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CHAPTER 218: THE REFORMING OF THE NATION

CHAPTER 218: THE REFORMING OF THE NATION

~ Aun’s Point of View ~

Six months have passed since the end of the coup in the royal capital.

With the death of Fernando, the mastermind behind those events, Ruzarc seemed to have been relieved of something that has been weighing down on him for a while and continued to work single-mindedly for the sake of the Kingdom of Alto every single day.

The capital of Alto, Alline, has experienced two wars and a civil war in a short period of time, including the invasion of the Ibuldia Empire, and not only the buildings but also the political foundations of the nation have all but collapsed. It has also worn down the spirit of the residents themselves.

To make matters even worse, the King has passed away. The King, who had been seriously ill for a while now, managed to recover for a short period of time right after the coup has ended, but his condition worsened again a month later and he passed away shortly after that. This left only Ruzarc and his younger brother, the Third Prince Philip, as the only royal family members left alive, but Ruzarc, who was already known to the people as the next King, naturally ascended to the throne of the Kingdom of Alto.

As for the fourteen-year-old Philip, he had no attachment to the throne whatsoever, and instead seemed to want to focus on supporting Ruzarc with all of his might, so given the current situation where Ruzarc’s faction held the real power, it did not seem like it would become a source of conflict anytime soon.

Although he was still at an age where he was still developing physically and mentally, I was not the only one who wanted him to build a good relationship with Ruzarc. I think that this was the general consensus of the people all across the country as well.

Well, the day has finally come when I could call Ruzarc “Your Majesty”, but seeing how busy he was nowadays, I was not sure if I should even be happy about it at all.

Contrary to my worries, Ruzarc has been instituting various reforms one after another since ascending to the throne.

The death of the old King at a time when the situation was still so unstable would have made the whole country even more unstable than it already was. However, Ruzarc seems to have taken the timing as an opportunity and decided to make fundamental changes to the political foundation and the country’s policies in general.

Taking advantage of the system that was already in ruins, he proposed a major reform of the country over a period of several years soon after assuming the throne. Political institutions were also temporarily transferred from the royal capital of Arrain to Plaine Verte, which was currently under development. This was done to ensure a smooth system of reforms, as the nobles who originally belonged to Ruzarc’s faction were concentrated around Leclear. Incidentally, Barbar was also indirectly incorporated into this political system.

Not only that, but as human resource development to improve the country’s strength became a major issue, a new royal school was built in Plaine Verte as a training institution for soldiers, civil servants, researchers, and so on and so forth, with the aim of opening it as soon as possible.

This represented a change from the previous trend of politics and the military being centered around the nobles to a trend of selecting talented people from all over the population, even if they were simple commoners, and Ruzarc carefully explained this drastic reform of the country and its future policies to all citizens. As a result, the previously opaque policies of politics and national management were greatly clarified, greatly reducing the anxiety of the people.

This may have been influenced partially by Fernando’s actions , but I felt that the different approach from Fernando of doing things was truly Ruzarc-like.

As for us, we expanded the dungeon’s effective range in Plainne Welt to match this development, and used dungeon points to support the construction without being noticed. That said, the construction speed in the development district was so fast that no one seemed to mind even though new buildings were popping up one after another seemingly overnight. We did take a lot of care when building large facilities like schools, though……

As for dungeon points, the influx of residents from Alline has increased since the coup, and the expansion of the dungeon’s range has resulted in a big surplus in our income.

A lot has happened in the last six months, but we ourselves have also been preparing for the future. This was because we had finally decided to head off to conquer the Wislo Dungeon, which we have been planning for a long time now.

The Wislo Dungeon was a dungeon that had yet to be explored, a large labyrinth with over fifty floors in total. I heard that SS Rank monsters have been spotted on the deeper floors as well. With that being said, it was clear that it would take a long time, even for us, to conquer it. Moreover, since it was located in the eastern part of Ibuldia, once we would return to Planne Welt there would be no easy way to get to Wislo.

If something really bad were to happen during our absence, we could just use the Return Teleportation to make an emergency escape, but if we were to consider conquering the place, we could no longer return as easily as before.

This also meant that Planne Welt would be empty for a while, but the people in charge of each floor had come a long way in completing the placement of monsters in the Phantom Castle over the past six months, and Ars would be responsible for adjusting the placements as would be required. Furthermore, the dungeon management of Planne Welt would be handled by Illus-Ursu’s core group and Barbar, who would make modifications and add floors as necessary.

「Aun, everyone is ready to go.」

「Yeah! Well then, it’s time to leave!」

「Umm…… Aun-sama, can we really go to Wislo by airship?」

As a reward for helping out to snuff out the civil war, “Seiha” received an airship from Ruzarc. The dwarves belonging to Seiha have been able to perfectly master the maintenance and repairs of it in the last six months, and it has been refilled with fresh Magical Power. Seiha could now operate an airship that could carry one hundred fifty people on its own, so it could be said that the convenience of travel has improved tremendously for us.

Cinque was somewhat concerned about the flight and landing permissions on the Ibuldia side, but Ruzarc had already asked Luna to sort that out and obtained the necessary permissions.

「Yeah. It looks like Luna’s done the adjustments on Ibuldia’s side, so it looks like everything’s fine.」

「Princess Luna…… No, I guess that she’s the Empress now. She’s really managed to make a recovery from being ruled by the Demons for several years and having her country laid in ruin.」

「That’s right! I heard she restored her political base in less than a year!」

「She was even proactive enough to have tried to defect to the Alto Kingdom with just three people. After the Demonic attack, they decided to share airship technology with other countries and send mechanics to them, and they have rebuilt good relationships with other countries, according to Ruzarc. That was the former Emperor’s greatest wish, and I heard that some of the preparations had been made in advance, but it must have been very difficult to make it a reality.」

「Fumu. The power of the younger generation is truly amazing.」

「Hmm. It seems like it’s pretty rare for the leaders of two countries to change in such a short amount of time, but I think Ruzarc and Luna could build a proper cooperative relationship.」

「That’s right! Okay, it looks like the airship is ready to go, so let’s get on board! I’m looking forward to seeing what the Great Labyrinth City of Wislo is like!」