Chapter 655: Dying for Favour
"Sister, do you really trust Miss Theresa that much?"
In the imperial bedchamber, warm with the feeling of spring, the reigning empress Amalia, wearing a thin silk nightgown, cuddled against Astrid’s chest.
Her legs were gently closed, two smooth, delicate feet clad in white stockings resting on the sheet. The skin, slightly flushed from sweat, showed faintly through the cream-colored silk, making the once-pure white become tinged with pink like melting vanilla ice cream.
"The reconnaissance officer at the front reports the frost is receding. Judging by the density of wind-ice elemental particles in the air, there’s about one to two weeks left, at most no more than half a month, before the storm blocking the advance dies down,"
"Once that happens, the gates between the Kingdom of Velys and the Valeria Empire will be wide open."
That meant Amalia had to arm enough troops before then. Besides manpower, the most important thing for an army was its weapons and equipment.
Mana airships, lightning shields, plasma bombs, these magical weapons, once fully distributed, could give a low-rank knight front-line combat power comparable to a spellcaster.
"We must finalize the next steps as soon as possible," Amalia said.
The crown had poured vast sums into recruiting soldiers, so the manpower problem was nearly solved. But the weapons budget had been largely spent, Amalia had used it to buy mercenaries and train troops, so they were a bit short. Buying from the Velmont family or using crystals from stockpiles both felt tight.
Astrid and Theresa’s crystal-stone transaction could ease the immediate crisis. Otherwise Amalia would have to consider offering much higher prices to nobles who, knowing the crown’s straits, had been hoarding crystal stones and refused to let them go.
Hearing her younger sister, Astrid drew her knees a little closer. The black-stockinged legs brushed the girl’s slender, charming waist; she gathered the pale silk skirt around them instead of letting it fall loosely over the bed.
Feeling Astrid’s movement, Amalia’s ivory cheek warmed slightly; the lingering flush colored her earlobes. One hand rested on Astrid’s knee, the other let a fingertip trace along the straight, slim curve of her leg, skimming the warm, ink-hued calf.
"According to Theresa, she’ll come straight away once she packs up, she said she’d complete the entire deal immediately."
"Hm. But even if Theresa dawdled, she would have arrived by two days ago at the latest."
This time was different from before. Theresa knew where the Valeria imperial capital lay and had been there recently; she wouldn’t be wandering the empire like a headless fly. Given the point in time, it made no sense for her to still be absent, especially since Astrid had explicitly asked if they could finish the deal before winter ended.
Astrid squinted slightly and after a few seconds spoke.
"Perhaps she was delayed on the road, or maybe some accident happened."
By instinct, Astrid believed in Theresa’s honor; the latter didn’t strike her as the kind to break a promise over a single space ring, living in the capital for nearly half a month had given Astrid enough time to understand her.
Most of the time, Astrid trusted her own judgment about people.
Satisfied, Amalia blinked several times; her soft tongue licked her lips and she murmured.
"That may be... but if there’s no news in three days, we’ll have to consider another way to restock weapons..."
The cost might be higher and it would further squeeze the imperial funds, but it would not yet reach the point of sheer desperation.
Astrid nodded slightly and replied in a low, gentle voice.
"If it comes to that, I’ll go and negotiate."
The engineering payments from building the capital’s information lines and selling Magical devices had already gone into Astrid’s vault. If necessary, she would use that money to buy crystal stones, even at inflated prices.
They cuddled each other for a while. Astrid asked about progress on laying an information line northward through Grand Duke Charles’s lands; after thinking for a few seconds, Amalia answered softly.
"Capital City is already connected to the southernmost border town of Grand Duke Charles’s domain. There’s still at least a year’s work to go before we reach Liya Tower Fortress."
"That fast?"
"Yes. I mobilized a portion of the magic-skilled palace guard to act as temporary craftsmen."
The speed of communication between the front and the capital was vital for Amalia to issue orders. Even if they couldn’t yet build a perfectly reliable network, every inch of additional rune conduit made intelligence reach her that much faster.
"It’s basically impossible to finish before spring," Amalia said.
In fact, the pace already far exceeded Astrid’s expectations. In her former life, even a nation known as a construction fanatic would take years to lay a transcontinental railway; in a medieval, low-productivity human empire, connecting the central region to the northwest wastes in a little over a year, with not rails but long, slender rune conduits, was a remarkable achievement.
"The biggest problem," Amalia murmured, "is still the building materials..."
It came down to money: extracting raw materials cost money, smelting metal cost money, molding and carving cost money.
Before dying, Hibbort had left Amalia an empire prepared for total mobilization, so that she wouldn’t fall apart before the Kingdom of Velys’s iron boots.
But that iron-blooded emperor had only managed, during his reign, to repair the economic wreckage left by the previous ruler’s reckless reforms, hardly enough to cover the extra wartime expenditures Amalia now faced.
To fix the economy she’d have to rely on herself, or on the forward-thinking regent. In the original history, one of Amalia’s motives for aggressive foreign policy had been to hide the deep-rooted economic issues: only by continually plundering the Kingdom of Velys’s wealth, war to fund more war, could Valeria society avoid collapse.
Astrid stroked the girl’s head. Amalia’s legs lay between hers and she used her longer limbs to bind Amalia’s slender limbs gently; the soft soles, wrapped in black silk, pressed against Amalia’s ankles.
"Noble demand for magical devices hasn’t reached saturation yet," Astrid said.
Domestic demand still existed. They also had room to dump products abroad for profit, temporarily conceding some margin now for greater returns later.
"We have the core tech Lady Charlotte provided, optimized internal-structure crystal stones, and Her Majesty the Empress’ Edict on Magical Device Circulation..."
Astrid leaned close to Amalia’s ear. Her exquisitely small white toes, through two layers of silk, fiddled at the reinforced tips of Amalia’s white stockings.
"The prospects for the treasury are not as bleak as you imagine."
"At least we won’t stay in the red forever."
The Magical Device Circulation Edict, issued by Amalia a month ago after the great magitech expo, required that any Magical device intended for market circulation undergo Valeria royal family review and be certified safe before sale.
Some short shited nobles couldn’t see the edict’s true intent and might think the empress had finally heard their pleas: ensuring that magic-related production materials wouldn’t leak and guaranteeing user safety while trying to raise citizens’ quality of life.
But sharper-sensed Valeria power players smelled something else. A few even guessed Amalia’s real aim: the empress wanted a legal and technical duopoly over Magical devices. The empire’s best artists now clustered around Astrid; paired with Amalia’s intimacy with the regent, it was effectively the imperial artisan corps being brought under Amalia’s control.
Magical devices weren’t yet necessities, more like luxuries, but as magic research progressed, such products would inevitably become indispensable in noble social life.
When that time came, Amalia, backed by restrictive laws and noble support, would be the primary beneficiary.
Having discussed their accounts before, Amalia felt reassured. Astrid then continued.
"Also, there’s something you might not fully understand, Amalia."
"...What is it?"
"About my insistence on purging the main instigators of the war with the Kingdom of Velys."
It was the first time Astrid had raised the topic like this. Amalia blinked, then answered after a pause.
"Apart from the necessary war reparations...sister, isn’t that mainly to comfort the empire’s soldiers and citizens who suffered and died in the war?"
Amalia wasn’t sure if Astrid’s motives were entirely the same, but she guessed Testia might think so.
"Those two are the main reasons. But I have other objectives," Astrid said, her tone pausing a beat.
"Velys has no Magical devices, correct?"
Amalia was momentarily stunned, then slowly realized why Astrid brought this up. Her green eyes narrowed into slits and her lips parted.
"Correct. At least before the war."
Otherwise their magitech weapons couldn’t have been so overwhelmingly effective: they’d not only created an information asymmetry, but also armed their troops to a level nearly equal to the enemy’s.
"Exactly. Amalia, you’ve now built an imperial crafts corps, trained artisans, purchased raw materials, and established production lines in the capital. Magical devices are being produced and shipped across the empire."
"These monopolized goods represent endless profit, and we’ve already tasted some of it."
Previously, Magical devices had been seen only in large cities, smaller towns and remote nobles could not enjoy them. Under Astrid’s push, nobles everywhere could obtain a full set of household Magical devices by purchasing through the Valeria royal channel.
"This is the empire’s basic domestic demand. Barring surprises, it’s a market we can completely dominate."
"Money only becomes money when it circulates. Wealth lies in that flow."
Astrid’s voice was soft and cold as it echoed in the room.
"The rarity and irreplaceability of crystal stones also mean our buyers are limited to nobles who can afford the price. So the market’s not that broad."
Nobles were few compared to commoners. Until Charlotte’s research achieved a breakthrough and attribute crystal stones became cheap, they could only extract funds from the wealthy.
"So we turn our gaze to the neighboring foreign market, the Kingdom of Velys, who started the war."
Foreign nobles represented wealth and external demand. Normally, extracting money from them was difficult; kings and popes were not to be trifled with.
But the cards in Astrid’s hand at this moment were playable: a card called "legitimate military action to purge war criminals," and another called "war reparations to restore trade."
Amalia would not have to worry about magitech profitability for a long time. Whether they secured cheaper raw materials as reparations or sold processed goods to foreign nobles, the coffers would fill.
Though Amalia wasn’t a natural economist, Astrid’s reasoning made the clever empress understand the profits in an instant.
"I see...you even planned this layer, sister..."
Cleverly using the Kingdom of Velys’s original sin of starting the war to push magitech development, then dumping goods abroad to stimulate the domestic economy, while attracting domestic nobles to profit and thereby reducing their resistance.
Chain after chain, each link fitting the next.
If Amalia didn’t know her sister’s character, and if Astrid had had the opportunity to push the Kingdom of Velys into attacking in the first place, she might well have been the biggest beneficiary, and the most likely mastermind.
"It’s just that the timing was right, so we rode the tide," Astrid said softly.
During Amalia’s princess years, Astrid had no power to stop the coming war. So she had to find usable opportunities within it and slow down the arrival of the next conflict.
"And...someone in the Church of Light probably hopes I hurry and bring Magical devices into the Kingdom of Velys as well..."
As soon as Astrid finished, Amalia’s mind flashed to the person she suggested.
A woman from the enemy country, wearing a tightly tailored nun clothes, one whose body was alarmingly sultry: the Light Saintess Monica Angelis.
She must be dying for Astrid to favor her.