Chapter 614: Going Around in Circles
"Do you have any idea how we can pull that off, Elder Carlson?" Louise asked.
"No," the old woman said flatly.
"Is there some kind of big celebration coming up soon?" Lucas asked, though he already knew the answer.
Sure enough, the others in the office all shook their heads.
There were, naturally, many different parties and banquets going on around the Rockwell Kingdom on any given day; however, none of those events would justify deploying military Regiments from the ten armies into the streets of every major city all at once.
Only something like the coronation of a new ruler, or a centennial celebration of the kingdom, would warrant that.
A few more ideas were tossed around over the next quarter-hour, but all of them ultimately rejected for one reason or another.
"We’re going around in circles," Celestina sighed before rising from her seat, "Let’s end things here for tonight. We’re clearly not going to get anywhere like this. Go back, keep thinking about it, and if you come up with something, we can assemble here again."
"So... we’re just going to do nothing? As traitors, criminals, and foreign spies run freely through our streets?" Louise asked incredulously.
Even as the First Princess and heir-apparent to the throne, Louise had only recently learned about this massive ongoing operation from her father. Needless to say, she was shocked when she did.
Louise may not have wanted to be the next ruler of the Rockwell Kingdom, but she certainly didn’t want to see it be destroyed from the inside either. As such, the idea of letting things fester like this was unacceptable to her.
She wanted to take action, now, and was only holding back because it wasn’t her decision to make. In that sense, though she favoured commerce to war, Louise was actually much more like her mother, Marianne, than she probably wanted to admit.
"No, Your Highness," Lucas shook his head, "We’ll still be attacking this unseen enemy."
"The brat is right," Elliot, who even after all this time still didn’t like Lucas because he was too close to his precious granddaughter, declared, "If we want to keep the enemy off-balance, we need to keep hitting them."
"I thought we agreed doing that would only raise their suspicions," Louise frowned.
"The most suspicions thing we can right now, Your Highness, is nothing," Allina explained, "We have to make the enemy think we’re still pursuing them, just not having much success. Only then will they lower their guard."
"En," Samuel nodded, saying bluntly, "our enemy is highly intelligent and suspicious, so they’ll never believe we’ve given up searching for them after just one set of raids. Better to make them think we’re still hunting them with limited success rather than waiting for an opportunity to deliver a decisive blow."
Louise, who ran her own trade company, was familiar with the tactic of feigning difficulty to lure a party you were negotiating with into offering better terms, so she was quickly able to understand the strategy at play here.
All those lessons on war strategy her mother forced her to endure might also have played some role, but who could say?
"You humans always make things so difficult," Frey sighed in exasperation, drawing a small chuckle from the others in the room.
"And on that note," Celestina smiled, "meeting adjourned."
Then, turning to their recently arrived guest, she announced, "Now, let’s get you settled in, shall we, Louise?"
.....
It wasn’t like Louise was expecting some grand reception when she first touched down in Misty City; in fact, she had specifically requested there not be any fanfare for her arrival, but as she dismounted from her Tartan to find literally just a handful of people waiting for her, most of them her own personal servants who had arrived in advance, it still came as a bit of a shock.
Nevertheless, this was precisely what she wanted, so she wasn’t about to complain about it.
As soon as she got down from the avian beast, however, she was quickly whisked away to her Aunt Celestina’s office where a high-level meeting regarding the future of the kingdom was being discussed.
Again, Louise was in for a bit of a surprise.
Not about the topic of the meeting, nor about its content; she was already aware of that thanks to the various briefings she had gotten from her royal father and all her royal mothers, but more-so about who was involved.
All three of Louise’ mothers had spoken extremely highly of the boy her youngest sister had a crush on, each one of them praising Lucas for a variety of different reasons, but it was still hard for the First Princess to imagine such a young child being so capable.
Checking Lucas out and making sure he was worthy of her genius little sister was actually one of the reasons Louise had agreed to temporarily move to Misty City. It wasn’t one of the most important reasons, or even among her top 10 priorities, but it was a reason none-the-less.
She hadn’t expected to get a demonstration of Lucas’ brilliance and competence immediately upon her arrival.
Needless to say, Louise came away from that classified meeting understanding why her mothers were all so enthusiastic about this boy.
Louise had been taught about statecraft, warfare, and economics since young and had a fair amount of practical experience in each of those subjects thanks to helping out with her parent’s work on numerous occasions, but during that meeting, she was undoubtedly the least useful and active participant.
On the other hand, Lucas was called upon very frequently and responded essentially as an equal, despite everyone else in the room being an Elder or Senior that Louise had to look up to and treat respectfully.
It was quite the eye-opening experience.
The rest of the evening passed by in a flash, with a pseudo-banquet having been arranged at her new residence, which Louise soon learned she would be sharing together with Lucas and several others.
The food was outstanding; the best the First Princess had ever tasted. Her expectations had been set sky-high by her mothers, who had all raved about the ’food revolution’ underway in Misty City, and the dishes which were served had not disappointed.
Louise was particularly fond of the fluffy bread her little sister’s bakery made. She had eaten a few samples of it already thanks to her mothers bringing back several baskets of the stuff from Christina’s 16th birthday, but 3-day-old leftovers really couldn’t compare to the fresh product.