Wiedergeburt

by Brandon Varnell

“Yes, Lin. Are you sure you have no one else?”

  Something about the way she asked that made me frown. “I’m sure.”

  “Hmm…”

  I had the strangest feeling she knew something I didn’t, and while part of me wanted to know, I was sure that was her goal in all this. She probably wanted me to ask why she’d ask me such a question. If that was her game, then I’d do my best to disappoint her.

  The carriage eventually rolled to a stop. As the door on the left swung open, Hellen stepped outside first, and I followed her.

  I glanced at the Imperial Royal Palace. Despite being a little small compared to buildings in Midgard, the home of the Astralia Royal Family certainly lived up to its name. Five stories tall, spanning a few thousand meters, and featuring an impressive array of flying buttresses and columns, it was easily the largest and most ostentatious villa in Nevaria. To top it off, the whole structure was located on top of a mountain in the center of the city.

  There was no line of butlers when Hellen led me inside. We walked past the entrance hall, up the stairs, and through several flights of hallways and doors. Our destination was, of all things, a balcony. The posh exterior featured a floor that shone like crystal. An elegant balustrade standing at about waist height kept people from walking over the edge. This balcony was located at the edge of the mountain, so the drop was at least several hundred meters.

  The view overlooking Nevaria was breathtaking.

  A table made of crystal sat in the center, and seated in one of two chairs was a blonde woman whose elegant bearing and presence made her look like an older but slightly less busty Kari. This woman, dressed in a gown that revealed her pale legs and small feet decked in soft slippers, was none other than Kari’s mother: Hilda Astralia, the Empress of Nevaria.

  Valence stood behind her, silent, vigilant, a monolith of a man that appeared to have been carved from stone.

  Hellen bowed before the empress. “Your Majesty Hilda, I have brought Eryk Veiger as requested.”

  “Thank you, Hellen.” Empress Hilda’s cherry-colored lips blossomed into a smile. “Sorry for troubling you with such a demeaning task. I’d normally get the Imperial Royal Guard to do it, but…”

  “There is no need to apologize.” Hellen bowed lower. “I was happy to help.”

  Offering one last smile, Empress Hilda waved the woman off, causing Hellen to move beside the entrance and stand guard. There were two other people there as well. They were dressed in the armor of the Imperial Royal Guard instead of the Nevarian Spiritualists, making Hellen stand out.

  The woman who’d birthed Kari turned to me.

  “We meet again. I trust you have been well?” she asked.

  I nodded respectfully. “Yes, busy but good.”

  An expected beginning with an expected reply. As Empress Hilda gestured for me to take a seat, I realized we’d have to get the pleasantries out of the way first. That was one thing I didn’t like dealing with. Even when I was a Sect Leader in the Northern Plains, I never did pleasantries, but I was fortunate enough that Midgard, unlike Nevaria, didn’t have any form of royalty.

  I sat in the chair opposite of Empress Hilda and we spoke about inane matters. None of it was very important, but these were the unimportant pleasantries I had personally been dreading. Perhaps it was because I never grew up with this sort of pomp in my previous life, but it was very tiring. A young woman in a servant outfit brought us tea and snacks during our conversation.

  Smiling as if she knew how I was feeling, Empress Hilda finally got to the heart of the matter she called me for today. “Dante came to me the other day with several schematics for a number of interesting inventions.”

  “I assumed he would, though I’m surprised you decided to contact me so quickly,” I said.

  “Just consider this my way of letting you know how highly I think of your ideas.” Empress Hilda grabbed a pastry and nibbled on it. The action was very ladylike, very unlike her daughter, who could stuff a whole pastry in her mouth without flinching. “Those inventions you have could easily fix some of the problems I’ve had in coming up with suitable defensive formations in the event that Nevaria is ever invaded…”

  When Empress Hilda trailed off, I narrowed my eyes as I realized the problem. “But each of these are costly endeavors and you need to find a method of acquiring and allocating funds toward such an expenditure. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” Gracing me with an appraising look like I had passed a test, Empress Hilda picked up her cup of tea and quietly sipped it. She set the cup back down and traced the rim with a finger covered in white fabric. “We haven’t brought this to a craftsman yet, but I did have Rainer appraise your inventions and estimate how much it would cost. While we can easily afford to produce several smaller ballista, the larger ones will cost enough that we’ll only have the valis to make three or four every four months without running over our budget. Of course, the watchtowers are currently outside of our budget, which makes creating ballista rather pointless.”

  I knew absolutely nothing about matters like national budgets and the allocation of funds. Kari had dealt with that after we founded Brave Vesparia. I only knew a bit thanks to Kari’s lectures and tutoring, but most of my focus had been on training our members. Both of us had our strengths. Mine simply didn’t involve matters of money.

  The fact that she was telling me this meant Empress Hilda was likely testing me, trying to see whether or not I could create a suitable answer to solve the issue. I was pretty sure she already had one herself. In all likelihood, my answer would determine whether or not she believed she could trust me with more important matters later on.

  I couldn’t afford to get this wrong.

  “I’m sure cutting the funding from your other expenses like education is out of the question,” I replied, taking a sip of my tea. I paused. This was very good tea. I didn’t know what kind it was, but the mild flavor did an admirable job of making me relax.

  “You are correct,” Empress Hilda allowed.

  “In which case, an expense like this would need to be one funded by private citizens as opposed to government taxes.” Dredging up old conversations with Kari on matters of budgeting and the like, I tried my best to answer her. “The other way to fund this would be to come up with our own means of income, such as what I’m doing with the partnership between me and the Alchemist Association.”

  “Now there is an idea I hadn’t considered.” Empress Hilda leaned back with a somewhat amazed expression. “Creating another means of income that doesn’t rely on taxes. Of course, I have thought of such things before, but I kept myself from acting on them because I was worried the Three Heavenly Families would feel like the Astralia Royal Family was intruding on their businesses. While I am the one who sets down all laws and policies within Nevaria, that doesn’t mean I can just step on the toes of families who are powerful enough to disrupt the peace.”

  “I understand your concern, but I do not think this would be a problem if you opened a new market that none of the noble families have touched yet,” I said.

  Pausing with a pastry halfway to her mouth, Empress Hilda glanced at me, the pastry, and then back in my direction. Another second passed. I could see the debate happening in her eyes. It was the one aspect of her that seemed so similar to Kari it was like looking in a mirror.

  A less busty mirror, but still a mirror.

  She eventually set the pastry back on her plate, clasped her long, elegant fingers together, and placed them on the table.

  “Please explain,” she demanded.

  Whetting my lips just a little, I proposed the idea I had gotten from living in Midgard. “What if you created a group whose job was taking on requests?”

  “Requests?” Empress Hilda’s brows furrowed the same way Kari’s did when she was confused. They really were mother and daughter.

  I nodded. “For example, let’s say we create a sect whose job is to accept the requests of others in exchange for payment. Jobs can be anything
from security detail, bodyguard duty, hunting for ingredients in the Demon Beast Mountain Range, or even traveling deep into unexplored ruins as a protection detail for survey teams. Payment will be offered upfront with the guarantee that if we cannot complete a mission, we’ll give the requester their money back.”

  “I see.”

  Empress Hilda raised a hand to her mouth and extended a delicate index finger, gently tapping her lips in thought. The action brought attention to her lush lips. All that did was make me want to tell her that Kari’s were more kissable… except that probably wasn’t the best thing to say to the mother of my future wife.

  “So we create something resembling a mercenary company,” she continued after a several second pause. Her eyes flashed with intelligence. “However, this mercenary company would have the backing of myself, and therefore it would be more legitimate. This ‘sect’ would offer competitive rates for missions that further drive people to choose us over the mercenaries. This will be an extra source of income we can use to fund those ballistae and watchtowers of yours. At the same time, this will have the effect of putting those mercenary companies that disrupt the peace out of business.”

  I didn’t want to say all mercenaries were scum. Given how little I knew about the mercenary business in Nevaria, I really had no right to say that—and while sects in Midgard were legitimate, it wasn’t like they weren’t just glorified mercenary companies. What I proposed was the same concept—legitimizing mercenary companies rather than ostracizing them.

  This would be different than the Nevarian Spiritualists, who were peacekeepers that protected the people, or the Imperial Royal Guard, whose job was the defend the crown and quell violence when the situation grew out of hand. They were paid on tax dollars. What I was proposing was different. However, it shouldn’t conflict with the duties of the two aforementioned groups—not any more than the mercenary companies already did, at any rate.

  The tea was beginning to get cold, so I made sure to drink the rest… but then the maid just poured me some more. I had almost forgotten about her. However, it seemed she’d been standing unobtrusively next to the quiet Hellen, whose eyes were gleaming with a curious light as I spoke with Empress Hilda.

  “Say I decided to create a… sect,” Empress Hilda began slowly, “would you be willing to run it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “That was an awfully quick response.”

  I grabbed a pastry and took a small bite. Like the tea, it was good. The sweet flavor of the fruit juice complimented the butteriness of the bread.

  “At this point in time, I am working on becoming stronger alongside Kari and Fay,” I said. “My goal is to reach a level of strength where I can become a pillar of support for Nevaria. I haven’t reached that level yet, and since I haven’t, I can’t afford to take control of a sect. That will only hinder me and slow down my training.”

  “Ho…” Tapping a single finger against the crystal table in a steady rhythm, Empress Hilda seemed amused by my reasoning. “And what level do you plan on reaching? How strong do you feel you need to become?”

  I gave her a smile that I was sure looked quite feral. “When I can defeat an A-Rank Demon Beast on my own, I’ll be at least halfway toward my goal.”

  Chapter 7

  Alchemical Interactions

  “Sis. Come on. Get up, Sis.”

  Feinrea groaned at the annoying voice of her younger brother. She wanted to ignore him, but she knew he would not leave until she was up, so she groggily opened her eyes, sat up in bed, and attempted to rub the sleep from her vision. Her robes had slipped off somewhat, revealing some of her chest. This did not bother her brother. He rolled his eyes at her.

  “Cover yourself up, Sis. Gosh. Why are you such a slob?”

  “Mmm… just because your sister is a little messy doesn’t mean you can call her a slob,” Feinrea murmured as she fixed up her outfit.

  “Say that when you can make yourself presentable without my help,” her brother shot back.

  She eased her legs over the side of her small bed. It was more of a divan covered in beige leather. This divan was located in a side room connected to her office. The room did not contain anything more than the bed and a dresser, but this space served as her sleeping quarters. On that note, she did have a bedroom of her own, but she rarely used it because she almost always spent the entire night in her office.

  “Come on. You need to wash off,” her brother said. “I’ve brought you some soap and water. Just let me know when you are done.”

  “M’kay,” Feinrea muttered through another yawn.

  Her brother rolled his eyes once more before disappearing through the door and shutting it. She would have clicked her tongue at how cheeky her brother was acting, but she guessed it only made sense. The Alchemist Association was now a powerful force in Nevaria. If the Alchemist Association Head looked so slovenly, it would ruin their image.

  Good thing no one but her brother saw this side of her.

  Now alone, she stood up and stripped off her robes, set them on the bed, and wandered over to the bucket filled with soapy water. She knelt and reached her hand in. Grasping the rag inside, she pulled it out, wrung it until it was just damp, and set about cleaning her body.

  Cleaning was not too problematic, though she did have to pay careful attention to her armpits and underboobs. Because her breasts were so big, she often had to deal with underboob sweat, and her armpits often stank because of how much work she did using her arms. As she was washing off, Feinrea grimaced when she felt the fine armpit hairs that had sprouted there.

  “I’ll need to shave...”

  While Feinrea cared little for appearance, she did care a lot about comfort. It was important to be comfortable while working. Underarm hair was coarse and rubbed against her arms in ways that left her feeling gross. At the same time, shaving them was such a hassle. She wished there was some invention she could use to permanently remove underarm hair.

  “Maybe I should create a hair removal pill...”

  With a deep sigh like she couldn’t be bothered, Feinrea finished cleaning off, shaved her armpits with a razor she found in her dresser, and put her clothes back on. She then emerged from her side office. Her brother was waiting for her by the desk. He’d already set up a mirror and had a comb in his hand.

  He was scowling.

  “Took you long enough. Come on. Sit down and let me at least try to make your hair presentable.”

  “Why are you so grumpy?” Feinrea asked as she sat down.

  “I’m grumpy because you’re so irresponsible. Our Alchemist Association is now an important part of Nevaria’s infrastructure. The Nevarian Spiritualists and Imperial Royal Guard rely on our alchemy pills. We need to present a powerful and refined image. Yet here you are, the Head of the Alchemist Association, and you’re too damn lazy to do anything for yourself. Can you at least become a little more responsible please?”

  Her brother’s gripes were perfectly valid. Even Feinrea would admit that she did not present a very good image right now, but she also felt his words were out of line.

  “You really shouldn’t speak to me like that. I might be your sister, but like you said, I am the Head of the Alchemist Association.”

  “Then act like it.”

  Feinrea huffed but said nothing as her brother began brushing her hair. The comb glided smoothly through her long strands of vibrant orange-tinted hair with experienced ease. It felt nice. Feinrea would have closed her eyes and leaned back in bliss had her brother not complained at her not to move. She grumbled as he finished combing her hair, then styled it into a neat bun that would eventually turn into a mess by the end of the day.

  “There. All done.”

  Her brother stepped back as Feinrea looked into the mirror and saw the neat bun sitting on her head, the bangs framing her heart-shaped face, and blinked. She never wore makeup. Not only did she not know how to put makeup on, but the scent often got in the way of her alchemy, and if any extr
a substances fell into her ingredients while she was working, it could be disastrous. That said, she didn’t think she needed it.

  It wasn’t like she planned on ever getting married.

  Once she was presentable, Feinrea exited her office and began making her rounds. As the Head of the Alchemist Association, part of her job was teaching new members how to refine pills, making sure they were refining pills correctly, and dealing with whatever paperwork was needed. The paperwork normally involved reading reports that dealt with their budget, income, and trade policies. It was, fortunately, quite easy to handle.

  Feinrea was currently walking around the pill-refining room. This was the room where members of the Alchemist Association refined the pills they would sell on the market. She watched with hawkish eyes as over one thousand individuals worked hard to refine the various pills they would sell, slowly walking between the aisles and checking to make sure no mistakes were being made.

  A few of the people she passed seemed to be sweating, which made her wonder if they were having trouble refining the pills. She had introduced the new Blood Clotting Pill that Eryk showed her how to refine recently. Maybe it was too hard? She asked, but the man who she questioned merely shook his head back and forth, his cheeks stained an intense shade of red.

  “N-not at all, Madame Feinrea! The pill is actually quite simple to refine once you get the hang of it! I promise!”

  “You are sure you’re not exerting yourself too much?” Feinrea asked. “You’re sweating and your face is bright red.”

  This made the man’s face even redder, but he assured her through his stuttering that he was not having any trouble. Feinrea was left with no choice but to accept his words.

  She continued walking through the aisles of work stations, correcting a few people when they made a mistake, but mostly just watching them. Everyone seemed to have gotten the hang of refining by this point. There wasn’t much for her to do.

  Her brother soon arrived to replace her. Feinrea didn’t hesitate to rush back inside her office. She moved over to the desk, shoved the paperwork off, and set up her alchemist set. She had an advanced set with twice the amount of equipment the beginner’s set came with.