"Everyone! I"m Mike Leliwa of Tarnow, the owner of all… or rather, most of the projects, buildings and manufactories that you guys are all working on. While I can"t call myself a lord of this lands as this honour goes to the respectable sir Jan, the governor of this province, I"m still the highest instance in terms of decision making for this entire place. And first thing first, I wish to congratulate everyone!"

Standing at the huge balcony facing the outside of the town, I glanced down at the huge crowd gathered behind the Town"s walls. Despite this entire place being already ready for use, with the strict social norms of the time forcing my dear subjects to hold the opening of this new pearl city of the commonwealth, I had to abide by those rules as well, and postpone the grand opening and housing auctions for the tomorrow, forcing everyone but the highest managers to listen to my words from behind the walls.

"When I first set my foot in this place, I never imagined that we could turn it into such a thriving community in such a short period of time. Yet as great contribution the first settlers of this place made, I will never dare to deny all the hard work that everyone else put to shape this place to how it looks today!"

With how I was already on the verge of straining my lungs from all the shoutings I had to do in order to make sure that at least a small part of the audience would hear me, I knew that all the most important points had to be brough right at the beginning. What"s more, just like I acted back during the coronation ceremony, I knew that in reality, only selected few would be actually interested in my flowery words if they wouldn"t directly affect their lives!

"That"s why, as soon as the next transport of the gold that I earned by selling the wares produced in our wood factory will arrive…"

As important as hastening my words was, I just couldn"t stop myself from making a short break to let the tension build a bit. Additionally, doing so would have some chance of pulling the attention of the audience back to my words, rather than the incredibly interesting shapes of the clouds above their heads!

"... every single manager will receive five red goldens of bonus, unwarranted pay. Every single supervisor will receive two red goldens of bonus, unwarranted pay, and every single of you, simple workers, will be rewarded with half of the red-golden for your great efforts!"

As if a meteor struck the earth right in front of everyone, the formerly pa.s.sive crowd, as soon as the information managed to thoroughly penetrate its entirety due to everyone whispering the message further and further away to those that failed to hear me, turned mad. 

Cheering, shouting, throwing various parts of clothing into the air… Just by looking at the people below my feet, I couldn"t tell whether they were happy or if there was a zombie currently starting the worst type of apocalypse you could have in the current age.

"But that"s not all!"

After waiting for long enough for the crowd to calm itself a bit, I picked up where I left, moving on to the next topic.

"As soon as the sun will rise tomorrow, the auctions for the housing within the city will be held, allowing anyone lacking the merit papers to buy them. There is a limited number of the tickets that will be added to the auction from my side, so everyone is welcomed to offer their papers for the sale!"

In the end, my speech didn"t last as long as I was worried it would take me to finish it. Just the first message alone was enough to buy me the eternal loyalty of those already loyal people, while the part about the auction was done purely for the sake of not letting this great yet empty city rot away. After all, what was the point of building it, if it would remain uninhabited?

"Sir, we have some additional important news for you. During the absence, those few military officers that you left, managed to create two fully trained armies and two more that have yet to go through the entire disciplining process. If that will be your wish, they could join the rest of your troops and support your military efforts of defending the country."

As soon as I got back to the main hall of this impressive mansion to deal with other matter at hand with the managers waiting there, another set of good news. .h.i.t me, improving my mood a few moments before I would have to finally swallow the pill and have an important discussion with Elia.

"Great. What about the equipment? Do we have enough rifles and ammunition to supply them? How about the reaper mark two guns?"

While increasing my numbers was already great, rather than going with the eastern tactics of throwing quant.i.ty subst.i.tuting the quality, I preferred to keep my forces as perfectly equipped as it was humanly possible. After all, what force would ever dare to press the attack against an army, where for every ten men, a reaper gun was a.s.signed?

"While the production of the personal weapons is going according to the plan, due to several technical problems of crafting the fine parts of the reaper guns, we only managed to finish the initially scheduled number of them. Due to that, if you decide to use those newly formed troops during your campaign, sir, the number of reaper guns in each army will have to be decreased. My deepest apologies, but no matter how long and hard we tried to fix those few problems, they just kept coming back right at us!"

In the end, dealing with all the other affairs took me way longer than I expected, just as if my managers knew how the speech alone was shorter than I imagined and unanimously decided to use that time for their own purposes. By the time I finally get to enter my sleeping chamber with Elia supporting me by the side, the sun was already about to completely hide its face beyond the line of the horizon.

"Elia…"

Moving up and sitting on the edge of the bed, I finally had to face the greatest challenge of them all. Convincing my still slightly tomboyish and energetic wife, to stay back while I would go to the war.

"I know what you want to say. And as much as it pains me…"

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