Book 15: Chapter 20
One of them was the Empress of Rosvenor Empire. One of them was the personal servant of the Empress of Rosvenor Empire. One of them was me, the new King of the North, and the only ruler of the entire North. The three of us were sat inside a tiny house made from piled up stones that was reinforced using mud, and it could collapse at any given moment.
We looked at each other with awkward looks. While Elizabeth still wanted to maintain her dignity as an Empress in Castell’s presence, what just took place left her with a red face and ears. Even her usual imposing voice was shaky. Somewhat scatterbrained, she fiddled with her long hair. Her hair had just been messed up, but it was actually still sitting behind her quite smoothly. Castell’s eyes looked lifeless as though he was shook so badly that he was speechless. He spun his hat in his hand. The hat looked as though it’d take off flying. As for me, I sat to one side and calmly watched the two of them. I couldn’t have been any calmer.
Frankly, when Mommy Elizabeth said, “All right” I knew I had won. Elizabeth didn’t want to leave. That was enough for me to find an opportunity for her to stay. I was cognizant of the fact Castell wanted for her to return, because Rosvenor Empire couldn’t be without her. That was an irrefutable fact. However, what I wanted was to prevent letting Elizabeth being chained to Hilles City forever.
I wanted Elizabeth to be able to come and go from the North whenever she liked. She would have to handle some things in the North, but she needed to be able to move about freely and at her own liking. I wanted for her to be able to see me when she missed me, while my children should be able to see their grandmothers when they wanted.
I didn’t ask for much. I didn’t think Elizabeth be too willing to stay by my side if I just brought her to my side. She did say she wanted to stay by my side, but she didn’t want to give up the Rosvenor Empire, either. Wanting to be by my side didn’t imply that she was willing to abandon the empire.
Taking Mommy Elizabeth’s wishes into consideration, my desire was to allow Mommy Elizabeth to run Rosvenor, but also be able to visit the North whenever she pleased. The question was how to go about achieving that. It took approximately four to five days to go from Hilles City to the Imperial Palace in the North. The absolute fastest was roughly one day. Problem? That would just be far too exhausting. Even if we constructed a shorter route, it would still take around three days. That was not going to allow her to come at her leisure. I thought it was still a unrealistic to allow her to visit us at her leisure; nonetheless, considering we had steamboats, it shouldn’t be too hard to have trains.
Once trains were in operation, it would take just one day to reach the Imperial Palace in the North from Hilles City. With that, Mom would be able to visit whenever she fancied. Nonetheless, there was something more imperative to address before the train discussion, and that was how to install iron railways from the North to Hilles City. That was the toughest issue to address.
The Rosvenor Empire was a very proud empire, because it ruled all of humanity and possessed the mightiest military. Let me correct myself there. They possessed the mightiest military on the entire continent. Further, Rosvenor Empire wasn’t falling; it was at its peak. Therefore, the vassals of the Rosvenor were conceited and considered themselves above everybody else at the time. I bet they considered the North to be a vassal state and felt proud about it. In fact, some didn’t even care that the North had established a nation, so not one of them would agree for me to say that I wanted to form an alliance with humanity’s Rosvenor Empire on even terms. Why? That was because the Rosvenor Empire didn’t require an alliance. They only needed vassal states. From the perspective of their generals, we either submitted ourselves as vassals or faced extermination. If they couldn’t defeat us, they had the God of War behind them, and that was none other than the invincible warrior of the continent, their Empress, Elizabeth.
Given those parameters, it was an incredibly difficult challenge for me to form an alliance with the Rosvenor Empire. I did want to give it a try, however. Elizabeth was on my side. I was sure they wouldn’t go against Elizabeth’s wishes, hence my very calm demeanour.