SS - Chapter 41 - Cleanup

I've got a couple things that I need to do this afternoon, so I may not get a chapter of Imaginary out. If I do get it out, will probably be later tonight!

When I received a notification that the roads were done only three days later, I was elated. All the previous developments had taken weeks, and this gave me hope that we’d be able to power through some of the smaller projects.

While that might have been true, I quickly discovered that this quick pace came with significant downsides.

“Okay, this might look bad,” Camille said, as we surveyed the road, “but look at the bright side, free lumber!”

“The system just uprooted all the trees on route, then left them laying wherever they fell. The roads are completely impassible,” I groaned. “There must be thousands of downed trees between us and the village.”

“It’s not that bad,” Selena muttered. “There are a lot of people sitting around, looking for something to do, along with a ton of unused wagons. You could send gathering crews to pick up the felled trees and take them back to the camp.”

“They don’t even have to drag the logs that far, they all fell on the road after all,” Camille exclaimed.

“That’s true, I just didn't think that we’d have to deal with something like this… I’ll have to consider the consequences of starting projects in the future,” I sighed.

“Like what? Things couldn’t get much worse than this, could they?” Camille asked.

“Well, we’ve already seen the Citadel redirect a river, and create an artificial lake right outside the capital. What if there had been a settlement down river when the water level changed?” I said. “Or what if I order the construction of a fortress in the wrong place, and it’s created half way up a mountain, and is completely inaccessible?” 

Camille paled. “You didn’t…”

“Of course not. I spent a long time deciding where to place the fortress. It’s right in the middle of the pass, on a ridge. Easy to access from our side, hard to assault from the other,” I explained.

“We should probably still go out and take a look at it, to make sure,” Selena suggested.

“Agreed,” I muttered.

While we were discussing the situation Alex and her retainers wandered over to the roadblock. The small group clambered over the trees, inspecting the situation.

“Hup. Hup hup?” one of the little maids asked.

“Hup!” another replied, creating an X with her arms.

I watched the group out of the corner of my eye unsure what they were doing until Alex stepped forward. “Hup! Hup hup!”

The little group all stood up straight and saluted, resulting in one of the maids losing her balance and toppling off the tree she was standing on. Most of the group scampered back to Alex’s location, while a single maid stepped forward. Bella.

I could tell because sometime after eating the magical stone she’d replaced her regular maid helmet with an oversized wizard hat. I had no idea where she’d gotten it, I just noticed her wandering around with it a day or two later.

Selena, Camille and I all turned to stare as the tiny caster stepped up to the closest tree. She pulled a broom off her back, something she’d been carrying around instead of a rifle and started waving it around in front of herself like a staff. 

“Hup… hup… HUP!” Bella declared slamming the broom down on the tree. The forest on both sides of the road writhed, and vines shot from the undergrowth. These vines twisted around the nearest trees, snapping branches as they tightened their grip and slowly pulling the deadwood to the side of the road.

It didn’t completely clear the way, the branches still blocked part of the road, but it did clear enough room for a wagon to squeeze by. The rest of the maids all clapped.

“Well, that’s something,” Selena muttered, before turning towards Camille. “Could you do that?”

“Of course!” Camille declared proudly. “I’m amazing.” 

“Then maybe we could ask the other mages to help clear the road,” Selena said, ignoring Camille’s boasting, “It would allow us to clear up transit between the different settlements, while the cleanup crews work.”

“Agreed,” I announced before heading over to Alex and the others. 

Most of the squad snapped to attention, saluting me as I approached, but Bella took cover behind Alex.

“Relax, I’m not going to yell at you,” I said softly, crouching down. “I just wanted to say thank you for showing us a way to clear the road.”

“Hup,” Bella replied quietly as she peaked out from behind Alex. The head maid just rolled her eyes. It was quite obvious that the little maid was still afraid of me, so I stepped away to give her some space.

“You should probably ask your mother for a list of people that want to be your vassal, so we can start running groups down to the stone too,” Selena suggested.

“Ugh… it’s true, but that’ll take weeks if we do it the same way we did before,” I groaned. “Bringiing small groups is safer, but also slower.”

“We can use Mother, and the other knights as security now!” Camille said. “As long as you run them through the process first.”

“Why did you split everyone up into small groups anyways,” Selena asked. “Once they take the oath they can’t betray you anyways.”

“But they can before!” Camille declared.

“Well, I can understand you breaking my people, or the new arrivals, they’re people you don’t know and can’t fully trust. Why did you do it for your own people?” 

I paused. “Because power does strange things to people, and I’m not sure how resilient the Sovereign Stone actually is. I’m sure that sounds a little hypocritical, since I have all the power, but the stone is the most important thing in this entire kingdom, by far. I can’t risk it, no matter how much I trust the people around me.”

“You have some serious trust issues,” Selena muttered.

“I… won’t deny that,” I said after a couple seconds. “Back in Iskel there were very few people I could truly trust. My mother, Camille, Siegward, and only two or three others. If we ever told anyone else about our plans, there was always a chance that the Royal family could order them to give up their secrets. If that happened, I could have been executed for treason, instead of getting exiled. That wasn’t something we couldn’t risk. I have tried to open up, and trust people more, it’s just… hard.”

“You weren’t trying hard enough,” Camille huffed. “I kept telling you that you needed to delegate more, and trust people to do their work without supervision. You did manage to stop hovering, and trying to get daily updates, but you still needed to plan everything. I’m glad your mother is here, she’s the only one that can get you to relax!”

“I know how to relax!” I snapped defensively. 

“You haven’t left your office in three days,” Selena laughed. “We needed to use the road completion as an excuse to drag you outside!”

“Why would I take a break? No one else gets one!” I snapped. “People should expect their leaders to work as hard as they do!”

“Okay, calm down,” Camille sighed. “You’re not going to turn into some sort of tyrant by taking an occasional day off, everyone does it. What, are you afraid of becoming like the prince?”

I didn’t answer, so Camille’s eyebrows shot up, nearly disappearing into her hairline. “You are? Bwahahahahahahahahaaa.”

“It’s not funny!” I snapped.

“Yes it is! You’re a hard working person that cares about the people around her, not a layabout that delegates all their work to other people. If anything you’re the complete opposite, picking up extra responsibility to help people,” Camille laughed.

“Yes, I am now… but I’m sure the Rothchild family didn’t start that way either,” I said.

“Yeah, but their decline probably took generations,” Selena replied. “If the first rulers were that incompetent, the kingdom would have never got as far as it did. If you weren’t willing to be queen, the stone probably wouldn’t have chosen you. Everything isn’t going to fall apart because you took a break.”

“And if you’re seriously concerned about the future of the kingdom, maybe you should look into the laws you can implement. Maybe you can put some failsafes in place so that if your descendants start to head down the path, they’ll be dethroned and someone else will become the head of the country,” Camille added.

“That’s not a bad idea,” I admitted. “I’ll look into that.”

“But later!” Camille declared. “Now that we got you out of the office, you’re taking the rest of the day off!”

“There’s still work to do,” I said.

“Tomorrow!” Camille yelled. “Today is a rest day.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” I sighed.

“Nope,” Camille replied with a wide smile.

“Fine…” I grumbled. 

“Horray!” Camille cheered. “I know exactly what to do!”