Chapter 8

Sheryl Academia-

Arabelle walked out of her class with a leap to her steps. Eloise, her good friend followed her with a smile.

Eloise was the youngest princess of the Empire, Princess Eloise and her were known as the Red Rose and White Lily of the upper-class respectively.

When Arabelle entered the Academia, she had heard of the fact that the princess had also come. She was intrigued as she only ever saw the princess occasionally, whether it was at a social gathering or at a tea party.

Princess Eloise had wild, flaming red hair and had a fun loving personality. She was also a very strong advocate of women's empowerment in the empire. Ever since the coming of the female saint favored by the Sun God, women started speaking up more about their rights in the Empire. This led to a major revolution a couple of years prior which in turn enforced more equal rights for women.

This led to much displeasure amongst the noble faction in particular, the male dominated noble faction, as it determined the right for noble ladies to hold important titles and be able to inherit. Nothing much could be done though as most noble families had many female children as people would tend to only stop when they have male children or for marriage proposals in political alliances. Since the person in question who started the entire fiasco was none other than the saintess, nobody could do much about it else they would be fined with heresy.

Despite this, most nobles still used their children as marriage offerings for alliances, as it was still believed that the parents should decide the future partner of their children.

Princess Eloise was considered a contender for the throne. After hearing about Eloise's arrival at the Academia, it made Arabelle wonder if there would be a battle for the throne like in novels she had read before.

Presently there were 3 candidates for the throne, Princess Eloise, Prince Rupert and Prince Bradley. Prince Rupert is the eldest prince and is considered to be the most suitable for the throne, but he is known for being overly cautious which results in being late to action or delaying things too much and suffering a loss due to it. Prince Bradley, the second prince on the other hand is known for being quite unsatisfactory, he's known for hunting and getting drunk and is also considered one of the playboys of the empire.

Eloise and Rupert are very popular, making the people in their factions quite equal in number. Bradley isn't even part of the equation.

Victor had actually been approached by Rupert and in the same way Arabelle had been approached by Eloise. Arabelle consulted with Victor regarding whose side should be taken, and they both decided to stay neutral on the subject.

It's been a few months since Arabelle met Eloise and she realized that they share many common views. Arabelle was particularly surprised by Eloise's deep insights which could be considered quite modern.

She relayed the same to Victor who had a similar experience with Rupert. Nonetheless, Arabelle decided to cultivate a good relationship with Eloise.

"Why are you so jumpy today?" Eloise asked as they walked down the halls.

"Something wonderful happened," Arabelle responded smiling," Remember that I was working with Lydia on a project and recruited her? It's regarding that."

Lydia was an alchemist that got a scholarship into Sheryl Academia, Arabelle' s first target had been her. Arabelle wanted a source of income for the Northern Dutchy but a lot of technical things were unknown to her and she realized she needed a good team of people who would help her where she was lacking.

That's why she snatched Lydia as soon as she got here, she even took precautions to be arranged as her roommate. Lydia was from a poor family and couldn't practice alchemy well due to low funding and readily grabbed Arabelle' s offer.

They talked fervently for a long time on various topics and Lydia slowly but surely became a dear friend. After all, people come together under common interests.

Arabelle provided her sufficient funding for her experiments, and Lydia made things and worked for her, the agreement was as such.

"I see, that's good to hear," Lydia nodded," What are you working on?"

Arabelle gave a secretive smile, "It's a secret!"

Ever since she got married to Victor many things changed in the dutchy, The Duke officially declared Victor as the heir and handed over a lot of power to Victor. Victor had shared the budget with her and had discussed many things on what they should do.

Arabelle had many ideas, but first she knew that they needed a strong foundation.

Currently, the northern Duke's main responsibilities was guarding the border. The dukedom was situated at the northeastern side of the kingdom. The northern most region had snow fall nearly all year round and the southern parts were where the farmers lived and where the dukedom's meager food was produced, it was never enough most of the time.

The duchy was paid annually by the nobles and the royals to guard the entrance of the kingdom from the northern kingdom of Vanha and the kingdom Pulka which has been at odds with the Empire for years.

But recently funds had dwindled and food was getting scarcer and scarcer with the absence of any wars. The capital city of the Northern Dutchy was situated in the middle of the dukedom near the port to the east. The climate was warmer and there were summers, but it was still chilly and it would snow occasionally during winter.

Meanwhile in the southern most region, it wouldn't snow, but it would get rather cold.

The Northern Duchy held great prestige and nobility, but those could only take you so far, timber was the only real export from the dukedom and the only produce that kept the economy of the dukedom thriving.

There was nothing overly outstanding about the dutchy.

Even the army wasn't known that well.

Although they had a lot of military power, it had become much worse than it was before so she brought up the idea of making the conditions for soldiers better and making the ranking a little different as well as support the idea of civilian knights.

Victor had agreed at the idea, but at the same time knew that the reactions would be bad. Since knighthood is considered to be something of great importance and usually only nobles could be knights. There was also the problem of funding. Money was required to raise a good army and the Northern dutchy and the northern territories in general didn't have many ways to make money except for selling good quality timber and seafood export, which wasn't very good to begin with.

Arabelle to that said to Victor, leave everything about money to her.

And today, the first money making idea is finally blossoming. The first thing Arabelle did with her allowance from the dutchy was to buy many pieces of land near the sea area in her name.

Her idea was salt making and refining. Since the kingdom was in short supply of salt, they were dependent on the neighboring kingdom Ishan for salt. Salt making and refining were difficult in these times and required a lot of time and man power.

But Arabelle knew a simpler way and luckily, the dutchy had a sea with high contents of salt.

She had bought some slaves in her name told them to till the land and flattened into different shallow sections and put sea water into it to dry. She had already tested the method out with Lydia, and the land has finally become ready.

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Arabelle and Lydia along with Eloise were eating lunch at the cafeteria when suddenly an assistant ran in and handed Arabelle a letter with the Northern Duchy's seal on it.