It took a while to make my way back to Clarissa. I sat across from her in her underground bunker. I explained everything that had happened, since I had run off from the good doctor. She had been informed by Doctor Katz and other people how I had been chased and guessed that I had run to the tower.

“So, she is dead, you are sure?” Clarissa asked me once I was done with my story. I rubbed my gut through my shirt slightly. I had been getting a lot of restorations recently and seeing how they impacted my attempts to fix my energy and correct the problems in my body. I was too nervous to let things go for a long period of time.

“Yes. I melted her myself. Only very small chunks were left. Nothing bigger than a finger. She is dead,” I replied. Clarissa smiled and leaned back in her chair.

“We won,” she said.

“Yes, we have,” I replied. Some people might have been annoyed that she said ‘we’ instead of ‘you’, but this victory was both of ours. Clarissa had kept everything together and the war effort going even under pressure from the Divine Empress.

It wasn’t flashy, or sexy like my battle where I had killed her on top of the tower, but Clarissa’s efforts were no less than my own. At least that was the way I felt. The immense pressure she was under to manage everything while hiding in various bunkers, moving about, and working on the super weapon could not have been easy.

She deserved a meta-point just like I did. Unfortunately, the Almighty System did not seem to reward people for their organizational or leadership skills. It made sense in a weird sort of way, but that just confirmed in my mind that the Almighty System was not human.

“Well, I can finally stop living like a mole person. There are a lot of things that need to be decided now.” I nodded at this. I figured as much. We needed to work out the tax rates.

“We need to work out the capital and how much we will integrate people in from different cultures,” Clarissa said.

“Purgatory seems like a good choice?” I suggested.

“It is in a decent position, but Esperanza to the West would be better since it is more centralized,” Clarissa suggested. I thought about the layout of the cities in relation to each other. “There are a lot of cities to the Southwest, which makes things complicated.”

“Purgatory, we will rebuild there. It will also give us buffer cities to the other nations,” I replied. I was also picking the city out of nostalgia. Plus, it was my city. Upgrading it to increase my skill slots was important.

“Alright, I will set up there. Now there is the question about integration of people that arrive in different cities. The culture and languages are different. While a lot of Spanish speaking people have picked up on English words, the cities that used to belong to the Dragon Empire pull from China. Mandarin is the main language and a lot of people barley know any English,” Clarissa explained.

“What are you suggesting? A purge?” I asked.

“I am not sure. We can do what the Divine Empress did and create tribes while installing loyal soldiers to hold the cities. We could appoint a governor of each city to manage the area around it. We could just routinely purge anyone that arrives,” Clarissa explained.

It was a complicated decision. While she had broken out three possibilities, none of them were simple and all came with their own set of issues. Creating tribes meant that there would be no organization in the various zones and cultivating talent would be difficult.

A governor could lead to corruption and betrayal. That was what had occurred with the Divine Empress’s Lords. They were useless parasites to a large degree but acted as a buffer to the leadership. Handling day to day issues so they weren’t overwhelmed.

Then there was a total purge. This could give us absolute control, but would take much longer to ramp up our economy. I considered all three options in my head. That was when Clarissa spoke up again. “It will take about fifty or so days to get control of all the cities. That is if we have your help.”

“Ah, I need to recover. What the Astrologer did, and the curse damage will take time to fix. What are you thinking in terms of organizational structure?” I asked Clarissa.

“A governor system. It worked out decently before. We set taxes at thirty percent. They would get ten percent, my administration would get ten percent, and you would get ten percent.” I slowly shook my head at that.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“That is too low,” I argued.

“People will revolt. We can’t keep up war time taxes forever. Thirty percent is as high as we can make it without a revolt.”

“One thing the Divine Empress taught me was that there is a lot of power in passive income from cities. There is someone out there ahead of me. They cleared a tower already. I refuse to be in the weaker position again. Do you want to go into hiding?” I asked Clarissa.

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes slightly. I could tell she was thinking heavily about this. The issue of taxes was a long term issue, but I was not going to let my Empire get away from me, no matter what.

I needed that passive income. We would have fifteen cities eventually. If a city produced around ten million points per day, ten percent of that was a million points. With fifteen cities that meant each percentage point of tax was around 150,000 points per day.

Over 100 days, that a single percentage point difference meant 15,000,000 points difference. If taxes were at 50% and I got an additional 20%, that would be 3,000,000,000 more points every 100 days. That was a sizable difference.

“If taxes are increased more, then there will be unrest. If more of the tax percentage goes towards you then building up the cities and moving all those crystals won’t be simple. We will need soldiers, lots of soldiers. To protect the transport of the carts, to guard the city depositories, and to track all of it.” Clarissa made some good points, but it felt like I was leaving too many points on the table.

“Even with the risk of someone else out there?” I challenged her and she let out a small sigh at that.

“Even then. We can continue weapons research. Also, we can set that tax rate for level 3 and 4 zones as well. Also, we can auction off dungeon clears. People can pay for those, that will bring in more revenue while allowing us to divert skill points to our own soldiers.”

Clarissa was right, but I didn’t like it in the slightest. “So, a governorship type of empire?” I asked her.

“Yes. It will reduce a lot of headaches. Cities can run themselves, but there will be strict audits of all tax revenue. That was one thing the Divine Empress got right. Distributing control to middle managers to take a lot of the pressure off of her administration was a clever choice. It allowed her to maintain control, by centralizing her military and her power to a large degree.”

“So, we are adopting her model of government?” I asked Clarissa.

“With more freedoms and better organization. Governors can assign people to zones to grind. And arrange for supplies to be shipped out and groups rotated. The tribe system was very inefficient and made people desperate. Unless you want to go that route? If you do, then it will hard to raise anyone up to clear level 3 zones or higher,” Clarissa explained.

“It isn’t enough Clarissa. The tax rate needs to be higher regardless,” I countered. We had a bit of staring competition.

“There will be issues with the populace. Thirty percent will be pushing it,” Clarissa countered back. I knew that, but it was just too little. I wanted the tax rate to be set at seventy percent. I would get half, then the remaining twenty percent would run the administration.

This could very well determine my life or death right here. This decision would have a far greater impact than most other decisions. “Fifty percent, half, I get thirty percent,” I replied. That was the most I was willing to compromise.

“There will be a lot of unrest and rebellions. We can’t survive if we do fifty percent,” Clarissa countered.

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“A fact. The Divine Empress’s people never used summoning or consumption. If we have taxes that high, there will be rebel groups and a sympathetic population to aid them. Even if we control the cities, it will mean constantly putting out fires. I don’t think you want to be running around.”

That was a very good argument and one I didn’t know how to counter. I didn’t want to be handling rebellions. An insurgency would be the worst. I didn’t want to waste time on something like that. I also didn’t have an Envoy or other powerful enough minions to dispatch to handle rebellions.

I would win over time. But it would not be pretty. The harder I cracked down the more people would rebel. “Thirty percent will stop any rebellions?” I asked.

“Yes. At least at a national level. All other issues that come up we can just blame on the local governors. What we need to avoid is a widespread rebellion targeting multiple cities at the same time. If that happens, it will be a struggle to maintain control,” Clarissa replied.

“Really? Even with our soldiers?” I asked.

“Trust me. After running an insurgent government for as long as I have, I can only imagine how annoying it would be to counter. There are no fixed locations. I am half tempted to keep a mobile government just for safety but the logistical headache is too much.”

“But that still leaves the issue of someone else out there who is stronger. Ten percent is not enough to close that gap in my mind.”

“Well, it is your choice. Anything higher and you will have to be on rebellion crushing duty. I have spoken to several people from the Dragon Empire. When it was just getting started, the Divine Empress spent all her time crushing people and showing the flag.” I winced at that. I did not want to have to run around like that.

“That would be the cost, Michael. It is as simple as that. You couldn’t be an absent leader if the taxes go any higher. You would have to crush any dissent ruthlessly, over and over while the core of our government stabilized.”

“What about later on, could the taxes be increased?” I asked Clarissa.

“Realistically no. Since the goal would be to raise people up to grind level 3 and level 4 zones. If those people rebelled, then there wouldn’t be a government left. They wouldn’t have to kill me or the soldiers, just disrupt the lower level areas,” Clarissa explained.

I leaned back in my chair unhappy. I had been imagining all the crystals flowing in and it wasn’t as simple or as much as I hoped. No wonder the Divine Empress always seemed in a bad mood. I would be in a bad mood as well, having to deal with these kinds of issues.

“Fine. Governorships and thirty percent taxes,” I said with a grumble. Since that was what Clarissa wanted, I wasn’t going to argue. She was too valuable to alienate.