My empire expands, my new city filling with both those gruntled and disgruntled. Change induces fear in most, but the clever find opportunity. Social hierarchies are reestablished in the absence of their previous overseers and taskmasters. As the newcomers undergo orientation, find their dwellings, and vie for the limited number of positions of labor, I have my own agents slinking among them to recruit those who would suit my purposes.

I would kill for a Platinum [Farmer]. Well, not that non-Adventurers consistently use such ratings, but I still seek out certain professions of at least Gold or higher. Failing that, I need those with potential and drive, those that I can power up by providing them with optimal environments for growth.

In my city, I have a rather massive building, some ten stories tall with no windows, that is pretty much a giant block that I slapped on the ground. Inside, I have everything configured for it to be a pig farm. While the conditions may be in many ways cruel and cramped, my [Enchanting] has been put to use to ensure that they at least won't wallow in their own filth. And those pigs will make night soil, and gong farmers, or even bona fide [Gong Farmers] will turn that into fertilizer (with assistance from my enchanted facilities) to help reinvigorate the soil in the rectangular building next door.

This city has many such rectangular buildings. Chickens, pigs, and cattle are the basic meats, but I also have fish farms and other farms of an aquatic nature. It really isn't too terribly difficult to design such a farm, at least with a small army of engineers at my disposal. It certainly isn't challenging for me to build structures on such a massive scale, nor do I suffer for means to provide them with power and sunlight. Giant obelisks essentially create enormous paddles that go up into space, each one absorbing the sunlight that would miss the planet, which can then be converted into mana or used in the farms.

What I don't have are the highly powerful [Farmers] and other such specialists to oversee them. However, I have talent scouts roving the continent and damn-near offering a king's ransom to recruit those I need. Some have already turned me down, seeing my way of doing things as "unnatural", but others have found it intriguing and have leapt at the opportunity. Still, even a single Platinum would increase yields and efficiency by leaps and bounds.

Such is the nature of things. In pretty much any Blessing, those of Platinum level are national treasures of strategic significance, and countries do not part with them unless it is at a negotiation table after a war is lost. Like, even a Platinum [Laundress] has absurd value. At her level of prowess, she doesn't even need to physically interact with clothes; she can just walk past a barracks and all the clothing cleans, presses, and folds itself. For large armies in the tens or hundreds of thousands, keeping your number of camp followers small and easily transportable is critical, and so, those of higher potency are coveted.

Not only are they coveted, but they have all manner of guilds. Most nations are part of international treaties that forbid the murder or confiscation of such individuals. Even if an army is obliterated, the camp followers are usually ransomed or allowed to return home, with the promise that they sit out the remainder of the war. The rules are complex, nuanced, and always changing, but surprisingly, rarely ignored. If a commander roughs up or mistreats camp followers, they will find their own abandoning them quickly. And an army without camp followers will almost certainly mutiny due to a lack of goods and services that enable them to continue operations in the field. Likewise, these professionals, should they not follow the rules of surrender, may find future commanders order executions of their ilk.

All that being said, I also have to navigate the politics of guilds to recruit such non-combatants and specialists. Well, Kaisadoro mostly does it on my behalf, but I still have to throw my weight and coin behind it more often than not. And these people have immediate and extended family, their friends, a love for their community, and other emotional attachments that require more coin to be used to pry them away from their prior commitments. I am finding that, while armies may win battles, their support personnel win wars.

My own Blessing and the Focuses of my flight, those being [Enchanting], [Material Arcane Science], and [Spatial Manipulation], make logistics a relative breeze. I can pump out weapons, armor, and supplies, provided I have sufficient templates. I have taken pains to standardize boxes and barrels that are enchanted to transport goods, each one capable of holding some order of magnitude more than it would physically suggest, all due to pocket dimensions. I have furthermore standardized wagons, with there only being a few approved models. And, in the spirit of fairness, I allow merchants and porters to trade in their old wagons for approved ones for free.

I have taken care to examine all the beasts of burden that pull wagons, to weigh the pros and cons of each, and to solidify my doctrine around one such creature. While some are more adapted to certain climates and terrains than others, a skilled [Wagonmaster] should have a sufficient number of Abilities to render such distinctions moot. I have settled on a bird of all things. Being flightless (the birds, not me), my natural disdain against birds does not manifest against them. They are superficially similar to an ostrich, but stronger, chunkier, and with short necks akin to those found on most birds. They eat seeds, so feeding them is fairly simple if I can ever get a damn [Farmer] to get my seed farms going.

I have a program to trade in existing beasts of burden for these birds. I plan to be the only gig in town that has sufficient seed stores to feed them, which is where I will make my money, as well as [Tenders] and the like to care for the animals, all under my employ. I also have a breeding program ready and waiting, but I need a [Rancher] to really get that off the ground. With there being only a select few models of wagons, one species of beast of burden, and one organized service provider for all the needs of the porters, I hope to streamline the process and cut down on shipping expenses, all while making a tidy profit for my efforts.

In short, I have my fingers in a lot of pies, but I also don't expect the world to let me do as I please without competition or resistance. Bylo'selhi and I have come to a generalized agreement about how to not step on each others' toes. I mostly deal with high-quality goods, the sorts of things that would typically be custom-made. His flight deals with sundries and bulk goods. Indeed, our own agents cooperate with one another to ensure we each make as much profit as we can without redundant efforts that lead to strife.

Sure, I am growing food in my cities, but that food is meant to support the city and its surrounding settlements, and not for export. I aim to produce wagons, beasts of burden, and food for them, but mostly to support the network of porters that my cities need. In the interest of standardizing the shipping industry, I try to sell things at cost to everyone so that the old and inferior stuff can be phased out or simply fade away.

The other flights and mortal industries are more mysterious to me, as I don't fully know the ins and outs of the world economy as a whole. I know some of the flights deal in shipping between the continents, which is an extremely perilous enterprise that can only support luxury goods that take up little space. I know it is lucrative enough that they have no need to be concerned with what I am doing. And, more to the point, their flights are probably well-established on the other continents, while I am stuck on one, so what I am doing is relatively small in scale. Now, the other flights are far more discreet in using mortal intermediaries to conduct business, but I have learned to figure out whose hand holds the leash to the collars around mortals.

As a dragon, you may expect I hoard all this gold I am generating from my industry. Such could not be further from the truth. Money flows out of my coffers as soon as it enters. Sure, I can build cities and wonders with ease, but I need personnel to run them. While taxation certainly helps, most of my new holdings experience a grace period where they pay little to no taxes, all as a ploy to butter up the masses and convince them to accept my leadership. That causes me to have to pay out of pocket, although it will eventually become self-sustaining as older provinces finance the acquisition of new ones, all peacefully obtained.

Sure, I could arrive outside a foreign city, sword in hand, and demand their surrender, but they wouldn't appreciate that. Or, I could build a mansion next door and tell the people of the city that it is first come first served for whoever wants to live there for free. When every aspect of life appears and is proven to be better under my care, most people take the offer. To them, for most of their lives, the only real change is found in the figureheads at the top, not in the condition of their servitude, and I aim to change that.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Not all of this goes as well as it should on paper. Customs, culture, traditions, law, and other pesky things cause resistance to change, either because their ways are so ingrained or there is a learning curve to adapting to doing things my way. Many immigrants are unemployed, and though I feed, house, clothe, and provide medical care and other services for them, they feel restless without a means to pull their own weight. It is taking time to sort through them and match up the best people with what work would suit them. Most of these people had simple and mundane professions because that's all they had offered to them, but now with actual choices available to them, many seek to reach for heights that had remained outside of their grasp for so long. In short, while I can tell them to play nice with one another, civil unrest festers as everyone jockeys for position.

These people are largely uneducated and have spent their lives being abused and used as things. Some will never heal, and they could become burdensome. The children have potential, but the old guard will need to die off or be put out to pasture. And some mortals do advance their Blessings and thus live much longer lives than normal, so this whole process could be a labor of love.

And so, I have to put my foot down in some ways. I take the spirit of the law to be more important than the letter, and I take the concept of being good as more important than being lawful. My ethos boils down to one maxim: be good unto good and evil unto evil. My laws are draconian for any circumstance where a person has to go well out of his or her way to do something evil, with death being the most likely outcome. I don't care about redeeming the unrepentant, and I don't see a point in wasting resources keeping people in prison for life. It makes me feel better to see them executed, knowing that they will never again hurt others, and so I follow what makes me feel good when it comes to such things. Plus, people have an easy time absolving themselves of moral guilt because the big, mean dragon ordered it.

Some of the people respect and adore me, and such adoration ventures close to veneration. Dragon cults are nothing new; I put them in the same boat as how celebrities attract all manner of fans to a degree that can be rather disturbing. I paid it all little mind, and while I knew some efforts had been made to stoke those flames, I remained ignorant, perhaps willfully so, of the scope and scale of those that would pledge themselves to me, or at least the idea of me. Alterez had been busy cultivating a following for me, and I chose to pay it little mind, completely unaware of how enough worship towards a qualifying individual could lead to divinity. And, more than anyone else, I qualified and then some.

With me being in the public eye, details concerning my [Hoard] spread widely. This only served to empower it, as its accessibility and fame, in addition to its size, is what gives me strength. Remember, it is all on display in a museum at World's End, and so far, few have had the gall to try to pilfer from it, and none have lived to see another day. My shrines all up and down my roads, located at intersections or where roads terminate at cities, are another story. People are getting bolder about trying to take what individual coins I leave at each one, and so I am forced to leave a whelp to patrol near each one to ensure I always have an able body ready to defend what is mine.

Even now, there are some miscreants loitering near one such shrine. They have not gone so far as to defile or deface it, but as they consume more alcohol, I deem it only a matter of time before one goads another to attempt a misdeed of thievery. I doubt I will even need to personally teleport over to my shrine; I am sure that I can absolve the situation by directly controlling the nearby whelp. [Court of the Emperor] allows me to truly multitask by virtue of how it provides me with copies of my full consciousness, memories, emotions, and the general makeup of my mind. The handling of the riff raff will only be noticeable by the most perceptive of individuals.

One individual who may notice is Nanu, my adopted Princess. As a dragon of my flight, she would pick up on the slightest microexpressions of my person and could deduce that I am up to something. However, she has been hovering all day, not in the air and flying about, but by lingering nearby. The fact that she hasn't approached me directly narrows down the nature of what she wants, as she is not shy about being forthright. I know she wants me to accompany her somewhere at some time, and the vagueness of her request suggests it concerns matters intimately related to her previous flight, The Secret Stalkers.

Some oaths, promises, and pacts remain intact even after the death of some of the parties involved. I know she has a mountain of juicy details she wants to confide in me, but she simply cannot. Like, physically, she could not succeed at attempts to communicate such details with me; the magic that binds her would thwart her attempts. That being said, she is honest and candid with me about anything she is at liberty to discuss, and so, a non-answer reveals much.

Currently, I am watching what is probably the last major shipment of "slaves" to my city, with perhaps a few stragglers or escapees being all the more I will see from this city that is under a not-siege. The [Noble] in charge hasn't shown up in a while to order attacks against me. I think he may have had a mental breakdown considering the disgraceful and cringey meltdown he showcased last time. He also doesn't really have anyone left to order around, for the exodus reached some critical tipping point where everyone else who could jumped ship. Only the most stubborn or opportunistic holdouts will remain after this. Afterwards, I will incorporate the surrounding lands into my fold, and afterwards, the city will be all but strangled with its isolation and dearth of populace.

The remnants will abandon the city when they run out of food, and some political maneuvering will see to it that the old city becomes mine as well. My agents will scour it for anything of value, and then I will probably use it for military games or to otherwise practice warfare. Ultimately, I will dismantle the whole thing, reshaping the land to appear more natural and allowing time and life to reclaim it. In a few generations, no one will remember that a city ever existed there, and no archaeological expedition will be able to find a trace of it.

This is a not-war, and I am a not-conqueror, but the end result is the same. What was theirs will be mine, and the populace will bend the knee to my rule or find themselves in dire straits. Many will die, although not from disease and famine, but rather from my own agents "pruning" the incoming masses to ensure the unsavory sorts don't make it into my cities. However, some bothersome people cannot be completely ignored, much to my dismay.

I am talking about priests and those of the faith. I have small but respectable temples to every pantheon in my cities, but no grand cathedrals. Everyone naturally believes that their favorite gods deserve the biggest and best temples, and so dogmatic and epistemological disputes concerning the divine are a common occurrence. Churches are the property of the gods, and even I have to tiptoe through the tulips when it comes to removing old churches, temples, and the like. Rituals have to be performed and sacrifices made, often in the form of coin going into church coffers. Fortunately, the Theocracy of Ulsfarh purged most of their churches years ago, and so I only need to deal with three gods instead of dozens.

I don't pray to gods, but I have people communicate with the divine on my behalf, and let's just say that those gods are behaving oddly. Like, they are blasé about what happens to their stuff. I was not a divinity in those days, but if I had been, I would maybe have noticed something more. Being a demigod, I would be immune to some of the effects that skew the perception and knowledge of gods. But, in hindsight, there were Very Bad Things going on with those churches and those gods, the likes of which will become apparent as the story progresses.

With the pair of events occurring almost at the same instant, Nanu started her approach towards me as one of the hooligans near a particular shrine of mine started sauntering over to said shrine with a glint in his eye that spoke to more than simple mischief. I don't need Nabonidus to provide a glimpse of the future to predict that death stalks the fool's every move. Poor life choices justify misfortune, in my opinion, so I have little sympathy for what will follow.

"My Emperor," Nanu greets me, rather formally, which is telling in its own right. "Should it please you, it would be my delight and privilege if you would accompany me on a short journey." She remained in her human form as she bowed before me, her figure rather small now that I am so large.

"My dearest adopted daughter, favored and valued member of my flight, one irreplaceable in my heart," I responded as I really hammed up the formality. "I find merit in your proposal and accept it without reservation. We shall depart at your leisure."

Nanu smiled as she gave one final bow, and with measured haste that showcased more of her getting a good running start than her being an eager beaver, she leapt off the platform upon which I rested and transformed rather instantly into her draconic form. Only a short while ago, she had been twice my size, but now, I found myself to be far more than twice her size.

One may think that large creatures would be slow and cumbersome, but at least for me, such could not be further from the truth. With Skull already in my shadow, I sprang from my position of idle languishing and followed after Nanu, who made haste to one of my shrines. With her direction, I teleported the two of us to another shrine in the wastelands. As a reminder, this is south from the Rainbow Bridge where the dinosaurs roam free and past the badlands that border such a lush region.

The wastelands eventually yield to the Ashlands, which is a region that is officially recognized. All said, that puts us generally close to World's End, with only a few hundred miles between there and where my shrine was located. Following Nanu's lead, we headed east, always… into the east.

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