Chapter 661: Underhanded Alliance

The Mist Alliance was different from other mega empires in that it wasn’t an independent country. The Mist Alliance was an alliance of many Northlands countries.

The seven Northlands kingdoms that the ruling human society viewed as barbarians were the core of this alliance. Non-human species were also a significant part of this alliance. As the Underground, Xiluo undead, Northlands beastmen, and Northlands elves all gradually joined the Mist Alliance, this naturally transformed the nature of the Mist Alliance. Humans were no longer the core of the alliance.

What helped this Mist Alliance to continue maintaining itself, however, were the two countries of the People of the Mist, Sleuweir and the East Mist Communal Country. These two kingdoms were the political core of the Mist Alliance, and they were also faintly being viewed as a brand-new Mist Kingdom.

Five of the other countries in the Northlands seven kingdoms were also human kingdoms just like the Mist Kingdom. This naturally made them good allies. The Mist Kingdom defeated and tamed the Northlands beastmen. The undead, Underground, and Northlands elves were all deeply connected to the Mist Kingdom. Due to all these factors, Reyne and Glina became the true leaders of the Mist Alliance despite not being the leaders in name.

Not interfering in other member countries’ internal politics was the foundation of this alliance. The Mist Alliance had given itself the definition of “a relatively loose alliance that will still come close together in times of great difficulty”.

But as everyone became more connected, and with the entire world entering war, the Mist Alliance started using its insufficient resources on military preparations. All the resources and military power needed to be organized. Naturally, organizing all resources and military power together would greatly reduce the independence of each country within the alliance.

This was why dictatorial governments would easily appear during any time of war. In order to deal with the threat of war, a highly effective governmental organization with concentrated power would be necessary. Thus, those in the minority would soon find their voices and resistance suppressed as someone controlling all the power appeared.

Northlands Winter Food Storage Committee. The name of this organization was self-explanatory. It also sounded like something right out of an ancient Chinese history book. However, the truth of the matter was that even the king of a country would need to pay proper respects to the members of this committee.

This committee’s main role was to adjust and hand out winter food rations in order to avoid large-scale famines, as this committee was in charge of food for the entire Northlands. They had the power to distribute all of the Northlands’ imported food whoever they liked. They could also choose any country’s food supply and designate it as war storage rations. This power was like a knife on the neck of all the Mist Alliance countries. Even though the Mist Alliance was nominally not supposed to interfere in other countries’ internal politics, this was the most brazen type of interference around.

Northlands Defense Line Construction Headquarters. This organization was in charge of constructing strategically important defensive fortresses and other defensive structures. Basically, they were sort of like a major construction company… But if they were constructing fortresses in your home country, didn’t that count as interfering in internal politics? Wouldn’t the countries’ kings have worries?

But right now, all of this was necessary, and even received approval from the Mist Alliance members. Everyone knew that a major war was upon them. If everyone was still scattered like loose sand, what use would there still be for the Mist Alliance?

Although the Mist Alliance had been developing as a whole over the years, it was natural that the Mist Kingdom developed the fastest due to Diffindor and being the home of magical engineering. With the combination of East Mist Communal Country and Sleuweir being the new Mist Kingdom, it was obvious to everyone who the number one ranking human country of the Mist Alliance was. In fact, even the other five human kingdoms of the Mist Alliance added together still couldn’t compare to the one Mist Kingdom.

Due to the power of the Mist Kingdom within the Mist Alliance, I wouldn’t even need to say who was in charge of all these “committees”, “headquarters”, “organizations” and so on. As various war preparations were made, the entire Mist Alliance’s member countries were being organized. The new Borealis squadron which had been built with the resources and power of various countries combined was the most obvious example.

It would likely take several decades for a single country to have enough resources to produce a single one of these mega airships. But now, in just a short eight years, not only was the first fleet of mega airships completed, the member countries’ military, industrial, and shipbuilding technology had all been improved. As long as there were enough resources, a second mega airship fleet would soon be completed as well.

From a certain standpoint, as war preparations were made and various rules established, giving all these committees actual power, the independence of the Mist Alliance member countries was swiftly decreasing. Kings became the equivalent of domain lords who had to listen to their boss’s orders. The member countries’ domain lords were doubly restricted by the Church of Law and Mist Alliance’s rules. Everything was becoming unified under one organization, helping the Mist Alliance to flourish. But of course, there would naturally be people dissatisfied with this due to losing personal benefits.

There would always be darkness along with light. Power struggles would forever take place anywhere that there were people. The Mist Alliance was no exception, even if it was founded on ideals.

I won’t go into the details, but very few people would be able to out-scheme the dark elves. And right now, the entire dark elf society was working for the Mist Kingdom. The end result was that people with objections to the Mist Alliance’s policies all ended up “disappearing” for various reasons.

Were there people that were dissatisfied? Of course, but as the Hell Gods and the Mist Alliance became every more powerful, tons of benefits were brought to everyone. Resources became more plentiful, the status of ordinary people became improved, income increased, there were more work opportunities for everyone, and so on. At the very least, most people could tell that the situation was improving, and they were happy to be in the Mist Alliance.

“Why would I care who’s in charge? As long as my life keeps improving, that’s enough for me.”

This was how most ordinary people would think. Indeed, the Mist Alliance had done much for the sake of its ordinary citizens.

Of course, not everyone would be happy with these developments. At the very least, the “kings” and their domain lords, who had less and less power as all this went on, were already faintly becoming opposed to these developments. The greatest difference between the Mist Alliance and other mega empires was that the members of the Church of Law would constantly investigate the nobles and rulers’ actions for anything improper. The Church of Law was strongly supported by the Mist Kingdom, which naturally made the old-fashioned nobles and royalty unable to accept being investigated constantly as they were used to doing whatever they pleased.

For some people, reducing their power would be the equivalent of trying to kill them.

The old-fashioned nobles were also skilled schemers. They also had family relationships and tangible benefits with the countries in mainland Eich. If it wasn’t for our own forces which couldn’t see the light of day acting fast enough, and also because the other human countries feared the power of the Mist Kingdom, there would have been at least four or five times already that the Mist Alliance would have almost collapsed. And as the Mist Kingdom’s position became ever more secure after coming out on top of all the internal power struggles, the other Mist Alliance member countries’ power became ever more obviously diminished. This was basically an open secret.

The Mist Kingdom, Xiluo undead, and Underground were the three pillars of support, the iron triangle of the Mist Alliance. Their overwhelming power negated all attempts at rebelling or scheming. Since there was a core faction, there would naturally be negligible factions as well. The end result was that the old-fashioned nobles and royalty became a negligible faction.

The Mist Kingdom faction constantly announced that these new organizations’ greatly increased power and forced distribution and control over resources would only be temporary, and that this would all be canceled after the Holy War was over. However, not only did the royalty and domain lords not believe this, even the government officials making the announcements knew that they were only paying lip service.

“Who would want to give up on power that they’ve already obtained?”

Actually, I would. As long as the Holy War was truly finished, I would immediately find a place to retire and do whatever I wanted. It would be so boring for me to become some type of feudal domain lord or ruler. I would far prefer to travel around the world and see the sights. I really was telling the truth here, but as always, nobody believed me.

Were the rulers who joined the Mist Alliance regretting that they had? I felt that it was likely that they were now regretting it, since they were no longer able to do whatever they wanted like before. The Church of Law members were all strict traditionalists who would severely strike down any injustice that they saw. But as the Holy War progressed, the facts would prove that joining the Mist Alliance had been correct after all. Their opinions would be changed.

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But at the current time, joining the Mist Alliance meant giving up on their royal authority. This was a feudal generation, which meant that this was incredibly taboo.

“The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom are applying to join the Mist Alliance? When did this happen? Why do they want to join?”

Not only was I surprised to hear this, the other Mist Alliance government officials in the room were also shocked to hear this news. While joining the Mist Alliance would definitely bring benefits to the entire country and its citizens, such a decision could only be made by the archduke and king of those two countries respectively. Were they actually willing to give up on their authority and voluntarily be restrained by our rules?

The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom were both to the south of the original Northlands’ seven kingdoms. There was also another small country between them and the Northlands. The Soen Dukedom was only a small country, but the Feldis Kingdom’s territory included the fertile Feen Plains and Shawen River. Their lands were vast, and the Feldis Kingdom had quite respectable power. It was quite sudden and unexpected for them to be applying to join the Mist Alliance.

“The application just arrived three days ago. Archduke Klein and King Vincent signed the papers together. They also submitted the tax income, expenses, military information, and other such basic information of their countries. The government officials in charge of receiving applications believe that both countries are being quite sincere. We should seriously and carefully consider this.”

Reyne was casually flipping through the information in front of me without actually looking at it, expecting me to deal with it as always. She had a wry yet serious expression. It seemed that I wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight even though I just returned.

No matter if I accepted or rejected the two countries’ application, this would be a major matter that could affect the Mist Alliance’s development for more than a century. If I accepted their application, the entire territory of the Mist Alliance would be expanded by about 33%. This would finally directly connect us to the mainland human kingdoms, and we would obtain an extremely fertile territory renowned for its food production. And if we rejected their application, we would at least have to give sufficient reason.

I looked over a map of the land, looking at all the tan and blue drawn on it while comparing things to my memories. At this time, my memories were probably more reliable than all this boring information.

The Soen Dukedom had only been established one hundred years ago, and had only gone through two generations of rulers so far. It was a tiny country established in a wasteland, and it only had a few small cities. Nor did it have any famous specialties. The Soen Dukedom was basically nothing more than the Feldis Kingdom’s subordinate country.

What wasteland? It was a wasteland left behind by the Yongye Calamity… Cough, I supposed that these two countries were somewhat connected to me, although if I looked at it that way, there would be an extremely high number of countries in Eich connected to me.

There was no helping it. The Mist Kingdom was in the north, so when I wanted to go take revenge on the Holy Church back then, I would obviously pass by these countries while making my way south. I had probably just destroyed them along the way.

“Ha, I remember now. The Feldis Kingdom shouldn’t have a grudge against me. My Yongye army passed by next to them.”

“Yeah, they have a grudge against Karwenz instead. They were annihilated by his demon army back in the day, and even their king was killed. Their current royalty is from a distant bloodline from mainland Eich.”

I was rendered speechless. Just what was all this? Had we brothers managed to successfully antagonize all of our nearest neighbors?

“To tell you the truth, you’re absolutely correct. With a southern demon invasion and a southern undead invasion, how many grudges would that create? Why do you think that so many assassins have been coming after your life recently? You should be happy that humans are a short-lived species, and that domain lords and kings only care about their own personal benefits. They won’t fight you to the death for the sake of their ancestors’ grudges which have already been forgotten about. But if they were long-lived species instead, even if the leader didn’t care about a past grudge, the leader’s people would force him to fight you to the death.”

The silly cat kept bragging about the advantages of long-lived species to me, while I thought to myself “Aren’t your elves being quite obedient these days as well? In this day and age, isn’t having more power the most practical thing there is?” Of course, I would never say this to her, since she would quite easily anger about anything related to elven pride. And right now, I still needed her protection.

“Also, the rise of the Mist Kingdom back in the past was the equivalent of forcefully conquering territory when they didn’t have any to begin with. Back in the past, the Northlands had nine countries, not seven. What do you think happened to reduce the number? You could try asking Reyne just how her ancestor managed to win as one against three united countries.”

To tell the truth, I didn’t really care too much about things so long ago in the past, either. Another side of being a short-lived species was that humans often sighed about how short life was and how they would never be able to achieve all their desires, becoming the ruler of the entire continent or something like that, a common dream for many human kings. The end result was that human royalty and nobles all had a messy relationship with each other. Many were blood related with each other, but would still fight each other to the death.

Well, all of my Yongye stuff was in the past. The relevant humans who would have a grudge were all long dead now since more than century had passed. Only if it was politically necessary would my Yongye actions be brought up again. Otherwise, who would normally care about something that happened so long ago?

“The short-lived species simply need to live in the present. That’s a better life for them.”

I ignored the silly cat who had such an expression of superiority. I focused instead on the information in front of me. Based on what I knew so far, I would likely reject their application.

That’s right, I intended to reject them, rather than approving their application which would immensely strengthen the Mist Alliance.

A country wouldn’t always be better by being larger, especially since the Holy War was right upon us. Just with some simple calculations, I determined that if these two countries joined us, this would greatly increase the amount of border we would need to defend, and we would also lose many naturally defensive locations and fortresses on our current border. Our original iron-tight defense would have cracks naturally appearing in it. But if we didn’t do anything to help defend the two new member countries at all… The Mist Alliance was intended as a military alliance to begin with, so if we abandoned trying to help any member country, that would make everyone lose all hope and faith in the entire alliance.

“Let’s gather information first. At the very least, we need to know why they want to join the Mist Alliance.”

I felt a bit of a headache as I rubbed my forehead and put down the scrolls in front of me. Yet, government officials kept bringing me even more books and information.

“History, culture, income and expenditures, military information, the profiles of these two countries’ important figures, and the true reason why they want to join the Mist Alliance… It seems that our information department will become overworked. Right, we also have to consider our overall border defenses if they join the Mist Alliance. It seems that our combat strategy department is also going to lose sleep by working overtime, along with our diplomatic and administrative departments. So tiring…”

I shook my head and sighed about my frustrations, walking around as I thought… But right when I arrived at the door, I saw that the door was completely blocked. All the government officials has bright smiles as they refused to budge.

“Don’t even think about running away! Don’t even think about escaping from your work! Let us all work overtime together!”

I heard Reyne’s grudge-filled complaint behind my back, as my plan to escape was seen through yet again…