The gates of the Sadera wall opened in front of us. On my horse I entered the great city.
The streets were bright and clean before our arrival, adorned with petals of flowers that the citizens threw while they cheered my arrival and that of the glorious imperial army.
With Harngeil's head nailed to a pike the celebrations increased, the barbarian king who had risen against the most powerful Empire in the world was dead. From my horse I could see how everyone was rejoicing at this news, I could see the celebrating faces of the wealthy, the nobles and the poor alike, the latter knew that the city would have a feast to celebrate this victory, a feast meant that food would reach the slums of Sadera.
A musical band accompanied the parade, the victorious music fed the sense of superiority and invincibility of the empire, there was also an artist somewhere who would immortalize this moment.
The end of the parade came when we arrived at the imperial palace, where I and the most outstanding people during the war would receive a reward for our service. However Saskia and Volcatts would not receive any reward from my father because Saskia was a barbarian slave and Volcatts was a demi-human.
At that moment trumpets began to sound, indicating that it was time for us to enter the throne room. There were a large number of nobles, senators and military present, I could also see my sister Piña who had slipped into the meeting.
Walking towards my father, in front of the others, my father could notice that I had a mark on my forehead and that I was missing an ear.
We all knelt before Molt and gave the typical honors given ceremonially.
"Rise, brave warriors." said the emperor solemnly. "It is pleasing to know that you had Emroy's blessing in your battles, you have brought great glory to the empire with your victories."
We all held our fist to our chest in pride.
"Now it is time for your rewards: soldier Aureliano, come forward."
"It looks like you're going to go for the lowest ranks to the highest first? You must have something planned if you leave me for last..." I was saying to myself as I watched the soldier approach and then kneel down again.
"I heard that you were the one who took down the enemy commander in Ruthenia, for your great achievement you will be promoted to decurion, plus of course the reward." Giving a sign, servants brought a chest with several gold coins.
"It is a great honor, your majesty!" very proud, he retired after receiving his reward.
After that came the turn of Cornelius, who repeated the process of kneeling.
"For your keenness and initiative after learning of Tania's treachery that saved the entire campaign and your brave cavalry charge that turned the tables of the battle of Les you will be promoted to general, you will also be granted the lordship of the new county of Helvetii." With this Cornelius becomes a count and, by extension, a nobleman.
Then it was Servius' turn.
"Your brilliant leadership in Ruthenia has given us one of the most impressive victories of this entire conflict!" Molt said happily, trying to exalt the general.
"I do everything for the honor and glory of the empire!"
"And the empire will reward you! Stand up, Marquis Servius, all the north you conquered is now in your hands!"
Thus were the rewards given to all Until my turn came.
"My son." He said calmly. "There is no need to number your accomplishments throughout this war, they are already known to all here." pausing and then continuing. "So I, the emperor of this glorious empire, charge you with the lands east of the ice and snow range and the alpine range, all the way to the Uran range and the delta valley under your charge."
As he finished saying that, multiple murmurs of surprise began to be heard in the hall.
"Those territories... isn't that a huge amount of land?" "I heard that much of that land is uncivilized" "a few barbarians aren't a problem don't you know how many kilometers there are there!"
"Prince Zorzal, as heir to the throne you will have to learn how to manage the land, I'm sure with your skills you will be more than capable of doing so" he said giving a smirk.
I knew there was some trap there, but refusing a reward from the emperor after he talked about learning to manage a territory could be considered an insult and would damage my reputation, so I had no choice but to walk right into that trap and double the bet. "As crown prince to the throne, I will prove that I will be more than capable of managing this glorious empire when the time comes, father." I said looking him in the eye, accepting the challenge. Although once I learned of the intensity of that trap I could only think that it would have been better if I had simply let my reputation be damaged and then fix it somehow.
After this award ceremony a feast began. A rather boring one, most of the nobles were coming over for me to tell them about the war and my exploits on the battlefield. I was not interested in bragging about myself, but among those who listened were also my sister, so I started to brag and exaggerate many things to see their reaction: for example, slightly exaggerating the number of wyverns we faced, the number of wizards and their power, and so on.
The most unreal thing I made up was that Volcatts, Cornelius and I marched with our soldiers to the front while explosions of magic exploded around us, we ducked our heads so that the wyverns would not sweep us away, all that to cross a stone bridge and fight against a force of 30 thousand galis which had several ogres in front, obviously I said we won.
"Woah! Awesome!" my little sister would say excitedly.
"If you think that's amazing you should have been there when I lost my ear! I've been holding off waves of barbarians and monsters trying to rip us to shreds while very powerful wizards shot fire magic at us from Les while a raging storm made us knee deep in mud and we hoped no lightning would strike! They even brought battering rams to knock us down as if we were a stone wall and then a wyvern came out and tried to devour me, but taking a javelin I was able to throw it at him to wound his wing and make him fall on the battering rams and..." Continuing to tell the most exaggerated story possible to entertain the little princess, feeling proud and happy to see my sister's face of admiration.
Unfortunately, the nobles who were listening did not get it through their heads that what I was saying was nothing more than a show for my little sister and her friends, so they also swallowed all that bullshit, starting to paint pictures and write books and songs about those battles that never happened.
/
Once the celebration was over I went to the palace library, starting to look for records and maps about the territory I was given, but I didn't know how to search in that huge amount of books and scrolls, I was lost until I heard a voice behind me.
"Hm? Brother?" I turned and saw Diabo there. "What are you looking for?"
"Oh, I just want to know where I was exiled to." I said joking a little.
"Exiled? You mean father gave you a territory to look after?"
"Something like that, but I have no idea where it is and I can't find a map." Heaving a heavy sigh, having searched for hours.
"Here's one." He said reaching into a bookshelf to then pull out a map without making the slightest effort to look for it.
"... You do spend a lot of time here."
"You should say thank you!"
We expanded the map and began to mark the lands that corresponded to me, similar to the size of Iran.
"They sure gave you a lot," he said in surprise. "But... those forests next to the ice and snow range are controlled by the elves, I don't think you can go in there..."
I noticed something strange in that map... Something that caught my attention as someone who watched the anime.
"Diabo... Do you know where the warrior bunnies are?"
I watch as my brother pulls out more books and scrolls to then start reading them. "... They are in the middle of your territory..." He answered to then show more documents. "And basically all over the north and center there are several demi-human tribes that we don't control, like the Kazarim who are centaurs."
"That son of a bitch gave me territory we don't control!" he shouted internally quite furious. "Looks like this is indeed an exile... so how much territory did they really give me?"
My brother went back to the map and started marking the boundaries, If I had to compare that territory with any in my world, I would say that this territory is the size of Paraguay..
"Really... It got a lot smaller..." He commented as he saw that almost 3/4 of the territory was out of my hands.
"Well, but it's still a pretty big territory... I need to know more about that region."
So we both spent the night going through documents, reports and so on to try to learn as much as we could... And with every thing I learned the more I felt like crying.
Due to the wet and cold wind hitting the ice and snow mountain range that region had a peculiar climate, making crops like wheat difficult to plant in that place by having a drier and warmer climate in the south and a colder and wetter climate in the center and north, making the only normal place in the region to be the forest where the elves are.
In other words, that strange phenomenon that made winter come earlier in gali territory that saved me in the past was now going to make things difficult for me.
And this was not the end of the problems, the different tribes as well as the warrior bunnies usually make incursions into the imperial territory to loot what they can.
With this combination of problems resulted in the development of the region being very poor, with little population willing to settle down to work or invest.
My brother gave me a pitying look when he heard about my father's gift. "I never thought I'd say this, brother but... I'm glad Dad didn't reward me with anything."
/
Blue Sea, territorial waters of the Kingdom of Elbe.
"Quick, we can't let those bastards catch up with us." I, Captain Plistarchus of a small Lacedemonian merchant fleet was speeding towards territorial waters of the Kingdom of Elbe as we were being chased by Anat's ships after we had managed to slip away from the naval blockade the polis was suffering. Our goal was to sell everything we could on the mainland and then bring back food or even aid of some kind.
The third Morean war did not seem to have an end, although the surprise attack of Anat towards Lacedemonia and its allies had given them a lot of advantage, little by little we the Lacemodians and our allies began to recover ground to the point of occupying some polis of the so-called Republican League, however a scorched earth strategy stopped the counterattack of the league of Morea, and the naval blockade prevented our league from the resources they would get from trade, so several brave merchants try to sneak in and bring some help, some with more success than others.
"Captain! They're getting closer!"
"Stay the course! The Polis are counting on us!"
The ships further back managed to be hooked and boarded by the republican sailors, although the ships were Lacemodian the crewmen were not, they were from the other polis of Morea, so it was not too difficult for the expert Anatian sailors to occupy the ship after killing everyone.
"Keep going, we're almost there!"
Another ship was boarded and captured? And another and another, until there were only three boats left.
"Captain! I see the port of Elba!"
We are already close, just a little bit more, the enemy fleet on our heels, they were about to catch us when a couple of military ships from the kingdom of Elba were starting to approach.
Faced with this situation, the republican ships had no choice but to abandon the pursuit unless they wanted to risk a diplomatic conflict with a vassal of the empire.
"We did it!"
We all began to celebrate surviving, arrived at the port and began to unload the cargo.
-What did we have left?" I asked one of my sailors.
"Let's see... - He began to search the box, and when he saw what was there, he breathed a sigh of relief". We have a good amount of silver products left to sell.
"That's good Anything else?"
"hmm... These sort of strange red berries... But they taste horrible, so bitter I couldn't even sleep that day, I don't know why anyone would buy them."
"Oh, I know what they're for!" said another sailor. "If you throw them on the fire, those berries start to give off an exquisite aroma."
"So a kind of incense, well, these things are expensive."
So they began to sell everything they could, not knowing that the "incense" they were carrying would be something that would change the lives of all of Falmart, if it weren't for the opening of the Gate, historians of the future would have said that this would have been the most important event for the empire in 200 years.