Unwavering 3 (Overlord, Zanac!SI)

E-Rantel is the finest example of what one would expect from a major city that is a border region to two large nations. A border region constantly assailed by clashes and by annual wars as of recently, which led to many villages beyond its walls to abandon their homes to seek asylum within its safe perimeter.

There was space to allocate this first large migration, but as I arrived and took residence in the VIP Villa, the most influential place within the city that was meant to be used by the royal family and those of noble right that were needed to work in it as a 'base of operations'.

In the canon timeline, this last notion would have taken a few brief wars to be necessary, but I saw fit to have a few rooms dedicated to the war effort despite the current peace with the Empire. My reequest to fit an 'officer corps' was accepted by the king, and I had Gazef Stronoff himself head the small military council which purpose was to establish a 'reasonable doctrine to this specific issue'.

Albeit some of the experienced nobles were diplomatically-inept to see how the brief brawl between Re-Estize and Baharuth was not going to be an one-time thing, Stronoff was smart enough to see why I was unwilling to consider it as such.

I had a few talks with the man before this ordeal, and before the events that shredded Barbro's credibility he proved to be a believer of primogeniture. I still think he was such, but he realized that Barbro was too deeply flawed as a man to rule well as a king.

He wouldn't admit it, but he appeared more 'mellow' in conversations we held in the War Room.

That being said, the effort needed to muster any potential war preparation was to be enabled by first expanding operations in the city itself. E-Rantel, despite appearing a seemingly well-treated city, was incredibly flawed in several aspects.

First, the Cementary was a problem. A small group of knights and a few exorcists were sent to search for any troublesome element and purge any undead energy within the area. The large death toll registered during the first war was far from the one that would have been after the several expected ones, and the mass graves rendered Undead Activity an internal security problem.

Any cult operating through the catacomb was to be sought out and destroyed without hesitation, but this first step was just the most pressing of many other lingering issues. The next bit was in relation to corruption and how this influenced mayoral decisions in the last few years.

The influential traders that operated in the Shining Golden Pavilion. The highest square for merchants to entertain highly-paid commissions. The place was where most of the income was created, but the monopoly established by the old guard of the traders turned any new initiative and proper competition into exploitative issues led by illegal operations.

RENDA was soon dispatched to find traitors, arrest them and set them up for open trials to show that richness was not going to pay them out of proper punishment. The money that was retrieved was then used to offer three years of fiscal relief to all citizens.

Speaking of 'all citizens', the next issue was actually the most pressing: the demi-humans. The slums was a blackhole for coins, and it was a consistent threat for any economic improvement. I couldn't blame those living there, but I could at least remove the weed and establish some months-long programs to fix the district itself.

The first of many policies aimed at the slums were the 'guarded soup kitchens'. People of all sorts, may them be young or not, alone or with family, and had jobs that didn't provide a certain yearly quota were given the means to access to the free food provided from those kitchens for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Albeit a seemingly wasteful effort to ingratiate the people, in truth there was more to it as one of the requirements was to sign up for the newly opened 'Demi-Human Work Census'. All those that visited the Soup Kitchens and were of working age were to register to this list. They would then be given the means to secure a possible job with the clerks assigned to each kitchen.

Three special state-funded companies were established: the 'Ever-Green Agriculture Guild' which was meant to revitalize the work on the state-owned fields around E-Rantel and bolster the workforce there, the 'Urban Expansion Guild' which worked as a support to architects and specialized technicians that were to aid a revival of E-Rantel infrastructure and render living conditions adapting to the ever-growing aspect of future housing issues, and the last one was the 'Military Engineer Corps'.

The MEC was an idea that had been floating over the Military Council for months, but was always shelved due to a lack of means to secure that sizable amount of troops that could truly be assigned to build fortifications without damaging the current integrity of the military.

So, rather than just outright give up on the idea proposed of a standardized quality defensive line of fortifications, I worked around another issue in recruitment: Demi-Humans were not allowed to enlist in the army.

At least, not in this side of the Kingdom. The legislation behind it was generic enough to show how the initial intent was not based on ignorant racism, but concern over the ignorant racism from our ironically southern neighbor.

The Slane Theocracy was racist for both ignorant and traumatic reasons considering the shitty demi-human kingdoms they had been facing in a long while. I mean, who wouldn't be with rapey elven kings being a thing?

The issue in this case was their zealotry at the idea of a 'fellow human-centric nation' using 'inferior monsters' to aid their troops. In that case, to avoid a potential new foe in the south, Re-Estize had reasonably avoided recruiting demi-humans in the army.

So, to go around this little caveat, I had proposed an interesting solution: Demi-humans could be recruited by military engineers to work as the workforce we needed for the fortification lines we needed. Stronoff approved, but the plan passed with some reluctances of members of the council due to eventual ramifications coming from the Theocracy.

As far as I was concerned, I didn't mind for the documentation regularizing the hard work of the demi-humans to be temporarily kept private until things were stable in the front, but I was worried of the timing we were working for.

Albeit the Demi-Humans rapidly rushed at the opportunity to aid our efforts, RENDA agents had confirmed a new three months-long levy raised by the Baharuth Empire. And as everyone moved as quickly as possible to prepare for the upcoming conflict without leaving any opening for spies to use and alert our foes of our defensive effort, I was pleased to hear that the Dwarven Smiths I had hired from the north had finished the order of weapons I had commissioned from them.

I had the unfortunate chance to test out cannons during my time in the capital, but it was in a limited pattern, and the caliber was ineffective for rapid deployment. Thus, I had been pushed to ask the Dwarves for assistance. It was a new weapon and, while it meant that they would have a new weapon to tinker with in future occasions, I focused primarily in having a sizable batch of 'defensive batteries' to deploy by the fortifications.

All was ready two weeks before the first signs of invasion, and Stronoff was confident of how drilled the standing army was as they were manning the well-distributed lines that were prepared for the upcoming war.

The 'Sad Face Smile', called as such due to its peculiar 'expressive' form, was soon going to have another reason to be called as such due to the rough awakening welcoming the approaching Imperial Knights. The Katze Plains were not manned due to how difficult of a defensive area it was, but the Imperial Cavalry was soon marching and wasting energies to reach the first contact.

And when they did, their charge was caught in a relatively unpleasant position. The wooden pikes protecting the few trenches were sprung in action and easily massacred the mobile units trying to destroy the 'thin' lines.

The infantry units were instead forced to deal with their limited speed facing long-ranged cannons. Explosive shells were soon raining upon the fresh blood employed by the empire and those that managed to somehow rush through the trenches and try to find shelter in the forests beyond the lines were met with hunting squads of cavalry scouts keeping an eye for any infiltrators passing through.

The 'Bloody Morning of E-Rantel' was the unpleasant day where the Empire's little game of trying to play coy with us wasted them a sizable amount of troops for little gaining. Survivors were sworn to be quiet, but the reports piling up to the higher court of the Empire presented a solid front to what happened: the Kingdom was ready and they were ruthless.

A peace offer would take a week to reach E-Rantel, and I would personally send it back to the capital once I was done providing a loud public reading of it to the people of the city. The announcement of such a loss would travel far and wide, but it would be a telling step of the success I had as a governor.

I had four more years to linger as per my father's request to keep improving the economy of the region and preserve it, but with the Empire accepting a 'white peace', I could focus on reforge the lines and improve E-Rantel for the upcoming time of troubles. But as I butterflied the first of many events I was soon greeted with a new troublesome detail as a large group of migrants had crossed the border from the Slane Theocracy and made it to E-Rantel.

Now, normally a large group of hybrids leaving to escape the second-citizen kind of treatment from the Theocracy was fine but... the group that escaped was led by former half-elves 'prisoners' that had escaped from their shackles they had been put through and sought to have a chance at life in Re-Estize.

And I was alerted that a small detachment of knights captained by a member of the Black Scripture was coming to E-Rantel to demand their return.

AN

Sadly, it's not Antilene. Yet.