Chapter 442: Day 867 – Returning Home
Clarissa was in her element getting everything packed up and handing out orders to various messengers, she had summoned after I had arrived at her bunker yesterday.
She was supervising, handing out messages, but she wasn’t doing any of the packing herself. It was a big difference compared to the Rising Sun Alliance in the Dragon Empire. That had been a sad group.
They had completely disappeared. No news, no attacks, nothing. It was a bit concerning but there were limited methods of sabotage or attack. The hope was that they would be grinders for a level 3 zone.
Only by killing me could they hope to destabilize my control over my Empire. But if they killed me I would be dead and it wouldn’t matter. Clarissa was also invaluable but not irreplaceable. Once the government was set up there would be a bureaucracy in place.
That was Clarissa’s true power, delegation. She had a system all set up with messengers sending out orders. The messengers would go to key rally points which would then direct the messengers to their delivery target.
A full recall wasn’t possible, since there was still fighting with the Lords in the Southwest part of the Dragon Empire. Also there was a tense standoff in the Northwest against the Fifth Caliphate.
Only the Commanders and Captains were being recalled since many would become the new Governors or Directors. While the war wasn’t over or won, things would be restructured in the next deek or so.
I was slowly getting used to the idea of calling 10 days a deek. Even if it felt like one of the stupidest words imaginable. Once the Governors were in place things would become easier.
Boarders would’ve drawn up between cities and Governors could run them as they saw fit with some limitations. No slavery, paying taxes, no rebellions, that sort of thing. How they allocated areas for grinding would be left to them with careful and regular audits.
There would be little to no micromanaging by Clarissa. The war had been hard on her. She had more gray hair. Well I had no complaints if she set things up to run with minimal input.
“Not rushing ahead?“ Clarissa asked me.
”In a little bit. Just resting and focusing on my energy,” I replied with a half truth. The real reason was that I was a bit lonely and it was nice to talk with a friend.
While I did need to fix the curse damage, I wanted to see and talk to people after being in that tower for so long.
”Well, we will get there the day after tomorrow. I can’t wait to get a shower,“ Clarissa said. I nodded at this.
“Food for me. We still have bread?” I asked. Long ago someone had arrived while making bread, bringing yeast. Losing that would have been annoying.
”Yes. Getting it up and running as a proper bakery will be tough. So many people have been lost. But once we are settled into Purgatory things will be much easier.” That was good to hear.
I was going to combine a vacation with getting the curse damage under control. I didn’t want to have issues away from a city or an easy restoration.
“I should probably get going,” I said and slowly stood up from my seat.
“So level 6?” Clarissa asked me.
The Divine Empress had been clever hiding the Avatar. The diviners could sense large energy spikes. But all the information that the Divine Empress gathered could be attributed to them while using the Avatar.
It seemed silly since she could communicate remotely, but the Avatar probably never informed the Divine Empress. If the Divine Empress had known, it would have been simple enough to have someone slap her once a minute to disrupt any skill.
Well it may not have been that easy, but there were ways to make things difficult for the Avatar. She had kind of moved up from mortal enemy, to untrustworthy acquaintance.
That was the good and bad thing about people dying, it simplified things. With the death of the Divine Empress so many plots and plans unraveled.
While I was glad I had finished her off, I would keep the lessons she had taught me close to my heart. Passive income was the best, and launching your enemies into the stratosphere was just as bad as choking them out. Always melt them, no matter what.
She had also taught me how not to manage an Empire. Motivating people through brutality and just killing everyone made for an unstable situation where the other top people would jump ship as soon as possible.
That was why I had accepted the lower tax rate Clarissa had proposed. When I had come up with the idea and name for the Immortal Council ages ago, I realized and understood I was in this for the long haul.
Real power was denoted by how many zones had grinders. The Divine Empress didn’t have people in the level 3 zones which was a big mistake in my opinion.
The trick with nation building games was always the balance between growing the economy or growing the military. Right now the Empire needed to grow the economy by pushing people into higher level zones and funneling back large amounts of crystals.
If the Divine Empress hadn’t been so insane in running her Dragon Empire, her passive income and stats could have been higher with the amount of time she had. Instead she just liked creating as much suffering as possible.
That was her chief exports, misery and suffering. The fact I had killed her didn’t prove anything about me. Instead it proved she had no concept of math, economics, or basic forms of government that weren’t built on a cult of personality and suffering.
Still she had the right idea about passive income and keeping a firm grip on power. One thing I would do that she hadn’t done was upgrade other cities.
After talking with Clarissa, it would be given out as a reward based on tax revenue. People would be motivated for meat. Fruits and vegetables could only take a person so far.
This would also motivate the governors as a way to reward the for good management. Clarissa had informed me my popularity was quite high and the death of the Divine Empress in combat would reach legendary status very quickly.
Morale had sunk and things had come close to falling apart with her running around, but with my victory everything had reversed. While I hadn’t got anything tangible from the top of the tower and the Almighty System, I had solidified my future role as Emperor.
That was incredibly valuable since passive income to boost my stats was incredibly overpowered. It was the first real exploit that wasn’t a trap or monkey’s paw in my mind.
While there might be some hinderance in getting meta-points, that was unclear compared to the overwhelming value and power that passive income represented.
In the past I hadn’t considered it since I was more efficient grinding and thinking at a one city level. But at a multi-city level or an Empire the scale quickly tipped towards passive income and remained firmly in that direction.
With how the Divine Empress had run her Dragon Empire, it was possible to take it over without a lot of resistance. There would be some fighting of course but no one at my level and not enough at level 3 to fight my soldiers.