I groaned, staring at the crowd gathered around me. It had been a week and a half since the attack, and the envoy from Partmire was only one of many. One from almost every village near us in the region sent a messenger, declaring their loyalty. In addition, three large towns sent envoys. I got so many envoys, it was safe to say that now half of the region was under my jurisdiction.
Since now I had acquired a large slice of territory, we were not just a city-state so the reason for this meeting in the town square was to decide what to call ourselves, and how I stood. I was up on a stage in the middle of the town square, watching in pain as Razana led announced.
“Okaaay! Citizens! We have gathered here to decide on the name of this new nation we have built! As well as the Lady’s job title!” Razana declared.
By the ‘lady’ she meant me. “Okay, we held nominations for the different job titles for Lady Tephit here so let’s see the top three results!”
“Alright! Who votes if we claim ourselves the Grand Duchy of Tephit and announce Lady Tephit as our Grand Duchess?”
Around 20% of the crowd cheered.
“Okay! Who votes we call ourselves the Kingdom of Tephit and announce Lady Tephit as our Queen?”
Again, around 20% of the crowd cheered.
“Finally! Whoever votes we declare ourselves the Principality of Tephit and announce Lady Tephit as our Sovereign Princess, otherwise known as our Crown Princess!”
An overwhelming majority cheered.
Wait. Crown Princess? I was going to be claimed as a princess? Wait, no this is every girl’s dream but why that out of all the options! I let out a particularly large groan.
“Well, the third option prevails! We are now Citizens of the Principality of Tephit! Congratulations! Especially to Princess Silvi here!”
“Princess….” I groaned, “Why?”
Razana leaned in, “Well, based on what I see, you're a young, pretty girl with a brain and power so,” She said, “you're like the perfect personification of what a princess should be!”
I hung my head, “I’m gonna go sit down now.”
A few minutes later I found myself sitting in the governmental affairs office within the mayor’s mansion (Now dubbed the ‘Princess’s mansion’), and sorted through assorted documents. This region was disorganized and it was my job to set everything straight. Razana, who was now the de facto head of the guild here (After the previous guild master left for safety reasons) helped me.
“So what are we gonna do today boss?” She asked.
I chewed the tip of my pen, “Well, now that I have so many places to look over, and have an official title to back me up, it’s time to appoint administrative vassals to look over the people, that way we have a semi balance of governmental authority. Then we’ll look at creating a legislature and a justice system. But I want to get the bureaucracy all sorted out first.” I said.
“So what do I have to do?” Razana asked me.
“Well congratulations Razana,” I said, “I appoint you prime minister of this new nation. Help me handle all of this work please.”
“Oh, okay!” Razana eagerly replied.
Sometime later I called for Jana to come. “So, Jana, how do you feel about working as a government agent?” I asked.
Jana saluted, “It would be an honor!”
I waved my hand, “No need for formalities, I want you to act as an intelligence agent, I need intel on these individuals.” I slid forward a sheet of paper. Reading, she nodded, “It will be done,”
The list I handed Jana was a list of people that were well known in the area, I was planning on gathering capable personnel to help run things here, but I didn’t want to hire a corrupt or incapable person, so I needed to know a little bit about these people I was thinking of hiring.”
Razana quickly got into the role of a prime minister. She acted with authority and dragged the other receptionists to the office. I immediately hired them as both administrators and secretaries. Then I called Captain Riesse, Herbert, and the adventurers that helped fight off the goblins.
‘Okay guys, we are a new country, so we need a stable source of income. As the word spreads that the monsters are dealt with, we are bound to see traders and the like coming through here. Previously, the merchants lobbied to secure tax-free entry and escorts. Today that all changes, since we are now a nation, we can tax goods and services entering the country. Our treasury is in a pitiful state so we need to bolster it! I prepared a taxing and enforcing guideline here,” I said, showing the captain a sheet of paper, “I hope you can work for me and establish yourselves as the Tephit Knight Order.”
An adventurer looked at me, “Hell yes we can! No merchant’s gonna come through us without paying his fair share! You can count on us, Your Majesty!”
Herbert nodded, “It would be an honor to serve you,”
“Okay!” I said, leaning back on my chair, “Riesse, you're now the commander of the Knight Order, Herbert you’re his lieutenant, follow their orders everyone else go!”
I sighed, in addition to organizing the ex-adventurers into a knight order, I organized a training program for recruits, Herbert was in charge of it. Many conscripts saw the fight and were inspired to take up arms as a career. As a small nation in a vulnerable spot, I knew we needed military power, not only that but we needed to weed out the last of the monsters from our territory.
After doing that, I established patrol routines, and monster extermination missions. A lot of lands were unclaimed and undeveloped due to monster attacks, previously no farmer or builder wanted to take the risk of doing anything where safety wasn’t completely guaranteed. I wanted to change that.
Agriculture was vital in the sense that we needed to be semi-self sufficient Due to the merchants leaving the coffers of this nation were empty. There were taxes, but the previous government absurdly taxed the citizens. I cut those taxes in half because frankly, they didn’t need to be so high. When examining ledgers from the previous administration, I found that most of the money went to paying the mercenary guards and the pockets of the councilors. With a good taxing system, I could focus on public welfare projects.
Farmers didn’t know how to farm using methods that those from my world would be accustomed to. They didn’t know how to compost or make fertilizer, or how to practice crop rotation. While it would take time to see results, the farmers were more than cooperative, partially because I had given them large swaths of land that had been monster-ridden before.
In an era of feudalism, centralized government and national policies were a bit difficult to handle. Until the onset of better transport and democracy was established, it was very difficult for the authority to pass in all areas. Vassals didn’t always cooperate. Due to the small size of our country, this wasn’t that big of a problem, but I still needed the feudal system (to an extent) because it was the only one viable for this period So, I needed trustworthy and loyal people as my vassals, so I decided to investigate and find these people.
Jana and her group of subordinates that I named the Shadow Knight Order became my intelligence group. Jana trained them in the ways of a thief (as a job title) so they would be expert scouts, infiltrators, and information gatherers. They went to the towns and villages that swore allegiance to me to find capable people to be appointed lords or ladies. As a lady myself, I wanted nothing to do with misogyny (which was common here) so I told them specifically to disregard gender. If anyone complained, I’d use my authority to silence them.
Therefore, I got a list of people that I quickly named lords of their respective domains. Every one of them was loyal and more than capable of managing their land (which is one of the things I used to evaluate them).
The next thing on my list was to address slavery. Slavery was common in the northern states and it was safe to say that many of those slaves were minorities (such as races such as beastmen) and the poor who sold themselves into slavery. They all came from the openly slave-holding societies of the north. The north was pretty bad when it came to human rights anyway. The town had accepted slavery due to it being a disputed region where there were no clear laws. When the merchants left, they left behind a bunch of slaves that they couldn’t bring along with them. Many of the merchants fled south where the slaves were not allowed or couldn’t take all of them. Now that the crisis was over, some of those merchants came back to demand their slaves returned.
But this was not possible, my personal feelings aside we had freed all of the slaves in this town to help with the defense effort. There were slaves with combat experience and the more manpower we had the better. After I had been named the leader of a nation, one of the first things I did was declare all slaves freed, and then employed them.
All of them were grateful, and I offered them the chance to return to their homelands. Many of them were from the north so returning wasn’t an option, so they stayed. As for those who were kidnapped in the south, they migrated back.
Abolishing slavery would put me in the south camp, but I wasn’t about to not. So we told the merchants too bad and they went home steaming. I knew sooner or later the north would either start a war, or the south would want to get us on their side. As much as the south sounded better than the north, other races were still disenfranchised there. They stood like a banner for freedom, but they didn’t treat everyone equally.
I wanted to create a society without prejudice, so I didn’t want to align myself with them either.
The last thing on my public welfare list was transportation. For years the region had just used the dirt roads that were created way back when. I wanted to change that. I hired earth mages to clear and flatten roads, which was surprisingly not something that everyone used them for. I got them to cut stones into squares and made a construction crew, armed with concrete I had made myself to place on the newly flattened land.
I had strategically placed roads so that there would be a good network going on to make goods and information flow smoothly. Even the earth mages were surprised at how well my system worked, and the citizens cheered for me more.
I got all of this done within two months, and it was the busiest two months of my life. I sat in my office, looking over the last of my paperwork. I had moved into the guild building after no one came back to claim it. It was now public property.
“DOOOOONE!” I yelled.
Razana looked at me. “What?” I asked, “I’m finally done!”
“Ugh, these last few months have been the hardest in my life!” I’m gonna get some rest now.
“Of course, but I would like you to take a look at this first.”
“What is it?”
“A letter from the third prince of the Kingdom of Noivern, he asks if your willing to accept a delegation from his kingdom.”
“A delegation, I have an idea what this is about, I guess we can’t refuse to send a letter that accepts.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,”
“Quit with the Your Majesty stuff, we’re friends.”
“Fine,”
I sighed, it was going to be a long night356Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyOhRaN2v4L
