*Xix Anderson, the Father's POV*

Augest 31, 109 A.F. (After Founding Amestris) Today was the third happiest day of my life. At least, that's what I thought I would say to myself later on this morning.

The happiest day of my life was when I married Silvia, a few years after I managed to negotiate her into not destroying the city.

The second happiest day of my life was when our daughter Pray was finally born. A daughter! I've always wanted a daughter!

If 'always' started about the second I heard the baby was a girl. I'll admit, I had wanted a son for my first born, like any sane man. But, as I stares into our little Pray's eyes, I couldn't help but feel that she is our pride and joy. Who cares if its a girl! She is my daughter! I will gut the first man who looks down on her for not being a boy. I'll gut the bastard like a...

Look at you Mother, little Pray. It doesn't matter if you're a girl or a boy, you can achieve anything! I believe you will surpass even her... maybe... if you inherited both of our bloods.

Silv recovered in no time, of course, as expected of someone with her absurd powers.

The third happiest day was supposed to be today! Our little Pray's first birthday! I've decided all the birthday of Prays would be my happiest day...

Except today turned into hell. What went wrong? I planned everything perfectly!

The cake, the decorations, the specially prepared Lunch by a chef I spend a fortune hiring. The private party of three, with nobody else to ruin the mood! It was supposed to be perfect after those six months of preparation! I even prepared a special present for Pray!

...Which Silv promptly steps on and destroyed when she bursted into my office from their little trip, carrying another girl...

I'll admit, I didn't expect Pray to ask her Mother to carry her outside for a trip. Damn, I wanted to make that a family occasion, but I didn't get the chance as Silv flew out of the house with Pray in her arms.

So I was looking at the reports I've been ignoring while we celebrated Pray's birthday. Boy, missing half of the day's work is hard to catch up on, even when I'm working as fast as I could.

It took me 4 straight hours of work to finish reading through all the reports and sending our my orders. Sometimes, it's easier to be a lowly soldier patrolling around than a general who has to make all the decisions.

Not that I regret any of my decisions. I have rose up in rank, all the way from a Major to a Brigadier General, and got everything I wanted in my youthful years.

I even met Silvia due to my old position as one of the ambassador to Xing!

So I should be happy, right?

...But no, apparently Fate has different plans for me.

It was about 6:15 when Silv came back with Pray, literally crushing into my shielded office and crushing Pray's birthday present. Not the present!

But it was too late, and Silv pretty much demolished it with how hard she was stomping around as she went on a rant about the slum, slavers, kidnappers, kidnapped villagers (Ah, so I guess that the status of the girl she brought back), killers, and everything horrible imaginable about them.

Also how I've failed to eliminate them, even if I did promise her once upon a time.

That's easier said than done. Something I never realized until the responsibility actually falls into my hand.

I mean, sure it's easy to destroy a well-known bandit hideout, but finding a well-hidden one? Especially in those damn forests that only the bandits know? True, I could simply burn it all down with my flame alchemy, but I will have no control over it once it spreads over the entire forest.

And Central Command will never spare anyone who burns down the natural defense line that is the forest between us and the Empire of Britannia, so I can't go crazy with my fires.

That leaves me with one option: Send in my men and state alchemists to deal with them on a local scale.

If finding them wasn't hard enough, the damn bandits spring up again like cockroaches after we destroy one of their camp, just when we thought they've been dealt with completely.

So I implemented the periodic sweeping of forests and suspicious areas, implemented the fortified wall requirement for all villages, as well as created a bounty system to hunt down notorious bandit leaders. The cost of supporting the bounty system and building the wall was hideous to look at, but it was well-worth it, since bandits almost stopped attacking the villages in my jurisdiction.

Then they started trafficking kidnapped people from other countries.

I can't enforce my rules where my jurisdiction can't reach! It's not my fault! How am I supposed to control the situation when half of it is not in this country? I can't just sent in my men and deal with them there! No, that would be invading other countries, when Amestris is having enough trouble keeping South's witch army from advancing any further. We need all the help we could get from other countries, and vice versa, so invasion to take care of bandits on their home turf was a no go.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Trying to sniff out their routes was a disaster. We would be led on wild goose chases half of the time! I've done everything I could, spend almost all of my budgets, and spread my men too thin.

And yet the f*cking bandits refused to leave. What is it going to take to stop this? I certainly don't know the answer, if there's anything I've learned since I took this job.

So I simply continued trying to suppress the bandits using the methods already implemented. If nothing else, it prevented bandits and human trafficking from becoming more prevalent. If only it can unroot them completely too...

So here I am, being lectured on how incompetent I am for not noticing there are bandit hideouts right in the capital city, how incompetent the men I've trained are for not being able to kill all the bandits.

I wanted to tell Silv that I'm not even the one commanding the military police of the city! But of course that would only backfire. So I didn't say it. I tried to calm her down then... and it ended in disaster as well. What did I do wrong? Was it something I said?

Then Silv gave out a scream of frustration, and I tried to shrink further into my seat. No good, I'm already as far back here as I could be. Yikes, i covered my eyes and tried to shield myself from what is surely coming next: Silv's fist smashing my skull into pieces. I've seen her done that too many times to her enemies.

...But it never came. I opened my eyes a little, and found Silv gone! Gone! How is this possible?! She'd never forgive me this easily before! Something must be wrong here...

"Sebastian! Where did Silvia go?" I called out to my personal butler, who is currently hiding in the safety behind the wall.

"Lady Silvia flew out into the city, sir. If I may..."

"Proceed." Silvia on a rampage, loose in the city. I could already foresee the bloodshed..

"Sir, it may be wise to call General Boromir  now and advise him to retract all the military polices forces from the slum. I have a feeling Lady Silvia is not in the right mood to judge friend from foe."

"Good suggestion, Sebastian, good... you may expect a large bonus this month if general Boromir takes your advice." Ah, perhaps I can limit the bloodshed this way! Good one Sebastian!

So I picked up the phone and use the phone line specially prepared for emergencies. General Boromir's secretary picked up the emergency call right away, and handed the phone over to the general. Convincing him was easier then I thought, after I told him Silvia probably wouldn't distinguish a bunch of police men from a bunch of thugs, especially since they move in groups for safety in the slum. I can almost feel the sweats dropping profusely down his forehead as we speak, 'cause I was feeling the exact same way.

That night became known as the worst terrorist attack on the capital city of Amestris in all of its history. Oddly enough, the perpetrator only razed the slum to the ground, and cleaned out its dirty cellars. Perhaps whoever did it had a grudge against people living in the slum, the People guessed.

Of course, we played it off as an effort by the military to use our new weapon to wipe out the pests that infested our city. As for what weapon, it's classified. And no, the rumors of sightings of a woman destroying that part of the town is completely false. How could it possibly be real?

Try as we might, the people had their own ideas. They saw the military retracting its police from the area just before the incident, as if they were running away from it, and thought someone else must be responsible. And who else could it be but those damned witches? And so those half-true ideas became rumors, spreading around the city, around the country, and into the other countries.

It was known internationally as the "Razed Night", when a crazy witch decimated an entire sector of the capital city of Amestris. A witch so powerful that not even the Amestris military dared not to step in her way...

Sure am glad I'm not in foreign policy department anymore, I sighed inwardly. it's a devastating blow to our reputation, that's for sure, and pity to innocent ambassadors who would have to defend our honor after that. Oh, the other countries must be busy laughing at us now, for being unable to protect even our capital city. God bless those souls who would take the blunt of it...

Author's Note: I know I did say I will speed things up quite a bit in this chapter, but then I realized it's better to split it into two chapters. So, I decided to dedicate this chapter to Pray's Father's perspective and how scary the Mother is hehehe... next chapter tomorrow coming very soon... probably...