Chp.4: The king at work

"It's been over a year now. We have no choice but to consider that adventurer dead"

Marcus let out a sigh of disappointment as he looked at the numerous papers on his desk. Each of those sheets was a report from the various adventuring guilds scattered throughout the Jurao Kingdom, and none of them bore the name of one of his best spies, Ethan Sora Tachter, the son of baron Barnab. As he had just said, by now that man hadn't shown up for too long: even if the mission he had entrusted to him was rather long, it was very unlikely that he was still alive.

Marcus was sorry for that. The relationship he had with Ethan was purely business, of course, but he had great respect for the man. He was an extraordinary scout and had been able to provide information that had proved invaluable during the war with the beastmen. Thanks to his gab and his skills, he always managed to extricate himself even in the most disparate situations. However, it seemed like it had gone badly this time. Maybe he'd met the wrong opponent, or maybe he'd come across a dangerous beast; sadly, it was easy for an explorer to die.

The king sorted the reports and put them in a folder, trying not to show his displeasure. He had hoped that Ethan would be able to give him valuable information about the ogres and the faeries as he had about the beastmen, but it seemed that plan was no longer viable now. He should have sent more spies in the future. "I will write a letter to baron Barnab in condolences" he said. "I will also prepare a good compensation for him. I hope this will be enough to ease the pain of a father"

"I'm sure that will do, your majesty" Thornag said, who was there by his side as usual. He would never have went away from him to protect him, unless the king explicitly ordered it. "In the future, I propose not to send more adventurers, but to make use of the soldiers. It is clear that someone more experienced is needed to break through the society of our enemies"

"I will assess the situation calmly. Evidently I underestimated the ogres and fairies. I won't make the same mistake twice" Marcus replied, who had no intention of wasting any more lives in vain.

Marcus was not a king who enjoyed using the lives of his subjects as pawns. Or rather, he used them, but he felt the enormous responsibility for them. That wasn't a common quality in rulers: around the world, many of the heads of state were very selfish and individualistic, preferring to think of their own well-being rather than that of the people. Marcus wasn't like that. There was a reason he was considered one of the best rulers the Jurao Kingdom had ever had.

That nation had been founded about a half-thousand years earlier from the amalgamation of several small city-states. The first king of the Jurao Kingdom, who was called Jurao, was the leader who had allowed this. For about a hundred years the Jurao dynasty had ruled wisely and justly, but then it began to decline. In the next three hundred years several dynasties had succeeded one another and most of the rulers had been indolent and lazy, and most of the power had passed into the hands of the most influential nobles. This had caused the people to become impoverished and the Jurao Kingdom to fall behind other nations in the world. That was until Marcus' grandfather, Peleus Evan Kaidor, came to power.

Peleus had great faith in the goddess Heloisa, who taught the importance of mutual respect. Thanks to this, he had developed a strong sense of responsibility towards his people from an early age. He believed, not wrongly, that a king unable to protect his people, both within and outside his nation, was unworthy of the crown he wore. Therefore, as soon as he had ascended the throne he had begun a long series of reforms, centralizing power back into his hands. It had clearly been a very long and tiring process: in fact, many of the nobles did not look kindly on autonomy in the new sovereign. Peleus had suffered three assassination attempts and the nobles had even started a revolt to replace him with his brother Felisto. But in the end, Peleus had defeated all his enemies, and their actions had given him the pretext to get rid of them: even if many obstacles still existed, power was now largely returned to the hands of the royal family. Peleus came to be known as the 'reformist king'. He used his new power to build the first national army of the Jurao Kingdom: it was a historic moment, because it marked the transition from a particularistic military power divided among the various nobles to one that was predominantly under the control of the sovereign. The nobles still had the possibility of having their own armies, but they were very small and could not exceed a certain level of strength, therefore they could not be used against the king himself and therefore against the nation.

When Peleus died he was succeeded by his son, Junio ​​Peleus Kaidor. He was Marcus's father. His accession to the throne was the cause of new unrest: the nobility, still not completely folded, had tried to hinder him in the hope of installing a weaker sovereign on the throne. However, once again the king emerged victorious from their conspiracies. Junio, mindful of his father's teachings and in turn a fervent believer in the goddess Heloisa, created a long series of new laws in favor of the people in order to protect the weakest; he erected new courts throughout the nation and replaced many of the old corrupt judges with new impartial judges. Furthermore, he established a more equitable system between the nobility, merchants and commoners, allowing the latter to defend themselves against the abuses of the first two. This earned him the name of 'Legislator king'. But that's not all: Junio ​​in fact began to fear the powers that were starting to grow in the east, where new kingdoms and empires were rapidly forming, and he feared their expansion towards the west, and therefore he began to form an alliance with various neighboring nations in order to defend themselves.

But the real turning point that made the Jurao Kingdom a great power was the birth of the current king, Marcus Junio ​​Kaidor. Even before he was born, the prophetess of the God of Knowledge predicted that he would be an extraordinary king. From a young age he was a fervent and devoted follower of the goddess Heloisa, and made all her teachings his own; as soon as he turned fourteen, he set about making Jurao Kingdom great. Even before becoming king, he promoted new urban projects, building roads, bridges, aqueducts and sewers that made cities much cleaner and more pleasant. The living conditions of the citizens improved significantly. At the age of sixteen, he began traveling throughout the Jurao Kingdom, forging relationships with various nobles and resolving many of their disputes, while also striving to bring them closer to the needs of their people. At eighteen, he took command of the army and led a purge against the barbarians located northwest of the Jurao Kingdom, eliminating the threat with very few casualties and greatly increasing the size of the nation. When the time came to succeed his father, Marcus was already loved throughout the kingdom, and he used his fame abroad to strengthen relations with other neighboring nations and form an even stronger alliance.

After becoming king, Marcus began very ambitious projects: the construction of schools of magic in which a high payment was not required to study, at least for the basic courses. Many nobles had not understood this choice of his, since they considered it a waste of money; in reality, Marcus had a well thought out plan. With the right promotion and the fact that membership didn't cost much, many commoners decided to send their children there; after all, in the school they not only learned magic, they also got to eat for free. Thanks to this, the turnout was huge. The magic that these commoners were taught was clearly not too advanced, but it was sufficient for what Marcus had in mind: as soon as those young wizards were done studying, they were enrolled in hospitals across the nation. Thanks to the large number of doctors, the cost of a healing spell fell and with them the mortality from disease. Before, just cutting yourself on the job could be debilitating for days; now, it was enough to spend a few dozen copper coins, a fairly reasonable amount even for peasants, and one was immediately healed. But not only that: many wizards were also enlisted in the city guard, using their powers to protect people, put out fires and stop criminals. Others became blacksmiths and charmers, building numerous weapons for the aforementioned city guard and especially for the army. Many wizards also became soldiers in the army itself, greatly strengthening it. Finally, some of them became adventurers, protecting the countryside and the roads between cities from bandits, marauders and dangerous animals.

Thanks to these reforms, mortality in the kingdom had collapsed, while welfare and consequently productivity had increased. The economy soared by the day and the royal treasury accumulated, allowing Marcus to start new projects of all kinds, which in turn brought in more money, and so on. Within just a decade, the Jurao Kingdom had developed into a great power, which while it could not hold a candle to the great empires of the world was still at a remarkable level. It was at that moment that Marcus had decided that the time had come to prepare for what, from his point of view, was an inevitable war: the east was in fact getting stronger and stronger and sooner or later the empires that were forming there they would have expanded westward. Marcus had understood that he had to build a blockade, an efficient defense that would block the enemy advance before they reached the towns.

The Jurao Kingdom was already in a very favorable position: to the north there was in fact the desert and to the west there were now only friendly nations. To be able to create a defense he needed two places: the first was the Baudonia City Alliance, which bordered directly on the empires to the east and which was divided from them by a small range of mountains. This mountain range then curved and formed a shield to the south as well, enclosing what was known as the Karbraland Great Forest, which was therefore the second location Marcus needed. Had he been in control of these two territories, the king could have built an efficient defense using the mountains as a shield. First, Marcus had tried bargaining with the Baudonia City Alliance, trying to enlist the help of the beastmen through diplomacy, but it soon became clear that they were getting closer to the eastern empires; therefore Marcus had determined that there was no other solution than to take that territory by force. Thanks to Ethan he had obtained all the weaknesses of the beastmen and when the right time had come he attacked. Even though the war had been more complicated than he had expected, he had finally prevailed and could finally start building his blockade, which was currently already underway. He had hoped to do a similar thing with the ogres and faeries to take over the Karbraland Great Forest, but Ethan's disappearance made it more difficult, and he should have thought of something else.

Of course, his work was certainly not limited to occupying a territory and then building defenses on the mountains. Even now that he had won the war, it would take years to pacify the conquered territories. Marcus had no intention of enslaving the beastmen or using them solely as a work force: as he had done with the barbarians of the northwest, he wanted them to become true subjects of the Jurao Kingdom. But for this to happen, a lot of time and effort was needed. Marcus had extended his reforms to the whole territory of the old Baudonia City Alliance, showing the beastmen a new way of life, better than the one they had. Some of them had embraced their new identity as subjects of the kingdom, but many others still clung to their old ways and created many problems. A year after the end of the war, half of his army was still stationed in the Baudonia City Alliance to immediately suppress any kind of revolt. Some beastmen tribes had revolted so violently that Marcus had to take drastic measures, punishing them with at least five years of hard labor, so that they would be an example to others. He didn't want to appear like a tyrant, but discipline had to be maintained, or it would be impossible to finally pacify his new territory.

Therefore, the king was always swamped with work. And recently it was even more so: in fact, the party to celebrate the victory of the Jurao Kingdom was approaching, to which the sovereigns of all the allied nations were invited. While it seemed like just a holiday, it was actually extremely important, since it would affect relations with other nations. The more sumptuous a party was, the higher the prestige of the kingdom was: this was the rule among the rulers. If Marcus was to maintain an alliance with neighboring nations, he had to be flawless. A king couldn't afford the slightest mistake, even at the cost of having to work three times as much as necessary. Marcus was ready for this and more for the good of his people.

Furthermore, the upcoming party was creating another headache for him, a headache that took shape in the man who was next to him every single moment of his day. "Your Majesty, I hope you have had time to consider what I have told you" Thornag said.

Marcus sighed. "I did, and my answer remains the same as yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that. That dragon must be present. King Thalon and King Visha have expressed a desire to see him" he said. "And it's also thanks to him that we won the war. He deserves to be present"

The news that the Jurao Kingdom had captured a dragon hadn't gone unnoticed. Haku had become a celebrity throughout the kingdom and his fame as an invincible fighter had also spread to neighboring nations. And now that the other kings and queens were coming to the capital for the party, they had specifically asked to see him. After all, a dragon was rare, and seeing it could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Therefore, Marcus had decided to please them.

"Your Majesty, with all due respect, this is no ordinary guest, it's a dragon ten meters long" Thornag said. "His presence could create problems..."

"He'll have the collar of submission, there'll be at least a hundred guards in the main hall alone, not counting the rest of the palace, and I'm sure he's smart enough to see that he doesn't want to do anything stupid" Marcus replied. "My decision is final. Stop stressing me now"

Thornag grunted in clear disapproval. Marcus couldn't blame him entirely: he too knew the problems of bringing a dragon to a party, but he also knew the problems of not bringing it when many of the visiting rulers had expressed a desire to see it, and of the two evils the first was certainly the minor.