairis to recruit management personnel and also to purchase a double mast ship. The second paragraph of chicken scratching stated that she didn't have to hire captains but sailors and anyone who has experience in working on a ship.

She did not know whether to laugh or cry after reading it. 

"How is he going to sail the ship without a captain and why does he want a ready-made ship? Isn't Lia going to build new ones? Not to mention we still don't have a harbor to dock the ship"

The more she thought, the more questions appeared in her mind. They decided at the round table meeting to build a harbor at Agoria considering only Agoria had a suitable place to build one. But first, they had to finish building the dam, roads, and houses before starting to build a harbor.

So buying a ship wasn't a wise choice as, without any shipyard protection or proper facilities to manage the ship, it will be abandoned before long. 

"I wish Nicolas had finished fixing the Khal communication"

Because Don's Khal was blocked by the Sinners during the ambush, Catalie and Nicolas were spending their time to make sure that it wouldn't happen again. Until they fix every Khal, they won't be able to communicate through Khals.

Currently, everyone in Emir was busy. Most of the women in the kingdom recruited to manage and increase the beauty of the kingdom. The men had to work in the construction sites and those who were unable to do heavy lifting works were given appropriate works by the black-armored men.

In the evenings the people of Don's kingdoms had to attend Ukita's tutelage to learn how to write and read. The classes were happening batch by batch as one batch of people scheduled for Monday while one batch scheduled for Tuesday and so on and so forth. In simple words, every grown and abled citizen had a job to do and because they were happy with Don's rule, they worked to improve their kingdoms very enthusiastically.

"I should send Nanbu to do this," compared to her, Nanbu was more suited to lead a group to buy a ship and recruit sailors considering he knew more about ships than her. Also, she had to go to Agoria and then Ishikara to recruit more people to the army and start their training.

Since coming to Border Town, he had no end of surprises. Up till now, the three kingdoms had been growing and developing at an abnormal speed.

The main reasons for this were the amount of wealth they were spending and Don and Knight's practice to listen to the talented people under them rather than deciding everything by themselves.

Coupled with these two reasons and new inventions, and a good understanding of the people's hearts, the three kingdoms started to thrive. 

She had o doubt that Ishikara too would begin to prosper soon

As she was staring at the letter, there was a sound of knocking at the door. Vivian slowly put down the letter at hand, and said, "Come in."

Coming through the door was one of her best recruits, "Taylor"

"Captain, the Dark angels caught a rat"

"Yeah? Did you manage to find out anything?"

She saw a tint of fear and shock in Taylor's eyes when she asked but he quickly hid the fear.

"He said he was ordered by King Mattia. We found this letter and some coins on him" Taylor came forward and handed her a leather-wrapped envelope which had some blood stains on its surface. 

"He's the king of Monivelle, right?"

"Yes, Captain"

This was not a very big surprise to her as spying on other kingdoms was something that every king would do. However, if the spy got caught and confessed the truth, the king of the kingdom which was spied on had every right to retaliate.

"We're still interrogating him to get more information. Captain, how should we deal with him?"

"Tell the Dark angels to keep him alive, I have to report this to his majesty," she said casually.

"Yes, permission to leave Captain," asked Taylor as Vivian said

"Granted"

Taylor bowed and left the room.

The door was closed again, but she did not go back to his work immediately. Instead, she scanned the outside of the letter and used an envelope opener to take out the letter.

"Shit! Knight was right"

Her eyes widened in shock as she let out a deep breath.

Just before Don was ambushed by the Sinners, Knight had called everyone to discuss this problem.

He believed that even with the Astrels in the army covering their faces with helmets, eventually, the spies sent by the rival kings would find out about their true identity.

His Royal Highness believed that when the cement, new snow powder, and witches were disclosed, the spies sent by his siblings would not be able to retain their patience and would come out from hiding. Vivian agreed with this statement as in her view, Emir and Agoria combined had more than 4,000 people, so it was impossible to monitor everyone. They did not have the manpower or time to find every spy in their kingdom.

However, Knight refuted when she mentioned this 

"How could there be no one? Every citizen can be our eyes."

At that time, she didn't know the full meaning of his words but now it turned out that she was wrong.

At the first registration conducted in Emir and Agoria, he deliberately put a column asking the people to tell whether they lived here more than six years or not and made the neighbors confirm one's claim. Then, he asked the natives and the merchants to report anyone who started to do business with them after King Hedor. Coupled with this and a few other tactics put in place by Joel and his group, they constantly monitored a group of suspects who had the more chance to be a spy sent by the rival kings.

The more Martin spent his time in taverns where the black-armored men spent their time and asked more questions, the more he became a prime suspect in the eyes of Joel's men who also disguised themselves as a normal day citizen such as a waitress.

Making their own spies mingle with their own citizens turned out to be surprisingly effective.

This spy who disguised himself as an iron merchant repeatedly stressed in the letter that Don is mingling with Astrels to cause another Great war between the human race and the Astrels. He also wrote that Don is touched by the devil to allow Astrels inside the kingdom.

"King Mattia seemed to have a death wish"