Peace has reigned in the Haromago territory for a while now, everyone is happy and people are exploring various possibilities when it comes to choosing a profession. By all means, if this type of progress keeps up then they will only need a few years before they become a powerhouse that can rival the rest of the higher nobles.

  The houses are maintained well, the sewage is being used to fuel the town's magic by feeding it to a colony of slimes deep underground, and the walls have been reinforced to the point of being siege resistant.

  Clinics populate the streets, shops feed the people and taverns keep them happy, production is at an all time high and kids are learning from education centers before they are sent to go on an apprenticeship.

  Mages are popping up as well, and the adventurers guild has become quite the building, everything about this town has improved compared to when Rontress first came here 4 years ago.

  This did not mean they should act content and relax, the work of improving Ghorise has yet to finish and Rontress fears it'll take decades before it truly becomes the town she's envisioned it to be.

  "We'll have to leave this place soon so I think the progress for Ghorise will slow down, by a lot." An exhausted sigh escapes her lips. "It's fine, we can work on this town again once everything calms down right?"

  "Are you talking about the war?"

  "... Yes." Rontress caught herself before she could say anymore. "I'm talking about the war."

  "We should be fine when that happens, Ghorise is fairly powerful right now and we are on the rise as a territory, I'm confident that we will be able to handle anything that comes our way." The vote of confidence her friend had for their territory was not shared by Rontress at all.

  "In a straight fight? Then yes, we can win, we'll wipe out this kingdom if needed even." But that's assuming that it's the two of them against Oberlon, Flotol and Ghorise wouldn't stand a chance at all! "Everyone else will be nothing more than fodder if we fight the kingdom head on. You know how weak the people are here."

  "Yes, but our population is high, doesn't that count as something?"

  "Ifira, the only reason why that's the case is because I managed to lower the death rate but the citizens continue breeding like their children are still dying every other week." The fact that she's been telling doctors to constantly clean their hands and tools helped women survive childbirth as well.

  "What does that change? It still means our population is high compared to the rest of the territories." This was wrong, Rontress estimated the number of people living in the other Duchy's— as well as the capital. — and came up with a number close to 20 million.

  Back on earth, something like that would be nothing, just a small country. But here? 20 million is fairly impressive and it's a miracle that Oberlon even has that many people.

  'And I might still be wrong on my estimate, there's a chance that the number is higher than that.'

  Quite frankly, fighting the entire kingdom isn't an option for their tiny little territory. They still need a few years before they're ready to do something like that in the end.

  "That doesn't change anything, we still have a high number of people who will be fighting with us." Ifira's rebuttal was the same as all her previous arguments, which is the high number of population Ghorise has right now.

  Technically, this is true. But the ongoing war was just one of the many events that will plunge the world into chaos, before long, the rest of the game's plots will come to life and she will be forced to confront them.

  Hopefully the main characters are as competent as they are in lore, she really didn't want to solve everything herself. 'Maybe I can teach them?'

  It was a possibility she's always entertained so she wouldn't mind actually committing to it and teaching the main characters everything she knew.

  Ghorise as a town acted as a mix between a population center and a factory, every day hundreds of children are born and thousands of items are made. Factories don't exist in this world— yet. — so all items are handcrafted, with the average craftsman making at least 50 items per day.

  Very slow compared to the larger territories, especially the Malcotts, who have such a vast territory that their wealth might as well be comparable to the crown itself. At least thousands of items are being made out there in the daily.

  When it comes to war, they serve as the engine that keeps Oberlong running, providing food, resources, medicine, and weaponry that both the soldiers and normal citizens rely on. It is the Malcotts that make winning wars possible, which makes their alliance with Dizzeria a huge concern.

  There's no feasible way that other Duchies can win against them during a civil war, even if Rontress and Ifira fought on the front lines and killed everything, they can still get exhausted and their supply chains can still get disrupted.

  As fast as Ifira is, she can't be everywhere all at once and while the reach of Rontress' flora-kinesis is far and wide, it isn't enough to defend multiple cities, towns, and villages all at once.

  Manpower will always be the winning factor in times of war, as even if Rontress and Ifira survive, it is pointless when their territory is empty of humans. A king without his kingdom is just some guy, the same goes for the two of them.

  'In the end, this is just her bias talking.' Rontress stopped in front of a two story building close to the Haromago estate. 'She's always seen her territory as something with little to no people so now that the population is rising, Ifira is thinking that the improvement is more than it actually is.'

  Confronting Ifira about it will only be counter productive, her friend will learn in time that her current beliefs are wrong and fix it herself.

  "Why are you going there?"

  "Because I need to send someone to check a store in the Swampside District."

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Wait what? I didn't find anything wrong with that store!" So Ifira has already figured it out huh? The villainess ran after Rontress, face pensive. "Was it because of the waitress? I can see why you'd want to make sure our identities remain hidden but isn't this too much?"

  "No, Ifira, it wasn't about the girl." Rontress pushed the doors open and stepped inside, the cool air within Ghorise's management office washed over her, the perfect contrast to the otherwise hot air outside. "You do realize that the store was incredibly dirty, correct? The owner of that building needs someone to tell them that doing such things won't be tolerated."

  "... Okay?"

  Her friend said nothing more and Rontress was free to navigate the building until she stood in front of a wide brown door with the words "Superintendent's Office" plastered on top.

  Rontress didn't bother to knock and just simply walked in, the man behind the desk rose for a moment— probably to start screaming at her to get out. — but he froze when he saw who came in.

  "Mistresses?" Cold sweat immediately began forming on the man's forehead. "What brings you two here? I've seen the compiled reports two days ago so everything we've done should be in those and you also greenlit the ongoing sewer sanitization project so I don't see—"

  "Stop." Rontress cut him off, what is this guy even talking about? Was he so paranoid that he thinks they're here to punish him? "You didn't do anything wrong, I just want you to send someone to a store at the center of the Swampside District and tell the owners that the food is good—" when eaten by people without perks hindering them. "— but their store is too dirty."

  "Ah, so you want me to do an inspection?"

  "No. Just for that one store."

  For a moment, everything went still, the superintendent didn't know what to say to that, why were the territory's most important duo asking him to do this? Did they go to some rundown shop? Why would they do that?

  "Can I ask why?" In the end, he couldn't contain the voices in his head and asked for the motive behind such a sudden course of action. "Sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me on why you would do something like this, and so suddenly at that?"

  "No particular reason." And there really wasn't, even if she hated the food, it wasn't enough to make her want to close down the shop. Even if she did wish for it briefly.

  "No reason at all? You just think it's dirty? Aren't there any dangerous things happening in that shop or something similar?"

  "None." First off, why would there be dangerous things happening in that shop? "It's a normal diner as far as I'm aware, why would you even?.. Look, just send someone okay? I want to see that shop is clean when I pass it again in the future."

  "On that note, since we're already doing this, send inspectors across all the shops within the district, tell them that if anyone complains, they can come to the two of us." Huh, Ifira just stepped. Why did she suddenly decide on doing that? "We are more than happy to answer any question they have regarding our decisions."

  "Do what Ifira says."

  "Yes Mistresses." Finally, he agreed. Why did he have to go back and forth with Rontress? Did he just want her to change her decision to inspecting the entire district instead? Why, though?

  "File the report and then send it to me as soon as possible." Rontress turned away and walked out of the office.

  "Now that that's done, should we go to your mother? Or maybe you want to go someplace else instead? Do you have anywhere else you want to go to?" Since the day hadn't ended, Rontress was still willing to entertain Ifira's requests. "I don't really mind if you still have plans."

  "I don't think I do, why do you want to go to my mother?"

  "She still doesn't know that we killed all the aberrants in the lifeless pool and Euthiel told us that if we ever mess with Misery Swamp we should tell her remember?"

  "Me forgetting about it is a bad thing right?" Ifira's expectant look turned sad when Rontress nodded. "Okay then. Let's go tell her, I think she'll want to know why a thunderstorm suddenly appeared over the territory."

  "That's what I was thinking as well." Looking out the window for a moment gave Rontress an epiphany. "I think she knows I was the one who did it, the lightning bolts that arched across the sky was proof that the weather was just artificial."

  "Or you know, it suddenly goes from a hot sunny morning into a heavy rain with thunder and lightning."

  "... She definitely knows doesn't she?"

  "There's nothing wrong with it." Ifira was unapologetic for the sudden scare they must have caused throughout Ghorise. "Let's just tell her about it and then leave, I wanna do more things, this time we're exploring Ghorise!"

  Conversations with no real substance passed between the two of them on the way to the estate, it wasn't about food, it wasn't about locations, it wasn't about anything really, the ebb and flow of topics moved at random and the interval between their changes was the same, sometimes, the two of them even went back to the same topic before quickly moving on again.

  This continued until they reached the front doors of Euthiel's study, "mom? Do you have a minute?"

  "Come in." Euthiel's voice was even, calm. This means she already knows what the two of them wanted to talk about.

  Rontress couldn't help but wince when she heard the sound of the doors opening, she walked inside next to Ifira, just with more hesitation in her movements.

  "Is this about the storm?" Euthiel went straight to the point, and somehow, that made things easier for Rontress. She nodded. "Very well then, tell me why the weather decided to be antsy today."

  "We were killing aberrants."

  "Actually, we killed all of them."

  Judging by Euthiel's expression, the woman did not expect them to say any of that, let alone so casually. She schooled her expression back to the composed mask she puts on regularly. "Go on."

  "You know how Rontress spear thrusts cause explosions every single time?"

  "No, I don't!" Euthiel exclaimed. "And she has a spear?!"

  "Yeah, it grows with her height and age."

  "It grows?!"

  "Repeating it is pointless, I already said that it grows." Ifira rolled her eyes, completely missing the way her mother slumped on her chair. "Anyway, the swamp was starting to boil... Wait no, it wasn't the explosions, it was the crescent spell shots that boiled the swamp, the explosions just sent water flying everywhere."

  "I didn't know about the crescent shots either."

  "Really?" Ifira turned to Rontress, a shocked expression on her face. "Why?"

  "I was hiding it. Your mother didn't need to know everything about me." Rontress' casual dismissal caused the woman to shoot her a look of betrayal, which she didn't understand why. It wasn't her responsibility to let Euthiel, or anyone really, know about her capabilities.

  "That makes sense, sorry for doing that then." With that apology, Ifira continued explaining what happened. "Since the lifeless pool began boiling, I asked Rontress to change the weather and help cool it down."

  "... Because anyone can just do that right? Clearly." Rontress caught the older woman muttering under her breath, Ifira caught it too because her lips curved into a proud smile.

  "And that's how the weather changed."

  "I... See. I'll take note of the fact that Rontress can change the weather next time, thank you for telling me."

  "You're welcome!"

  Rontress stopped Ifira from rising and when her friend was back on her chair, she told Euthiel another piece of important information. "And another thing, the current batch of aberrants will be more dangerous than normal since they were fed the corpses of their kin as juveniles, which is happening as we speak."

  "A warning will be placed outside of the lifeless pool to let others know, I'll also place more guards to keep watch." Euthiel's response made Rontress nod in satisfaction. "Before you two go."

  Rontress and Ifira stopped and turned back to Ghorise's highest authority.

  "Someone came here a few hours ago, I didn't want to give this to you but I think you both need to know that you are invited to join a party in Rhutwell." Euthiel took satisfaction at the fact that the two girls went pale. "The gathering is three days from now, they expect gifts, gossip, and information, but do not do it too much otherwise they will think you are being arrogant."

  "Thanks for the tip?" Rontress raised an eyebrow. "We'll work on that later."

  Which means their day out has now been officially cancelled, and as if preparing for the party wasn't enough, a guard suddenly barged into the room, breathing ragged and face full of sweat. "There's an attack on Ghorise."

  Rontress stopped Ifira from coming to the attack, she pulled her friend back and said, "I'll deal with it, you said you have friends in noble society right? Can you write a letter to them to come? We need their help."

  "I... Rontress I don't—" With a reluctant nod, Ifira agreed. "Okay. I'll do that."