Enlightened Empire

Soon after Corco's return to Saniya, his spirits were lifted, almost by accident. Although the king had only come to this military training yard to check on the progress of his troops — and of course to catch up on the developments he had missed during his vacation — the image in front of Corco was far too spectacular for him to stay glum. No one could possibly be unhappy in the face of such magnificence.

Before the king's eyes, an entire company of Saniya's finest men — the legendary army which had annihilated a coalition of southern lords, Arcavians and Ichilia troops — labored to circle the training course, all of them mounted on bicycles, equipped with only the finest training wheels to maximize the effect of their practice.

Every once in a while, one of them would overestimate his balance and fall over anyways, wheels be damned. During the months away, Corco had already forgotten about the training wheels he had suggested for his army's training, but now that he saw it, it was even better than he had imagined.

"Truly, this is the sight of progress," the king said with one hand on his hip.

He enjoyed his view from his position underneath a fir tree by the field, where he had found cover from the light morning drizzle. Next to him stood the man responsible for the spectacular image on the field. Yet despite his great achievement — and despite the amusing sight right before him — his head was bowed down, as he needlessly ingratiated himself to his king in response to the praise he himself had received.

"Yes, King Corcopaca, we have been progressing well," Nabo — Egidius' disciple and the man Corco had saddled with bicycle training duties — said. "This is already the second batch of soldiers we have trained on the new two-wheelers. The first batch consisted mostly of messengers, but this second batch represents a proper military platoon, which will be able to operate completely independently once their training is completed." For a second, Nabo paused and peeked at Corco's smiling face, before he lowered his head again and continued in an even humbler, more cautious tone: "Thus, as this is a military matter, a commoner such as myself might not be the most suitable to continue the training."

"Sounds like you're doing a great job though," Corco argued back. He could tell that this guy was trying to escape from his responsibilities, but he wouldn't let him get away that easily. Who else would train his new bicycle troops?

So instead of fulfilling Nabo's wish, the king offered some compensation to pacify the young craftsman: "I'll make sure you're properly repaid for your work. Whatever you want, just ask and you will get it. Within reason, of course."

However, in response to Corco's friendly wink, Nabo looked more and more uncomfortable. He wasn't even facing his king anymore, and instead had turned towards the training field. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the craftsman once again turned towards his king, this time accompanied by a whinier tone.

"Please, honored king of miracles. Would it be possible to find someone else to take over this work?" he begged directly.

When Corco looked over, he even saw tears in his eyes. Did this guy hate the training that much, or was he just a good actor? Either way, the king wouldn't be so easily swayed by the appeal.

"Why? I mean, I even left you my secret weapon." Corco pretended to be casual, and pointed at the army of training wheels out on the yard.

"Of course, great king, and this servant is endlessly thankful for such grace." Again, Nabo hesitated and looked away before he continued. "However, would not the originator of this great invention be far more suitable to teach these great soldiers? After all, as the elites of southern Medala, they are not likely to listen to a mere commoner's words."

"No one has complained about your training yet, as far as I know," Corco countered. "Instead, they have learned well so far, haven't they?"

"Indeed they have, yet on top of the teaching, not only does this humble servant need to oversee the construction of the bicycles, there are many more responsibilities awaiting this poor soul as well."

"How could those responsibilities be more important than your teaching duties?" Corco pretended to be baffled. Somehow, he began to enjoy the craftsman's awkward attempts to escape his responsibilities. The king had always hated this kind of grovely behavior anyways. Maybe if Nabo just made his request directly, Corco would have been more open to it.

"Of course there is nothing more important than teaching the shields of the kingdom. The great king already emphasized the importance of this task to his humble servant," Nabo continued to squirm. "Still, master has asked this humble servant to support him in some of his work, as he is busy with his duties at the university. Thus, this servant wishes to be relieved of the training, at least partially, to fulfill his commitment to his master."

Finally, you're getting a bit clever, Corco thought as he stared hard at Nabo, who still had his head bowed down to hide his face. Apparently, this craftsman wanted to make use of his master Egidius' name to escape his teaching duties. Obviously, the former apprentice knew of Corco's close relationship with the genius clock maker, and hoped for leniency.

However, the king wouldn't offer any, nor could he. After all, if Nabo didn't teach these soldiers, then Corco would be forced to do it himself, and he certainly didn't want to waste any of his own time either. Not to mention, this apprentice had inherited very little of his master's endearing directness. His diplomatic flattery made him seem nothing like the smart clock maker, and more like a seasoned politician, a trait Corco didn't intend to encourage.

Just as he was brewing a more firm rejection in his head, Fadelio stepped forward during the lull in their conversation.

"King Corco, not to impose," he said. "However, the scheduled time for the meeting with the ghost messenger has arrived. Apparently, they are waiting with important news."

Perfect support from Fadelio, as always.

Corco really wanted to hug his friend for the timely excuse. With acted sadness, he turned towards Nabo.

"In that case, we'll have to cut our conversation short. It sounds like I can't relieve you for now, unfortunately," he said, and turned to leave.

"But-" a distraught Nabo began. Yet just in time, Corco came up with an idea, so he turned around again and interrupted the craftsman.

"Right, how about this then?" he asked, and stroked his chin in an attempt to suppress a smile. "If you manage to train one of the soldiers so well that they can take over your teaching duties, wouldn't you be relieved as well?"

"But-" Nabo tried again, yet Corco just patted him on the shoulder and added: "Work hard."

Before Nabo could come up with any more excuses, the king quickly left the yard, leaving behind only the lonely and distraught figure of a crafty politician, an image good enough for a famous painting, if only someone had still been there to see it.

After enjoying his inspection of the bicycle training, Corco returned to his duties. In the days since his return, he had met officials from various departments one on one to get reports about the most recent events in and around his kingdom. For today, Tama — representing his ghost warriors — had requested a meeting in Rapra Castle's inner garden.

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"Alright, so apparently, this was important?" Corco asked, as he sat down across from Tama inside a picturesque pavilion.

"Yes, it was. Else, I would have never asked for a meeting so soon after your return."

As always, Tama's choice of words was more modern, much unlike her mother's. Yet Corco couldn't help but feel that she was quite formal as well, as if eager to establish a certain distance. Though he didn't really mind. After all, the days when she had had a crush on her king now lay in the past. Surely, she wanted to avoid any misunderstandings after her engagement with Atau.

In fact, when he had first heard about their meeting place, Corco had been concerned. Meeting inside a pavilion in the inner garden was too romantic a setting for ordinary business. He had even brought Fadelio along to wait in the distance as a witness, in case anything weird happened.

But now that he saw Tama so serious, he was more willing to believe that she had picked the place out of a professional spy's habit. This kind of spot was perfect for an intelligence meeting after all: Private, safe, and with good visibility all around, which made it impossible for others to sneak up and listen in on them.

While he still couldn't quite shake the strange feeling at the choice of a woman who had pursued him until recently, he would much rather believe in her professionalism than overthink things.

"Fine then. What's the news?" Corco asked, and pushed all irrelevant thoughts to the side. He had come here for an intelligence briefing after all, not to act out a korean drama. So long as Tama stayed professional, he would do the same.

"In the north, all remaining unrest settled down completely as soon as Minister Brymstock crossed the Sallqata Mountains. Amautu has given up on his attempts to centralize the country for now. The lords were quite brazen in their response for a while, but now their backing has left, so they have calmed down as well. In short, the status quo in the north has been restored," she began, while holding out a file towards Corco. "However, our worries about the northern armies are still the same, just like our worries about Terminus. The northerners are training troops too quickly, and what they train is too strong. We'll suffer a lot in a direct confrontation with them. This is even more the case in intelligence warfare. We simply cannot afford to trade expert personnel with them when theirs is disposable. Though their threat remains, there has been some progress in uncovering their secrets, which accounts for the bulk of the information in this report. Through insider information, we have learned that the members of Terminus are all former warriors, who have broken the laws of the kingdom or failed in their missions."

"Right. So as punishment, those warriors are being forcefully retrained into Terminus members," Corco interrupted to make a long story short.

"You don't look surprised," Tama pointed out. "You didn't already read the full report, did you? You weren't that quick a reader before."

Rather than address the strangely familiar remark, Corco went back to skimming the file as he replied.

"Me and Maci didn't just go on a cruise, you know? We checked our kingdom's own cultivation research, to find an answer to the very same issue the ghosts had: Why are Amautu's warriors so strong, and why is their cultivation so fast? In their experiments, our experts also managed to induce some extreme improvements in our cultivators, just the same as the northerners." When Corco looked up, he realized from Tama's look of vapid boredom that his words had been too vague. "Anyways, the point is, we have found a method to quickly and greatly increase the power of our warriors, and we suspect it's the same method Amautu's people are using."

"That's great!" Tama shouted, her previous boredom disintegrated under her newly-found enthusiasm. "If we can just copy their methods, our troubles would be gone. Without their advantage in warrior training, the northern kingdom would no longer be a threat."

"Not an option," Corco replied dryly and shook his head.

"But why?" Tama whined like a little kid. "You said you found their training methods, right?"

"We did," the king returned in the same, dry tone as before. He certainly wouldn't be swayed by Tama's fake mood swings. It was an old trick. "It's pretty simple, even. Just modify those old cultivation techniques a little, and their effects can be intensified further. But there's a limit to that kind of growth, and it's not really the techniques that are the issue anyways. The main problem is — apparently — a mental block. Basically, the mind won't allow modification of your body past a certain point, probably some evolutionary development to protect its own existence. But intoxication of various kinds, like the use of drugs — as well as mental suggestion — can break through this limitation. Various methods have shown differing levels of success. But overall, many of the test subjects in a number of experiments have shown vastly improved physical ability, far beyond ordinary warriors, and a training speed that's impossible to achieve under other circumstances."

"So why not make use of it if we've had such results?" Tama tilted her head cutely to act confused, another gesture ripe for ignoring.

"Because the side-effects are not worth the advantages," Corco revealed. "There's a reason that mental block exists, you know? As a result of overburdening their bodies, test subjects suffered all kinds of horrible injuries during the experiments. The drugs and other mental stimulation made that even worse, since they were numb to the pain which was meant to warn them of damage. Sore muscles are the least serious problem we've encountered in that regard. Some people even tore their ligaments and broke their bones from simple movements, just because their bodies couldn't handle the forces they produced. Plus, I suspect that increased hormone levels were an important part of the sped up muscle growth. As a result, many of them were emotionally unstable, so they needed even more medication to function, or their behavior would become extreme and unpredictable. Those are hardly desirable traits for an army, even less so for spies."

"But that would explain the simple and direct approach from Terminus members," Tama added, after a realization.

"Right. It gets worse though," Corco continued, thinking back to the early reports about Terminus. "We don't know if it's the drugs or the hormones, or the constant overexertion of their bodies, but it seems like those Terminus warriors were also aging rapidly."

"Yes that was part of the reports," Tama admitted in a pensive voice, before her face lit up. "However, even weakened, old, and crippled, their strength is still superior to an ordinary warrior."

The spy's excited words made Corco frown. Could he have misjudged Tama's character? Who would get excited about the use of crippled and injured soldiers?

"Are you telling me we should copy those northern methods and apply them to our own people?" an incredulous Corco asked, yet Tama's calm response disappointed him.

"Of course," she said. "Why would we possibly leave our enemies with such a powerful advantage, when we could be using it ourselves?"

In response, Corco's voice finally turned tense.

"Because we're not monsters, maybe," he almost shouted, before he caught himself. Getting angry wouldn't do him any good here. Yet in response to the king's stern rebuke, Tama only frowned.

"You look unconvinced," he pointed out, now once again in control of his emotions. However, Tama only continued to frown, and didn't respond at all.

Let's just try a different angle, a disappointed Corco thought.

"Look, even if we copy the northern tricks, we won't win this war by exploiting our people like this," he began his explanation. "Obvious moral concerns put aside - and why would we? - I don't want to end up in a bio-engineering arms race. If we follow up and start exploiting our warriors to strengthen them, maybe Amautu will be forced to use even more extreme methods. In that case, will we follow along again? How many times should we do that? How many of our people, how many of our traditions, and how much of our humanity should we destroy in the pursuit of victory? And even if we win, what kind of place will be left once we finally defeat Amautu this way? I don't want to rule over a deserted island, or peninsula. Those Chutwa foreigners don't have to care what happens to the Yaku people. But unlike them, I can't recklessly expend our men like firewood."

This time, Corco was sure that his arguments were convincing. He had even delivered them in a rousing speech and all. Even so, Tama once again just stared at him. Clearly, she disagreed with his conclusions. Yet just as clearly, she also didn't want to openly contradict her king.

Honestly, her response disappointed Corco, as had their entire exchange so far. Not long ago, Tama hadn't been such a cold and indifferent person. Maybe leaving her in charge of the local ghost forces had been the wrong choice. Maybe he had harmed her somehow, forced her to become unfeeling to cope with the horrors she dealt with in her work every day. Or maybe he was meddling too much, and overthinking things, as usual. Either way, the thought just made him uncomfortable, as did the frowning face of the young woman in front of him.

"If you're still not convinced, I can also tell you that I already have different plans for the cultivation resources in this country, ones which will benefit us more than simply copying Amautu's slave legion," he finally said, and took the report as he stood up. "Just be patient until the budgetary review at the end of the year. You'll know after that."

Thus, the king did not waste another second in this calming, romantic place. Staying here still made him as uncomfortable as it had when he had arrived, yet the reason for his discomfort had changed completely. When he left, he didn't wait for a response, and never looked back.