Maria spent another few days in the game just distributing rewards to her contributing subordinates and soldiers. Whatever little their contribution was, Maria would reward them accordingly. She opened up her faction’s treasury, which had been bolstered by all of the riches that she had plundered from conquering the Blood Faction.
It wasn’t like she could use all of it anyway and there was no sense in hoarding all of it. Money that wasn’t flowing was as good as dirt for her nation’s budding economy, so instead of keeping it for herself, she just gave it away as a reward to her people.
Of course, she didn’t give it all away because that would be stupid. She still kept the majority of it for herself since she needed the resources for the various development projects she had for her nation.
First of all, she needed a lot of money to build and upgrade her nation’s settlements as well as fund her army, which was definitely going to grow. She needed a larger army, a navy, and a proper air force in order to invade and conquer the other continent of Vanhal.
Once the reward distribution was over, Maria opened up her [Faction] menu and saw that a lot of her nation’s attributes had experienced a large decrease. The Dire’s Security had decreased from the original 86 to 75 while the Economy had fallen from 92 points to 68 points. On par with that immense drop would be the Satisfaction Rate as it had plunged from a high 99 to a low 76. Only the Military attribute had increased by a bit since it was previously sitting at 80 but now it was 82.
All of this wasn’t a surprise to Maria, however, because it was the normal occurrence that happened whenever she conquered a new area and expanded her faction. The calculations had to include the factors of the citizens and conditions of the new areas she had taken in. It was only natural that some places would be devastated after her campaign, so the faction ratings would definitely fall.
Now that the entire continent had become the Dire, these calculations were now factoring so much more than before. The people of the continent had just undergone a brutal war of conquest that was instigated by Maria and, with her methods, it was not a wonder why the ratings dropped significantly.
This was especially so for the Economy and Satisfaction ratings because outside of the Dire’s original territory, every other place had practically been destroyed. Any form of trade and gold distribution had completely been halted and the citizens she had taken in had only recently been conquered by a woman that they viewed as a blood-thirsty tyrant.
It was also a fact that, previously, the Blood Faction’s economy wasn’t doing all that well and, since she had to inherit that on top of the dissatisfied citizens, Maria would need to address these issues very quickly, or else the Security rating might fall even further if her new citizens were dissatisfied and begun having thoughts of rebelling against her. Only Maria’s Military rating had gone up because her soldiers had undergone a massive war and those that survived leveled up and evolved into stronger versions of themselves.
“I’ll have to start the reconstruction of many cities, towns, and villages soon while also distributing rations and supplies to them to restart their livelihoods…the cost of all of this is going to be insane!” Maria said with a sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered my soldiers to completely trample all over their homes.”
It was too late to regret her past actions, but what she did back then was something she thought was necessary at the time. Her faction had just been infiltrated by her enemies and a few of her citizens were even roped into helping them out through bribery and whatnot.
If she didn’t choose such a heavy-handed approach, some people in the future might actually think it would be okay for them to try something like that again, so Maria aimed to completely snuff this out from the start. Now that they were all down in the dumps, all Maria needed to do was extend an olive branch and show them all just how much better of a ruler she was compared to their previous one.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Elizabeth, who was possessed by Garm at the time, had completely neglected to try to run her nation, so a lot of vampire nobles had decided to take things into their own hands–some of them leading to a good result and some bad. There were obviously quite a lot of greedy vampires that exploited their citizens and didn’t care about their livelihoods at all, while very few treated their people justly.
Naturally, Maria had already recruited these people into her faction beforehand with the help of Carmilla, who was practically their secret leader, while the others were completely annihilated in the war. She didn’t need any greedy and unscrupulous people in her faction, so she got rid of all of them.
“Ash, with the reward distribution over, prepare for the next step. We have to start rebuilding all of the destroyed cities and towns that we swept over the course of the war,” Maria said after she and her close subordinates moved to another hall in the castle.
“Don’t worry, my Queen. While we’ve been busy with the reward distribution, Elizabeth has been preparing for that step of our plan so we can proceed at any time,” Ash reported.
“Really? That’s good to hear, but your bride sure is diligent.”
“She was the one that managed my Garm family’s lands. She’ll be of great help to you, my Queen.”
“Go and tell her to start then. We have enough workers, right?”
“Even if we don’t, Your Highness, we could always hire workers directly from the affected areas. Since we have the money, we can pay for their labor instead of forcing them,” Carmilla added.
Maria nodded in approval before saying, “We should do that then, since it will also hold more sentimental value for those people who work because they’ll be building their homes from the ground up. They’ll hold a strong sense of belonging to the new homes that they’ve worked so painstakingly to build.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else I should be notified about? How are Alexa, Orh’bankhur, and Raijuu doing with the task I handed to them?”
Ash cleared his throat and quickly answered her question, “My Queen, those 3 are still currently moving around in separate teams, each commanding a portion of your Imperial Army. From the reports I’ve received, they are doing a splendid job of getting rid of the remnants of the previous regime.”
“Good. We have to solidify our rule as quickly as possible starting from now on, and while I do prefer that we use a softer approach, you have my permission to use as much force as you deem necessary.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“The players could arrive at Vanhal at any moment. If our foundations are shaky, we’ll have to go through a lot of hardships again. I want to conquer this world while I can, but from the looks of things, it might become impossible since a lot of unknown and chaotic factors will soon arrive…”
“We will at least protect our newly established nation, my Queen.”
“I’m counting on you then. Now get going, I’ll be doing something on my own,” Maria said before she left behind Ash and Carmilla.
Maria flew out of the castle and went towards the construction base that was located in the middle of her city’s Dracul District and met up with Danor Dwarfsong.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Your Imperial Majesty!” the Chief Craftsman said as he greeted Maria.
“Hey, Danor. I know I told you to proceed with the reconstruction, but I just want to see the city’s blueprints again. There are a few things I want to add.”
“Of course, Your Highness, right this way.”
Danor led Maria to the plans that they had already made for Transylvania’s Reconstruction Project, but after going through her faction’s treasury. There were a lot of special quest rewards and items that she obtained but couldn’t use back then that had become usable now after she had conquered Transylvania.
Namely, they were building construction blueprints and a few other things that could help bolster her city’s fortifications and prosperity ratings. She hadn’t taken these items into account because she couldn’t use them before due to the scale of her Heltania City.
These rewards were neglected and left to collect dust inside of her faction’s treasury until just recently, when she looked through them and saw that they were now applicable to Transylvania. Maria handed Danor the blueprints she had taken from her treasury and the dwarf began rubbing his beard as he figured out his Empress’s intentions.
“We’ll have to adjust a few things, Empress, but we can build all of these after making the proper adjustments.”
“Okay, I’ll leave it to you then.”
“I will not fail you, Your Highness!”