True to her words, Aoi returned to her office and, after gathering some necessary notes and items, she teleported to Amber. If anyone could help her it would be the first Empress of Arcadia. Amber's office was calm and quiet, with various plants sitting in their massive planters. Many beautiful and fragrant flowers basked in the soft rays of the sun that were coming through the large wall encompassing windows. However, just outside her office was the main administration hub of the Empire where dozens of people were fighting their quiet war against the most terrifying monster that ever existed - the red tape monster, bureaucracy. So far, there had been no allowance for complicating things, however, some people tried. Amber was rather merciless in dealing with officials who tried to push their ideas no matter what. Such people very quickly learnt that they were not irreplaceable.

"Hello, Aoi." The Half-Elf beamed a smile. "It's good that you are early because Mia will be here in a few moments and..."

"I don't know what you are talking about." Aoi panicked and suddenly she remembered what Luna said earlier. "Oh! Luna brought me some papers and mentioned that Mia wanted to talk about my budget, but I had an urgent matter to deal with the Dragonkins. Soooo... I'm out of the loop. Sorry, Amber."

"It's nothing serious so Mia will brief you..." Amber shrugged then focused her gaze on her Sister-Empress. "Then, why are you here?"

"An urgent matter with Dragonkins." Aoi sat down at Amber's desk and put things she held in her hands on the side. "Some of them are unhappy living in the city. A few of the loud voices tried to force everyone to follow them so I defused the situation."

"I thought they understood the lesson Theon gave them..." Amber shook her head with a tired sigh.

"Exactly my thoughts, Sister." Aoi bobbed her shoulders. "Anyway, I promised them to find a few options for them to settle."

"And you came to me to discuss the details?" Amber chuckled. "Alright... What are we looking for?"

"I don't believe that we have anything available-"

"Funny you mentioned that because, in fact, we have a lot of abandoned towns and villages." Amber rested both her elbows on the desk and, after putting together her hands, she cradled her chin on top of her hands. "But do they really want to move before the winter? The Empire's army is powerful but we can't spread our forces thin. That's an unnecessary risk, Aoi."

"I know and I will warn those who relocate. I don't want to let the few convince more to leave. It's better to let them be and let fate decide if they survive."

"I see..." Amber sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, and she nodded to herself. "As you know, the Navy will be patrolling the railroads during the winter. I suggest they pick one of the abandoned settlements in the proximity to the patrol routes."

The Half-Elf picked a map with marked settlements and a handful of reports before she lifted her eyes toward the Dragonkin. She looked at Aoi as if she wanted to say something but ultimately simply handed her a stack of papers.

"Well, personally I think that's a great idea but they are going to make their own decisions. I will just pick a few options for them." Aoi accepted the papers and gave them a quick glance. "Are you sure we can use those settlements?"

"Oh, yes." Amber nodded with a smile. "Theon's idea on how to to encourage people to leave their homes was to actually buy them from them. We offered them almost twice the value of their properties so most moved willingly. There are always some who don't want to leave their homes so…”

"So, we own all these villages?" Aoi looked at Amber in shock. She wasn't aware that Theon went to such lengths to ensure the safety of the people.

"Quite literally." The First Empress of Arcadia nodded and confirmed with a smile. "You can take any of the villages I gave you for them to choose from. It would be borderline stupid for them to try to build from the ground up at the beginning of autumn. It will be a miracle if they managed to gather and dry enough wood for the winter, not to mention making improvements or repairs to the houses."

"They are stubborn, Amber, but I understand them." Aoi sighed heavily.

"I saw that..." Amber smiled flatly. "I think we can give them a few resources for repairs and some tools."

"Thank you so much, Amber!" Aoi smiled widely. "I was afraid this was going to be a massive headache! I want to hug you!"

"Don't mention it," Amber said as the doors to her office opened and Mia entered the room.

The Nekomi was wearing a relaxed expression that, additionally, brightened upon seeing Aoi. The Dragonkin briefly panicked as Mia sat next to her.

"Mia, Aoi will need to be pre-briefed because she was attending to other urgent matters." Amber grinned.

"Oh, it's nothing that serious but I wanted to confirm a few things, Aoi." Mia nodded and looked at the Dragonkin with her golden cat-like eyes. "As you know, I am preparing budgets and making sure no one will fall short of money at the worst possible moment. The Army and Navy have the priority until further notice and, while Theon gave me estimates, I admit that the numbers he presented to me are truly staggering. So it's just... I want you to explain to me those expenses if you could."

"Oh, no problem, Mia!" Aoi brightened. "Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning, I guess?" Mia sheepishly admitted and blushed upon seeing Aoi's empty gaze. "I always thought that Hilgvarian expenses for the army were high but this..." Mia covered her head with her hands with helplessness but her ears twitched in a show of distress. "My budget was fifty thousand gold pieces on the entire Hilgvarian Army and military infrastructure each year, Aoi, but, apparently, that's the cost of the equipment and yearly pay for a single Arcadian Guardsmen battalion!"

"To be fair, Mia, Hilgvarian's Army was just a few battalions..." Amber diplomatically pointed out.

"Fair point... I also had to spend money on the maintenance of our forts and castles instead of building everything from scratch." Mia admitted, but as she took a deeper breath, she smiled with pride. "It was still a very effective army for its size."

"I agree." Aoi quickly nodded. "So what's exactly bothering you?"

"Theon allocated nearly sixty million gold pieces for Project Sapphire Glass." Mia looked at Aoi and Amber looking for sense in the words she just spoke. "Sixty million! For glass?! Can you explain it to me?"

"Oh, yes..." Aoi chuckled in amusement seeing the perplexed Nekomi. "That's just the way he is. It's not a glass at all and, most importantly, it has less in common with sapphire gems than the name would suggest. Theon uses code names for projects, exercises, and operations he wants to keep secret."

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Mia's ears made a full circle on the side of her head before they laid flat. Her facial expression turned a bit hurt. "I didn't know he didn't trust me."

"Of course he trusts you!" Amber and Aoi shouted in unison, barely containing their laughter.

"Then why-"

"It's just the way he is. Since Theon's spies are frighteningly effective, he simply assumes others might have even better spies. So, to prevent anything classified from leaking out, he codified everything even remotely secret." Aoi explained with a smile. "Do you remember, back during the summit of three nations when he mentioned that his old world had their version of NATO? If I understood him correctly, they codified everything military-related. But it was an even bigger headache since most nations used their own languages!"

"So the Project Sapphire Glass is what exactly?" Mia asked after a moment with a much brighter smile.

"New ships for the Navy," Amber explained.

"Ohhhh... That makes so much more sense! I would have never guessed that." Mia shook her head in disbelief.

"You can always ask him about his paranoid codenames if you want to know something. I’m sure he will tell you." Aoi nodded.

"But sixty million? That's a lot of money..." The Nekomi meekly pointed out.

"And we are building a lot of ships, Mia," Aoi confirmed with a serious voice. "But I really hope that's the budget only for hulls. If that's all the budget for the entire project we might be short on the crew training, consumables,... Unless... Oh, Gods! I hope he hasn't scrapped another ship!"

"I don't know, Aoi! Seriously... After I managed to read through the various budgets, I think I found most of the military ones. Project Lynx has a budget of five million gold pieces and Project Blue Sky has another fifteen million. I'm not sure if Operation False Green is connected but it is mentioned in various reports and has a total budget of nearly five million." Mia paled and finally rubbed her temples. "Just how much money do we have?!"

"Mia... Theon is controlling twelve Dungeons and, by the end of the year, he will be in control of at least fifteen but I personally think that he will control twenty." Amber slowly and calmly explained. "That alone generates an absurd amount of wealth. But that's just the beginning. Ninety percent of the value of the ships-contract with Metaka and Iceleon is going straight to our treasury. To be honest, even I’m not sure how much the current contracts with our allies are worth. I'm not referring to, only, various military orders but everything else. Our presence in Iceleon and our help with the Iceleon-Metakan artificial lake are not free. Then, in addition, you have various taxes we collect from the citizens, adventurers, and business owners across the Empire."

"I... I see. I always thought that as a Royal I was accustomed to huge amounts of money and I couldn't be easily impressed with gold. But this? This is something else entirely..." Mia stared at the report with an empty gaze.

"To put things in perspective, Mia, Project Sapphire Glass was initially even bigger. Almost twice its current price." Aoi explained with a thoughtful expression. "Theon initially ordered twenty new destroyers, four frigates, and two dreadnoughts but he scrapped that order, Sister."

"Why? It was too expensive?"

"No. We wouldn't have enough people to man those ships!" Aoi slowly shook her head. "It's not that easy to train crews for the Navy and even harder to do it on the short schedule we have. Training sailors takes time and we don't have enough soldiers with appropriate aptitudes left to shorten the training cycles. Everyone who could be a sailor and previously served as Guardsmen or any other ground formation was assigned to the Navy. That's why we will only be building ten destroyers and we are finishing the second dreadnought only because of its advancement of assembly. Do you want to take a guess where it's going to be stationed?"

"Hmmm... In Everlight?"

"No. That's the new flagship of the Third Fleet, Mia. That battleship is going to Hilgvar." Aoi warmly smiled.

"But..." Mia's eyes went wide. "What about Vestargo and his Dungeon Empire?"

"We need to ensure the southern borders are secured. Sending a dreadnought would be a sign for anyone trying to breach our borders: we will immediately and ruthlessly respond." Amber explained pointing at the map of Aderon.

"Also, you must realise by now that our battleships are as effective a weapon of destruction as they are psychological weapons. We don't know if Vestargo will understand the threat of a dreadnought so we can't say if he will be intimidated by it." Aoi added. "But, people can. That's why sending a new dreadnought to the south is a safe move. What's more, we think that your people might like to join our Navy after seeing such a dominant ship protecting them."

"Okay... I think I understand. I could proclaim a draft for Navy personnel if we really need more people-"

"Absolutely not!" Aoi protested and waved her hands in alarm. "The biggest strength of the Empire's military is the fact that all our soldiers are volunteers. Thanks to that, they are willingly improving their skills and effortlessly maintaining the highest morale I have ever seen. They are professionals who understand the risks and accept them."

"I am beginning to believe that I know nothing about running a proper military," Mia complained with an amused smile.

"Most of these ideas came from Theon who was a top military commander in his world. Probably. They did everything differently but it translates to our world very well." Aoi tried to comfort her with a smile. "I had to learn a lot about his ways before I was able to make any first steps on my own."

"All right. So this insane budget is actually spent with consideration..." Mia took a deep breath. "I had to ask, Sisters, because military expenditures are currently half of Arcadia's entire budget. Normally, something like that would be unsuitable for a country in the long run."

"Well, we are arming ourselves so it's understandable." Amber slowly nodded. "To quote Theon: 'We need an army that will reflect our strength, protect our vast Empire, and control its borders.' He is right, of course."

"It's hard to argue knowing the violent past of our world..." Mia admitted. "I know that making gold flow is going to stimulate our economy but I've never seen so much gold. I'm afraid that once our orders stop the economy will collapse."

"I don't believe that we are ever going to stop spending on the military, Mia. Theon's plans for our military are extremely complex and far-fetched. We won't go bankrupt because he is making the main fighting force contain his denizens. He assigned the most dangerous work to his Immortal Legions, protecting us - the people of Arcadia, as much as possible. Guardsmen and Navy are far less susceptible to death on the battlefield than Legions." Amber said calmly. "He won't stop us, his wives, from changing this world for the better. But once Evil reaches again towards this continent with its greedy hand, Theon is going to grab it, rip it away, and follow it to where it came from. He wants to be ready for that day and we must support him if we want our world to survive, Mia."

"I suspected that much but I never found the courage to ask Theon about it. I'm afraid of it, Amber." Mia admitted quietly with a sad voice. "It looks like I must relearn everything from the beginning..."

"Don't worry, Mia. With him, we finally have a fighting chance." Aoi smiled with confidence. "The way he improved our production capabilities is unheard of. It's a frightening combination of magic and what he called industrialisation. The way we can create massive amounts of repeatable goods is nothing short of a miracle. The magi-tech production lines, deep underground Avalon, can fabricate anything, from swords to the Heavens know what else, because, I guarantee you, the Gods have no idea! Trust me. I asked Hestia."

Amber and Mia laughed, and Aoi looked at the Nekomi who finally cheered up. All the premature wrinkles that the Queen of Hilgvar earned through her stressful life had already disappeared from her face and her smile was cute.

"But does he really have to make up such stupid codenames?" Mia asked, still giggling.

"I stopped bothering to learn the meaning of those codenames a long time ago, Mia." Amber smiled and shook her head with a sudden chuckle. "I won't be surprised if I ever learn that he codenamed a surprise party he planned for us."

"That is probable." Aoi agreed with a laugh. "Oh, Gods... I just imagined, half of the army is smuggling party items in sealed military crates and passing a secret codename, like Operation Dancing Horse, for them to reach the Palace in time."

Amber had to cover her mouth as she started laughing. Mia and Aoi also erupted with uncontrollable laughter.