Chapter 43 - Arcian Confederation

Chapter 43 – Arcian Confederation

Author's Note: Satoshi won! Or did he?

I stood before thousands and thousands of men, ready to perform my victory speech. They were all anxiously waiting for another world-class speech to be delivered.

I saluted the crowd and cleared my throat. Then, I spoke as loud as I could, taking a page out of Joseph Stalin's books. The man wasn't good by any stretch of imagination, but his speeches sure were. It isn't plagiarism if the guy never existed.

"The great day of victory over the tortoise has come. The tortoise, which was slashed, impaled and obliterated by myself, Raphtalia, and the rest of our allies in the coalition army, is no more! It shall not trouble anyone any longer!"

The soldiers were clapping at this statement.

"The great sacrifices we have made, the death and despair that have befallen us, the incredible suffering that our people have endured, have not been in vain! Henceforth, the peoples of these lands shall live happily ever after, to pursue their natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!"

"And thus, I congratulate every single one of you, every man and woman standing before me right now, and every citizen and inhabitant of this world! Due to your struggle and relentless perseverance, we have come out on top. Glory to the people of this world, who shall stand alive and free for all of eternity!"

"Umm…" Naofumi interrupted amidst the cheering crowd. "The timer isn't gone."

"Wait, what?"

"Whatever was going on certainly isn't over yet." Mirellia stated. "We must conduct an investigation on this."

As the queen left to go investigate the corpse of the fallen behemoth, nearly all of the generals and other leaders gathered around me and ushered me into a separate tent. I went along with the mob of individuals and took a seat at the head of the table.

"Huh?" I pondered. What was going on?

"Mr. President. We have serious issues to discuss."

"What is it?"

"As you know, many of our lands have been ravaged by the Spirit Tortoise. A large part of our economies are in shambled, livelihoods ruined, and order has collapsed. Many royal families have been completely eliminated, and the ones who have survived exercise virtually no control over their lands."

"What are you hinting at here?"

"Arcium currently has the fastest growing economy in the world, and we have recently heard that it has formed a confederation with Montereira. We wish to join this confederation, for the betterment of our nations and the ensured survival of our rights and autonomy. At this rate, it will take decades for us to recover, which during the meantime our countries could get overran or annexed by neighboring powers. This is simply thinking for the future. If we do not join the Confederation, we will be forcefully incorporated into neighboring nations, be it Melromarc or somewhere else, and we would much rather be part of the Confederation where we are granted rights beyond compare. Please, accept our applications."

"What about you kings and queens over there?" I asked suspiciously. "Your countries haven't been ravaged by the tortoise, so why do you want to join?"

"Although we have ruled our respective countries for generations, it seems that we cannot hold on to power for much longer. World tension is rising, the stability of our nations is decreasing, and a worldwide catastrophe is looming. As you may know, countries from across the world are eyeing up our territories. Just a short while ago, the Kingdom of Siltvelt attempted to conquer our lands. We would rather our nations retain some autonomy and ourselves being able to retain our crownlands than to be forcefully annexed by our neighbors."

I thought of this for a while. What they were saying was true. The tortoise was relatively close to the Confederation's current eastern border, leaving shivers down my spine upon the realization of what it could have done to my country. Much of these new lands, although ravaged, could be revitalized rather soon using Arcium's modern and innovative technologies, where then they would prove extremely useful. The ones who weren't ravaged would prove even more useful in the short term. I did understand where they were coming from, since anyone would rather be part of a Confederation where the individual rights of nations were guaranteed then to be ruled over by some foreign power, where their nation's rights and their hold over their own territories wouldn't be respected.

These leaders weren't dumb or anything. They knew what was best for their countries. They could see the benefits of uniting as well as I could. In this new Confederation, Arcium and Montereira probably wouldn't be able to influence it as much as they would hold only a small minority of seats in Parliament, but since these new lands would probably overwhelmingly vote for my Liberal Party that wouldn't be an issue at all.

"I shall accept for now. I will immediately send a formal request to the Federal Parliament via pigeon, which they will probably overwhelmingly accept."

The leaders erupted in cheers.

"We swear allegiance to you, Mr. President. Thank you so much for accepting!"

"Please spread word of this to your corresponding countries as soon as possible." I requested.

The leaders who just joined the Confederation started gathering up their armies and marching home. The soldiers from the extremely few countries that did not join the Confederation stayed in place.

I also followed the armies that were marching home. There was a lot of chaos unfolding in those lands, and now since they were part of the Confederation it was my duty as their president to get the problem sorted with.

The destruction was very bad. The only bright side of this was that the spirit tortoise traveled in a relatively straight line from big city to big city, meaning that the settlements untouched by the tortoise were still fine. This led to a chunk of devastated land and the majority of the land which was intact.

I tasked the part of the coalition army whose countries joined the Confederation, which I renamed to the New Army, to deal with the Spirit Tortoise familiars still lingering around. I sent an order to the Arcian Army to cross the eastern wall, which was completely pointless since all it did now was separate one part of the confederation from the other and deliver aid to the ravaged lands. Arcium had a massive surplus of food which it could distribute, so that shouldn't cause too many issues.

One useful thing about all these countries uniting into a Confederation is that since internal borders were dissolved, it was way easier to transport resources to and from ravaged regions. This would certainly speed up the recovery process.

Speaking of recovery process, I came up with a plan to feed the new lands of the Confederation. The Confederation would use the carcass of the Spirit Tortoise, a beast the size of a whole mountain range, to feed the people in the affected regions. BioPlant produce and other food from Arcium and Montereira would be expedited shipped over to these new lands, and refrigeration and other preservation methods would be used to keep these consumables edible for a long time.

One issue I had was the task to establish elections all across the new lands. That would be an extremely hard task, and I would have to open up a bunch of new seats in Parliament for the new countries to send their representatives.

I then proceeded to travel across the new lands of the Confederation, which together were multiple times bigger than the original Confederation of Arcium and Montereira, where I helped defeat the monsters along with the New Army. Every time we left a place, Arcian soldiers were there to deliver aid to them, which they desperately needed. It was a plan of mine to increase attachment to the federal government of the Confederation from the citizens of the new lands, and it was working fantastically.

According to reports, Naofumi was also doing some work in the new Confederation lands, though he was less popular than I was. He was doing work, sure, but he was also frisking travelers, so he wasn't very well received. That wasn't the worst thing ever, since I can't have Naofumi have too much influence in my country.

Some towns nearest to the former Confederation eastern border were just beginning to be rebuilt, and many of the inhabitants from those places which had been evacuated to Arcium and Montereira began to return to their homes. Eventually, my plan was to rebuild all the destroyed lands that had joined the Confederation in a year or so, which was a bit of a stretch.

Also, many of the new countries that joined the Confederation were located on the same sea as Southern Melromarc, which would prove useful for trading and economic ventures. Now, the Confederation was the only country that bordered the north of Melromarc, stretching from sea to sea. This would prove a big problem for slavers trying to get to Melromarc.

Addressing slavery, it was more common in the new territories then in Arcium and Montereira, but still not as common as Melromarc or Siltvelt. I immediately abolished it in all lands, but it would be hard to hunt down the slave owners and force them to liberate their slaves. Fully eradicating slavery in the new territories would be a long and drawn-out progress but incorporating the slaves into society wouldn't be as hard.

Due to the fact that the Confederation had a bunch of new members and was now much larger, I sent out a request to design a form paper currency, flag, national anthem, and other essentials of a modern state. Hopefully good submissions would come around in a month or so.

To commemorate the victory over the Spirit Tortoise, I had designated the area around the battlefield the Confederation Spirit Tortoise National Monument. Everybody in the Confederation were super proud of their victory over it.

It was very annoying to have to take out all of the lingering Spirit Tortoise familiars, since police couldn't really deal with them and it required the attention of the 5,000-man strong Arcian Army and the few dozen thousand-man strong New Army, which couldn't possibly deal with so many monsters over such a large area while tending to civilian needs.

It had been around a week or so since we defeated the tortoise. I returned to its carcass to check up on it. There was a sizeable amount of people cutting out chunks of it, salting and refrigerating the flesh and loading it onto filolial wagons, which would transport the meat around the Confederation for consumption.

A woman in a hood was talking to Naofumi and his party. Upon closer examination, she had brown hair, Chinese-looking eyes, and a vivacious appearance.

"Ah. The Bow Hero is here. We are discussing important matters. Shall we bring this conversation elsewhere?"

"I know a perfect place. Please, follow me."

I opened up a portal leading to Messeblick. Naofumi also opened up a similar portal, and we all were whisked away to the city. After regrouping at city square, I led everyone to my favorite restaurant, named Satoshi's BBQ and Grill. The manager heartily welcomed me and gave everyone a 5% discount.

"Naofumi. Wanna drink some Serade?"

"What's Serade?"

I handed him a bottle, which the waitress had placed on the table.

"Wait… Isn't this the medicine I made, but changed up to taste like a fusion of Coca-Cola and Fanta?"

"Well… You did sell it to me… and there's no copyright."

"You sly bastard!"

"Enough of that for now. What is your name, woman in a cloak?"

She took off her cloak and revealed her true self.

"I am Ost Horai. Nice to meet you."

Chapter 44 out soon!