It wasn't even a day later that word of my takeover reached every corner of the Great Minotaur Nation. I had already had EEAs all over the place with countless other high level assassin class individuals. They kept an eye on every single slave owner and high class group around the nation. I received numerous reports of assassins having to kill their targets because the target had decided to either prepare to rebel or to just straight up kill the human slaves as a sign of defiance. It was a little disheartening when those kinds of reports kept flowing in and the previous king and the generals were saddened with every report they read.
After a week every slave was freed and the slave owners were paid the market price of a slave for every slave. Which was actually much higher than what they had gotten most of the slaves for since the war between the Draconic kingdom and the Beastman country had stopped and humans had stopped trying to flee out of the country. They would get caught and enslaved before being sold cheaply.
I went through their financials and switched a few things around. I put people into researching how to produce better appliances instead of the financial sinkhole that gunpowder was becoming. I also rearranged the military and the general set up of the country by a bit. They had huge areas of very good farmland that they didn't use and I had a ton of people who would love to use that land. I also had a police force that doubled as monster extermination squads. The monster extermination squads were split by what type of monster it was and the effects of that monsters attacks. I even paid for the killing of powerful monsters on top of the monthly pay, so a lot of people were more than happy to join the military or the police. The beastmen were expert trackers and the minotaurs were ridiculously sturdy and powerful warriors. The humans were useful at making traps and handling the reports that the other two sucked at.
They made a pretty good team and a good number of them ended up realizing that their previous lifestyles were wrong. It always made me smile to see the different species couples.
I didn't spend more than a week after that with conquering the Beastmen Commonwealth. I just repeated what I did with the Beastmen country and destroyed an entire platoon of golems in under 5 minutes to convince them. It was hilarious since I highjacked the magical signal being used to control them and forced them to do an entire ballet dance routine. Their bodies couldn't handle the movements and ended up breaking into pieces. The looks on their mages faces made me almost die laughing.
It appeared that beastmen all had a thing about following those who were more powerful then they are since all I had to do is defeat a few after destroying their golems for them to give up and accept my rule.
I decided to take a month to do some proper ruler things. I went over the set up of my lands and reorganized things to include my newest lands. I also made sure to use the technology from the minotaurs with the golems from the beastmen to make extremely good helpers. The scientists and golem makers were rather interested in the idea of creating a golem that could provide multiple functions using the various technologies. It was also interesting watching a bunch of old guys getting excited over the prospect of transforming golems. What weebs.
I set the researchers on their paths and continued working on bettering my own country. I introduced sewers and waterworks and set up proper taxation and other necessary things such as a postal service and hospitals.
It turns out that the six great gods and their temples aren't exactly welcoming of any non humans in need of help, so I decided to ignore the threats of having the temples withdraw from my country by telling them that my country was 80% non human and needed a place where non humans could go to receive medical attention. It wasn't my fault that they decided to be bigoted and deny non humans any medical help. Not to mention that I myself was not human and therefore wouldn't be able to receive treatment from them. I certainly wasn't willing to leave myself without the ability to receive medical attention in my own country when there was a perfectly fine solution in making hospitals.
The temples withdrew after that with threats of the gods retribution. I just laughed and did a healers and clerics drive. I welcomed anyone with medical knowledge to apply for the hospitals. There was a ton of people who showed up for the jobs, it turns out that the temples had been pressuring and running off people from healing anyone for years now. So the idea of a hospital was welcomed by everyone and was even more popular once they realized that it was for everyone regardless of species and the prices stayed the same based on a tier of help required.
There were 10 tiers that ranged from healing a scrape or a splinter to full on curse removal. The cheapest tier was only a single copper for heal. The highest could go up to 100 gold including any extras that were requested. As for people trying to not pay, well we had ways of dealing with that. You can't expect to go to a hospital and not leave blood or hair behind, and that is enough for a skilled curse witch to cause any number of problems. I left books full of knowledge from my time working with Carlisle Cullen for the hospital workers to study and I even set up a learning program through the hospital so that anyone who wants to learn can do so. It made me so popular with the healers that they would hit anyone who said anything bad about me.
I also set up a fire department and many other businesses. My empire was well on its way to greatness and none of the leaders of the countries I had conquered were unhappy with seeing their people so full of life and happiness. They all had purpose now and things only were going up.
After all of my time working on my projects it was finally heading towards winter and it was a week away from the war between the Sorcerers kingdom and the Re Estize kingdom. I told my advisors that I was going to the Baharuth and the Re-Estize war since my brother was going to be making his debut there this year. This made them rather nervous since I had already shown my abilities to be extremely powerful and they felt that anyone I called brother was either the same or more powerful as me.
I went to the tomb with Sonya coming to cheer Ainz on from the sidelines.
We arrived at the tomb where Ainz was busy arranging death knights and soul eaters. He was trying to make sure everything was perfect for his debut. I thought it was kind of cute how worried he was and made sure to tease him about it like the big brother I am.
After that week of waiting it was finally time for the war. I walked with Ainz to the battlefield with Sonya following behind us and Ainz's troops behind her. We got greeted to the knights of the Baharuth empire standing in rows as they gave a very awkward salute to us. It became even more awkward when the troops from our side came out of the portal. Poor soldiers were shaking in their boots and we hadn't even done anything yet.
Ainz and I acted every bit the majestic duo, it was funny since we were definitely giving off final bosses type vibes. Ainz and I waited while the Bahuruth empire sent out their negotiator to give the final ultimatum and returned with their refusal. It was hilarious since the lot of them weren't even understanding that just one of the death knights could probably kill 80% of their army before it was stopped much less the literal 100 we had standing behind us. The kingdom was so screwed.
The leader of the empire's troops bowed to Ainz and asked him to fire off the first attack.
"Do the splat splat." I cheered out like a child.
"I hate you so much right now." Ainz said as he stumbled from hearing me. "I just remembered that you named this spell that when I first got it and told us that it was because it caused splats from the moment it got casted." He shook his head. He seemed like he was secretly enjoying it though from the tone of his voice.
Ainz cast the super tier spell and it did exactly what I had said it would do. Giant black balls of hot tar went splat splat all over the troops. We could hear the sounds of screams and the splat of bodies being crushed all over the place.
The black balls of tar quickly stopped before condensing into a group of giant monstrosities with tentacles and mouth that let out the sound of sheep from each mouth. They then began to stomp and flail around like children throwing a temper tantrum. I just cheered along with Sonya from the couch we had summoned while eating popcorn. Ainz looked like he would be having his eye twitching if he had a face.
Listening to the empire's soldiers clapping at the absolute destruction caused by the young was amazing. I almost fell to the ground laughing when Ainz called one of the young over. The soldiers were routed without us even doing anything to them. I wish I could watch Jircniv's face when he reads the report about how his troops would have had a flawless victory if they hadn't hurt themselves.
At the end of their rampage when the empire's troops had run and Ainz was going to fight Gazef I asked for them to wait a bit before they fought.
"As a pre fight warm up I would like to show off my own strength." I said while looking at Ainz.
"What do you have in mind?" He asked in confusion.
"Have all of the little sheeps attack me all at once." I said with a smile.
"Sure, though I really don't see how you can show your strength that way, they aren't exactly even able to hurt you properly. Brain, Climb, and Gazef stared at him like he was spouting nonsense."
"Don't worry, it's more for our audience then it is for me. No point in leaving doubts of our strength."
"Okay, well have fun then." Ainz then commanded the young to attack me. I let the first one stomp on me only to hold it off of me using my ki to harden and strengthen myself. I threw the creature into another one and knocked them both over. A third one used its tentacles to smack at me only to struggle when I grabbed ahold of them and stumbled to its knees when I pulled on them.
The young struggled some more before I let it lift me into the air. I let go right above it and fell while driving my foot into its back while using an explosive dragon skill to make the young explode in a shower of gore.
I then looked over at where the first young was getting up. The other ones, except the one that was our ride, had all moved together into a group and were moving towards me.
I breathed in deeply and imbued my breath with destruction energy and ki before releasing everything I had at the group of young. All that anyone could see was a bright white light that covered everything and made it seem like all that was left was nothingness. It kind of reminded me of the white room from way back in the beginning.
When everything went back to normal we all looked at where the young had been and saw nothing. I don't just mean nothing as in the young had vanished, I mean nothing as in the ground within eyesight was gone in a cone from where I stood. We could see a deep pit in front of us that led down into the earth for miles and this was the same for the entire area, which was also miles long and at least a mile wide. I had just created a canyon with my breath attack.
"Whoops." I said while grinning back at the others who had watched my short fight.
They all just stared at me like I had grown a second head.
I walked back over to them and just said. "Okay, I showed what I could do and Ainz showed what he could do. Now It's your guys turn." I nodded to Gazef and the rest.
"I uh, Gazef I think we should maybe reconsider Ainz's offer." Brain said to Gazef.
"I will not betray the kingdom nor the kindness I have been shown by the king." Gazef shouted out in anger.
"You do realize that you don't really need to betray anyone? You could just get the king to come work under Ainz as well, it's not like any of those nobles are any good, well maybe a couple of them actually give a crap about the kingdom. As far as we have seen from them so far they all seem to be a bunch of traitorous leeches who would kill a thousand of your citizens just so that they could keep up their pride and make a tiny bit of profit. You aren't betraying anyone who doesn't deserve to be betrayed if you work under Ainz with the king. You would actually be saving lives since you could even stop people from rebelling."
"You make it sound simple, but in the end I would still be betraying the king's trust in me if I were to side with you two. I would rather die an honorable death."
"Fine, have it your way, but know that your kingdom is finished regardless, it was technically well on its way to destruction when you had nobles as corrupt as that running things and having that much power without culling them for their corruption." I sighed out. "Your kingdom was less than a decade from be destroyed regardless of our prescence, so do as you want and die as you want."
Gazef let out a growl and turned to Ainz. He made his request to not be resurrected and had his duel with Ainz. Ainz of course used his time stop to kill Gazef as quickly and painlessly as possible. Such a bleeding heart, for a lich that is. After that we left and he dispelled the last young with a sigh.
"I really wish that he had joined me. Gazef makes me kind of jealous, having something you care about enough to die for it. He really was a hero."
"He was an idiot. He chose to die instead of facing the truth. He died for a country that barely cared about him when he didn't need to. The nobles are all self serving bastards beyond the Royal family and a handful of nobles. The reason why Gazef and his men were dressed so terribly when we first met him was because the nobles sent him and his men out to die. They literally served him up to die on a silver platter to their kingdoms enemies and he would have died if we hadn't been there. He died for those same people, he was an idiot." I spat out while Ainz looked at me in shock.
"That is why he was in such terrible armor? I thought it was a personal choice to save on the good armors durability."
"No, they served him up to die by the sunlight scripture like a pork roast and they constantly mocked him and treated him like crap. They would take his pay as fines for every little thing he did wrong and they would force him and his men to exercise and do drills outside even in storms and winter. The king that he so loved was so afraid of causing a civil war that he refused to do anything about the nobles and their corrupt actions for so long that they were all doing whatever the hell they wanted. They kidnap people and have raised taxes to the point that people are having to sell their children into slavery. It is the most rotten and disgusting example of what a weak ruler will cause his country to become."
"That is terrible, now I kind of feel bad for killing all of those troops, those poor men probably all were given no choice in this fight. "
"You killed them because they had no choice, but that doesn't mean that they weren't fated to die anyways. The empire was planning to repeatedly go to war with the kingdom until they ran out of resources. The people would have suffered even worse fates if you hadn't done this, at least this way you have made their deaths fast and not drawn out."
"I guess you're right, but I really wish there was a better way I could have gone about this." He sighed out as we reached Sonya and Nimble who was still frozen in fear.
"You could have just blew up the castle and killed the whole royal family and any of their knights who wouldn't surrender and just told everyone that you were the king now, that's what I've been basically doing."
"That's what you've been up to?" Ainz said in shock while Nimble looked at me in horror.
"Well yeah, I've basically conquered the entire eastern sea board at this point. I just have a few more places left to take care of and then I'll have the full set." I gave Ainz a thumbs up. At least this time I don't have to eat them, that was irritating last time.
"You, ah whatever, I don't get paid enough for this." He sighed out.
"You don't get paid at all." I laughed while Ainz joined in with laughing at the joke while Nimble looked absolutely horrified.
We went and thanked Nimble for his and his emperors help and told him we would be in touch.
I went with Sonya back to my empire and decided to go and see if there was anything I could help with. I did get to help with the farms since I was able to use a dragon skill to increase the plants growth. We got our first batch of food from the farms and winter planting was going to happen in the next week. I had only sped up the plant growth by a few days, but it was the thought that mattered.
I then went and helped with harvesting, the people all tried to stop me, but I told them that my fifth law was to treat my nations people as friends and therefore there was nothing wrong with me helping friends to harvest their crops.
I spent the next few days doing that before deciding that it was time for me to go and do paperwork. I think my words and actions were pretty good for a ruler and set a good example for my citizens.
I spent the rest of the winter working on correcting things and coming up with stuff for the next year that would make things easier in my empire. It was pretty boring all things considered.
When spring came I had my first batch of children, I say batch because I'm a dragon and dragons are cooler than humans. Sonya had a girl, Lupu had twin girls, Shaltear had a son, Yuri had a son and Dee had a son as well. They were all very good little babies. They were also coddled and spoiled by everyone in Nazarick, including Ainz who was having even more issues with Albedo since she was now in a baby crazed state. It was kind of funny. Though it wasn't so funny that all of the maids were pregnant as well. That was hilarious since Ainz ended up chasing me around while yelling at me about neutering me for sleeping with everyone. I just told him how I hadn't slept with every female and he should stop overexaggerating. Though I ended up having to teleport away once Omega showed up and told us how she, Nigredo and Rubedo were all pregnant as well. There wasn't even anything I could say at that point. Though there was no way in hell I was sleeping with Neuronist painkill a second time, that would take a special kind of man to deal with that. She was luckily not pregnant.
I decided to celebrate with everyone the day E-Rantel was ceded to us by the kingdom. It was a fun little thing since everyone was so happy for Ainz while nobody mentioned how I had conquered multiple countries in their entirety. I guess its just because they all noticed how much effort Ainz put into it. I just swept in and told them I was in charge now while he actually cared about public opinion.
Yes, I know I was being a bit salty about it, but I still felt that if he was willing to be a bit more forceful and bloody about stuff he wouldn't have as much trouble as he has had. It probably also had to do with the fact that he was always so try hard about things that he really didn't need to be. It irked me a little since my past experiences of being in charge left me a little sour over how good he was being treated over this small of a victory, if one could call it that. He got a single fortress city and a bit of land that nobody but an undead like him would want, also Carne, but that didn't really count since they were basically a tiny village out in the middle of nowhere. Enri though, hm, maybe I'll go see if she is willing for a bit of fun. Wait, didn't she just agree to marry that weak ass potions guy, well there that plan goes.
I'll just go conquer some trolls and centaurs. Maybe they will be happy to see me.