CHAPTER 1435: CHAPTER 1434: COMING TO TERMS

The question had all of us looking at one another as we tried to ’discuss’ it amongst ourselves, though immediately Anput shook her head and leaned back in her chair to let us know she wanted no part of any of this.

Which honestly made sense since she had made it abundantly clear before that her goal with this was to just have a space to create all kinds of weapons and armors to sell to whomever might want to purchase it; she wasn’t interested in ruling, and I imagine even if she had remained as the Begum she would have just continued as the Sultanate’s blade instead of as its leader.

As for Leone she was more than happy to leave it up to Jahi since the Vampire was undecided on this as well; she liked helping people, and I am certain we were going to be responsible for a town at the very least, but whether we wanted more or less didn’t really matter to her.

That just left Jahi and I, so I stared into those amethyst eyes and just shrugged since I myself didn’t really care either; if we ruled a city or just lived beside a town I was happy either way, and although one would be more work I feel like it would be more rewarding and help create something permanent for us.

A place to call our own and somewhere that we could fortify into a stronghold within the Empire itself, with everything it needed to be self sustaining and all the space we could need; if it was just a town though it wouldn’t be that bad, and it would definitely be far more peaceful on the day to day.

"Do you have a map of Tragon? That is the kingdom that is closest to the mountains, yes? Bordering the Labyrinthian?"

Fishing a map out of his long coat, the red skinned Demon grinned and nodded as he answered "It is in fact bordering the Labyrinthian. The kingdom itself is rather large and flat, which makes it perfect for cultivation of all kinds. There are also the ruins of four cities that we were thinking of rebuilding..."

Laying it down on the table and showing us the land that we would eventually inhabit, Belian tapped each of the four large circles on said map and said "They are in a relative line from here to here. Obviously Nogart is going to be rebuilt and claimed by us, but that does leave the two behind and in front of it."

Each dot was surrounded by a plethora of space, ranging from thick forests to wide open plains, but otherwise there were no markings for extreme hills or any mountains on the land itself, with all of them being located entirely on the southern border.

"These two in particular - the closest two to the former capital city of Nogart - will need to be remade into cities. Building them up into stopgaps between the rest of the world and Nogart is necessary, since we have plans to terraform large swathes of the land here, here and here to bring in more clean water and to add natural defenses to the lands."

Showing a wide oval around the central city, Belian laid out the beginnings of a decent plan for what the future would hold, and immediately I looked towards Jahi and said "If we are to pick from these four, I would definitely prefer these two. Being closer to home would be best, since it’ll be a days journey to the Capital, and another half day to reach the March."

She nodded slowly in agreement, focusing all of us on the cities in front of Nogart that were closer to the old border of the Empire; between the two, I found the land around the closest one to be far more interesting since it was a mixture of everything instead of just plains.

"How do you plan on terraforming everything? And are we able to have you provide some water for this area if we choose it?"

The older Demon smirked at me as he weighed his words, eventually saying "Couldn’t you do it yourself, little Miss Ice Mage~?" and making me narrow my eyes as I contemplated snapping at him.

And yet he did have a bit of a point there since I was someone who had access to water all the time thanks to my magic, which of course begged the question of how I could create my own renewable source of water that could be used for growing crops and the like.

Definitely a fun thought experiment for the near future since it would be so incredibly useful, but I sensed there was far more to it than just casting a spell and then just having a river that was ’never ending’... mainly since Belian was still smirking at me.

"Anyways, I think I’ll just have to ask what sort of responsibilities you want from someone taking this closest city? Obviously it needs to be a point between the ’old’ Empire and its new territory, and obviously this land is meant to be tilled, but what else is it that you want, Belian?"

"Nothing more than that, really. A spot for the merchants to rest as they go from Nogart to the Capital or vice versa, a source of food for the Empire at large, a decently maintained and fortified location to serve as an outpost during any times of war... the usual, you know?"

Jahi looked rather unconvinced at it being that easy, but with no more information or requests coming from the red skinned Demon she really didn’t have much else to negotiate here, so without much fanfare she asked him to draw up a contract that would hand that city over to us in exchange for the tithes he wanted for the Empire and for the Clans.

That would need to be read and reread over and over again to make sure we weren’t being duped, but since Belian was so happy to agree I couldn’t help but imagine that he was just relieved to have one less city he was going to need to develop and fund going forwards.

It would be ours now, and although we definitely didn’t have a surplus of capital to play around with I felt like we could - at the very least - set something up that resembled a town by the time the year was done; building a city would take far longer, but everything needed to start somewhere.