"That is why we aren't the only ones in this meeting. Muyaun, Amat, and Barcar all have people who excel at moving without being noticed. They will be the ones who are acting first. They will use the chaos to hide their movements as they enter the depths of the empire. They will locate our people and if possible, free them. Where it isn't possible, they will act as pathfinders for units from the army to get them in to perform the rescue."
Muyaun says "Yes! You can count on my scouts! I will even go personally, this sounds fun!"
Barcar says "I don't have as many sneaky types as the others, but what I have are yours!"
Amat says "My people are in as well!"
"Great! Knarra, I know your people aren't sneaky, but they can still help. A lot of the slaves will be in bad shape, can your people help move them?"
Knarra says "Absolutely!"
"Grud, the empire will have a lot of fortified places where slaves are kept. Can we count on your people to tunnel into them? If we have to take them by force we will take more casualties."
Grud says "Of course! My best people will be yours to command."
"Good. Alright, Leonarr, how long will it take to get everything ready?"
Leonarr says "With travel time, I would say at least a few days before we can be ready to start. The empire is a big place, it will take time to search all of it for our people."
Muyaun says "I can have scouts across the border tomorrow."
"Will they be alright if they go in before the chaos starts?"
Muyaun says "It will be harder, but they can do it."
Amat says "Why not let me handle it? We have already had rats spying on the empire, we can just use them to search for slaves. That way we can use the time before everyone else is ready to identify targets."
"Sounds like a good idea to me. Muyaun, while the rats find targets, I want your scouts to locate rally points. We don't want to bring out each group of slaves individually. We will also need food for them since slaves aren't normally well fed."
Muyaun says "Alright, consider it done."
"I will cast the spell in two days and I expect it to take a day or two for the chaos to spread. So, we will begin operations four days from now. Everyone please get everything in place by then."
Before everyone leaves to get to work, I have them sit down to a meal with me. While we are eating I talk about my plans and how I hope the nation will develop. I also bring up that Lin, a human mage, will be my first queen and my reasons.
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I fully expect there to be some issues with me marrying a human, but I am prepared for that. I figure that it is better to get it out in the open and start dealing with it now. The wedding was supposed to be soon after I returned, but I don't know if that will happen.
Not only am I about to start a huge mess, but with Myria missing I don't know what the plan is. She and Lin were supposed to be planning everything, but I haven't heard anything recently. With Lin being distracted by the library, I can't even be sure if she has thought about it.
For now, I am not going to worry about it, I will see what the plan is when Myria returns. If the wedding is delayed, that will just give people more time to get used to the idea. It may just reduce the problems we have to deal with, at least I hope it does.
To prevent anyone from thinking I prefer humans, I also inform them that Myria will be my second wife. Muyaun is the only one that shows signs of discontent with that announcement. However, she is smart enough not to say anything too extreme about it.
"At this point, that is as far as my plans have reached. I will make more detailed plans after we see how the situation with the empire goes."
Muyaun says "Do you plan to take more wives later?"
"No, I don't. I don't want to marry anyone due to politics. I am marrying the two of them because I care about them. Events may force me to take another wife at some point, but I will fight against that as much as I can."
Muyaun looks disappointed at my answer, but I don't care, she was never in the running. There is no way I could get into a relationship with someone that I can't trust. She has been behaving so far, but that only earns her a little bit of trust.
She has a lot more work to do if she wants me to begin to trust her more. It still bothers me that she has complete control of her entire tribe and they can't disobey. Especially considering that she isn't a beastman, just a fox beast that can take humanoid form.
Still, I have to admit that her and her clan have proven to be very useful. Even if I can't trust her, I will still take care of her clan and reward them for their service. I won't make her people suffer just because I don't like or trust Muyaun.
After that, the conversation turns to the tribes that haven't joined us yet. The more information I have about them the better plans I can make for dealing with them. Once everyone is done eating, the chiefs leave to organize their people and only Leonarr remains.
"So, how is the army doing?"
Leonarr says "Excellent! I dare to say that we have the best trained and best equipped military force on the peninsula!"
"That's great! How do you think we would do in an all out war with the empire?"
Leonarr says "They still outnumber us, but we would eventually win. The only problem is that casualties would be high. Such a war would drain a lot of our strength and we would need time to recover before being able to wage a war against the demons."
"That's basically what I figured. I will try to avoid a full scale war, but I won't leave our people enslaved!"
Leonarr says "Agreed! Hopefully the chaos will allow us to rescue them with minimal casualties."
"How would you rate us against the rest of the clans?"
Leonarr says "Not counting the ogre tribe, the rest could join together and we could still beat them. We wouldn't even take too many casualties. Of course, the odds of them working together are pretty much zero. The only tribe that could give us trouble would be the ogres and that is because of how strong they are and how well they work together."
"So, what if I get the ogres to join us?"
Leonarr says "If the ogres are on our side, then the rest of the tribes would fall easily. In fact, at that point conquering the empire would be possible."