After Felix departed, life in the town settled back down. Our town was still unimportant, so nobody bothered us. However, Anise and I kept an ear out for any news from the war. We were curious to see what others thought of Felix. We also wanted to see when the war finally ended.
The news we heard was promising.
The monarchist faction did, indeed, suffer some turmoil after the death of its leader. However, the son of the king proved more capable than expected. Based on Felix's assessment, as well as the newspapers, he was rather charismatic. He also had a decent grasp of politics and military tactics. He was inferior to his father... but not by much. If he had helmed the monarchist faction from the beginning, he might not have won. However, his father had already placed the monarchist faction in an excellent position. They controlled over 65% of the archipelago. The old government and the naturalists were also busy fighting each other. As long as he wasn't an idiot, he had a good chance to win the war.
Rather than rush in, Villdym seemed to be focused on consolidating and repairing the territory he controlled. He focused on repairs and reconstruction, while ignoring the other two factions. In other circumstances, this might have given them a window to recover. In this case, they seemed more interested in killing each other, though.
Meanwhile, Felix started to show up in the newspapers as well. Papers started to mention a mysterious fellow named 'Felix,' Villdym's newest advisor. When I saw that, I resisted the urge to smile.
It looked like Felix was doing well. I didn’t know how his first meeting with Villdym had gone - but he had managed to secure a spot as an advisor to the king. That couldn’t have been easy. Of course, public response to Felix wasn't always positive. I saw some newspapers criticizing the king for hiring one of the ‘oppressors’ from the Zelyrian continent. Luckily, most people didn't seem to care. After all, Felix wasn’t trying to become a king or a governor. He was the industrial advisor. He could give advice to the king, and manage some laws regarding industrial standards. He had some power, but much of it was derived from the king.
With Felix's oversight and Villdym's focus, Zanna entered a factory-building spree. The security in major cities started to improve. Soon, a variety of materials flooded the archipelago as factories were rebuilt.
Felix’s little stockpile of supplies drained away rapidly. That wasn't a surprise - after all, he was just one person. Rebuilding all the factories in the archipelago would have been impossible. However, the newspapers latched on to a interesting fact. One that Felix hadn’t mentioned to Anise and I. He had built something called the optimizer. It had some of the credit for the rapid reconstruction of factories in Zanna.
When I asked Felix about it over bracelet, he confirmed that he did, indeed, have a tool called the Optimizer. It was one of the tools he had built for his 'great industrial leap.' It was some sort of measuring and cutting tool. He had used shaping magic to get the whole thing working. It was far less miraculous than newspapers made it out to be. However, it did make it easy to measure and cut metal with precision. Felix used it to build a lot of machinery parts far faster than the factories of Zanna could manage. After all, the factories of Zanna were in a sad state after all of the bombing and sabotage. Felix had an easier time kick-starting industry than most other people would have. It was a small advantage, but Felix had milked it for all it was worth.
Of course, the Optimizer wasn’t Felix’s only contribution. He also had considerable expertise as an alchemist and an inventor. As one of the inventors of the railroad, he was also familiar with the process of researching new technology. With his many fields of expertise, the factories of Zanna flourished.
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The newspapers quickly caught on to Felix’s ‘wondrous contributions’ to the archipelago. Over a few years, his position started to become better and better in the eyes of the people. The year we turned 22, I also started hearing rumors that Felix had somehow saved the new king’s life. Anise, Sallia, and I questioned him over the communication bracelets about the incident, and Felix confirmed the news. An assassin had managed to sneak in... only for Felix to deconstruct his gun using metal manipulation. The assassin had been unprepared for Felix's 'ability' and had thus failed to even scratch the king. It had exposed the fact that he was ‘lying’ about his mental communication ability… but it had also earned him a fair amount of trust with the new king. By now, Felix’s position was unshakeable. The king, and most of the monarchist faction, felt that Felix was the right man for the job.
Of course, while Felix said that, I suspected that he was hiding some things. It was impossible for a man of rising influence to have such a smooth road to success. If there was one thing i was sure of, it was that any successful person drew jealous gazes. Sallia also mentioned that Felix had asked for her expertise as a former noble a few times. But at the very least, Felix seemed to be overcoming any challenges in his way. That was good enough for me.
Time continued to pass by. The year that we turned twenty-three, I got my next Achievement reward for healing villagers.
Influence: Restore 1,000 Permanent, debilitating injuries.
Achievement +2,000
This reward… had taken far more time and effort than expected.
The last time I had gotten an Achievement reward for healing permanent injuries, it had been after healing 100 people. I had expected to get another reward at 200, or maybe 500 injuries. However, for some reason, there had been no new rewards for healing people until I got to 1,000 injuries. Luckily, my reputation as a healer who could regrow limbs had spread to a few nearby towns. Some people had come to our town to seek out my healing services. They were rare, since prosthetics were cheap and powerful - but I still had some extra customers. And they were exactly the types of injuries I needed to get this reward.
Apart from the influence reward for healing permanent injuries, I did get another, much smaller reward. This one took me by surprise.
Influence: Play a [Very Minor] role in the civil war of Zanna
Achievement +17.
This one baffled me. The reward was tiny. I had no clue how I'd earned it, either. I had avoided the war. Why was I getting rewarded for contributing to it?
After brainstorming with Sallia, Felix, and Anise, our best guess was my healing. While I didn't directly participate in the war, I had healed a lot of people. That, in turn, would also impact the economic prosperity of our town... which would, in turn, impact the amount of taxes we paid each year.
That was our best guess, at least. It seemed a bit far fetched to me, but none of us had a better guess for why I had gotten this reward. Either way, Achievement was Achievement.
These two Achievement rewards brought me from 17,582 to 19,599 Achievement in total. It wasn’t a bad haul, all things considered. We had a far less proactive stance towards adventure and risks this life, but we were still getting good rewards. This world’s magic system wasn’t very good at direct confrontations. Because of that, our combat-oriented magic systems and above average stats gave us a huge advantage here.
Time continued to pass. The year that I turned twenty five, the war finally came to a close. The naturalists and the old government had reduced their territory to rubble during the fighting. Meanwhile, the monarchists now controlled a rebuilt, prosperous territory. That year, Villdym decided it was time to end things. The monarchist army crushed the other two factions in about four months of fighting. Contrary to my fears of a potential ‘reign of terror’ after the government won, things wound down after the final battle. There might have been more going on behind the scenes… but it had nothing to do with me. Felix was thriving, and nobody seemed to be afraid of disappearing in the middle of the night. All in all, things were looking up. The civil war had taken many twists and turns, but I felt things went as well as they could have. After years of fighting, the war was over.