Chapter 194: Settling In – Part 3

Chapter 194: Settling In – Part 3

"I'll receive them," Ciel immediately volunteers because she doesn't want our little moment to be interrupted.

Thank you.

Then my needy fox appears in our bedroom to join this hugging session.

"I'm not needy; you're needy," she whines with a pout.

"You're always in need of filling my needs," I teasingly retort.

She'd never argue against that, so she just pouts harder because she's been had and joins us in our cuddling. She's also tired and needs pampering, so we circlepat each other.

Meanwhile, Ciel arrives at the Air Docks inside the castle as the Titans will be housed in the empty mansions while we work on relocating them to their final home. Just like what we did for the Chimeras.

And she happily watches as The Carrier descends, its long shadow extending for hundreds of meters as it crosses the setting sun. There are many other smaller airships around it, the transports that we hired for the exiles, but they're descending at a much slower speed to give time for the... "airship signalers" to align them properly.

The Sky Lander transports are mere thick boats with very wide wings to make the best use of gliding for mana efficiency. But when they're folded up, they get in the way of the pilot's vision, necessitating guidance to land correctly because our docks aren't prepared for that kind of airship. Imperial airships are more compact and have great visibility, but the advantage of the lighter Sky Lander ship design is that it doesn't require a reinforced platform to support it.

Then the Carrier lands, and a grass carpet staircase grows towards the entrance. The first one out is Kaiia, the panda Executive Officer under the service of Hihiriwa. The captain is the last one out as he supervises that everything is properly cleaned, stored, and closed up since the Carrier will undergo maintenance to repair whatever little cracks might've appeared since the last battle.

So Ciel greets Kaiia, and they go to a courtyard where the exiles will be gathered. The first ones to arrive are the young men, as they're more responsive and in better condition than the rest. It was a tiring journey, after all. Then Silvano appears, and he immediately greets Ciel.

"Greetings, Your Highness," he politely begins with a bow and waits for her response.

"Greetings, Sir Silvano," she politely replies and gives him leave to speak.

The androgynous man shares a reserved nod with Kaiia, then eagerly asks, his thin silver eyebrows rising in curiosity, "Has the Festival ended already?"

And she answers with a sympathetic smile, "Yes, the tournament has ended already, but it was only a short while ago."

His eyebrows fall and knit in a mild frown. "Hmph. Next year, then. I want to see who this Antorino is. If he's too weak, I'll dethro-... steal the Title from him," he quickly corrects himself. Mentioning usurpation to a royal, even as a joke, would be a serious faux pas.

Anyway, Silvano does have the Title of "Champion of Colneria," which is the capital of the silver elven land far to the west. You can't actually steal that Title, but the current Champion has the "Standing Champion of [Town]" Title, which is lost if he doesn't win the year's Festival of Glories tournament.

And Ciel relays Yunia's words, "Very well, but don't cause trouble. Antorino is very well regarded."

"I understand..." he rather stiffly replies.

At least he's learning.

Then he excuses himself, and after also greeting Sandoro, who seems rather tired but very happy to be back home, Ciel decides to meet with the young warriors while Kaiia goes to work on something else. The Titans are understandably nervous to meet with her, so she soothingly asks them how their journey went, but they just awkwardly look at each other, and then they start chuckling nervously.

"{It was... a bit boring}," one of the bolder Titans clumsily remarks.

And another hastily adds because he's afraid that she might get offended, "{It was nice to see so much land, but there wasn't much to do}."

But a third thinks that that could also offend her, so he follows up, "{T-the soldiers were very kind and tried to talk to us, but there was no work for us to do, so we could only stare out the windows most of the time}."

It's cute to see such big guys looking so meek, but they're their race's equivalent of a mere commoner, so this much was expected.

And Ciel soothes their worries with her motherly voice, "{Though you may not have done much during your journey, please do take the time to rest. You'll have a lot of work ahead of you once you get to your new home}." Then she gives a heart-throbbing smile.

They almost gasp as their hearts are stabbed with love. Then the first one recovers after a moment and timidly remarks, "{We've... heard about it from the soldiers. Elven life seems very different}."

Another big bald dude hums as he nods, "{So much magic...}"

"{And plants}," a third adds, and they all snort.

Now Ciel curiously inquires, "{Your race seems talented with magic. Didn't you maintain the gems for your floating islands}?"

They're starting to feel more comfortable now, so one of them jokingly remarks, "{We did... and our ancestors built the Endless Fields, so we should have some talent for that, right}?"

But there's a bit of self-deprecation in his tone, so Ciel encourages, "{You have to have some hope. Also, we'll be there to help you, as we promised the Throat}."

And mentioning him causes a chilling effect on the mood of the conversation, which makes Ciel very worried.

"{Can't believe he actually asked you to save us}," a Titan quietly remarks.

"{What do you mean}?" Ciel concernedly asks.

We told the Elder the story about the Throat, and he likely shared it with them.

And a bit of angry murmuring spreads among them. Then one loudly answers, "{Everyone heard at least once how 'disappointed' he was in us}."

"{And he definitely had a strong throat to shout it out}," another adds with a frown, and they nod in agreement as they grumble.

So Ciel begins her angelic soothing, "{That's unfortunate. I'm sorry he was so terrible. We won't be like that}."

"{But he wanted us to grow to his level}," one points out.

And she immediately replies as she gives them a subtly mischievous look, "{That's not something you have to be concerned about. The promise doesn't have a deadline}."

"{Oh...}!" a few of them exclaim in understanding, and the slower ones follow up with hums a second later.

Now she clasps her hands to grab their attention and decides to be frank with them, "{No nation was built in a day. We hope that proximity to our lifestyle will encourage your race to grow. The Throat's forceful methods were likely counterproductive, and we believe that if we leave the gates open for you to explore a more developed lifestyle, you'll feel comfortable with what we have to offer}."

And that's everything that I needed from her.

Now, onto the matter that we gathered here for. Unlike the Spirit Chimeras, who were integrated into Escanso, it's better for the exiles to have their own little village as that's what they're used to. Especially since even though Escanso has completely bent over and spread its pussy to me, I don't want to push the citizens so much. We also get a lot of visitors from all over the world since the High Road that crosses the High Forest longitudinally connects Maoka to the rest of the empire, so travelers might have very bad reactions to monsters living among humanoids.

The best choice right now is to build a village for them, but they also need to learn the elven way of life as it requires very specific knowledge about [Nature Magic] to maintain the buildings high up the High Trees and also to grow their food. We can't just hire a [Nature Magic] teacher and call it a day; we're going to need a good number of elves that would agree to live with the Titans and teach them everything they need to know.

But that's just to start their village. The exiles didn't have to deal with regular monster attacks or banditry, so they also need defenses, and even awareness that the other Subordinate Lords might want to sabotage their village to get at us. Being verbally abused by the Throat might seem like nothing compared to how much danger they'll be in from now on.

Though... we aren't sure how the monsters will react to them. Aberrants normally attack any living being indiscriminately, while Leader and Breeder-types could try to subjugate them, and the average type might see them as food. Well, it'll technically be safer than the average humanoid village.

Then there's the actual location of it. All villages are built above natural lakes as they provide fresh water, and the High Trees in them can be used for natural irrigation, greatly lessening the labor required to grow food. The problem is that all the good lakes have already been taken by the Root Lords, so either we build a lake, which might create unforeseen issues as elven city planning/engineering still isn't a very well-developed science, or we give the exiles a subpar lake.

I also don't want them to be too far from Escanso, which reduces the number of possible locations even further. There's no way I'm trusting the Heart Lords to respond in a timely manner to the exiles being endangered.

We have a big problem with no good solution.

Then Caterina suggests something striking, "Couldn't you offer for a Root Lord to take them in? We hear a lot about how much they love you after you started building Shield-walls for them."

"Really?" I hum in surprise and turn to Osaria, who eagerly nods. "Sounds like an interesting idea. I want to read all about the Root Lords that surround Escanso."

"As you wish, Your Highness," my diligent but also impish coffee milf obediently replies.

Now we're free again to focus on our own things, and I check up on the progress of the completely ethical brain experiments lab. The golems' meticulous testing produces a lot of data to go through, but a lot of it isn't particularly useful since it's just repetition as they map the brain milmetri by milimetri, while the rest is slightly ambiguous, requiring a lot of effort to piece the puzzle together.

Still, I now have a few areas I could focus the random soul alterations on, so I get right onto it. Knowing where each "area" of the brain is located allows me to be more precise with inducing amnesia, but it still isn't perfect because the so-called "boundaries" of these areas aren't actually clear lines.

Certain places seem to have a "buffer zone" where the neurons are responsible for two different tasks, and the percentage of each task seems to vary linearly along the way. But there are also areas where functions heavily overlap, and these will be hard to deal with.

Very interesting stuff, but our testing isn't done yet, so I can't achieve maximum efficiency for my amnesia alterations yet. It's just a matter of time, though. And then the problem will be how to deal with the overlaps.

The more we learn, the more we realize that we know nothing and are just stumbling in the dark. But the solution always seems to be "more magic"...

I now get why Rupegian scientific knowledge is so far behind.

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