Chapter 509: Doing The Right Thing
Aware of the complex thoughts going through her old subordinate’s thoughts, but clearly not caring, Celestina turned to her son and adjutant and informed them, "Darian used his Cultivation Pressure to immobilize and then knock out the soldiers on guard duty before any of them could respond. They’re all alright, but they’ll probably have terrible headaches when they wake up."
Samuel and Allina both nodded, genuinely relieved to hear that their subordinates were alright.
"So, Master met with King Darr and he told you he was planning on going to war with us?" Christina asked, though her face scrunched a bit as she did as she couldn’t imagine how such a conversation would happen.
"Not in so many words, but essentially, yes," Celestina replied casually before her brow furrowed, "However, there was something odd about how he said it."
"Odd?" Lucas asked, having managed to recover from the earlier beating, something he was getting pretty good at because of all the practice he received.
"En," Celestina replied, "He said he ’had no choice’."
"Had no choice? What is that supposed to mean?" Marianne scoffed, finding it ridiculous that a king was actually saying he had no choice but to go to war.
Cynthia, on the other hand, seemed to have thought of something and muttered, "Power is a lot less centralized in the Darr Kingdom than it is in ours. If the nobles there applied enough pressure, even the Royal Family might not have any choice but to acquiesce to their wishes."
"So... the King doesn’t want to go to war?" Eris asked.
"I wouldn’t go that far," Celestina refuted, "Darian loves to fight, and conquering the Rockwell Kingdom has been part of the Darr Family’s doctrine for hundreds of years, so I doubt he’s completely unwilling to wage a war against us, but something tells me this wasn’t his idea, nor is he the one advocating for it."
"Maybe that’s why the preparations are taking so long," Lucas theorized, "According to our investigations, the Darr Kingdom has been quietly building up its strength for well over a year now, and they’ve made some progress, but far less than they should have."
"En," Allina agreed, "We thought it was because they were trying to keep it all a secret, but what if the real reason is because infighting is delaying the process."
"If that’s really the case, perhaps avoiding this war won’t be entirely impossible," Marianne suggested eagerly.
"No, we can’t assume any of that," Cynthia shook her head, "We should still proceed with our original plan to fortify ourselves.
This was a bit of an odd dynamic, seeing how Marianne was heavily involved in military affairs while Cynthia leaned much more heavily towards administration and diplomacy.
Logically, Cynthia should be the one most hoping for a non-military solution while Marianne pushed for a more forceful resolution, but it appeared that in this case, the roles had somehow been reversed.
"I agree with Queen Morgan," Lucas voiced his opinion, "Whatever the truth is, building up the Rockwell Kingdom to resist outside pressure is always going to be a priority. If anything, Princess Talia’s visit today and the uncertainty of the situation in the Darr Kingdom only further emphasizes our need to increase our readiness."
"Lucas is right," Celestina declared, "The more unknowns we’re dealing with, the more we need to accelerate our plans."
"But, how do we do that?" First Queen Marianne asked.
Silence covered the table after that.
It was a simple question, but honestly, they were already rushing things quite a bit; trying to accelerate their plans even further would be very difficult without a large uptick in resource consumption and manpower.
However, increasing their spending and activities, as well as bringing more people into the loop, risked compromising their security.
Clearly, their most visible enemy, the Darr Kingdom, was already watching them closely, and while it had now been confirmed that this unfriendly neighbour was aware of their ongoing preparations for war, there was a difference between them doing so openly and secretly.
As absurd as it may sound, amassing troops and stockpiling weapons in border cities while saying it’s ’for defensive purposes’ and doing so while saying ’it’s so we can invade your country’ were two different things, even though from a practical standpoint the process and results were identical.
Even if they were to ignore all of that, though, there was still the biggest and most pressing issue. Over the past half-year, the Rockwell Kingdom had massively stepped up its intelligence gathering operations and while they were still in the dark about the exact amount of strength the Darr Kingdom had managed to gather, their best estimates still put the enemy in a stronger position than them.
"I may have a way for us to accomplish our goals, but... you’re not going to like it," Lucas said hesitantly.
"Will it be better than being caught unprepared for war?" Celestina asked back in a blunt tone.
Getting his Master’s point, Lucas turned to the two Queens and asked, "How are things going with the Second Queen’s economic project?"
The abrupt shift in topic seemed quite out of place, but those gathered around this table knew the young boy well enough to understand that he wouldn’t be asking this without a good reason.
Needless to say, once massive amounts of manpower and capital all over the kingdom began pouring into infrastructure projects, and numerous trade barriers such as inter-provincial tariffs and city entry taxes were abolished, Lucas realized that something big was up.
When he confronted his Master about it, Celestina hadn’t hesitated to share with him what Second Queen Natasha Summers had been up to after he gave her an impromptu economics lesson from the future.
Aside from being flabbergasted and flattered that his midnight rantings had been taking so seriously and implemented so broadly by the Second Queen, Lucas also felt a huge headache at the recklessness his Junior Sister’s half-mother.
Following this revelation, Lucas locked himself in his room and studied the details of Natasha’s Economic Cultivation Initiative.
Once had had a decent idea of the Second Queen’s plan, he proceeded to write out as much information as he could related to her various proposals, focusing especially on the various pitfalls and problems he recalled these policies creating in the other universe when they were first implemented.
5 days and nearly 100 or so pages of hand-written notes later, Lucas handed everything over to Allina and asked her to proof-read it before delivering it to the capital as soon as possible.
He then passed out from exhaustion.
Quickly recognizing the value of the information in the guidebook Lucas had written, Allina took a Tartan to Rockwell City the very next day and met with Queen Natasha in person to discuss it.
A few days later, when Allina returned, she had given Lucas a big hug, squishing him half-to-death as she told him with a teasing grin it was an order from the Second Queen. She also mentioned that Natasha had quietly re-directed a million Gold from the Royal Treasury to his personal accounts for use in his various projects.
Before Lucas could voice his objections to this blatant abuse of finances, Allina mentioned that the Second Queen had commanded that if he tried to refuse, she would triple the amount.
At that moment, Lucas was torn between doing the right thing and keeping his mouth shut, or loudly proclaiming his intent to reject the offer and securing himself an additional 2 million Gold.
It was very temping to take advantage of the generous offer the Second Queen was making, but ultimately, the boy’s consciousness won out and he sealed his lips... but just barely.