Author's note: I'm sorry I haven't answered your comments yet. I'm a bit in a time crunch because of the semester and have barely time, but I still read them and will answer at some point ;)

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Private Lounge, Wintersleep Hotel, Wolfsteeth

Only the wealthiest of the Wolfsteeth elite could rent out a luxuriously furnished private lounge inside the Wintersleep Hotel. Workers assigned to this space were obliged to sign contracts and never talk about what happened inside, though there were no waiters or waitresses this time.

However, this time, the ones who rented the most expensive and private space in the hotel were regulars, some even living here normally as if it were their home. Between them was one rather special guest, standing before the regulars, who were sitting nervously on some couches.

The special guest was Alexander, who did not even make it a secret that he was visiting this establishment to have a talk with his retainers to whom he stood before. Yet, he was not there to give a pep talk, congratulations for their hard work, or anything of the sort. The aura he leaked was full of bloodthirst and anger, creating a short-lived mist around him, which he tried as best as he could to suppress, as most of his present retainers were no fighters and could barely defend against it.

However, Alexander wasn't holding back when it came to his word choice, "You want to tell me that we had a fucking refugee camp full of foreign fucking races on our dam' fucking border?!"

Ocilia tried speaking up nervously, "Master, maybe..."

"Shut the fuck up, Lia!" However, Alexander didn't care about her since she was as clueless as he was. Who he was interested in were those whom he glared at, sitting before him: Aurum and Ariana. Those were the ones who should've told him but didn't, making him increasingly furious.

While Ariana was more or less excused as she was new and barely able to catch up on all his projects while trying to climatize herself to Moorgrel, Aurum was not. They had similar moral systems, and Alexander couldn't believe that he didn't say anything about the thousands of refugees on their border, a number so low that they could practically put them into some corner of their fief, not being worried anymore. Logistically, it was negligible and easy to achieve.

The metro area of Wolfsteeth had a population of a couple million, increasing daily, and the whole fief had many more, ranging from five million to twenty. It was an insane number for their middle-aged-styled society. Still, because of the beast-kins' physiology, skills, the system window as a whole, and those implicit factors that came from it, only morons wouldn't be able to grow a population like this.

The only reason it didn't grow faster was due to war, monsters, demons, and other factors that tried to kill them. So, in Alexander's mind, it was ridiculous not to find some god-forsaken place somewhere, put them there, and get a good conscience. It wouldn't cost anything since they barely had what could be considered welfare on modern Earth, which meant those refugees were almost perfect investments, only bringing in surpluses.

However, for Alexander, having a pure conscience was secondary. His ego and pride were many times bigger, making him feel ashamed. He tried his best to create the society he dreamed of step by step, slowly and gradually. While sometimes hypocritical, as long as it served the greater goal, like playing by the rules to a certain point, he was fine with it, but this was not it.

Alexander felt like a hypocrite. In his speeches, he specifically talked about their fief while including all races, seeing that besides the apparent economic and political gains, he also furthered his ideological goals. He wanted others to see themselves as Leonandrians and Moorgrelians rather than as some race. He didn't allow himself not to follow through with at least this much, helping those who wanted and needed help while living in his family's fief. Sure, they didn't technically live inside the fief but in Kratikal, but getting hung on such technicalities was not his style.

"Listen here, you imbeciles, I have a damn charity in which I put a mountain of gold, trying to help the poorest fuckers somehow to get better. So tell me, why do we not help those other fuckers on the border?..." Alexander started to stroll around them, continuing to talk as he couldn't stand still, "...let's forget morals, ideals, and all the other tree-hugging bullshit and concentrate on economics..." He started to gesture wildly, "...we have people living on our borders, unable to trade or do anything with us and where do you think they will go if they need more food or other resources then? To the damn underworld, doing crimes instead of contributing to society like everyone else..."

Aurum looked at Alexander, still stoic and not disturbed, trying to speak up, "Master, do you know why we can't deal with them?"

Alexander stood still, looking at him, wanting to answer but couldn't. He had only talked with the night-elf in the morning and checked if everything she said was true, which it was. However, he also checked if she withheld certain information, but most of it was pretty detailed regarding the current situation, but not their history and how it came to this.

The problem was that he never learned about refugees and camps being outside their territory, and the additional information he received barely helped. He actually needed a full rundown as to why the camp was outside. However, his sentiments stemmed from the fact that no one had told him about this, which was inexcusable to him.

Aurum cleared his throat after some seconds of staring at each other, trying to be reasonably peaceful, "How about you shut the fuck up, then?! You know that we can't touch those poor bastards?!" At least he tried.

Alexander tried to react as reasonable, "What do you mean not touch? Are you stupid or something?! There is no fucking way that we need to let them just be!" Which also failed.

Aurum popped a vein, standing up, "How about reading history?! I know you don't give a fuck about the history of our kin, but you should maybe!"

It was a sore point for Alexander. He had so much on the table that he ignored many topics altogether. History and culture were such things, and he was only roughly aware of what happened. His historical knowledge basically consisted of the following: They were enslaved for a couple of thousand years, liberated themselves through uprisings and war, and built alliances with other oppressed races, and now they were here. There was some local history and specific events he learned about, but as his skills on this topic showed, they were very deficient.

Alexander popped a vein, too, "History?! I worked my ass to give you paper, ink, and the damn mana skills. Do you think I care how those poor bastards got there, and why should I?! They are here, and we need to do something with them!"

Aurum screamed, getting more agitated, "We can't, genius! You should open a history book for once if you want to know!"

Alexander screamed back, "How about I shove those into your ass?! For what do I have, you assholes, if I need to research this shit myself!"

"What?! Do I also need, besides managing the charity, also wipe your ass while singing the lullaby of some esoteric conflict?!"

"No, you dumb bastard, because I brought mana skills to everyone, making swiping obsolete, and what do you mean with esoteric conflict?! Are those fucking refugees fortune tellers?!"

"You are so dumb; I can't believe you are..."

Before the relatively typical discussion between Aurum and Alexander escalated to something serious, surprisingly, Ariana interrupted them, looking as if she was about to get into shock because of how frightened she was, "Please calm down! Okay?! How about we first catch up on the history and try to deduce from there why they are at our border in the first place and why Aurum said that we can't do anything about them? How does it sound?"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Both turned to Ariana, who flinched as they seemed very agitated but nonetheless accepted her proposal.

"Kay."

"Sure."

After what felt like hours and a couple of relaxation teas, Alexander finally knew how it came to the refugee camp. Roughly, it was like this: A famine occurred in many territories, but not Mal-Gil and others. As such, certain folk with the least military power were forced into a war against territories that didn't experience a famine for food and other resources. Mainly by the First Servants.

It was easy to do so since wind-djinns, red moon night-elf believers, and scavengers were the weakest and smallest groups in those territories. They were usually not centralized but scattered, making it easy to force them into a conflict. At most, they had some small communities here and there, with some militias to defend against monsters and bandits.

Because of this lack of military experience and help, they had rather underwhelming results, barely able to feed the higher class. Since they didn't solve the food shortage by plundering neighboring small towns and villages in other Empires and Kingdoms, one of them central Mal-Gil, obviously, the First Servants blamed the famine on those poor bastards to appease the wider populace, not wanting to experience any turmoil.

The outcome of the situation was quite evident. A significant number were killed while the rest fled. It should've ended with Mal-Gil delivering the final blow, but someone from the Temple intervened and spoke on their behalf, a high-ranked and influential scholar wanting to spare their lives.

Listening to this nonsense, Alexander asked himself why they were behind his borders and not somewhere in some earthy hole in the nature-dweller territory. It was answered quickly, trying to explain to him that the scholar made a deal. Central Mal-Gil took them in, and the Crown and multiple Higher Nobles made a deal with Moorgrel, giving them to the Count, who put them in Kratikal, hoping they would die off as quickly as possible.

Now, did Alexander want to behead the hypocritical scholar? Yes. However, why did Moorgrel put them in Kratikal, hoping to kill them off? The wider populace and their allies held a grudge against those folk, not only because of all the pillaging and killing but also because of historical factors. Nobody was allowed to have any dealings with them to ensure their natural demise and that no beast-kin would anger the Temple by attacking them.

However, who were the poor fuckers exactly? One race consisted of tanned elves with three pupils in each eye, praying to some weird Red Moon deity. Apparently, they worshipped the wrong floating rock, making them look crazy because worshipping the other seven was considered more normal, seemingly. Because of that, their kin, who worshipped the other seven stones, banned them from the night-elf territory.

The second group was made up of djinns, who, if Alexander was honest, looked like elves, just without the creepy pupils and tan. Yet, they had yellow skin, as if they had a liver failure or vitamin B12 deficiency, and apparently looked very androgynous, more than other djinns, whatever that meant. They were allied with water djinns until they were not, and since both were enemies with the fire-djinn, so were the beast-kin, especially Moorgrel.

The third group, scavengers, looked like humans who ate nothing but carotene while having chronic sunburn and loved tattooing themselves with a grinder while doing nothing but bodybuilding. Assumingly, they were hated by everyone for some reason, as they were apparently different. Alexander did not know what was so disgusting about them, but they were seen like this.

Every party in this war fucked them over hard. After putting them into a wasteland, the only saving grace and reason for their continuous survival was that his family showed pity. When they robbed their caravans, and nobody ended up dead, his parents mostly ignored it as long as it didn't happen too often.

More likely than not, there was a purely economic reason for this decision. They were settled during the reign of his Grandmother, and eradicating them entirely and secretly would probably be too expensive, especially with subpar administration skills, which barely held the economy in the black.

With his Mother taking over, they were most likely forgotten again and only remembered from time to time when they occasionally robbed a caravan. She made probably the same calculation as to whether it was worth it to go after them.

Hearing all of this made Alexander fall into thought. It was so silent that a needle drop could be heard. He needed to concentrate on finding a fitting solution to this problem. Of course, others probably thought he should ignore them, but he didn't want to. Maybe it was stubbornness, maybe empathy, or something else entirely, but this camp was like a thorn in his eye, sitting there and annoying him.

He stood up and strolled around the lounge, deeply in thought and smiling. He liked challenges like finding Nila and Bartholomew a fitting loophole. Alexander wanted to get them out of there without breaking any agreements, but it seemed more tricky.

Alexander's Master and Mistress made a deal with his parents and all their subjects, forbidding them to have dealings with them. So, how could he even talk with them or do anything at all? While empathizing with their sad situation, it was nonetheless a fun puzzle. There was always a loophole, and he just needed to find it to solve it.

'My family can't do it. I can't do it. My retainers can't do it. My subjects can't do it... who can... hm...'

His first thought was to contact them secretly and talk with their leaders first, but with the invisible guard walking around him, it would be impossible. He needed a clear-cut plan so nothing could fall back on his family. The most pressing problem was that not even the Temple could protect him this time, as this stupid idea was theirs to begin with.

However, after walking around for a while, he heard the clicking sound of coins, which Aurum played with while sitting leisurely and waiting for him. On the other hand, Ariana took notes while training her still terrible ink ball contraption, 'Wait... why not?'

He stopped, looking at Ariana and Aurum, "Gotcha. Ariana, go to Cophy and get me Helena while you Aurum, go to the Golden Feather Bank and get me her half-sister, Lila. I want to meet them in a week, and everything needs to stay as confidential as possible..." Alexander gestured with his thumb, drawing a line across his neck, "...if not, my head will roll. So let them sign the harshest agreement regarding secrecy you can devise."

Both looked at each other, with Aurum sighing. While annoyed, they didn't ask or say anything. They already knew that when Alexander was this specific, he had a plan they had to follow. As commanded, they went toward the exit, wanting to start with the contract as fast as possible, probably needing more than twenty or so pages.

While his retainers were confused, for Alexander, it was apparent what the solution was, and it came to him when he saw how busily Ariana took notes. This reminded him of all the research he had done because of one of Patricia's letters explaining that he was in love with his aunt.

As such, he researched Elisabeth and found out that she loved cartography. She painted maps, either stylistically or as faithfully as possible. With this, he remembered a specific map she had drawn: One that depicted the divide in the djinn territory between the warring factions.

image [https://github.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/blob/main/Chapter_141_to_150/Chapter_144/Map_With_Djinn_Territories.jpg?raw=true]

Remembering the map was only one part. Because of the annoying clicking of the coins, Alexander remembered that he had an appointment with his banker from the Golden Feather Bank, the fire-djinn half-sister from the Copperhouse.

It came to him, being a clear path, with the perfect loophole, what he had to do. All that was left was to check if the treaty Moorgrel signed with his parents would somehow hinder his idea and check for every edge case possible.

'So obvious... need to send Eli a present for her great work. Maybe I make a fun game for her like Che...'

However, as he was in thought, wanting to gift Elisabeth something special, and Aurum and Ariana were about to leave, Lili appeared before the lounge exit, with both of his retainers starting to walk backward immediately after seeing her.

Lili sounded slightly disturbed but calm, "Mr. Alexander, while I like your enthusiasm, I need to stop you before you do something foolish."

Sitting there staring at him, Alexander strolled to her, "Foolish? Without breaking conventions, ethics, or treaties, I will do what my Grandma couldn't. Do you have any questions?" He smiled cheekily at her.

Lili frowned, "It was under Ms. Jeanne and Mr. Volos, but this is not the problem, Mr. Alexander. If you tell me how you want to do this, I will let you do whatever you want, like before..." Her glare intensified, "...presumably it is like you say."

Standing before Lili, Alexander used the vacuum wall contraption while distorting everything he said through heat and water. After five minutes, he dispersed those, looking at Lili, who stared blankly into the void, thinking. After a few minutes, she became invisible, "As long as you check everything like you said, Mr. Alexander, I see no problem with your approach..." She laughed loudly and happily, sounding ethereal since she was invisible, "...haha! Mistress will love this and do everything you ask her for if you truly accomplish this! This I will promise!"

After the awkward moment, he turned around and clapped, "Now! Get me those contracts and fire-djinns! It's time to do some politics in a style I never thought I would do!"