Chapter 23

Kneeling in front of the queen I declared my allegiance to her and then took the cube that she held out. Pressing my thumb to the red circle on the cube I had to wait for a few seconds until it turned green. Unlike last time a screen didn’t light up on the cube. As I opened up my interface and purchased my first micro drone I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

As a baron it was likely I’d be put in charge of Earth. But if I ever wanted a chance to actually own my homeworld I’d need to be a higher rank. It would take centuries for a Baron to accumulate enough bonds to purchase a populated planet. A message popped up.

First Micro Drone purchased. Checking if access level is sufficient to unlock the next growth unit. Micro Fabricator purchase unlocked. 1000 Micro Drones required to produce 1 Micro Fabricator.

I took a deep breath. Apparently I had been holding my breath while waiting for the message to appear. “I’ve unlocked the next unit. I’m a swarm count.” I said looking up at the queen with wide eyes. If it wasn’t for all the people watching I think I would have started jumping around and yelling in joy.

Both the queen and king looked at me in shock for a moment. “Well imagine that. Two swarm counts out of just seven prospects, although I suppose one of them is my son. Now we just have to see if either of you are swarm dukes.” King Josh said with a frown.

I could imagine he was a bit upset. If I was a swarm duke and his son wasn’t he was about to lose a tiny core factory. A micro core factory was worth a hundred million bonds and a tiny core factory was a million times more valuable. A hundred trillion bonds. Even if that was only dollars it would be far more money than the richest person on Earth had. And a UBM was worth far far more than a dollar.

“Normally we would wait until your access level was determined prior to placing you in charge of any planets. However, I’m hoping that having you in charge of Earth will ease the integration process. As such I’ve made the determination that, whether you are a count or a duke, Earth will still fall under your purview.” The queen said.

I nodded in agreement. “You said earlier that the integration process has begun? I can’t imagine how chaotic the planet is at this time.” I said with a bit of a grimace.

“At this time it’s not chaotic. The mana nodes have been deployed but it takes time before their effect will be noticeable. Current estimates are that it will be a year before the mana system reaches full operation. Best estimates are that it will be around another month before the effects are noticeable by the average civilian. Perhaps six months until technology fails on the planet. Historically, in cases like this, it’s the transition time between when technology stops working and mana becomes fully operational that is the most chaotic. The planet's technology will have already failed and the power of mages will still be significantly impaired.” The queen explained.

A large part of me was relieved to find out that Earth wasn’t chaotic yet. Another part was horrified at what the queen was saying. Six months without both technology and magic could be devastating for Earth.

For a second I considered if it was possible to stop the integration process. That thought was fleeting though. Long term there was no way that we could stop all the swarm lords. If it came down to a war they could just flood the planet with a billion swarm knights. Each of them could kill anyone as easily as they could snap their fingers. At the same time the only effective offensive weapon Earth would have would be nuclear weapons. The planet would be rendered uninhabitable long before Earth could kill even a tiny fraction of those swarm knights.

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My only option was to guide that integration process. With a few months of advance warning the governments could prepare. Many of them already had strategic stockpiles of supplies. It should be possible to build up enough supplies that the population could survive for six months. After that magic could take over where technology had failed.

There would be a lot of hurdles to overcome while preparing though. For one thing everything would have to be prepared before technology failed. Growing food without farm equipment was possible but difficult. But trying to transport large amounts of food after technology failed would be nearly impossible.

Before I could actually start thinking about any plans the queen continued speaking. “We should know whether you are a count or duke in the next five days. For now one of my administrators will take you to your new rooms. They will also provide you with a schedule of any meetings pertaining to Earth. You can begin familiarizing yourself with the situation during these next five days.”

The queen waved an administrator forward and I realized that for now I had been dismissed. Even if I was a swarm count it wasn’t like the queen would spend a lot of time with me. There were around ten thousand swarm counts below her.

As we walked I messaged Alex and set up a meeting the next morning with him. I was going to need those nano core factories as soon as possible. In fact I’d probably need a few extra since I wouldn’t get them until tomorrow. As a swarm count the bank would have no problem issuing me a larger loan. The income of a swarm count was thousands of times more than that of a swarm baron.

It took nearly an hour but eventually we reached a new set of rooms. This was a significant improvement over the previous rooms. Instead of a small hotel room it was like I had been upgraded to the penthouse. Although if I wasn’t a swarm duke, if I visited the queen again I’d have to settle for the typical swarm count suite. For now they had put me in a set of rooms that were larger, but still smaller than where the dukes stayed. Which had me wondering what the accommodations were like for a swarm duke. I wouldn’t be surprised if each of them had the equivalent of an entire mansion. And this was in the queen’s castle, I was sure their own homes were beyond my imagination.

I was relieved to find out that a mage had already messaged ahead and let Faye know about the change in quarters. She had organized the servants and everything had already been moved into my new rooms. It was one of the first times I actually appreciated having servants. Not having to pack up everything, move it, and then unpack again saved a ton of time.

As soon as I entered the room Faye practically threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around me. “A swarm count. If anyone had told me that you would be a swarm count I never would have believed them.” She said, clearly stunned.

Leaning down a bit, I kissed her. My hands drifted down a bit and I picked her up. With her straddling me, and our lips still locked together, I tried to find a bedroom. Eventually I gave up and we ended up switching out between at least three different pieces of furniture in the living room. Eventually after a few rounds we ended up stopping to get a drink and find the bedroom.

An hour later I was lying in bed completely exhausted. Turning my head I found myself looking at an equally exhausted Faye. “I love you.” I ended up blurting out.

Faye smiled and then cuddled up against me. “I love you too.” She said and then closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Before falling asleep I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I was pretty sure Faye was hiding something from me. I had wanted to tell her that I loved her for days, but that feeling that she had a secret had held me back. Eventually I had decided it didn’t matter, no matter what her secret was it wouldn’t change how I felt about her. Even if she was planning on betraying and left me it wouldn’t mean that I didn’t love her. With that final thought in mind I wrapped my arms around Faye and fell asleep.