NOVEL WEB Chapter 248: [Extra] Kingdom building with Rian Azure
In Rian’s first life, his Imperial parents abdicated relatively young and Alexius and Cassiopeia had taken over relatively early.
However, in this second life, there was no devastating disruption. His parents continued to rule with no signs of future abdication.
King Edric and Queen Mira knew what Rian was doing. Rian was expanding his influence and faction. Before, Rian had been subtle about it, but as time went on, he became increasingly conspicuous.
Abdication wasn’t common. Most rulers ruled until their death. Letting go of power and stepping down was hard. King Edric had things that he wanted to change about the kingdom and things he wanted to keep the same; he wasn’t satisfied with the way Rian worked.
Rian toured around the kingdom and beyond. When he returned, he had a meeting with his Imperial Father to tell him how wonderful it was to travel, knowing that King Edric largely had to stay in the Capital in order to rule the country.
“You should travel around the kingdom and see it with your own eyes,” Rian said.
King Edric smiled coldly. “Oh, you like travelling? A king cannot frivolously have so many holidays.”
“If the common people could vote, they’d vote for me,” Rian said. “The majority of your subjects aren’t nobles.”
“Acting like that, how can you maintain your majesty and command your subjects? A king cannot be friends with everyone. A king must lead everyone.”
“I lead,” Rian said.
“You cajole, tease, laugh. You can’t command.”
“Should we duel? When I was young, I defeated the old King Augustus—”
King Edric’s jaw tightened. “Do you want to commit treason?”
“It depends on how you want to go down in the history books,” Rian said. “I’ve—mfffftt.”
Rian’s words were cut off by Ren Xiyang’s hand before he could say that he had been involved in one coup before, and he could do it again.
Ren Xiyang had been busy at the Rosewood house. But when he caught Rian’s surface thoughts, he rushed over to the Imperial Palace and to King Edric’s office. Queen Mira had coincidentally met him out at the door and ordered the guards to let them in.
Queen Mira went to King Edric’s side and placated him with a gentle touch. She preferred that her husband and her son didn’t have a duel. She wasn’t sure who would win; but regardless, it would bring turmoil to the kingdom.
King Edric was annoyed. In contrast, Rian was happy to see Ren Xiyang.
Ren Xiyang sighed in his heart. Why are you insistent on becoming king as soon as possible?
The kingdom would be better under our control, Rian thought.
There are many things you can do without becoming king. You could be so amazing that King Edric is considered useless in comparison, Ren Xiyang returned. As long as everyone knows it’s you making the good changes to their lives.
Rian’s eyes widened. Then, his eyes narrowed as his lips curled up. Ohhh.
Ah, there was the mischievousness again. Ren Xiyang patted Rian on the back.
“If there are matters you wish to change, submit a proposal to us or the Imperial Council,” Queen Mira said.
“Yes, Imperial Mother,” Rian said, lowering his head. “Please anticipate some documents in the near future.”
Once Rian and Ren Xiyang left, King Edric rolled his eyes and snorted angrily. “He pretends to be obedient in front of you!” he said to Queen Mira.
Queen Mira gave him a look. “Perhaps you’re such a good father that Rian feels comfortable enough to say such things to you, whereas he feels more distant with me.”
King Edric snorted again. He didn’t believe it!
(Although, those words made him feel better.)
((But not for long.))
With Ren Xiyang’s comforting and encouragement, Rian developed a wonderful plan.
After reading up the law with his lawyers, Rian threw himself into kingdom building improvement. He wrote and submitted dozens of proposals and funded dozens of initiatives. He increasingly acted like he was in charge, while restraining himself just enough to avoid committing treason. He commissioned books to be written about the things that he did, making clear that it was he who did it and not King Edric. If relevant, those books explained how King Edric had resisted the life-changing initiatives.
King Edric: “…”
The Royal Healers’ Service spread until it was present in every single fief in the kingdom.
The National Census completed its trial runs and was officially deployed across the kingdom.
Royal Agricultural Development and Food Security Program followed in the footsteps of the other initiatives, expanding into every fief and completely transforming agriculture across the kingdom.
The Royal Scholarship Excellence Fund uncovered many brilliant commoners. Many gained prominent or important positions in organisations across the kingdom after study, and some made their own successful organisations.
National Centre for the Support, Research, and Treatment of Rare Diseases And Conditions contributed to the development of medical healing and healer and researcher training.
The association of future leaders continued to accept new rounds of young people, as the first generation of members became actual leaders, one by one.
The arts scene in Sedaveria flourished and became very diverse, and the number of books in print and the number of people who could read increased exponentially. (Rian had to modestly hide his fame regarding certain types of books and certain types of arts.)
The first trains ran from the Capital to Redmond town, and the train network expanded quickly from there. King Edric might have provided the majority of funding, but the technology wouldn’t be possible without Rian (and Pollux and Ren Xiyang etc). Rian was also the person who spoke to both nobles and commoners about the placement of the new train tracks, including any compensation if it involved loss of land.
Rian and Ren Xiyang worked with Count Aegean to make small hover boats; they worked with Queen Mira to produce small light aircraft (Rian squeezed his way in between Ren Xiyang and his Imperial Mother).
(Rian was still waiting for Ren Xiyang to work on something even bigger with him.)
Rian also liked finding things for the Capital Investigators to do. Rian smiled whenever his Imperial Father grumbled about the nobles that had come to complain about him.
Rian would simply shrug. “They broke the law. I’m afraid I’m not the king, Imperial Father. I don’t even have a seat on the Imperial Council. Thus, you must deal with those nobles.”
King Edric would return to Queen Mira, quite aggravated and aggrieved.
Throughout this, Ren Xiyang was often by his side. Rian believed that Marquis Rosewood’s name was known to everyone. (Though only he could call him Yangyang~)
Ren Xiyang wasn’t just known “Prince Rian’s consort”. He was more well known as ‘the farmer noble’, because he liked visiting the local farms of the fiefs they went to and still regularly did hands-on work. Through his power and research, there was no famine in the kingdom.
Being able to see a healer when sick and being able to study and learn to read were great things. But being able to put food on the table every day and being able to eat until full was a big immediate improvement.
The crops and methods that Ren Xiyang developed led to so much more yield and directly contributed to the steady elimination of hunger across the kingdom.
The rumours from the Rosewood fief about receiving good luck upon seeing Marquis Rosewood also spread across the kingdom. Sometimes, Rian felt that the people were more happy to see Ren Xiyang than to see him…
Rian and Ren Xiyang took advantage of the fact that Rian wasn’t king to visit all the surrounding neighbouring kingdoms.
In Angio, they visited Marquis Terra and his family. Hadrian’s glass workshop expanded over the years and was the best source of industrial glass for buildings.
Rian was no longer jealous of Baron Vitus Natrium and his cooking duels with Ren Xiyang. They had a double-date with Queen Aurelia and her consort Lady Iris Helios.
They flew over the mountains between Sedaveria and Angio and had a chat with the hermit that lived there.
(This hermit hadn’t expected to be discovered, though technically they weren’t hiding and occasionally interacted with people down the mountain. They told Rian and Ren Xiyang that they were there because they wanted to care for the plants and animals. They declined Ren Xiyang’s request to come give a talk about nature conservation.)
((What Rian and Ren Xiyang didn’t find out was how long they had been there. The local people knew of The Hermit and had known about The Hermit since they were children. But no one knew if this was the same hermit in their grandfather’s time or not.))
Rian and Ren Xiyang visited King Firestone and his family. They played on the beach, competed with Crown Prince Haldor in the water, and discussed weather prediction. Rian told King Firestone that he was a good father and ruler, which made King Firestone laugh heartily.
(King Edric when he found out: “…”)
Count Leopold Aegean was contemplating retirement.
As the count of his fief, he had to regularly go to the Capital and attend the Imperial Council Gathering. He was starting to feel that going to the Capital wasn’t all that great, and not for the reasons many outsiders thought.
From being one of the strictest nobles, he became one of the calmest nobles. Changes being made by Rian and Ayden left, right, and centre breezed past him and didn’t bother him. Ayden’s legislation proposals to the Imperial Council didn’t bother him.
His family members all liked Rian or Ayden. For example, as his wife grew older, she started to quite like the lively Prince Rian and Prince Alexius. With his family allegiance being the way it was, it would be inadvisable for him to protest about Rian and Ayden’s actions.
(He was also friends with Solicitor Charles Carmine, and knowing in advance what was going to happened helped a lot.)
No, the reason why Count Aegean was contemplating retirement was due to King Edric.
For some reason, King Edric frequently requested a meeting with him whenever he was in the city. During those meetings, King Edric liked to complain about Rian, to put it nicely, or to boast about Rian’s actions, to put it less nicely.
“Tch, Rian wants me to abdicate and retire early!” King Edric grumbled.
“Oh no, Your Majesty,” Count Aegean said. “Surely he’s not considering regicide.”
“He wouldn’t dare! You’re several decades older than me but you haven’t retired yet!” King Edric continued.
Count Aegean made appropriate responses, but in his heart, he was thinking to himself—Why not? If he retired, then he could stay by the seaside with his wife and truly relax.
A few months later, Count Leopold Aegean announced that he was stepping down. He passed the title of ‘Count’ to his eldest son.
King Edric was the most rattled person, but Leopold didn’t know, because he was sitting at the beach with his lovely wife.
However, King Edric still didn’t produce any plans to abdicate, and the years continued to pass.
Rian talked to many nobles about changing their taxation system and locally abolishing the death penalty.
Transport vehicle magic-technology became mature and commonplace. King Edric may have built roads, but Rian was the one who made sure that the common people could travel on those roads, through the expansion of the Rosewood public transport system. After cajoling Alexius, who now had partial control of the treasury, Rian secured some Imperial funding for the expansion of transport.
Through tireless talks, Rian ensured that the Royal Healers’ Service was funded by both the Royal Treasury, Rian’s funds, and the local fief nobles for decades to come. Apparently, Healer Mage Vercher, the head of the Royal Healers’ Service, had been moved to tears at the realisation that ordinary people had access to proper healing now.
Duke Schauss and the Schauss family no longer had a monopoly over healer mages. But at the same time, the healing field had progressed in leaps and bounds, in part due to his investment. He was very proud of all his children. But in secret, he was especially proud of Cassiopeia, who developed the first vaccine and was integral to the development of many new healing techniques and spells.
With his children’s careers in place, Duke Schauss became interested in making sure his children were married. Orion, his eldest son, was the least stressful. Perseus was more difficult, changing the subject and preferring to work as opposed to thinking about a partner. But eventually, Perseus took a young noblewoman home for them to meet.
In contrast, it was excruciating to watch Cassiopeia and Prince Alexius “be friends”. Both of them insisted that they were just friends when he asked them. Inexplicably, their relationship only progressed after Perseus and Cassiopeia’s friends (Alexandra Slate and Ethel Silvercharm) announced their engagements with their respective partners.
Günter Blewitt attended university after the academy and then worked with Alexius to establish national and international duelling leagues.
Tierri Mauveine attended university. He did further study into Sedaverian law and policy before becoming a staff member at the Imperial Parliament. Under the tutelage of his father, Prime Minister Duke Mauevine, Tierri gained the skills he needed to become the next Duke and next Prime Minister.
Adrienne Obsidian also attended university and then went to work with her uncle, Viscount Obsidian. As per Obsidian family tradition, she defeated all her siblings and cousins and then defeated her uncle, in order to secure the position of Viscountess. The reputation of shadow mages had improved significantly compared to when she was young.
Adrienne and Tierri married each other after Adrienne became Viscountess. The two had become friends due to Prince Alexius and initially bonded over feeling like they were the only two people who realised just how ridiculous Alexius was. Their feelings had deepened since then; both had great respect for the other’s work.
When Alexius came to tell them that he was courting Cassiopeia, Adrienne and Tierri were mildly surprised.
“Why now?” Tierri asked.
“You had insisted that you were just friends,” Adrienne said.
Alexius blushed. “I…” His voice became tiny. “I thought that Cassiopeia was like Florence and Hespera…she acted very close with Ethel…”
Tierri and Adrienne looked at each other. Oh, Alexius!
Hermit: Who am I? How old am I? Where did I come from? Who knows~ (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
Only one person (?) was harmed in the writing of this chapter: King Edric!
Mystic and Just-a-guest mentioned Ren Xiyang working with Queen Mira to make planes. I do have a ‘plan’ for the next thing after planes 😆
The_other_Abe and lazy cat Kohaku had also asked about Adrienne. She’s doing well!
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