I was sure Warner wasn't there when I entered the office. And yet there he was, leaning against the wall without a care in the world.
“Sneaky motherfucker,” I muttered as I gripped my axe with both hands. I was already poised to run away. “Let me guess, you've been watching me all this time like a stalker?”
“Sure did,” Warner admitted right away. “Watching you in your hotel room was painful. Why the hell would you brush your teeth but not your tongue? You nasty bastard.”
“Well, fuck you. I just got lazy.”
Camille cleared her throat as she leveled a glare at Warner. “Will you please just clear the misunderstanding, agent? It seems this game of pretending is proving useless.”
Warner shrugged as he turned to me. “While your deduction was good, it was only half-right. We did pay Mern to give you a bad contract to convince you to work for us, but not as a patsy. Did you really think the Governor would waste her valuable time and money to train you just to let you die?”
“Then why the hell did you just let random assassins come after my ass the past two nights?”
“We have been keeping an eye on you,” Camille said. “The first night, you said four assassins came after you, correct? It was actually five. When you fought them off, Warner took care of the stragglers.”
I looked at the old man, who looked like he couldn't give two shits about what was being discussed. “You were there? Why the fuck didn't you help me?”
“To train you,” Camille answered before Warner could. “Same as last night. Warner was there to watch over you, but if we coddled you from all threats, you would stay weak. So I gave him explicit orders to only intervene when you are about to die.”
I scoffed. “Well now, that just sounds like a damn convenient excuse. Why don't I go ahead and start beating people up at Guild Plaza, eh? I'll say I'm just training the city's response against threats.”
“Then you'll find our threat response to be excellent,” Camille said with a fierce look in her eyes. “I suggest you keep such threats to yourself, Constable. I understand that you are frustrated, but I do not condone any threat to my citizens, empty they may be. Now, you have two choices: believe my word and we can continue with your training, or I nullify the contract and you are free to do as you please but without my assistance against Carmen's assassins. Your call.”
I sighed as I strapped my axe to my back. As much as Camille told me that it was my choice, everybody in the room knew I only had one choice to make. “Fine, I'll believe your ‘I'll protect my citizens no matter what’ hogwash for now.”
Camille looked very offended by my words. “You dare insult my dedication to my citizens?”
“Hell yeah, I do,” I said as I sat down on the chair by her desk. “In your bid to use me as bait to lure out the assassins, you willingly risked the lives of the people staying in that hotel. Heck, one of the valets is now mixed up in this hot mess after he tried to warn me of the assassination attempt. I don't know about you, but I have a hunch that the poor lad is gonna find his throat slit the next time he wakes up.”
Camille frowned. “We have measures in place to keep the populace safe from the repercussions of our operations. However, this is the first time I have heard of the valet you mentioned. Warner.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Warner said with a sigh as he left the office.
“I appreciate your concern over my citizens. For this, I will not be deducting your pay for all the curses you've uttered since you entered my office,” Camille said before giving me a stern gaze. “Now, can we consider this matter closed?”
“One last thing. I want to know the progress made in bringing this Carmen down. When do we raid his mansion?”
“That information is on a need-to-know basis. Unless you can defend your mind from being read by enemy psions, you are not cleared to know any sensitive intel. Do not worry, I guarantee that Carmen will be brought to justice, all you have to do is remain patient.”
Fuck, there were mind readers here? The last thing I needed was being outed as a Champion of a maniac god. I needed to find a way to protect my mind ASAP. I wonder if they sold tin foil hats around here?
“Is there anything else?” Camille asked, and I could tell she was at the end of her patience.
“Nah, I'm good. I'm glad we could clear up all misunderstandings between us,” I lied, and Camille knew it, but I didn't care. In truth, my trust in the woman was now at an all-time low. Not like I trusted her to begin with, but now, I told myself to be extra careful around her. Conniving types like her disliked having their plans exposed, and their reactions could be unpredictable.
I'll have to make my own preparations in case this woman ends up throwing me under the bus.
After that brief little drama, Camille showed no signs of frustration with the recent events and began our scheduled training, which started with General Education.
As Skorm the Fucker said just before he dropped me on a frozen mountain, this world was called Morhaven, named after an ancient civilization called the Mor who turned the place into their haven or some such. It was a big world, so big that nobody had completely explored the entire planet yet, and not for the lack of trying. Every inch of the planet teemed with monsters, it turned out.
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The city of Shieldhold that Camille ruled was inside the territory of the North Eries Province, which was governed by some Lord. In turn, North Eries was one of twelve Provinces that composed the Empire of Arcadia, and this Empire was located in the western region of the Azara continent.
To give me a better picture of the Empire's geography, she showed me a map of Arcadia. The Empire was a mishmash of the twelve Provinces with their borders clearly delineated, and North Eries was located right at the northernmost point of the Empire. Above North Eries was a massive mountain range called the Frost Mountains where Skorm presumably dropped me.
According to Camille, the Provinces of the Empire were ranked based on their overall power, and North Eries was ranked seventh. The first in rank was the Crown Province where the Imperial Capital was located.
After giving me the basics of the Empire's geography, Camille started discussing the power dynamics of the Empire, which she said was the most important topic for a government official like me.
Unlike the ones I heard of back on Earth, the Emperor was not the top dog in the country. Instead, the highest authority in the land was split between the Emperor and the General Assembly. The Emperor had executive powers, while the General Assembly held legislative and judiciary powers. This power dynamic kept each other in check to avoid the abuse of power, although the General Assembly seemed to have more power than the Emperor himself.
Under those two powers were the Provincial Lords who directly ruled their territories. They held absolute power within their lands, but they still answered to the General Assembly.
Lastly, under the Provincial Lords were the Governors who managed their Lords' lands. Camille herself was one of many Governors who worked for the Lord of North Eries, and her job was to oversee Shieldhold and make sure no nasty monster crawled down the Frost Mountains to terrorize Imperial lands.
“So how do you get appointed as a Governor?” I asked. “Do people vote you to the position?”
“Good question,” Camille said. “Arcadia is a mix of democracy and aristocracy. For high government positions such as the Emperor and the General Assembly, people are voted into power. But anything to do with the Noble Houses and their territory is hereditary. Provincial Lords and Governors are positions held by us nobles since before the formation of the Empire, and not even the central government can change that.”
That confused me a bit. “Wait, the government is different from the nobles?”
“That is correct. When I say ‘government,’ I refer to the entity that is Arcadia and all its constituents. Nobles, on the other hand, are the elite of society and, more often than not, the people who run the government.”
I had a bit of a hard time understanding it, but I think I could view the nobles as the oligarchs of Earth. Officially, they were normal citizens beholden to the rule of the government. In actuality, they had enough money and power to make the government obey their wishes like their personal dog.
This place was quite similar to Earth's society, I see.
While we were on the topic of government and nobility, Camille also mentioned the current political climate existing in the Empire. The Emperor was nearing the end of his ten-year term, and once he was out of the throne, the General Assembly would convene to vote for a new Emperor based on a candidate's achievements and capability. Thus, the major Houses were clamoring to develop their candidates as much as possible to increase their chances of winning.
I thought it was a useless tidbit of information given that it wasn't related to my job, but it turns out it had a very large impact.
“When the Emperor is about to step down, the Noble Houses of Arcadia will do everything in their power to increase their candidate's chances of winning the next election,” Camille said. “We call this the Campaigning Season, and during this time, relationships between Houses become volatile. Any excuse for an inter-House conflict is taken advantage of to reignite old feuds, which gives nobles opportunities to gain power, resources, and prestige. There is still a year left to the current Emperor's term, but we should expect hostile activity from outside actors soon.”
“What kind of ‘hostile activity’ are we talking about here?”
“Kidnappings, sabotage, raids disguised as bandit attacks, plagues, and others. There are many possibilities, and it is up to our enemies' creativity on how they are going to act,” Camille said.
Wow, I didn't know election campaigns in this world were this extreme. When Camille said inter-House conflict, I expected sensitive scandals being aired out in public to destroy their enemies' reputations, not fucking massacres on the citizenry. These nobles were fucking barbaric. Camille was a noble too, but I'm starting to think she was one of the more decent ones.
Camille went on to discuss other political terms and shenanigans that mostly flew over my head. A lot of names were thrown out, mostly the nobles who I should be wary of, but to be honest, I didn't care too much about remembering it. After this Constable stint, I planned to disappear from the radar, so I'm not gonna bother memorizing the names of people I'd never meet.
What caught my interest was Camille's summary regarding the Empire's neighbors. In short, Arcadia was an expansionist asshole, and nearly everybody around our great nation was an enemy. Camille attributed it to the short term of each Emperor, which pushed them to acquire as many achievements and glory in their short rule as possible to immortalize themselves in the Empire's history.
As a result, Arcadia was constantly in a state of war. Right now, the country was battling against some kingdom down south, but Camille said that could easily change as soon as a new Emperor was throned. The current war would be shelved and put on hold, and then the new Emperor would choose to wage another war that would benefit his House the most.
These Arcadians were a bunch of colonizing assholes, huh?
“Isn't it stupid to make so many enemies at the same time?” I asked. “What's stopping our enemies from simply forming a coalition and crushing our ass?”
“Just like our enemies, the Empire is not as united as you think,” Camille answered. “Take the current war in the south, for instance. Officially, Arcadia is at war against the Gray Republic. In truth, only the Mydith Province is waging war against them, the rest of the Lords couldn't care less. But if our enemies united, that would prompt the Provincial Lords to unite as well, and a united Arcadia is a scary thing to behold. Hence, our enemies are wise enough not to poke the hornet's nest.”
That was the weirdest power balance I've ever heard, because it didn't sound balanced at all. If the surrounding nations remained scared of uniting, doesn't that mean that Arcadia would eventually subjugate them one by one until it was too late?
Before I could ask more about it, Camille was already proceeding to the next topic, which sounded way more interesting than politics. “Now, let us move on to the System.”