Basked under the moonlight was a line of heavily guarded wagons. They were supposed to be carrying military food and weapon supplies on paper, but what they were really carrying was all the lost tax money.

As they travelled towards the top of the hill, the horses pulling the carriages began to panic. Several people fell off their horses, and carriages were flipped over each other.

Immediately several of the guard escorts were immobilised, but those that managed to escape from the chaos weren't left out. They began to lose all sorts of feelings in their muscles and slowly began to lose their consciousness.

It was a planned ambush to take out many of them at once and cause a commotion. The horses were only hit with a needle that would be absorbed by their own body and leave minimal traces. The needles weren't laced with anything as it was only used to rile up the horses to cause a distraction.

The panic that the horses cause pushes the guards to breathe more rapidly that they don't even know they are breathing in a knockout gas. Nor did they know they were not going to wake up ever again.

⯁ ⯁ ⯁

The next day after the black ops money recovery mission, I had all the money counted and stored in our secret underground treasury. We had deployed a few of our experimental weapons, such as the disappearing needle and knockout gas, made using material from this world.

There were over forty thousand gold coins and two hundred thousand silver coins. I then had the money placed in small pouches and had the espionage units deliver them anonymously to struggling families, businesses, and orphanages. I tried to exchange as many of them for copper or silver coins so that it would be much easier for them to use.

In the end, we only kept half of the gold coins and none of the silver coins. Twenty thousand gold coins were a lot of money, even for some nobility, and we would probably use most of it for outside activities.

When I meant outside activities, it meant covert missions that would take place in another country. Whether it could be espionage or even sabotage.

We also decided to take some of the horses as last-minute spoils, as I figured the elves or farmers might have a use for them. However, as it turns out, the farmers have been happily using the tractors that we've provided them. Whilst the elves have taken an interest in motorcycles.

The word surprised would not even describe what I felt when I spotted a few of them doing doughnuts and wheelies in our vehicle parking lot. I had given them several "homemade" bikes to test out.

We even have a bike with a minigun attached to the front, though that model is still in its testing phase and not yet fully operatable. Its biggest issue is probably its increased weight at the front, and we are still working out a solution.

There was one solution which was to use magic, precisely one that can decrease the weight of an object. However, none of the elves or our POW mages knows weight magic.

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Speaking of POWs, we've received several requests to release some of our high profile prisoners for a price, but not as many for the lower profile prisoners. It was very likely that their families were trying to gather the ransom money, even though we hadn't told them they needed to pay a ransom.

We decided on the POW values by their statuses. A few first and second sons of noble families that managed to escape punishment were happy to pay for their return.

In truth, we had planned to release all our POWs, and we still intend to, but if we were going to get paid for a few of them, there was no way I was going to say no to that.

The mages assisting us were relatively low-ranking in the army, so not many people except their families wanted to pay for their return. The captains of the mage units, even though they didn't have any noble status, were still valuable due to their knowledge and power.

I doubt the low-rank mages would rejoin an army that had forgotten about them, so I decided to give them offers to work for us to develop tools using modern technology and magic. We even offered to move their families over as a bonus.

Most of the work at the moment is understanding what different types of magic exist in this world and how we can counter them. We know that there is a country that specialises in magic; it is also where mass-produced magic tools are made.

Magic was a very powerful thing that required years to harness its potential power. Sages were apparently people who were unparalleled in magic, but most often, they secluded themselves with research and rarely made a public appearance.

Though it would be nice to have a powerful sage work for us so that they can teach us the properties of magic. But I'm kind of afraid because I was told that several years ago, a noble from someplace was harassing a sage, so the sage moved the noble's entire estate around like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Supreme Commander, I have something urgent that requires your attention!"

My train of thought was interrupted by Ayumi rushing into the office. I didn't mind her doing that as I knew she would not usually interrupt me unless it was an emergency or something urgent.

"Under your orders, we have begun building a database to store genetic information, so I ordered a unit to collect the ex-emperor Orklarth's genetics secretly, as much as I hate to say that."

"So? did it go wrong or..."

"No, the opposite, it was very successful. But when we uploaded onto the database, we got cross-database matches."

"Matches? How's that possible? From what we know, Orklarth never had any kids or other family members still alive."

"Indeed, the match percentage means that they are a close relative of Orklarth. But that's not the only problem, we have two matches, and each is a nearly 25% match."

"This is slightly unexpected; who are they?"

"The sisters, Mina and Lina, and we have already a theory as to how this situation came to be."

"I'm all ears."

"We theorise that the crown prince had survived the assassination and hid from the watchful eyes of his brother, who then had all the power. We assume that the assassins weren't very good at their job or falsified the report.

A detailed lab report shows that the sisters are only half-sisters; Mina is likely the princess supposed to have died fourteen years ago."

Surprises came after surprises; this sort of information was critical. Since we have unknowingly harboured the only other surviving members of the Cerenth Royal family.

No doubt, the Loyalist faction would make a move if they had this sort of information.

"Should I call the sisters in?"

"No, I doubt they would know about it or even think they were actually princesses. Until we can confirm this is true, no one is allowed to know, not even our own allies."

"Understood, I will move all relevant documents to level 0 access and task our spies to confirm our theory."

"Good. Also, what is the status of the 22nd platoon?"

"Our last contact was when they were refuelling just over the mountain. Our next check-in is in 1 hour, 34 minutes and 42 seconds."

"Fine, if nothing goes wrong, notify me when they land and establish long-range comms. Remember that we have no intel, so they must proceed with caution."

"Understood."

After Ayumi left, I slumped into my chair and sighed deeply with a headache. Things just got more complicated...