Jinas spoke with forced composure, trying hard to hide the despair on his face.
"This matter will have to be handled under the strictest confidentiality. Will you keep it from Sir Bloom and the head attendant as well?"
"I’ll have to tell Sir Bloom. As for Botello... he’s too old. I’m planning to keep it from him."
Even this composed steward had reacted like this—if their elderly head attendant found out, he might be so shocked he’d collapse. The two of them naturally excluded the rest of the retainers, including the ever-useless administrator Graffni.
Only two people to consult about sothing this serious...
Ayra sighed inwardly at the painfully small talent pool and pulled up her Main Quest window.
[Territory Survival: Preparing for Disaster]
Save your territory before ti runs out. (D–182)
Achieve over 60% support rate (23/60%)Recruit 5 loyal retainers (2/5)Reach final level of Spirit GM (Not Achieved)Reward: ??% of residents survive
Five retainers, huh... Which ant, flipped around, that there were at least five potential talents to be recruited. The two already counted must be Jinas and Bloom.
If she completed all three objectives, she could save her people. But she couldn’t take that at face value. The fact that the reward showed as "??%" survival probably ant that the number of residents who lived would vary depending on how well she fulfilled the conditions.
As she’d told Jinas, Solar wouldn't truly be destroyed if so people survived to rebuild after the city burned. But that wasn’t what Ayra wanted. If possible, she wanted to preserve everything as it was—without any deaths or injuries. The snowy white lord’s castle, the city that resembled a frozen mountain.
First, I absolutely need to push that support rate to 60%...
She was still contemplating how to raise the support rate when it suddenly dropped. Right before her eyes, it fell from 23 to 22.
"......Huh?"
Ayra waved a hand through the air, startled, and Jinas tilted his head in confusion.
"Lady Ayra? Is sothing wrong?"
"Wait, just a second. Why is it suddenly..."
Monts later, it dropped again—from 22 to 21. She stared at it, dumbfounded, as it continued to fall. 21, then 20. No! It can’t go below 20%! We need that for the pebble’s level-up quest! But the support rate kept slipping until it finally landed at 19%.
Ayra was screaming internally when soone knocked urgently at the study door. It was Botello’s voice.
"Lady Ayra, you must co quickly. A guard reports there’s a fire in the city!"
"What?"
A fire in the city! The very words were like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. Ayra and Jinas leapt to their feet.
❄
By the ti Ayra arrived, the fire was already nearly under control under Bloom’s command. Luckily, there was a river nearby, and the snow that had fallen the day before kept the blaze from spreading too far. In the end, five houses were lost.
The bigger problem was the cause of the fire. It also explained the sudden 3% drop in support. Ayra let out a deep sigh as she trudged toward the site and pulled up her Territory Window.
Territory: Solar
Lord: Solar Sing Ayra
Area: Approx. 2,300 Zenta
Population: 156,346
Debt: 10,000 Cell (Monthly interest: 50 Cell)
Military Level 1
⚠️ (Warning: Knights and soldiers are overworked.)
Knights: 85Soldiers: 1,352Public Safety Level 1
⚠️ (Alleys where lives are at risk, even during the day!)
Delinquents, prostitutes, and drug dealers operate openly in broad daylightrce Level 2
Trade: Excellent tunnel access! External comrce now easier.Tourism: You no longer have to risk your life to visit Solar.Quarry: Workers are flocking to the quarry. New job creation effect!Support Rate: 21% (Strong support in Dalum Village and the Lord’s Castle)
Special Note: 180 days until destruction.
One-line Summary: Too dangerous even to be a pilgrimage site, let alone a tourist destination.
Additional Function Upgrade Required: Territory Developnt Needed
Her pale-gray eyes scanned the window carefully. Thankfully, the support rate had bounced back to 21% after the fire was contained. Comrce had risen to Level 2, likely thanks to the quarry, and /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ a new "Public Safety" tab had appeared—which, judging from its scathing evaluation, had likely caused the fire in the first place.
Striking while the iron was hot, Ayra had rushed to sell quarry stone as soon as the tunnel opened. She set unusually high wages to attract miners and stonemasons. But the influx of people triggered a cascade of problems.
So officials started charging extra "placent fees" in exchange for work assignnts—illegally, of course. When overburdened workers began mining anyway, thugs swooped in to demand protection money. Then ca pimps, drawn by the scent of money, setting up brothels and peddling drugs around the quarry. Even when citizens reported these issues, the soldiers did nothing.
Eventually, tensions boiled over. One resident, furious with the injustice, set fire to a building. One person ended up in a coma, three suffered severe burns. The arsonist was imprisoned and punished, but that didn’t address the deeper issue.
Ayra also had the corrupt officials imprisoned. Through so gentle interrogation using Physical Magic, she extracted three key facts:
All of them had negative favorability toward Ayra.They’d been accepting bribes from the thugs.They were deeply religious and donated part of their dirty money to the temple every ten days.In other words, the corruption ford a triangle of money, religion, and cri. The fact that the temple-linked officials harbored ill will toward Ayra was troubling. Naturally, it reminded her of the High Priest she’d encountered when she first arrived in Solar.
Aterra te Act... He was handing out food in the slums, wasn’t he.
She’d felt at the ti it wasn’t just simple charity. It was sothing to investigate further—but carefully. Solar was a devoutly Morunka-worshipping territory. Her father had apparently once dared to suppress the temple here. Ayra now wondered:
...Wait. Is that why the officials all have negative favorability? What exactly did Father do?
Lost in thought, Ayra’s steps slowed. Her gaze landed on a small, shabby house. It was a short distance away, but just one glance was enough for her to realize it was empty. The pebble’s notifications were getting more complex as it leveled up, and this ti it showed:
[Info: Currently unoccupied, old and run-down house.]
Ayra looked around.
"He’s not ho today?"
Since returning from Bolni, Janus hadn’t been sleeping rough or staying at the rcenary guild. Despite getting cleaned out at the gambling house, he’d sohow acquired a house and had been lazing around in it.
Ayra was just about to activate her navigation function to locate him when two dogs began barking furiously nearby. She was about to ignore it—just dogs barking—when one of the barks suddenly sounded... off. The pebble floating in front of her lit up with the word "Bow Wow."
Curious, Ayra followed the noise—and froze.
Janus was squatting in the street like so thug, picking a fight with the dogs. When he lazily barked "Woof woof woof~", one of the scrawny dogs went berserk, leaping around and barking wildly. Bystanders gave Janus distinctly is-he-crazy looks.
"......Janus, what the hell are you doing?"
"Oh hey, you're here."
Janus turned to Ayra with a big grin, and the dog snarled threateningly. Ayra half-expected him to growl back—but apparently annoyed, he instead muttered "Oh really now," and tossed one of the mana stones he’d been fiddling with. The little gem smacked the dog’s nose with a sharp thunk, and the dog yelped before fleeing with its tail between its legs.
Ayra muttered in disbelief as she watched.
"Don’t actually fight the dog..."
"Hm? If I were serious, I’d have drawn my sword. I was just playing. I even gave it food, and it attacks ? No gratitude."
She’d thought he was just a perverted weirdo before—but now that she knew what he really was, everything he did felt... not human. Maybe he really did treat everyone, man or beast, with complete sincerity. Maybe dragons were doglike creatures.
Janus pocketed the dropped mana stone and stood, smiling brightly as he greeted her. His handso eyes curved, red irises glittering beautifully. Now that she knew they were dragon eyes, they looked even more stunning. Were all dragon eyes this pretty?
"I was bored. Good timing. You’ve been busy these last few days—got so free ti today?"
"I’m busy, but I made ti to see my lover."
Ayra smiled sweetly and placed a hand on his thick forearm.
She had told Jinas that she had a secret plan to deal with the dragon—but of course, she had nothing. A dragon wasn’t sothing a re 20-year labyrinth mage could handle. According to labyrinth records, parties of seven reckless mages, groups with knights as tanks, and even a trio of century-old mages had all failed to take one down. Every attempt ended in complete annihilation.
So all Ayra could do now was prepare a safe evacuation for her people before Doomsday arrived—and in the anti, raise Janus’s favorability as high as humanly possible.
"I brought lunch. Let’s eat together."
She held up the hot food she’d brought from the lord’s castle. Janus, apparently just as hungry, licked his lips and strolled leisurely toward his house.
Reviews
All reviews (0)