Compromise

Elizabeth had no choice. John is a vampire much older than her.

She knew that for vampires, the older they get, the more powerful they become.

In any case, John is probably bound by Alex's orders and cannot harm her, but she still must treat him with caution. Vampires are immortal beings; Elizabeth must think not only about what happens now but also about many years into the future.

So, she cleared her schedule for 150 days and sat there, watching as John dug his eyes 1,000,000 times.

It was a boring experience.

In the middle, she took a few breaks to drink animal blood.

John was astonished to find Elizabeth taking animal blood. Still, he had bigger problems and didn't say anything about it.

Finally, after 128 days, John dug his eyes 1,000,000 times and left.

Next, he must find another vampire and do this again.

…

Elizabeth sat back on her chair happily.

Watching John for 100 days was a grueling experience, so she decided to rest for a few days before beginning her plans.

Her level of hardship tolerance has increased a lot as a result of tolerating drinking animal blood.

Her plan was first to meet the nobles and then start gaining more power from them by leveraging her status as a 'supernatural being'.

One thing is clear: changing anything would be nearly impossible as long as nobles held power.

Normally, centralized control is bad but can also be good in the short term.

There are always exceptions.

Nobles have been trying to meet her for a few months, but she refused to see them after saying she had a supernatural guest.

Their spies in the palace have told them about John, so the nobles believed it.

Finally, after John left, she scheduled a meeting at the royal court at night.

…

Marquis Swordland has been appointed the new leader of the nobles' faction.

A leadership election would be held every three years; he won the latest election.

Besides the king, the position of leader of the nobles' faction is the most powerful; It represents the interests of all nobles.

Tonight, he, along with a few other great nobles, had a meeting with the king.

No minister was invited.

Ministers are powerful, but in the end, they are subordinates of the king; they must obey her orders, so negotiating with them is meaningless.

On the other hand, nobles are not obligated to obey every order. They have rights; the king cannot order them as she wishes.

As a result, kings must negotiate with nobles in many cases.

This time, his priority is finding out the truth about the rumor. This is the key to the future balance of power.

If true, keeping the current balance of power would be extremely challenging. How can one be allies with another who is infinitely stronger?

Marquis Swordland has contradictory feelings.

On one hand, he wishes it to be true, so they at least have one ally among the supernatural creatures, and may even find out some secrets about them.

On the other hand, if it is true, he must make concessions regarding the king's wishes, which he doesn't want to do.

…

Elizabeth entered and looked at the 16 people present, all marquises.

At this level, only marquises are qualified.

As for dukes, she can appoint and remove them, so there is no point in negotiation.

She has one restriction regarding who she can appoint as dukes; one is that they must be members of the Johnson family. Other than that, she can appoint anyone and remove them anytime.

Looking at the new leader of the nobles' faction, Marquis Swordland, she smiled.

Marquis Swordland has a big territory in the Far East and is the best she could have hoped for. He treats his subjects fairly and is not a hardliner.

He would most likely agree to her demands.

"Marquis Swordland! How have you been?" She acted as if he was an old friend. In truth, it was the 6th or 7th time she even met him, and the first time she talked to him.

Marquis also smiled warmly and bowed, "Your Majesty! We have been worried! Are you fine?" he asked in concern.

High-level relationships are all pretense. Maybe, in their hearts, they wish the other side to drop dead, but on their face, they must act as if they are concerned.

In truth, among nobles, most are self-interested and only care about their families.

The human world is complicated.

There is a lot of redundancy. It would have been excellent if everyone were honest about their true feelings, but unfortunately, that is only a dream. As long as humans exist in their current form, pretense and lies continue.

Elizabeth nodded and said, "I encountered great luck and learned supernatural secrets from another powerful being! He has accepted me as his disciple and has kindly allowed me to remain in my position as king. He will visit once in a while." She lied.

For now, the stronger the nobles feel she is, the better.

All pretense and lies only work about people of the same strength; if one party is clearly stronger, she no longer needs to be polite.

For example, two countries that fear each other and aren't sure they can defeat the other must be polite, but if one side is clearly more powerful, they can just send troops or use sheer economic force to crush the other.

In the end, power is everything.

Elizabeth knows this truth; it is not as if she is stupid enough to feel otherwise.

But, even knowing that she still wouldn't allow herself to kill other people, even though doing it would be extremely easy. She is good despite knowing the truth.

Some are acting good because they don't know the truth, but she does know the truth and is still good.

Marquis Swordland also knows the truth. These nobles have been educated on all these from a young age, so they know the truth regarding how the world works.

"I wonder if I am worthy enough to meet that great master one day?" Marquis asked, in awe.

He was not truly in awe, just acted as if he was.

"Of course, the next time, I'll definitely let you two meet!" Elizabeth said. Even though she doesn't feel Alex will show up anytime soon, in the short term, she must act as if he may show up at any time.

"Let's sit!" Elizabeth said.

Marquis nodded.

After sitting, Elizabeth said, "Marquis, regarding the matter about feeding children in the south…" she waited, wanting him to finish the sentence.

Marquis said, "Of course, I would personally send monitors and ensure the food will be distributed fairly! You have my word." It was a compromise.

He didn't agree on sending Royal observers but did agree on some outside monitoring.

If it were before, Elizabeth would have been happy. After all, before, they wanted to let the same southern nobles who starved those children distribute the food, which would have been a disaster.

Those people would have stolen all of it and stockpiled it in their palaces; maybe at most throwing a few pieces of meat to those poor children to make a show of compliance.

But, now, she wasn't satisfied only with this.

"That would be placing too much burden on you! I will send my own monitors!" Elizabeth said.

"No, Your Majesty! It is my duty to make sure your orders are followed in an orderly manner! I will send the observers," he said.

Both sides knew it was all a show, but both sides played along.

Sighing, Elizabeth said, "Let's share the burden then! I'll send 200 monitors, and you send another 200!"

Marquis Swordland looked with a pained face.

It wasn't about the numbers; it was about the principle.

Until now, no king has tried to send royal observers to supervise a noble's land. It doesn't matter if it is one of 10,000; as long as the principle is broken, it would set a precedent.

Therefore, Elizabeth's proposition was unacceptable.

Deciding to compromise, Marquis suggested, "We can send your honor's royal observers in my name; I also pay their salary, so that your honor could rest assured."

Elizabeth nodded; this was another compromise from the Marquis.

Marquis agreed to send her observers but sending them in the name of royal observers was too much; therefore, he wanted to send them in his own name.

Elizabeth was left with no excuse to refuse. Well, she could always make up more excuses, but she didn't.

This much was already enough.

Too much disruption at once is not good; she plans to go about this slowly.

It won't be the last time she sends royal observers in the name of Marquis Swordland. He already accepted once and will accept again in the future.

Precedent is extremely important.

If it happens once, it will happen again. Everything is hard the first time.

After today, Elizabeth would use Marquis Swordland's name to send royal observers nationwide. Marquis may not have realized it, but his 'concession' was even better than Elizabeth sending them directly.

Because the royal observers would supervise in the name of the chief of the nobles' faction, the local nobles would be much more wary to try to intervene.

Elizabeth was satisfied with this arrangement; it didn't matter whether they supervised in the Marquis's or her name; the fact is they would be her people and would do what she said.

"That is great! Thank you for your concern! My chief Eunuch guard would bring you the list a few days later," she said.

She would choose from among people loyal to her, regardless of whether they were commoners or nobles. Sending commoners to supervise nobles may upset many, but she won't care.

Nobody can say anything as long as she and the chief of the nobles' faction are on the same page.

Marquis Swordland felt bad in the bottom of his heart, as if his 'compromise' had gone wrong.

But, he suggested it, so he couldn't back out now.

"Of course, Your Majesty! I will get it done!"

Elizabeth nodded warmly and called in the servants, "Bring the food and the prostitutes!"

She wasn't against using prostitutes; as long as they were well-paid, she was okay with it.

But, per her gender-neutral policies, two sets of groups of prostitutes came in.

One was men, the other women.

The nobles in the room looked stone-faced when they saw this. In this era, a man being with another man was completely unacceptable.

Elizabeth is bringing male prostitutes … does it mean she considers them gay?

In any case, they all chose female prostitutes, and with Elizabeth not taking any, male prostitutes just stood there the whole time, with nobody looking at them.

The prostitutes weren't here for sex; they just accompanied the nobles for a good dinner.

The food was great, and there was lots of good-quality wine. Nobles were used to it; it was just another night for them.

The ones who really enjoyed were the group of female prostitutes, who ate more than half of the food.

The poor male prostitutes could just watch as their female counterparts were enjoying good food and wine.