"You’re lucky you’re handso."
having recovered enough she grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the drinking circle.
The two ducked into a vine-covered courtyard and sat beneath an ancient fig tree whose roots were curled around the stone like sleeping serpents.
This courtyard was quiet, removed from the ongoing festivities-a hidden sanctuary.
Julius reached out, brushing dust from her cheek.
"If this were our only day-if all of this fell apart tomorrow-i’d still be glad I had it."
Serena leaned into him planting a soft unhurried kiss onto his lips.
just two lovers enjoying themselves in the city that they saved.
~
With nightfall having fallen, torches and braziers now illuminated the city streets as music poured out from every corner.
Julius and Serena on the other hand had left the ongoing festivities behind and had started their journey returning to the palace-taking a hidden staircase located at the base of the mountain to climb up, having arrived within the palace grounds their entrance at first startled the guards who were stationed never understanding why they were posted to watch this courtyard only to find a pair of suspicious people erging from a hidden door.
But after at first reacting as they should the pair ca to realize who they were pointing their spears at and quickly took a knee.
Julius nor Serena reprimanded the n for their actions instead comndating them, before just strolling off like they hadn’t run away for a day.
Back to the world, to their duty, back to everything.
But for this one day, it had been just them.
~
The doors to the palace office creaked open well before sunrise.
Inside, a thousand candles flickered to life at Julius’s gesture, their glow casting long shadows against scroll-stacked desks, towering bookshelves, and a central table weighed down by the bones of the new empire.
Julius after redressing to fit his role joined Serena in this room, red tunics trimd in gold, with accompanying robes for added warmth.
Their day of casual life was over, and now a mountain of responsibility, delayed temporarily now waited for them.
"Thirty-four unopened courier packets."
Muttered Tanitra a carthaginian clerical aide who was compiling all the new docunts that had appeared since the two had disappeared.
"Twelve internal requests from Romanus, six from Lunan, and four from Germania who are questioning Francia’s troop movents."
"don’t forget the five national envoys who are all demanding personal audiences after hearing the news from the other day."
Hamilcar who was sorting through the internal filing of the forr kingdom also reported.
Serena ever graceful despite the exhaustion still clinging to her, gave them both a tight-lipped smile.
"Good morning to you too."
Julius didn’t respond to the inquiries and took up his chair at the desk.
As he settled into the chair he could feel the weight returning to his shoulders like iron chains being rebound around him.
"I left things for one day."
He said with a sigh.
"And the whole of the empire tries to file paperwork before I’ve even taken the throne."
"Technically, you left for two."
Tanitra’s reply was curt but not untrue, he’d announced the formation two days before at the feast, then the next day after letting the people know the two disappeared.
"Still worth it."
Serena whispered across the desk to him, just loud enough for him to hear.
In response he shot her a sideways smile.
~
As they got to work on the paperwork before them Julius worked like a machine, his previous life experience of being an office worker and paper pusher allowed him to quickly deal with the docunts before him now.
After dealing with the most recent stack he pulled up the system interface.
[System Rank Increase]
Just like when his battles and wars were completed there was a notification that had been flashing in his face for the last two days since the effective establishnt of the empire.
The system had gone through an evolution once before upon the initial founding of his own nation, which expanding his control from just his own territory and status, to his nations.
But now the system would be growing again along with his progress.
[New system features]
-Imperial Overview (replaces national Overview)
-Provincial Managent (Replaces Territory Overview, and build nu)
-Legion Managent (Enhanced)
While he had the ability to see his forces positioning and commanding them when they were inside his national borders now he had tactical military command over his forces wherever they were foreign or dostic
Overall the system upgrade was not to much different from when it was in the kingdom model, except that its reach had expanded.
The new provincial managent upgrade allow Julius to build across his provinces without ever being there himself like he was required to before, this would allow him to spend more of his ti as the emperor and less ti touring the nation just to perform regular maintenance to the locales.
The other advantage is that he would not need to decide on the placent of the buildings either as the upgrade allowed for autoplacent.
The system would upgrade existing buildings or place the new ones down in the perfect place.
But the drawback was that the build costs would be exponential since the purchase of an apartnt would be province wide, every city would get a new one.
Or he could go further and have a new one built in every city and town.
However shockingly for him it seed that the system wouldn’t give an upgrade to the tech tree.
Even after checking it multiple tis the military and civic trees had not been upgraded in the slightest.
But now that the empire was founded and his three new nations were integrating with his, plus the bonus of being able to quickly allow for their growth and developnt his next bout of investnt was possible.
The upgrading of tech and unlocking of new buildings was on the horizon as his new empire would be barreling towards war with Francia soon.
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