CHAPTER 1027: CHAPTER 157 - THE CENTAUR KINGDOM (3)

Why did I want to unify all the kingdoms in the Great Forest?

It’s a question that sounds lofty if you say it loud—grand, even noble—but the truth was simpler and a hell of a lot more practical. I wanted it for myself. That was the core reason beneath all the speeches and strategic posturing. If I could win their cooperation and stitch together the scattered forces of the Great Forest, then taking the whole thing wouldn’t be some impossible campaign—it would be tidy, efficient, and, frankly, easy.

Think about it this way. Fighting to conquer a single kingdom at a time meant bleeding effort for marginal gain. You put in a mountain of work for a sliver of land. But get everyone pulling under the same banner and you transform the problem completely. Alliances, networks, pooled manpower—those things change the scale of what’s possible. Yes, building those connections would be a grind, and yes, the diplomacy alone would chew time, but once the web was woven correctly, the rest would follow with far less sweat than you’d expect. Saying that out loud, though, felt stupid and dangerous in the moment—so I kept that part in my head and spoke the only thing that actually fit the room.

"Empire seems to be gaining a lot of momentum these past few years," I said, voice steady but clear, letting the weight of the observation hang between us. "It won’t be long before they push farther. The Emperor is hellbent on taking the world by sheer domination. They’ve swallowed smaller realms already—kingdoms and duchies that didn’t stand a chance—and now their appetite is growing. Soon enough, the Milham Kingdom, the Bethlan Kingdom, and others are going to fall in relatively short order. Terrain and cost slow them down, so they’re taking incremental steps. They are slowly trying to secure the nearby lands, consolidate, then push outward. Because of the terrain and the cost of invading those lands, they’re holding back for now. For now, at the very least. Instead, they’ll start expanding from somewhere smaller and more manageable."

"And that means they’ll come for the kingdoms and tribes inside the Great Forest," Reilhahand said, low and sharp, like the edge of a blade.

"Exactly," I nodded. "The Great Forest is a resource trove. It isn’t just about ore or timber. There are minerals here for weapon-smithing, but the more dangerous thing isn’t metal—it’s manpower." I let the words sit there. "Human resources. Bodies. Labor. Soldiers."

They’d suspected as much already. I mean, the forest’s reputation for being a prime source of captives and slaves wasn’t a secret. It’s brimming with communities—scattered, varied, sometimes isolated—ripe for exploitation if an outside force had the will and the means.

"Do you really think the Empire could just march in and do that on our doorstep?" Reilhahand asked, incredulous. "Would they have the guts to try? Burn the forest down? Even so, it’s impossible to raze the whole thing at once—before they could, we’d have time to respond."

"I’m not guessing," I said, flat. "I know. It’s a given."

"A given?" he echoed, brow furrowed.

"Yes." I watched their faces carefully as I spoke. "The Empire will do whatever it takes. They won’t balk at razing forests, destroying cities, trampling nature—if it gets them what they want. They treat the world like a chessboard to be cleared."

Reilhahand’s expression shifted—skepticism cracking into the first hints of fear.

"You’re saying they’d harm mother nature itself?" he pressed. "And with what? Torches? Humans? Even then, burning the entire forest is a colossal task. We’d stop them long before that."

"That’s true—if humans were doing it," I said, letting the sentence land like a stone. Then I leaned in a fraction and added in a steadier voice: "But they won’t have to."

Their eyes widened as the implication sank in. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, holding the small glowing rectangle up so the light caught on Reilhahand’s wary face.

"This is a phone," I said. "One of my people made it."

The device itself was mundane where I came from, but here it read like magic. I could see the wonder bloom on their features—curiosity fighting with distrust.

"With this, I can capture a moment and hold it forever with a single tap. I can record sound, show images, keep memories. All of that—compressed into this little thing. If humans can make something that small hold so much wonder and convenience, then imagine the other things they’ve made—things not meant for our world."

"What kind of things?" someone murmured.

"Like AI," I said. The word landed in the room and curled the atmosphere colder.

"AI?" the king repeated, uncertain.

"Artificial Intelligence," I clarified. "Machines built to think and act on command. People create them to shoulder work, to automate the heavy lifting. They can do the jobs humans would rather not do—precisely, tirelessly, and without complaint. The dangerous part isn’t that they’re clever; it’s that they lack soul. They don’t hesitate. They don’t err on conscience. They obey orders without question."

I watched the color leave faces as the image formed. Thinking about machines marching, metal beasts turning forests to ash on a schedule, no human hesitation to slow them down.

"If the Empire deploys machines like that—metallic, efficient, relentless—they won’t need to send men to burn the forest," I said softly. "They’ll command those things, and in a day or two, the Great Forest could be reduced to ash and smoke."

Reilhahand’s composure cracked a little and even the prince’s face flickered with something close to terror. My words were doing their job—shifting the threat from abstract rumor to a very real, very close possibility.

That’s when you see minds start to race—the practical questions crowding in behind fear. For all the flak the Empire had weathered, their reach and methods were growing in terrifying ways. Making them the monster in the story might make people fight harder to stop it—exactly the kind of urgency I wanted to plant.