Inside Laubok, the capital city of the Black Lands, Vash Tobrok was furrowing his brows, listening to the reports of his trusted military Commander, who was no other but his son, Levy Tobrok.

"They built that much in such a short time? Ditches, traps, and towers?! How dare they enter into our territory and overturn it?!"

"Strictly speaking, Father, it is still in their land. Effectively, they didn't cross over, but they did close our borders. I contacted our neighboring regions but haven't received any news yet to see if they experienced something similar. They have their own problems with increasing bandit raids and civil unrest."

"No wonder… We have an absurd amount of invaders heading this way from our newest conquest!" He snorted, standing up and looking for his pipe to have a smoke, speaking as if he were also part of the force that conquered the Kingdom of Scorc. "It was always the Frontier where these whackos were heading after every conquest. They always think it is a land of freedom where they can plan their big revenge while living as bandits. What they don't realize is it is what our Empire wants."

"Having them in one place, the Empire can control them, round them up, and exterminate them as bandits. The problem is, until they all are collected in the slaughterhouse, we are put under a heavy strain…" Levy murmured, sighing and shaking his head. "What does the new leader of the Frontier think about sabotaging it?! Nobody told him?"

"He probably fears his seat because, in the past, events like this changed the bloodline of those who sat on ruling over that land of barbarians. Move the army out; we will threaten them into compliance. Who has the better backing? That young lad named Elliot and his barbarian connection within the Frontier or us, with Earl Zimmerman?"

"But Father, the Earl lives far away, while the Frontier is right here."

"And? They can't move their armies off the wall; they are ordered by Ishillia itself to guard it at all times! Even if they split it, so what? The Duchy is their food bank, not a land of metal and fire, not a place where soldiers are bred. Despite being poor compared to other provinces, we are still way better off than those two. We are not going to war with them... We are just going to force them to open up the borders and funnel these bastards into their land."

"Maybe we can keep the barriers and use them to keep the refugees in afterward, Father."

"Now we are talking!" Vash laughed, watching his smiling son, but soon, that smile disappeared as Levy's mind reminded him of the report he had read.

"They do have some weird, heavily armored units."

"Scare tactics. They probably sent out those who were armed by the Empire to defend the walls. We ought not to worry about it! A fresh coat of paint is not something to fear. From what we know, no supplies were going into their land from the royal bloodline in about 150 years."

"I still say that we should be careful with how we are handling it. If we want to succeed, we must contact our neighbors and pressure the barbarians together. Then they will have no choice but to oblige."

"You are right…" Vash murmured, blowing smoke out of his nose. "I will write a letter to them. Until they answer, keep sending these low-life nobodies at their walls and building makeshift crossings."

"It will be done, Father!"

…

….

……

"How annoying…" Pion mumbled, standing above a wooden table, watching the map of the region that now had their reinforced border drawn up with four newly drawn red circles on them.

"We already rounded up more than a hundred people." Polo saluted, holding a report in his hands, reading from it. "They were always resisting, and our forces had to kill at least a dozen who drew their swords at us in order to break free."

"Injuries?"

"Two lightly injured soldiers, nothing else, Commander! They were only wounded because they protected the Baron's inexperienced soldiers, who made some mistakes."

"Understandable. Keep up the rotation of troops and make sure our officers keep teaching them how to track, entrap, and maneuver against enemy troops."

"Are we not going to fix the damage they did to the barricades?" Polo asked, looking at the map where the Black Lands army built multiple quick crossings, herding the refugees over them.

"No. It is better to know where they are so we can prepare, have a controlled environment, and capture the trespassers. It is easier than always playing cat and mouse and searching for where they smuggle them over."

"We still should burn down one or two." Polo suggested, speaking bravely, pointing at some of the circles. "It is just as weird to let them do it like destroying all of it. That way, they could fall into the false thinking that we didn't patrol every part of the border."

"If they fall for it, it would also give them the idea that we don't have enough manpower to keep all of it safe and secure." Pion agreed, thinking about it, changing his plans accordingly, patting Polo on the shoulders. "I will write the report, mentioning your contribution."

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"With the tractors away, continuing to build the traps along the borders of other counties, wouldn't we be picking a fight with everybody around us?"

"Not really." Pion smiled, knowing the backgrounds of all the families they were facing, thanks to the information coming from Yuri. "We only have three enemies in theory, but that is true only on the surface. The Black Land has the longest bordering section with us in the south. On the western part, we are fine with Greyback, which leaves us with the south-east directions. They are also on the same rank, being barons with small territories, around the same power level as the Black Lands."

"Barony of Seedbed and the Eastern Gateway." He read it, running his fingers through the map. "Shouldn't we have some kind of connection with the Gateway? I heard and learned in school that we did send caravans through them into the Atuvian League."

"It was all under the table, so no, not really." Pion nodded. "It is unimportant for now. Most refugees come through the Black Lands; it is a natural funneling point, so we must focus on them the most. The others can wait. Also… As I said, this is only real on paper. When peering behind them, we are really only facing one family."

"Who?"

"Earl Ludwig Zimmerman. His bloodline controls the barons inhabiting most of the regions around here. Lady Yuri quickly managed to untangle the nonsense relations between the nobles and trace it back to the Zimmerman family, who built up a ring around the Frontier, gaining ownership over the local baronies through multiple methods. His primary focus is the Black Lands, though, because he takes away the coal and uses it to fuel his industry, manufacturing weapons for the Empire."

"Coal?" Polo asked, thinking back, but it was a new word for him.

"The black rock they are mining there. It is something that becomes valuable when you are working with metal! The rest of the baronies were absorbed to ensure this operation went smoothly and nobody interfered with the Zimmermans exploiting the Black Lands."

"So… are we taking up arms against an Earl? Are we openly rebelling?"

"Not yet." Pion smiled, crossing his arms, thinking. "General Oleg has informed me that I have to prioritize training Baron Elliot's forces for now. We are using this as a whetstone… our rebellion will start if our Knights enter the fray."

"We learned in school that we don't have nobles within Avalon because they are always the cause of deaths and skirmishes within a country itself! Now I can finally see it happen in real life…"

"Ahaha, that is true!" Pion chuckled, agreeing with Merlin's teachings that he had also committed to memory years ago, "It is not rare that there are disputes between nobles; some are even encouraged by the royal family. As long as we keep it reasonable, we should be fine."

"Do we know how to keep it reasonable?" Polo whistled, smiling, making Pion grin because he felt the same way, although he would never say it out loud, always following his orders to the letter.

"We do have a Duke on our side. So whatever will happen, an Earl is still that… just an Earl. Not to mention, he is not one who lives within the capital city, showing that his powers are not a hundred percent up to what an Earl should have."

"Whatever happens, I am sure the Sovereign has thought about it!" Polo giggled, spreading his arms while smiling, feeling that they should be all right whatever came next.

…

….

……

"I feel my head exploding." I moaned, lying on my desk, letting Sasha try and massage my shoulders while Luna was brewing tea for me.

"Come on, it is not that complicated!" Yuri giggled, making me moan once again.

"It is bullshit." I answered, raising my head while patting Sasha's gentle fingers on my shoulders, "I have been studying and analyzing possible responses of the different nobles, and whatever I come up with, it ends up as a fire that would spread to the capital."

"Then we just need to build the mechs faster," was her answer, which I couldn't help but shrug at. "Not enough… We need more firepower and quickly. Something that can support our troops until we build up the heavy weaponry," I mumbled, tapping on a stack of documents I had been working on day and night for the past two days.

"What's this?" Yuri asked, opening it and taking the first blueprint out while Luna poured tea into my cup.

"A new tank." Sasha chuckled because she was helping me smooth out my designs. Thanks to her, these were now wholly compatible with our factories, so we could churn out a dozen in a month if necessary.

"Tank? Isn't this a tractor with a cannon attached to it?"

"It is a self-propelled artillery or a howitzer for short." I said after letting the tea slip down my throat, enjoying its taste. "A tank would have a turret that can be rotated and has more armor and… whatever, I am not going into the nitpicking of semantics."

"Wait… these are also magical?" She asked as she kept looking at the images, making me nod my head.

"The boiler had been enhanced, so it now works on magic fire like our kilns. Unlike its civilian counterpart, military vehicles are okay to have an edge. I told Merlin to try and make us a modified anti-gravity spell that lowers the weight of the howitzer to around half so it can move much faster than a tractor."

"Why not make it weightless?" Luna questioned, making me take another sip of tea.

"And then it flies away? Or be hit with something that disables it and becomes immobile? No. This is fine; I need it to be deployed and give us support from behind. We could shoot far away and bombard the enemy lines with the improved cannons, softening them for our soldiers."

"We are also working on something else," Sasha continued, smiling from ear to ear. "I mean Merlin, me, and Mikan!"

"Oh? So, are you meeting not because you are trying to rope Mikki in?" Luna giggled, making Sasha roll her eyes, flicking her forehead.

"We are working on an automated Imaginary, the thing Merlin developed for the mech."

"What does that mean?" Yuri asked, putting down the drawings and leaning in, sipping from my cup while I explained.

"A howitzer is a weapon that stays behind and attacks from a position that is unseen by the enemy. I am talking about kilometers away! Because we have yet to build an airforce, we aim to replicate what the Empire already has to let them aim at our enemies."

"High-ranking mages," Sasha continued where I left off, "use weaker, less capable wizards when casting long-range spells. They connect their magic together and see what they see. We are working to replicate that! Our soldiers will have a device called the Marker. It will allow them to use it to look at enemy positions and use the formation within to mark a position. That gets returned to the howitzers who can lock onto the Mark and fire their cannons."

"Wouldn't that eat up our CC reserves?" Yuri asked about the exact part I was stressing about.

"War is expensive." I shrugged, "But we are better to be prepared for it than to be caught off-guard. Whatever happens, I do hope Duke Kustov will be able to smooth it out and keep it from snowballing into something I want to push back as far as possible. Still, if this escalates to what I have been having a headache over, then we will be able to put up a fight."

"Howitzer…" Yuri mumbled, tasing the word, "With this, wouldn't we be able to roll over the enemy? Conquer the Black Lands?"

"I wouldn't mind…" I mumbled, surprising her while I ran my fingers over my teacup's edge. "I want their coal…"