Chapter 5:
New Topics
IT JUST HAPPENED TO BE LUNCHTIME when we got back from the cathedral, so the three of us headed straight to the castle cafeteria.
“You’re back?”
“Heya.”
“Mm, welcome back.”
“Welcome home.”
Waiting inside were Sylphy, Grande, Melty, and the ogre girls. The harpies were nowhere to be seen—they apparently preferred eating with the soldiers and servants.
“Welcome back, Sir Kousuke.”
“Welcome home, Kousuke.”
Serafeeta, Doriada, and Aqual were all there too. Aqual, of course, greeted me with a sharp glare rather than a kind word. I was her enemy—okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but I still wasn’t exactly her favorite person. But I couldn’t hold it against her; I understood where she was coming from. From her point of view, I was the asshole who swooped in and started “stealing” her family from her. I mean, I didn’t think she hated me that much, but…
“How did it go?” Sylphy asked, her tone light.
“We’ve got a direction now,” I told her. “All that’s left is trial and error.”
“I see. I hope things work out.”
“You’re not going to ask for specifics?”
“It’s not like I’d understand the technical stuff anyway,” she said with a shrug.
Sylphy was all muscle and strength. She could use combat spirit magic like it was an extension of her body, but all other forms of magic went right over her head.
“I know figuring out how to use magic energy more efficiently is important,” she continued, “but what’s going on with the Adventurers’ Guild and the Merchant Union?”
“I basically handed the union a pile of cash and told them to take charge. If I stick my nose in too much, things will just get messy. At the end of the day, my plan was to give the Adventurers’ Guild a boost, not to fix the root of the problem. Any radical reform will have to come from the government.”
“You’re not wrong,” Melty said with a sigh. “But we simply don’t have the manpower to devote to that. We’re still tied up with everything involving the Holy Kingdom.”
“I get that,” I said. “But shouldn’t domestic problems come first?”
“Yes, but we simply do not have enough personnel…”
While we talked things over, a group of castle maids quietly placed our food on the table. Grande and the ogre girls stayed silent whenever we discussed things like this. They were smart enough to know that these matters weren’t in their wheelhouse.
“If we don’t have enough people, then we have to get more, right?” I said. “Couldn’t we have the lords all over the country lend us some of their talented folks?”
Any lords managing a territory would naturally have civil servants employed. And if they didn’t, it was standard practice to borrow personnel from elsewhere.
“That would certainly be the fastest solution,” Sylphy remarked. “But if we force them to lend out people, we’ll risk their wrath. Not to mention, they might try to use those people to exert their own power.” She sighed with a bitter expression.
Made sense. Seemed like this wasn’t as simple as it sounded. With my simpleton brain, my first thought was: If they act out, just crush them with military might. But I suppose that would just create new problems. The last thing I wanted was for Sylphy to be remembered by future generations as some peerless tyrant who ruled by force.
“In other words, you’re suggesting we hire talented people who aren’t under any lord’s thumbs and have no political ties. It’s a great idea in theory, but finding people like that won’t be easy,” Melty said.
She wasn’t wrong. People like that didn’t just wander around unemployed.
…Actually, wait a second.
If we focused our search on demi-humans—people the old Holy Kingdom never would have hired in the first place—we could have a decent shot at getting our hands on talented candidates. Or at least it seemed possible to me. We could also look for former lords that were driven out of their positions by the Holy Kingdom.
In terms of priority, former lords and government officials came first. Next would be mages, clergymen, scholars, and doctors—the intellectual class. After that, merchants. If we wanted to hire new civil servants, they’d need basic literacy and numeracy skills, so prioritizing educated groups was the right move.
That said, we already had absolute control over Merinesburg and Arichburg, so any talent we could find locally had already been scouted or absorbed into government work. That meant our best shot lay outside the core; we needed to search the regional territories where our new government didn’t have complete authority yet.
“Can’t we find demi-human former lords, officials, mages, and other intellectuals out in the regional territories?” I asked. “I think it’d be smart to go headhunting for those types.”
“That might be a good idea,” she admitted cautiously. “But who would we send—oh, is that what this is?”
Melty was ready to reject my idea when she turned and saw me pointing at myself.
A troubled expression crossed her face.
“At the moment, I’m the only one not directly tied up with political affairs who can act lightly on his feet, right?” I pointed out. “Plus, in terms of security, wouldn’t it actually be safer for me to be away from Merinesburg? If the Holy Kingdom sends assassins, they’d have a harder time running around all over the place.”
Our airboards could travel faster and farther than horses, making pursuit nearly impossible. On top of that, we also had golem communication, capable of instant long-distance transmission. With our speed of travel and communication, it would be impossible for their assassins to find or catch up with me.
And our advantages didn’t stop there. Even if they somehow managed to locate us, they’d never make it within striking distance. The harpies could spot an ambush from the air, and if it came to a fight, my heavy-armament golems would tear them apart.