“And why would we do that?” Alexia asked.
Charles smiled at her and started explaining, “The Serpentine Empire has been using the Denova forest to transport their trade goods to us. But recently the monster attacks on this route have increased tremendously to such an extent that some traders are even losing their entire shipments. They obviously can't stop trading with us, we make about 20% of their total exports. So, they have been looking for a new trade route. Now realistically they have two options, one is to negotiate with the Forestein Kingdom and come to us through their lands, but the Serpentine and Forestein have never been on good terms, and I don't think any kind of talks between those two nations will ever succeed. The second option is the sea. But the water cover in that area is quite shallow, not suitable for cargo vessels. They'll have to enter the deep seas to transport the goods, and honestly that'll be way worse than the situation in Denova forests”
“So, what are they going to do?”
Charles smiled widened, “They are planning to establish a new route through the Nivana desert.”
“How? It will not work. The heat there would start killing the traders within days. They won't have any water sou-”
“Of course, it won't be that easy. First, they'll start with an expedition to map the desert out and come up with a feasible route. Then they'll start transforming that route by adding water stations and security at regular intervals. In fact, they have already started working on it, the Serpentine Saints* have started researching on gadgets capable of storing high amounts of water. However it will be a long process, but the Nivana outpost being the only settlement in that area will benefit from it the most.” Charles explained.
Alexia raised her brow, but suddenly frowned, “If we know this, then Dremon will be knowing it too…”
“If his spies are not as useless as the dimwit prince that they follow, which I assume they are not, then they must be knowing it.”
“Then how are we going to take it?”
“Simple we will attract him with an even better temptation.”
Charles just stared at the princess with a smile on his face. After half a minute Alexia finally asked in half anger, half annoyance, “How are we doing to do that?”
“We just spread some false rumors that the famed Cyrux vein of Skul mountain has finally been found.”
Alexia's face transformed from a look of shock, bewilderment and finally stopped at admiration.
“You can do that?”
“Oh, I can do a lot many things, my princess.”, the third prince of the Warammar family replied with a wink.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Alexia and Charles spent another hour and a half discussing various things, mostly related to their future in the Eternal Realm. After that, they parted ways, with Alexia going to meet with her other subordinates, while Charles came back to his dorm. Upon returning he wrote some letters with very specific instructions and sent Eaglis to deliver them. He could have used a runner travelling through the teleportation portal*, but he couldn't trust them. They could be easily bribed or kidnapped. This way was better, it would take more time to deliver but no one would know of his plans.
People believed that in the olden times there used to be devices through which one could communicate with anyone around the world. But after the Great Apocalypse* about a thousand years ago, all human technology had ceased to exist. The Eternal Realm had merged with the Earth’s plain causing catastrophe and disaster all over the living world. All the continents had been rearranged, the oceans had become unstable, and the animals had been transformed into beasts and monsters. The technologies which the humans had developed for aeons became useless, with the very science on which they were built, broken. Humanity which had once ruled the world, had found themselves stranded on a single continent. This continent was named Euroca, a combination of the names of two olden continents which had merged to form it.
Life wasn't easy for the first generation of humans on Euroca. The harsh climatic conditions, combined with the freely moving monsters, had resulted in losses of thousands of lives in the already dwindled population. This was until some talented heroes succeeded in building their own Territory inside the Eternal Realm. On passing the required threshold, the Realm Master gave them instructions on how to build the first human Settlement on Euroca.
Each and every Settlement on Euroca was built from the resources plundered from the Eternal Realm. No human technology would work outside the walls of these Settlements. In fact, no human would survive for long without these Settlements. Either the monsters, the harsh unpredictable climate or any other inconceivable reason would lead to his or her demise. The only way to increase the number of human settlements was to increase the territories in the Eternal Realm and to plunder more resources. Thus, each and every nation coveted to have more territories and trained teenagers to enter the Eternal Realm.
But these Settlements on Euroca, had a lot of limitations and restrictions. They needed a vast number of resources for daily upkeep of the shield wall, teleportation portal and other things. All of these resources could only be found in the Eternal Realm or in the mineral deposits that had formed on Earth; at places where the Eternal Realm had collided. Moreover, these settlements also had a population cap, and it wouldn't allow any more humans to stay inside. To increase the population cap, the settlements could be upgraded, that too requiring more resources.
Conceivably, not everyone was allowed to enter and reside within a Settlement. Only those who could afford it could stay inside one. This led to the formation of Rags, unordered human settlements in the wild with no sense of rule or authority.
It was true that no humans could survive in the wild for long, this made the conditions in the Rags more awful; everyone would fight or murder for every resource they could find. Agriculture and food production was nigh impossible on the barren soil, the Rags could only rely on the supplies the nearby Settlements would sometimes send. Murder, gang wars and thievery were a common occurrence in these places. Everyone was by themselves, and their own survival was the highest priority.
However, this wasn't the worst the Rags had to endure. Hiding the presence of a single human in the wild was easy but if so, many people stayed together at one place, it would attract beasts, hordes of them. Beasts' attacks were a common occurrence in the Rags, and these were the times when actual chaos would ensue. There had been cases when the whole Rag had been ravaged by beasts leaving no survivors behind.
Charles had lived in one such Rag until the Warammars had come to know about his talent and adopted him in their ranks.