Ashton Harbor

“Five wins and three losses,” said the man, holding a staff. He is looking at the map of Renwell Region; the complete renwell region.

“It had gone better than we had imagined, General,” replied the man in grey iron armor, standing behind him.

“How it had gone better, tell me?” asked the man with the staff gently as he turned toward the armored man. Feeling the gaze, the confident smile, on the armored man’s face had disappeared.

“We had captured the five cities. It was better than our target of the three,” replied the armored man after a moment of silence.

Mustering the smile on his face, that he had lost a moment ago.

“Yes, we have conquered five cities but failed at three. Losing powerhouses, especially at Greltheaven, where the entire horde had got wiped, with only two people being able to escape,”

“As for the target of capturing three cities; it was based on our enemies providing material and men support, which they didn’t do. The only support, they have provided is information and despite that, we had failed to capture three,”

“So, tell me, Haiz, how is this better?” asked the man with the staff.

The smile the armored man had mustered had vanished, and he felt cold sweat running down his back.

“My apologies; I was thoughtless with my words,” apologized the armored man and bowed. The man with the staff didn’t say anything and turned back to the map.

“The merchants have acted. We will need more careful from now on, but it is fine. The small wait is favorable to us,” said the man with staff and shared a look with the armored man.

Very few know the real reason behind the attack on the Renwell Region. Even the two, who are responsible didn’t have a complete idea about it and they didn’t ask.

They know the cost of that. Instead, they focused on their orders, which are much safer.

The order is to conquer the whole Renwell region, not just the part that is being controlled by the empire.

It is an enormous challenge, but the man with the staff feels ready for it. He feels it is his destiny, that he will fulfill.

…

“Best of luck,” I said to the four in front of me.

Robin, Valentina, Hardt, and Lola are going to Meldhorn. There are many things they have to do there, but most important of all is negotiations for the aid.

“Thank you, Lord Silver,” they said and walked out of my office.

This is the second step. The merchant states want things, and I will give them that. It is going to be extremely beneficial for the city and the quicker, I moved, the better it would be for me.

I want to use the first mover's advantage. Solidify the city’s position before others make a move.

It is why, I am not even waiting for a whole day since the blockade opened. It had opened at dawn, and I am sending them to merchant states in the evening.

It is a little risky, but the risks I am willing to take.

Many things I am doing are against the laws of the empire, but currently, the empire is too busy to care about what this little border city of mine is doing.

The enemies are attacking the empire from all directions and even battles were fought between the princes for the throne. It will be a while before an empire with full control will return.

Some even doubt if it will ever return.

It is why it had become even more important for the city to be strong, to be rich. It is the only way; we will be able to guarantee our survival.

I watched till the door closed before focusing back on the work in front of me.

It is the third step; the most important one. I am amending the constitution of the city. There are many problems with it and currently, I couldn’t make too big of changes, but I am making the small, but important ones.

I have also removed a few complete sections. It would have been better to rewrite them, but I currently couldn’t be due to the backlash that might happen.

So, I had removed them, but didn’t replace them with new laws and that would be chaotic.

It is why, there will be an unofficial decree on how to handle these things.

Once my control of the city has solidified fully and its culture moved in the direction of the way I want, I will make those things official, but it will take a lot of time, years. Decades, probably.

I don’t know if I will be alive by then.

Still, that doesn’t mean I won't try. Miracles don’t happen on a single night. It needs effort every day, and I will give that effort.

I worked till midnight, before stopping.

I would have continued as I genuinely liked what I was doing, but I needed to sleep. There is a lot of work tomorrow and I need to be rested to do it.

So, I went to sleep, and it was in my new suit. It was Count’s suit and now it is mine. They have done a great job in one day; taking out all the ugly art and changing those ostentatious blinds and curtains.

They have also changed the bed. Which is the first thing, I had asked them to do. It was an abomination.

The changes are far from finished. The suite was huge, and many things needed to be done, but they had finished enough, especially the bedroom.

I fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up six hours later.

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I quickly showered and ate, before walking off the mansion into the city hall, where I had an important meeting.

Click!

“My lord,” greeted Bishop Elena as I entered my office.

She is with her two paladins; they are not wearing their armor, but I can tell they are ready to defend her against any threat.

“Your Excellency, Alanis,” I said as I sat down.

There was a silence for a few seconds. I am going to do something, that will have a huge consequence, bigger than admitting orcs to the city.

“You have helped me, and it is time, I helped you too. So, tell me what you want?” I asked directly. There is no need to dally it and she liked it this way too, seeing the smile appearing on her face.

“We want permission to set up our church in the city and proselytize our faith,” she said.

The request is what I had expected.

“There is no problem with that, but there are certain conditions. Two are most important. First, your church will need to aid us in every battle we fight like you and your people did against the undead,”

“Second, you will be forbidden to comment and interfere with the politics and policies of the city directly or indirectly,” I said.

The bastards from the church of the god of war loved to interfere. I do not want another church in my city doing the same.

“We do not have a problem with the first conditions, but will need more clarification on the second. Sometimes a simple sentence might feel like a criticism or interference,” she replied.

A genuine smile couldn’t help, but appear on my face. The woman is smart; she had gone directly to the heart of the matter.

“Ina will inform of you that, along with other conditions,” I said and a few seconds later, Ina took her to the conference room, where our people have already been waiting for the negotiations.

Ina had a lot of things to do; there were very few people, whom I could trust to do the job without messing it up.

Aside from the negotiations, I had also asked her to convince people not to leave. I am meeting people personally to convince them, but I could not meet them all with the time, I have.

People left yesterday, and they are leaving today. It is not an exodus as I feared, but their numbers are still large.

It is not just the common people who are leaving, but also important ones of middle to high level.

The people who keep the city running and it is hard to stop them.

To be honest, I am glad, the state of the empire isn’t good. If it had been, it would have been a true exodus of the people. I am making sure; the people knew what was happening in the empire, even exaggerating a few facts.

I do not feel good about it, but it is working, and I will keep doing it.

Hun!

I was working, when I heard a strange noise from Zela and turned to her. She had had her eyes closed; she was clearly casting spells.

I waited and had to wait for over a minute before she opened her eyes.

“What happened?” I asked. Feeling worried, while praying in my heart, that it is not the undead.

“There is an official released from Lauryl Town. The baronies formed an alliance, calling themselves United Baronies of Nakar.” She informed and my first reaction was a relief.

“Hahaha…”

The second was the laugh. I begin to laugh hard. So, hard, that tears started to come out of my eyes.

I could see Zela looking at me worriedly, but I kept laughing. It took me a while to stop laughing.

“Dane is going to lose his shit,” I said, feeling much better.

In the past two days, I had exchanged a couple of messages with Commander Dane of Mirador Hold. He hinted to me to resign and give the command of the city to him. Even indirectly threatened, if I didn’t listen.

The man is powerful and has experienced an army under his control. It is big enough that he could defeat us.

There was an even greater problem that many of my men, wouldn’t fight against them. Many had worked under Dane. If I want to make them loyal to me; I need time and now with this, I will have time.

Dane will be quite busy in dealing with this and those barons are not going to make things easy for him.

“Do all the baronies are part of this alliance?” I asked Zela. “They are saying, they are,” Zela replied.

“Get confirmation from each one,” I said to her and turned to the map.

With Nakar baronies allying together, they have created a powerful force. Individually, they are not a threat, but together, they will have a big army and powerful people like Baron Harrods and Baron Lockridge leading them.

Most importantly, with Nakar baronies independent. It will affect the earnings of Mirador Hold.

Dane had been eyeing the whole profit from the trade route he controls, but now he will need to share that or get the baronies under his control.

It is the best news for me because now Dane won’t turn his eyes toward me until he deals with baronies, and that wouldn’t be easy for him.

“Is a Major Jarvis part of it?” I asked her.

“Yes, he is part of the seven-member ruling council,” she replied, and the smile on my face became even bigger.

He must be furious. It would have been one thing if it had been barons alone, but his own man had turned against him.

I really wish, I could see Dane right now.