Chapter 1031: Status of the Kingdom

Chapter 1031: Status of the Kingdom

“Your Majesty,” Iron-Striker formally stated as he gave Leon a straight-backed bow.

“Your Majesty,” Ipatameni repeated as he, too, bowed to Leon.

“Your Majesty,” the Jaguar stated with a wry smile as he followed suit.

“Enough of that,” Leon growled as the three men stared at him with some amusement.N(e)w n0vel chapters are published at novelhall.com

This was his first real day back as King, having spent the previous two holed up with his family in the private wings of his palace. But now he was rested and ready to return to work. And that meant meetings—lots of meetings. This one was the most important, though, as it was a general meeting with all of his top advisors in the city that he’d put in charge of his Royal bureaucracy. That meant that there were no elders present to represent their Tribes, this was a meeting purely about Royal issues.

The room the meeting was held in was an almost depressingly boring conference room, though the walls were intricately carved with reliefs of the Thunderbird Clan, while the roof was clear glass, letting the light of the sun shine down upon them. Leon’s advisors all sat at a U-shaped table in front of him, while he sat at a table all on his own upon a raised dais. He would’ve preferred a more standard conference table, but this was what the Tribes wanted their King to be, so he supposed he could live with it for just this meeting.

His Chancellor, Marshall, and Steward all took their seats, but they were not the only members of his top advisory council. Clear Day, the tau he’d taken into his service, had been appointed his First Praetor, the head of his judiciary, so he was present. Alcander was present, too, as the commander of his Tempest Knights. He also had several other ministers of lower rank who were specialized in more specialized branches of the government, as well as some of his higher ministers’ top subordinates. The last minister of note was the Ax-Bringer, who was the de facto mayor of Stormhollow.

And, of course, there was a veritable army of secretaries and notaries accompanying everyone, including Gaius and half a dozen other secretaries for Leon alone.

“Would anyone else like to annoy their King by sticking to court protocol?” Leon drawled.

Clear Day then bowed and stated, “Your Majesty.”

Leon rolled his eyes as everyone else then did the same before taking their seats.

“All right,” he said once all asses were polishing their assigned chairs, “now that we’re finally through all of that, let’s get right down to business. How has the Kingdom fared in my absence?”

Iron-Striker, as the senior-most of his ministers, was the first to answer. “I’m proud to report that you have returned to a thriving Kingdom, Your Majesty. We’re finally starting to reach a point where we ought to slow our recruitment of soldiers and bureaucrats for fear of overstretching the treasury. While I’m not quite at the point of saying that we have an adequate central bureaucracy, what has been built is proving itself a considerable force acting for the benefit of the people of Kataigida.”

Leon nodded as Iron-Striker went into much more intricate detail regarding those who had been hired for his Royal bureaucracy. Accountants, lawyers, tax officials, statisticians, and so many more. In total, the central bureaucracy had grown from being almost completely nonexistent to more than thirty thousand strong.

An impressive cohort, but the Thunder Kingdom had a population measured in the billions, and Leon knew that a few tens of thousands of officials weren’t going to be enough to manage all the affairs of his Kingdom. Fortunately, each of the Tribes had its own administrative structures to handle their issues, relieving much of the administrative burden that Leon’s bureaucracy might’ve had to handle.

After Iron-Striker’s report came the Jaguar’s, and he elucidated for Leon the expansion of the central army, the fleets, and the ark armada. The Ravens were building at a prodigious rate, and a great deal of the money Leon’s government was collecting in taxes was going right to the Ravens to fund the construction of new arks.

“... but that runs us into a deep problem,” the Jaguar said as he finished his report on the arks.

“Share it with me,” Leon commanded.

“Our supply of Titanstone is... inadequate for our purposes,” Leon’s Marshall stated. “There is only so much I can as most of our Titanstone comes from the Common Lands.”

Leon grimaced. The Commons Lands were just that: common, which meant that it was land ostensibly owned by everyone on the island. In practice, the administration of the region was rather chaotic and mostly dominated by the Bears since they were the closest Tribe to the region, and the Spiders since their people comprised the majority of the miners. The only reason that Leon could see why the Common Lands hadn’t completely devolved into anarchy was because the region was very sparsely populated, with the only towns around springing up around the Titanstone mines. Otherwise, it was a dangerous territory filled with many dangerous beasts that the Bears enjoyed hunting and capturing.

The bigger problem that Leon could see was that all the Tribes had their own stakes in the area, and all of the Titanstone mined there was brought back to their respective Tribal lands for refinement. It was a needlessly complicated supply chain, but if he were to try and alter it, Leon could see that he would anger many people. Titanstone was the single most valuable resource on the plane, after all, and all the Tribes wanted their cut from the Common Lands.

“As much as it pains me to admit,” the Jaguar said, “we need to fix this situation. If we don’t, then expanding ark production will be impossible.”

“Doing that will be enormously expensive,” Ipatameni stated. “We can’t just move Titanstone refinement facilities. If we are to simplify this process, then we’ll have to build new refinement facilities somewhere.”

“Just so,” the Jaguar agreed.

Leon sarcastically grinned, suspicion picking at him in the back of his mind. “That sounded almost rehearsed,” he stated. “Should I assume the two of you, if not more, have been discussing this problem?”

Picking up on his displeased tone, the Jaguar grimaced and said, “We... didn’t wish to waste Your Majesty’s time. And as this is a problem that affects us both, we have discussed it before. It was only when we realized that we hadn’t the authority to fix the problem that we agreed to escalate it here.”

“As you should,” Leon stated. He considered adding more, but as he looked around the room, he wondered if he was right in being annoyed. He didn’t like being led around, and he didn’t want his position as King to become nothing more than a rubber stamp. And yet, what was the point of putting competent people in charge of these bureaucratic apparatus if they couldn’t talk amongst themselves or solve problems on their own? If he had to make all the decisions, then there wasn’t much point at all.

Still, it irked him greatly that they’d already decided on a single course of action that might fix this problem and expected him to just agree. He did agree that such expansion of the Titanstone industry was warranted, but...

He scowled in displeasure at the situation, but he realized what he needed for this particular problem. “Before we do anything, I’m going to create a new administrative division. The Common Lands need to be better administered. I will appoint a governor to oversee the region and ensure that any decisions we make regarding Titanstone are carried out.”

Rakos rumbled in the language of the stone giants, “Quite well, Divine One! My people are growing used to their new circumstances, and rejoice in finding service with the gods once more!”

“How many of your people have been given new bodies?” Leon asked.

“Two hundred so far,” Rakos replied. “The rest have returned to bodies akin to what they inhabited before the migration.”

“At least there’s that,” Leon said. Twelve thousand giants there were; scaling up production of their new bodies wasn’t going to be easy, especially since more would always be needed as the giants reproduced. “We’ll build more bodies for your people as quickly as we can!”

Rakos deeply bowed, its stone form looking quite unstable as it mimicked the human expression.

“Nestor,” Leon continued, “have you been in contact with Mari’Kha?”

“The girl you found on that other plane? Yes, I have. I’m quite eager to inspect her work.”

“I heard you were planning on heading back here to inspect it personally.”

“That is something we’ve discussed. No plans have been finalized yet.”

“Finalize them, then,” Leon commanded. “Get back here. There’s more than just Mari’Kha’s Ulta suit to inspect.”

“Oh?” Nestor responded as he cocked his artificial head. “Have you found something else interesting?”

“Quite.”

Leon summarized his experience on Arkhnavi for his dead kinsman.

“A Primal Devil unleashed and in possession of a Universe Fragment...” Nestor murmured, his voice packed with apprehension that Leon was unused to hearing from the dead man. “That is terrible news.”

“I’m aware,” Leon replied. “This is why I’m interested in studying the runes that protected me from Planerend’s magic. I picked them up from the monastery where I met Tir’Anu.”

“Show me,” Nestor impatiently demanded.

Leon considered getting offended at being interrupted, but he decided not to make a big deal out of it and showed off his improved skill with light magic by creating another darkness-banishing ancient rune in shining white light next to him.

“Interesting,” Nestor murmured. “This was a part of a larger enchantment scheme, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Leon replied. “I was in a hurry and cut the most powerful rune out of the scheme as it was simpler, but the whole enchantment it was used in was complex. I took detailed notes that I wanted your assistance in analyzing.”

“An enchantment that can resist the power of a Primal Devil is something I would be very interested in studying,” Nestor stated. “I’m only needed for supervision back here—which means I’m not needed at all, so I’ll return to Stormhollow immediately.”

“Might some of my people accompany you, Lord Nestor?” Rakos inquired.

“Ask the King,” Nestor replied.

Leon didn’t even wait for Rakos to do just that, saying, “As many of your people can return as are able.”

Rakos bowed again. “Twelve of our number have expressed interest in joining these ‘Tempest Knights’. Others are more intrigued by the idea of piloting other bodies. We are most excited, however, at the idea of serving our creators in any way we are needed.”

“We’ll see what work we can put you up to,” Leon replied.

And like that, Nestor and several dozen giants began the days-long journey back to Stormhollow. Leon couldn’t wait until they arrived; studying enchantments and exploring what the giants might be capable of sounded significantly more interesting to him than dealing with politics.

Unfortunately for him, politics wasn’t quite done with him, as he still had numerous foreign dignitaries to meet with, not to mention Heaven’s Eye...

‘It’s going to be a long day,’ he lamented as he ended the call with Nestor. He lingered in the room for only a few more seconds as he rejuvenated as much mental strength as he could before rising from his seat and returning to his duties. Even as mentally tired as he already was, he wasn’t going to ignore his duties.