WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! I DESCRIBE AN ABHORRENT SCENE HERE, SO BE FOREWARNED! IF YOU CAN'T READ THINGS LIKE RAPE, ETC., OR WORSE!

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Wintersleep Hotel, Private Lounge

Narsiz was a history buff. His favorite topic was the birth of his kin's Empire, Mal-Gil, and her development into what it is now. All the challenges they had to overcome and the disasters they had to survive to reach this point were genuinely inspiring—a story for the ages.

It all started thousands of years ago when the first groups formed. They were small, less organized, and very rogue in their approach, but they fought tooth and nail, carving out a place for themselves through force and sacrifices. Their stories were filled with bloodshed and struggle, a testament to their determination and resilience.

While this romanticism made his heart flutter, it was the history that lowly educated commoners knew at most. In truth, the battle continued after Mal-Gil established herself as an empire, needing to overcome new challenges that were now coming from the inside since most external enemies had ceased their extensive aggressions after hundreds of years of fruitless wars.

However, one of those internal intrigues also saddened Narsiz the most: It was to get rid of the newly appointed Count Moorgrel, the ancestor of their Master. He got the title through numerous military merits, which worried the higher nobility then. As such, they began to conspire against him, sending him away and bestowing him a useless reward: their current territory, a forsaken place that still needed to be conquered.

The only reassurance was the Empress, who supported the first Count and gifted him three of her Royal Knights. Later, it was discovered that it was another scheme to get rid of them, thinking that they would all die in this deity-abandoned place.

The reasons? There were too many to count. From pure abhorrence against canine-kin to puppyish intrigue and even something akin to a lover's revenge because of a rejection.

How did they know? Hundreds of years ago, when Moorgrel and part of the Higher Nobility raided central Mal-Gil to overthrow the Emperor and the other part of the Higher Nobility for their conduct of slavery, they also found correspondences, diaries, etc., with all the information about their doing back then.

However, nothing mattered since Moorgrel, a masterful military strategist, devised numerous methods to conquer this horrific and soulless land. One of his most famous strategies involved creating the most grueling events imaginable, spreading rumors about them toward the enemies, and waiting.

After some time, the enemies would become demoralized, hearing continuously horrific rumors. Some of them were about puppies being directly raped after they were born, men turned into eunuchs and slowly used as food for their monster rides, and tortured for the amusement of nobility with horrendous methods.

None of this was true at first, slowly dying down and becoming more of a joke. Yet, to make it seem like Moorgrel and his military did it, they needed to raid some villages and perform those dark deeds on humans, gnomes, or dwarves, the previous Lords and Ladies of the land.

Of course, they did technically only some of it. Yes, they killed newborns, but they didn't rape them and only made it look like it. However, it was true that they used villagers as their food for war boars.

There was even a diary entry of Cerberus, in which his war boar swallowed a whole gnome and suffocated on them. The following pages were only insults and warnings about how gnomes were hazardous to their riding animals to eat.

However, after raiding half a dozen villages, letting some survivors live, pretending as if not seeing them so they could tell what they saw, and also displaying everything inside the village as horrific as possible, rumors went wild.

With that and various other strategies and tactics, conquering became so straightforward that the Moorgrelian territory ballooned to the same size as central Mal-Gil. With that, Moorgrel became the only noble who never bowed to the Crown again for obvious reasons.

While somewhat proud when thinking what a genius his Master's ancestor was, Narsiz's pride bloomed to an unimaginable size when he thought about his direct ancestors and the most famous Knights in their Empire.

The then Royal Knights, now commonly known as Guard Dogs, were what he would call his role models, along with his parents. When he was a puppy and barely learned to read, the first books he perused were historical romances, especially about the first Moorgrelian Knights.

Loyal, brave, intelligent, insightful, honorable, and powerful. They were all of this, and at that time, Narsiz always imagined himself as one of them, choosing Huxian, even though Fenrir was his ancestor. There were many reasons for this, but it was mostly the allure of elegance and sophistication, which Fenrir didn't have. He was always more of a ferocious and powerful Knight.

However, without them, it would've been impossible to create something this incredible. They built another empire, almost as large as central Mal-Gil. It was an astonishing feat he couldn't be more proud of, but there was also a hint of jealousy.

Narsiz wanted to do something similarly impressive, too. As such, when Alexander looked into his eyes when trying to convince him, he almost enchanted him with his ambitions. The fire he felt burning from him was akin to the sun wanting to set everything on fire.

Because of that, all the ambitions Narsiz buried away due to the poisoning he experienced as a puppy came back, slowly igniting his inner fire and making it look like Alexander's. It wasn't a question of wants anymore, but he must do it. There was no other way for him as he would otherwise regret it.

The other, but also equally important, reason was that Narsiz had enormous empathy for the refugees. Like his ancestors, they were on a similar path of emancipation, and as long as they didn't take their territory or resources, he wanted to see them succeed.

Furthermore, they could become great allies for the Moorgrelians, something they didn't have when forming the fief. If they had an ally at that point, they would become loyal to them, even going as far as creating defense alliances, this much Narsiz knew.

As such, he wanted to plant a seed in their minds that only they could help them while everyone else abandoned them. It was propaganda, something Alexander told him years ago, and it could work here, making them loyal.

Almost everything was perfect now. Narsiz found his long-lost courage and a project that was morally and logically sound; though risky, it was something he couldn't turn away. It was highly feasible, to a ridiculous degree, even if looking at all the risks.

Narsiz felt like a chief. Before him, a boiling pot of water with all the ingredients perfectly prepared. A clock with a note for how long they needed to simmer was in his hands. All he had to do was throw them inside and look at the clock.

What could go wrong now? They had the gold through Alexander, the logistics and distribution of goods were covered through the fire-djinn sisters, and the camp representatives were here, ready to plan things out, showing incredible good faith since they visibly adored Alexander. It was perfect. Almost.

His little group didn't throw the ingredients inside the pot but the clock. They stared at the potatoes, figuring out how long they needed the water to boil.

'I really imagined it differently... they are too much like Alex... too crazy.'

Aurum screamed through the room at Ariana, "What do you mean with 300 grams of protein per day?! Do they look like the fucking Lord to you?! They can survive with 100 grams per day easily!"

Gone was Narsiz's fantasy of sophisticated discourse, exchanged with whatever Alexander cultivated. His brother took highly educated and intelligent retainers and created barbarians, a disgrace and, in his opinion, worthy of execution. Feeding him to their war boars seemed appropriate.

"Hey, bird brain! Look at that guy..." Ariana pointed at Arlgo, sitting uncomfortably and not knowing where to look. "...Do you think he eats greens with such muscles?! Apparently, 20% of their people are scavengers, and I highly doubt that those morons will become anything more than fighters."

Narsiz couldn't say they were dumb because they weren't, but he really wanted to because they acted like retards. Through Alexander's insane ambitions, they worked and learned day and night, trying to match it somehow, something a retainer should do. Yet, they also cut out all the brain parts responsible for decent behavior.

"Ehm..." Arlgo tried to intervene, sounding nervous, but was immediately shut down by Aurum, "Shut up! We are talking about how to feed you!"

At last, Alexander spoke up but did not say anything Narsiz wished for, "Listen here! It's fine to put a little bit less protein into their rations as long as the overall food they consume is enough for a hard day of work and more. Don't forget that the more they fight, the more they need to eat."

They all nodded begrudgingly, with Narsiz not understanding what was decided because it sounded like an empty phrase his brother spouted. They had already discussed it for thirty minutes and concluded they needed enough food so the camp wouldn't starve. What a fantastic observation, he thought so sarcastically.

'Yeah, everyone calls him a genius. I would strongly disagree.'

Ocilia looked expectedly toward Alexander, continuing the discussion, "I think the food should also be tasty, with spices and stuff."

Narsiz couldn't fathom why she would continue this discussion, which made him slowly lose his cool. He respected her a lot, especially since she came from humble birth and worked incredibly hard to become this talented, realizing her potential.

Yet, he only now noticed that her strengths lay in what her Master, a moron in his opinion, taught her: Magic, alchemy, natural science, and weird philosophical theories—not even giving her a book about manners, administration, etc.

However, the problem for Narsiz was not what she said but that she did it, continuing this useless discussion by bringing up some irrelevant issue.

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Honestly, what she said was correct since tastier food increased morals. Depending on the cost, it would make sense to consider it. The Leonandra military did the same with their rations, varying in taste, which showed excellent results.

Regardless of the correctness of her statement, Narsiz wanted to allocate the first hours to a rough discussion about their groups and the camp's significant disagreements. In his opinion, it was necessary first to discuss every critical issue generally and then get into the nitty gritty after deciding on the rough points.

Their assistants could do all the detailed work later, including analyzing, researching, and reporting all the topics they decided on, as it was impossible to settle on anything at the moment without any information. It was literally grunt work they did now, and poorly at that.

Lila excitedly said, "Ocilia, dear, the spices will make a portion 3 to 5% more expensive. While I understand your rationale, it needs to be worth it."

Narsiz could smell that she lied in some way, probably getting those numbers from walking around the market, which would surely not be their supplier, 'I will get a whip.'

Aurum spoke up, intrigued by the idea, "I get the price increase, but I actually like the idea. I think our military does this, right?"

Maurice spoke up for the first time, sharing his experience, "The rations are kind of good and much better than the food mercenaries and adventurers eat. I especially like the apple sugar, but it makes me jittery."

Ocilia looked at Lila while pointing at Maurice with her thumb, "See? It will help them."

Helena now intervened, trying to show the problems, "I get it, but you need to understand that somebody needs to cook it and get all those various ingredients. It is such a hassle for what? A more spicy steak?"

Alexander raised an eyebrow, snarkily answering her, "They will surely get no fucking steak..." His smile widened, "...do you think soldiers eat the same stuff you eat, dear princess?"

Before the discussion would again devolve into an insult fest, something his little brothers loved to do and provoked more often than necessary, someone new spoke up. It was one of the camp's representatives, showing courage before those coincident morons.

Jorsh was the brave soul, "I don't think we need that much consideration for now. Maybe some extra spices, but..."

Ariana snapped at him, "Shut up! Nobody asked you!"

Jorsh looked down, frightened to say anything else anymore, "Sorry."

Alexander sighed, with Narsiz now hoping he would stop the idiotic and overly detailed discussion, but it was only wishful thinking. The moron continued the topic again, 'I will whip you first.'

"Listen, we need a number! I have 25,000 average gold coins and can use them freely, so let's better buy some good food that is more compact and has many calories while also having something a bit cheaper for the day. We can work something out, but I think we need to talk about variety, too!"

Aurum rolled his eyes, snarking at his Master, "Mr. Alexander, variety is only half important..."

Helena became also annoyed, "Damn it! Do you understand how much we could save?! We could buy more sellswords with this, and even the camp would benefit through this by them not dying since the damn mercenaries would."

Quill now spoke up for the first time after smoking what looked like half a package of cigarettes, "As if we sent them so early out? Didn't we want to establish a stronghold first and show that no power is behind them?"

Narsiz sighed. Listening to them fight was tiring. He looked to the side, seeing the refugees being confused and equally tired, which made him frown and worry a little.

The camp's representatives just sat there and listened, not daring to answer for obvious reasons. First, they were immediately shut down when they tried to speak up, but they didn't even try to talk back since Alexander promised them an exceptional amount of gold with which he would sponsor them.

At first, they were happy, smiling, and joyful, but they also looked skeptical at them, which was to be expected since it was an enormous amount of gold. Yet, when the discussion started, they began believing it since they couldn't move away from the food supply topic for an hour. In Narsiz's opinion and probably also in the camp's representatives, nobody could be so evil and treacherous as to act out such a moronic debate just to deceive them. It could only be genuine stupidity.

Fortunately, before the discussion about food started, they showed good faith by talking about their rough numbers while visibly distressed. The question was always, how much they could trust them? With Narsiz's skill [Smell of Deceive], it was possible.

Narsiz would smell an incredibly foul stench if they tried to deceive him. However, depending on the truthfulness of their statements, the smell varied heavily, and when they started telling him about their camp, it was acceptable. Based on his experience, they lied with a variation of ±10% and at a maximum of ±25% if they used their skills to disclose their lying.

However, this was understandable since they came into the lion's den, wanting not to open themselves too much since it could heavily endanger them. As such, disclosing this much accurate information was an enormous show of good faith on their side, which was to be rewarded, which they were now. Somewhat.

Alexander took their numbers just as truth, not doubting them, and started the calculations and discussions immediately, wanting to plan something out. Narsiz liked what his brother did since such naivety showed that their side also trusted the camp, wishing to demonstrate it immediately.

Their rough stats of the camp were, with a noticeable previously mentioned variation, ±25,000 people, distributed around five auxiliary camps and one main camp they knew about—all those in Kratikal.

To their surprise, they were also much more honest than anticipated. When asked why they needed those additional camps, they said they acted as logistic hubs since they often robbed caravans but also emphasized that they did their best not to kill any merchants.

Narsiz knew why they did it: to test their sponsor and see how he would react. Depending on the outcome, they would probably adjust their strategy moving forward.

Was Alexander too emotional? They would need to look out for it.

Was he not emotional enough? That meant he was a cold-blooded politician who only considered the results.

Would he immediately break down the negotiations? This meant he was not realistic enough about their situation, and it was a mistake in the first place.

By being more than necessary truthful, they could gauge the mindset of their sponsor very well. They also barely risked anything, as those additional camps were most likely hidden and could be quickly disassembled before being found. They could only win and gain valuable information by acting like this.

However, Alexander didn't care, even though he looked perturbed. It was apparent that he didn't like that some of their subjects had died, but if he wanted to get the refugees out and achieve something, he needed to ignore their past to some extent.

Besides that little uncomfortable exchange, they decided to also disclose their involvement in the underworld for the same reasons. However, it wasn't really a surprise since they were the ones who sold the love potions, which was the reason why they were all here in the first place.

Alexander's decision was excellent. Narsiz couldn't find any fault with that. Instead of just punishing some of them, he directly wanted to root them out and, all the while, use them to his end, concentrating on the bigger picture. As such, more than ±1,000 were in all kinds of underworlds, be it Wolfsteeth, Foxteeth, or Jackalteeth.

Due to chaotic circumstances, they wouldn't leave for some other cities, like Dogteeth, where Bartholomew tried to uproot all of the previous ruler's acquaintances for months, going on a massive killing spree.

However, of those ±26,000 people, ±8,000 were fighters, an exceptionally high number since Wolfsteeth's population was in the millions, and only 1% was battle-ready. Still, he had a good guess. The camp representatives had told them they barely had any people with vital occupations like blacksmiths, carpenters, etc., something they would need to provide.

Regardless of those great numbers, calling them all fighters would be quite the stretch. Of those ±8,000, ±95% were Tier 1, ±4.5% were Tier 2, and barely ±40 people were Tier 3. While those numbers looked great, they weren't.

Because they mentioned the average skills and attributes, told with a variety of ±30%, it was apparent that they were too weak. Narsiz imagined they were exaggerating quite a bit to show they had some might behind them.

However, thinking about those numbers, one quickly became pretty somber, which made him face reality and pull his ambitions a little back. A Tier 1 soldier with a year's worth of training from the Leonandra military could easily beat five to seven of those fighters.

More worrying was that they were probably even weaker since they had barely any substantial fighting skills, which would increase the strength gap the higher the Tier was.

Yet, they told them proudly, showing their ignorance in this aspect. Like many other commoners, they always thought that levels dictated everything, but this wasn't the case. Sometimes, skills were much more critical, and the prefix or suffix around the name would dramatically increase their efficacy.

Thus, when training their puppies, many nobles tried to concentrate on the fundamentals, like physical fitness, to increase their natural attributes or get a prefix for a skill that was more valuable than some levels in the long term. They could always catch up on levels.

As such, the camp's overall military power was relatively weak. But they didn't say anything about it, letting it stay for now, which was acceptable for everyone else, too.

However, seeing those around him and all the inexperience in the room, him somewhat included, he needed to act fast before it could evolve into a disaster, 'We need to postpone a little.'

Alexander wanted to attack as fast as possible, but it would be impossible. An experienced administrator could create a miracle and organize everything in a month, but they couldn't. They also needed to ensure that everything stayed secretive, which was a challenge in itself, too.

For this to work, while looking at the chaos, Narsiz needed to take a more critical role other than being the administration in Pudding-Dog-Island, which would support the camp, 'I will take the lead.'

Narsiz was nervous but needed to coordinate and lead this operation if he wanted it to go flawlessly. He could show that he had changed and could fulfill the dreams he had had since he was little.

With the chance Alexander gave him, they could truly change the world step by step, a dream of his come true, an aspiration as he saw himself in the image of one of his ancestors.

Narsiz stood up and walked to the blackboard, mustering all the courage he could. His mind constantly repeated the same words, as he hated attention and preferred to be ignored more than anything else.

'I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it...'

He took a sponge and erased everything written on it, with everyone stopping their discussions, looking at him, baffled.

"Hey! We are talking about..." However, before Aurum could end his sentence, Narsiz interrupted him, looking sternly at him, "You were squabbling like puppies, deciding on minuscule useless things while our guests were waiting for a rough timetable and more substantial items to be discussed about this operation so they could orient themselves and plan."

Narsiz turned to Makol, smiled at him, and used his overwhelming charisma, "I think our parties operate equally in good faith so that we don't need to overlook every single decision from the get-go, right?"

Makol nodded carefully and started to speak, sounding a little scared, "We are really thankful for you trying to look after us in such a detailed manner, but we can't be here for months without planning everything through on our end..." He sighed, smiling slightly at Narsiz as if thanking him from the bottom of his heart, "...a timetable would be great, and an agreement on the general terms, too."

Narsiz addressed the whole room while glancing at Alexander, who was smirking like a villain, making him pop a vein as it seemed to be his plan all along, 'This little shit. I will whip you. Just wait.'

Without using any skills, he gestured eloquently, making them all listen to him intently even though what he said was benign, "I agree with Makol, and because of that, I will take the lead in this operation and coordinate it..." Everyone looked at Alexander, who just shrugged, "Be my guest."

Narsiz continued, "Great, because I want the operation to begin after my first mating season, which will be in a couple of months. Until then, the plan will be as follows..."

He turned around and started to write the rough outline on the blackboard for how they would discuss everything, stating, "Today, we will discuss the rough procedure and contention points by going through every topic in a general way."

Turning around, Narsiz raised an eyebrow, "So? Does everyone agree with the timetable and today's meeting course? If yes, say aye."

Everyone nodded, saying aye, even though some weren't too happy as they still probably wanted to discuss the stupid food topic. However, Narsiz was delighted even though he was incredibly nervous, using every skill he could not to blush or panic.

However, he continued, with him being in the spotlight, it became more manageable by the second, "As such, the main topics for today are..."