Chapter 97

(A/N)

Word of the Day: "Convalescence"

/\\//\\//\

Lumionus was in front of me, bowing in an apologetic manner. "I want to apologize for my actions. I should've known not to try and interfere with your relationship with Shuna, and that I should've stopped after giving me clear signs that you were not attracted to me. As an apology, I hope we can have talks and negotiations to strengthen the alliance of our nations."

Now, we were in a private room. So she wasn't doing this in front of everybody. It was only me, Shuna, Luminous, and Hinata. I could see Hinata was slightly shocked at what Luminous was doing, and Shuna had a little smile on her face as if pleased by Luminous' apology. All I could wonder was what Shuna did to Luminous to make her like this. 

"Alright, Luminous, I accept your apology. As for what we can talk about, this isn't really the place to do it. Well, I guess it depends on how in-depth you want to go with it. If you want something comprehensive, we'll need a meeting with all of the top people on both of our sides."

"We can sign something to set that up. An agreement to further explore improving relations."

"Yeah, we could do that. Right now, actually." I grabbed a piece of paper nearby and started writing. "There we go. This is just something simple and kind of vague, but it gets the point across."

Luminous looked at the paper and had a doubtful look on her face as she looked at the simple and quickly made draft. "This looks so crude."

"Ok, hold on." I held out my hand and summoned Rhongomyniad. This was super overkill with this, but it works, which more often than not, is all that really matters. A few branches of light released from Rhongomyniad as they started to transform the paper. When it was done, the paper now looked more professional. 'There. Now we can sign this thing."

"What was that?"

"Just a little something. No need to worry about it." I signed the paper as I responded to Luminous.

"O…kay" Luminous said reluctantly as she also signed it.

"Alright. We signed it. I look forward to our talks."

"Me too."

Once that was done, we left the room. Luminous switched back to her more serious mode, and I just stayed the same. I guess it matters more how she is perceived than it does to me. We went our separate ways.

I want to go home, but I wanted to get a little head start on some work, which is why I'm heading to our government building. The place where all our laws and legislation are made. I guess it makes more sense to say it's where everything is collectively discussed, but I hold the final say about it, no matter what others say about it, but it's never wrong to take advice. 

It's very simple what I want to talk about. Once this festival is over, news about my nation will spread very fast. People will want to come to visit, and no doubt some will want to move here, whether it's to emigrate, look for an opportunity to make money, or maybe start a business, maybe they think it's safer to live here, the quality of life is better here. In short. Immigration. I'm going to have to come up with something for that. 

And with a lot of immigrants comes growth and change, which will also require us to make more laws. Right now, we have laws that are broader and not that specific. For example, our marriage laws. It's what made Luminous chase after me, thinking she had a chance only because the law said nothing about it. What would happen if someone applied that somewhere else? The monsters that live here are good people, so they know what not to do, but that's only because they were all mostly named by Rimuru, except for the lizardmen and a few others who were named by me.

What was that quote again? "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Well, I mean that on Earth. The angels in this world aren't good. They come down to destroy civilization and society or something. So, not good. Anyway, there's work to do.

/\\//\\//\

"Artoria, you're here." Rimuru said as he looked up from the paperwork he was doing. I still don't know how he hasn't come up with something to make it all go faster.

"Why are you suprised, Rimuru?"

"Well, it's just that you don't come here often."

"Yeah, well, for now, that has changed. We need to make a lot of laws and also get more specific."

"Why?"

"Well, there's going to be an influx of people coming here after word of the nation spreads. Our population will grow and we need to prepare for that."

"Oh, yeah that makes sense."

"So we need to make something for immigration."

"Uh, so what should we do?"

"Why do you look uneasy about this?"

"It's just well, what kind of immigrants? We don't need workers since we have Geld and all his orcs."

"Well, that's just construction, Rimuru. There's more work besides just construction. And I'm not talking about only workers, Rimuru, I'm also talking about people who just want to live here as well."

"That too? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it. Are you against it, or something?"

"Well, tourists are fine, but, uh, should they like, be here permanently? What about integration?"

"Falmuth, or what was Falmuth, seems to be doing fine ever since their territory became ours after the war, Rimuru."

"But that's different. That was war, this is…not war."

"I guess, but if it's about if they can integrate, the people of Falmuth did just fine."

"Yeah, but it was after we had to clean up all the corruption by arresting, or executing if necessary, many of the nobles, elite, and other people who were responsible for everything."

"That might be true, but we have to do something."

"And what do you propose?"

"Well, there's two extremes. We can have completely open borders, which if I remember right, Germany has or had at one point, well something like it I think. Actually, I think it is more like really relaxed policies."

"Why would Germany have open borders?"

"Well, you see, due to certain…events in their past, they let about anyone in. So there's that, and then you have the opposite, closed borders or very strict policies. I don't think there's a county on Earth that is to either of those extremes. I guess something like Ja-. Oh, I see now." I can't believe it took me that long to figure out why he seemed a bit reluctant. He doesn't seem to be against it, but I guess some ideas from back on Earth can carry over.

"What?"

What's another country that has very strict immigration policies? Maybe a country in the Middle East? Oh, I know. "Qatar. They are very strict on immigration."

"So, what should we do? Like a middle ground of sorts?"

"Yeah, it kind of has to be. I don't like open borders or closed borders. If someone wants to move and live here, and become a citizen, I'm all for it, but there has to be some requirements. This one is going to be hard to 'get right'. There's no 'best' immigration policy, because it's really all what someone thinks, and there is always going to be disagreements with whatever you decide."

"Like what?"

"That's what we're going to discuss. To just give it to you straight, this is what I'm thinking. We're going to limit how many people we take in, since our population can't just recklessly increase rapidly, there has to be some kind of plan. I'm also thinking of showing preference to more 'skilled' people. Those that have specialized knowledge, researchers, scientists, and things like that. You can never have enough of those kinds of people."

"What if there were some scientists who were doing some super shady experiments? Like, human experimentation, or if they are a part of a bad group? Would you still take them in?" It seems he's pushing the limit on this, but I'll be honest, that's a dumb question, and the answer is yes. Obviously. Who would say no?

"Of course, Rimuru. If they're smart enough, or are a genius, then yeah, welcome to the empire. I'll just pardon their crimes, get their research, and then put them to work while they are under extreme surveillance. There's an exception you have to make sometimes."

"What?! Why? That's crazy! Who would do that?"

Oh boy, wait until he finds out about the scientists who were working for NASA and the government during the Cold War, or about the pardons for Japanese officials for human experimentation in exchange for research data. The latter is some heavy stuff, and I will speak my mind, he most likely doesn't know about that. 

"Relax, Rimuru. Let's get back to the point. We'll need to cover a lot of stuff. Like, types of visas, deportation, pathways to citizenship, how to handle illegal immigrants, and more." Oh man, there's going to be so many disagreements on this stuff. Who knows how long this is going to take? But, it has to be done. These are conversations that have to be made.

/\\//\\//\

"Ok, this should be fine, Rimuru."

"I guess."

"Look, I'm going to be honest, I knew it was going to take a long time, but this should not be taking this long, and whether you like it or not, this is the final draft we're going to make." This was carrying on too long. I could've finished many other things I wanted, but we were stuck on this. Why is this even a big deal? It's not like we're on Earth.

Rimuru signed the long, multi-page document after we had the advisors and others write it up. This wasn't anything vague. We tried to be as specific as possible and be as detailed as possible, but there would always be something to question or a loophole. And if that arises, I'll just change it to get rid of that loophole. No having to go through some drawn-out court process to interpret something because of how hard it is to change something.

"Well, that's it. Why did you include the religion part?"

"Oh, that? It's not like I'm forcing them to stop believing in whatever god they believe in. You do know that we have religious freedom here, right? All they have to do is give a little faith to me or you. All the little stuff will stack up quickly. I'm not asking them to change their mind on the spot like that, that's dumb."

"That's a bit lenient."

"Well, duh, we don't want religious infighting that could lead to a split or some kind of war because of how stubborn, forceful, or stupid we're being with religion. Have you heard of the 30 years war?"

"Not really. Is it some war in Europe?" 

"Yeah, it is, but then again, 'war in Europe' is very, very, vague. There's been like a million wars in Europe. Anyway, not to get distracted, I'm going to work on some other stuff."

"Like what?"

"Welfare, economics, tourism, education, and whatever else comes to mind." I just told him some things that immediately came to my mind as I went to get some paper to jot things down and then hand it over to our advisors and legal team to make it look more professional later on. It was time to implement some reforms to some of our things.

"That's a lot to take on, no?"

"Not really, I already have some ideas."

"Like what?"

"It depends, what subject?" 

"Uh, I don't know, uh, education?"

"That? It's quite simple. I'm going to favor some hands-on learning and stuff. Critical thinking over memorization, things to make students involved in their communities so they can be better citizens when they grow up, more hands-on learning, a not-so-strict curriculum, encouragement to teach some more contemporary issues, teachers that are qualified, and other things, but that is what is off the top of my head."

"What about things to check if teachers or schools are doing a good job? Maybe you should put a system in place to track test scores and grades of students and schools. Maybe, if they meet a target, they can get rewarded, and if they don't, they'd be penalized."

I stopped writing as I heard Rimuru's idea. That sounded a bit too familiar to something I know. "Rimuru, no," I said in a firm tone. "That is not going to work like you think it will. Trust me."

"And what about your ideas? What if they don't work?"

"Then we change it. That's it. If it doesn't work, then we look at what went wrong and make some changes, but I would prefer we don't, since if the schools and education system were constantly being changed, it would not be good."

"You seem to have it all figured out."

"I wish I could say that, but I don't." With some final writing, I finished the very rough draft. "Anyway, this is education finished." I placed it to the side and started working on another one.

"What, just like that?"

"Yeah, now I just have to give it to our advisors and legal people and they'll turn it into all that fancy talk and jargon that comes with a government document. All that matters is that the main ideas are implemented."

"That seems so fast."

"I know how it looks, but it's just how it is. We can't always predict how things will turn out with complete accuracy. We just have to try our best and go along with things that sound good and simple. Sometimes, the simple ideas and explanations are just the way to go."

I looked at Rimuru, who seemed to have a thoughtful expression on his face. "Huh, what about Raphael? Can't we just leave it all to Raphael?" Ah, I knew he would bring that up. This will serve well as a transition to my next topic.

"No, we're not using Raphael. I don't want to develop some kind of over-reliance on Raphael, which can then transfer to other things. It's kind of one of the reasons I don't use Rhongomyniad as much as I really should. You know, speaking of reliance, let's talk about welfare systems."