Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 117

Creating Subordinates to Build a Human Empire 119

Human Ranch

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Half a year.

That’s how long I was away from Olympus.

I left my home in the summer, but when I returned, it was winter.

It wasn’t just the season that had changed. Several new complexes had sprung up on the outskirts of the city, and a tall tower stood prominently within the city, visible from afar.

“Halt! Remove your hoods and identify yourselves!”

As I approached Olympus’s south gate with the Imperial Guard, a sentry blocked our path.

Because I was wearing a robe due to the cold, the sentry likely saw only an approaching group of unknown cavalry.

I lowered my hood and met the sentry’s gaze.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

The sentry’s eyes widened.

The Emperor, who had been away, suddenly appeared before him.

“You’ve worked hard.”

The sentry, wondering if he was seeing a double, blinked and stepped back, startled by the sight of Calliope and Gerhard accompanying me.

“J-Just a moment, please!”

The sentry urgently raised his hand and ordered the drums on the city walls to be beaten, intending to announce my arrival to the city. I stopped him.

“Stop. There’s no need to announce it.”

I passed the dumbfounded sentry and entered the city. It wasn’t just him who was stunned; all the citizens on the main street from the gate to the Imperial Palace were as well.

Everyone stared at me, wide-eyed.

“A pity.”

Gerhard muttered, observing the citizens’ reactions.

“What if we had announced it in advance and held a triumphal return ceremony…?”

“Forget it.”

I shook my head.

As Gerhard said, if I had announced my return after conquering the Republic’s capital, our path would have been strewn with flower petals and filled with hymns.

“It is customary for a monarch who has successfully completed a campaign to hold a triumphal return ceremony. It is a political display to enhance their authority and increase the stability of their rule.”

But do I need to worry about authority and stability of rule?

“Who would dare doubt Your Majesty’s authority?”

“Exactly. No one can doubt it. Then there’s no reason to hold a triumphal return ceremony. For me, such a ceremony is nothing more than a formality. It has no value other than self-satisfaction.”

“That is true, but…”

I could sense disappointment in Gerhard’s thoughts.

He wanted my achievements to be praised.

Subordinates, despite their different personalities, always think of me first.

“Boasting about one’s achievements is something only inadequate rulers do. You know very well that I don’t like formalities, Gerhard.”

I gestured with my chin towards the Imperial Palace at the end of the main street.

“Hmm…”

Gerhard trailed off, looking at the Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace best exemplified my personality.

A simple rectangle, with no decorations like carvings or pillars on the walls, only windows installed at regular intervals like a honeycomb.

The interior was no different from the exterior. The corridor from the main gate to the audience chamber had no portraits, murals, or even a single piece of pottery, and there wasn’t even a hall designed for banquets.

When I designed the Imperial Palace, I only considered operational efficiency. I only cared about efficiency, such as ensuring that the distance between rooms did not exceed 10 minutes on foot.

“Internal Affairs Minister Griff criticized it for being too bleak.”

To be precise, all the subordinates who participated in the design of the Imperial Palace, including Griff, said so. They suggested decorating the exterior to widely proclaim the Emperor’s majesty.

“The Imperial Palace is not an art museum. It’s a government office. What’s the point of decorating a government office beautifully?”

Rather than increasing the travel time between rooms by even a minute to consider aesthetics, or spending more money on expansion to consider aesthetics, I would rather use that money to make one more loaf of bread and one more gun.

That was my answer, and that was the result.

“Even so, it is indeed bleak.”

Skadi, who came to greet me at the Imperial Palace gate, replied.

“I’m glad you returned safely, Father.”

###

After resting from my journey at the Imperial Palace, I convened a cabinet meeting.

The cabinet meeting was held in the conference hall of the Imperial Palace, attended by all the ministers in Olympus and several officials assisting them.

Imperial Chancellor Skadi, Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry Pasiphae, Minister of Military Affairs Gerhard, Minister of Internal Affairs Griff, and additionally, Minister of Justice Haber and Minister of Finance Franz.

The latter two were subordinates appointed during the war with the Republic.

About 1,500 subordinates were created in half a year.

It was natural that among them, some subordinates excelled in law and finance. Both had previously worked as judges and bankers, so after confirming their abilities in their respective departments for several months, I appointed them as ministers.

“How does it feel to be back after so long?”

Griff asked with a smiling face.

“The city has changed a lot.”

“It’s been half a year. Olympus is not a completed city but a city that continues to expand, so every day is a continuous series of changes. We are sometimes surprised ourselves. Buildings that didn’t exist yesterday appear this morning.”

Griff pointed to the tower visible from the conference hall window.

The tallest in the city, the tower I had seen from outside the city.

Griff pointed to the mysterious tower.

“For example, that tower. Lord Edar, what does it look like to you?”

I narrowed my eyes, thought for a moment, and shook my head.

“I don’t know.”

At first, I thought it was a bell tower, but there was no bell. There wasn’t even space to hang a bell at the top of the tower. If it wasn’t a bell tower, it must have had another purpose, but I couldn’t guess what it was.

“It’s a bullet tower.”

I nodded once, saying, “Ah.”

“So that’s what it was.”

Bullet tower.

In other words, a bullet manufacturing tower. It was a simple method of pouring molten lead into a mold installed at the top of the tower to create bullet shapes, but it was an innovative facility capable of producing more than 4 tons of bullets per week.

“Did you know about it?”

“Roughly. I received a report that facilities for bullet production were being expanded, but I didn’t know it meant building a bullet tower. So? Is there any problem with it?”

“There is a problem, if you can call it that.”

“Hmm?”

“It was built in a week.”

A week? That tower?

I blinked.

Building a tower dozens of meters high in a week.

I was so dumbfounded that I chuckled.

“You must have used your subordinates quite a bit.”

“Yes. Thanks to that, we couldn’t sleep and were forcibly mobilized for days. They kept pushing us so hard because the bullet supply was insufficient. Isn’t the production of military supplies the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry? But why are other departments—”

“Can we stop the personal remarks?”

Pasiphae glared at Griff with wide eyes, and Griff cleared his throat and sat back down.

Thanks to the most talkative person shutting up, the conference hall became quiet. In that gap, Skadi rose from her seat and began the cabinet meeting in her capacity as Imperial Chancellor.

The cabinet meeting was more of an explanation session than a meeting.

It was a time for me, who had been away for half a year, to hear detailed explanations of situations that had not been summarized or conveyed in writing.

And it proceeded in a way that also discussed future directions.

“Olympus’s population has exceeded 150,000. An increase of 30,000 in half a year.”

I tilted my head to the side.

“Isn’t that half the increase compared to last year? Is there a reason?”

“It’s because the construction of industrial facilities that started the year before last is nearing completion. The demand for labor from the facilities has been almost fully met, so migration is bound to decrease.”

“I see.”

As I said before, Olympus’s astonishing population growth was due to forced migration.

This was a method of attracting population from other regions to meet the labor demand generated by expanding industrial facilities within Olympus.

Therefore, when the expansion of industrial complexes stopped, population growth also stopped.

“Is the fertilizer supply doing well?”

Skadi sat down, and Pasiphae stood up.

“So-so. You don’t have to worry about a bad harvest next year.”

“That’s a relief. Can we continue to supply fertilizer stably in the future?”

“Not quite. We won’t have to worry for a few years, but… the consumption of gunpowder is increasing dramatically. Before long, we won’t be able to handle the demand for saltpeter [potassium nitrate, a key ingredient in gunpowder].”

“Hmm…”

I should prepare alternatives.

From the beginning, trying to supply the entire empire with saltpeter from one region, Antz, was an excessive idea.

The amount of fertilizer that had to be supplied to the entire empire was enormous, and the rapidly increasing consumption of gunpowder as gunpowder weapons were distributed was also enormous.

Even if Pasiphae squeezed efficiently, there would be a limit.

“There are only a few places that can be used as production sites, right? Why don’t you raid them?”

I know, but the problem is that they are not imperial territories.

We have to fight directly with other races to take them.

That’s the problem, so I can’t easily decide.

“Can’t we make the raw materials for fertilizer ourselves?”

“If you’re talking about raw materials, you mean nitrogen.”

Pasiphae plopped down on her chair and rested her chin on her hand.

“It’s possible, but not right now. To artificially extract nitrogen, we need mechanical equipment that can withstand at least 200 atmospheres. How can we make such equipment? In a place where all we do is hammer.”

I smiled silently.

In a situation where we can’t even make cast iron properly, pressure?

We needed at least the technological power of the Industrial Revolution.

“Well, if you keep supporting me, I’ll make it quickly. Because you and I have blueprints in our heads. We can skip the processes that others would take hundreds of years to go through and make them quickly, right?”

Pasiphae sighed.

“But you and I can’t do everything. We need people who can understand and operate the equipment in our place. We’ve created a research department within the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry, but that’s not nearly enough.”

“So that’s why you came up with the technical school.”

I recalled one of the things we exchanged in writing.

It was about Pasiphae requesting the Minister of Internal Affairs, Griff, to create educational facilities, and Griff was planning and building military and technical schools accordingly.

“Yeah. I know we don’t have time. But even if we’re going to fight for a few years and then collapse, we should invest with a long-term perspective.”

The curriculum for the technical school had not been specifically determined, but I had heard that it would be a process that combines theory and practice for a short period of 2 years and a long period of 8 years or more.

The educators would naturally be Pasiphae at the forefront, as well as subordinates in the technical field and artisans with outstanding abilities among humans. Students would be selected from humans who had not yet reached adulthood throughout the empire.

The long education period was a flaw, but as Pasiphae said, it was a necessary process.

“Skadi, is the Ministry of Internal Affairs currently in charge of establishing the school?”

“Yes, should we separate the administrative agencies?”

I nodded.

Pasiphae was right.

The war between the empire and other races would not end within a few years.

Isn’t it too timid to be satisfied with muzzle-loading rifles and cannons? Before long, other races will also use gunpowder weapons, so shouldn’t we be armed with technology superior to theirs?

“That would be good. Create a new Bureau of Education as an administrative agency in charge of education, and allocate the necessary personnel and budget to it.”

“Yes, Father.”

The reason for creating a military school along with the technical school was that the size of the Imperial Army was rapidly increasing.

The current Imperial Army only numbered a few tens of thousands, and only one division was composed of riflemen. However, as the years passed, the Imperial Army would steadily increase to maintain hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Even if the upper-level commanders were filled with subordinates, it was impossible or inefficient to fill all the remaining officers with subordinates. Inevitably, ordinary humans had to be appointed as officers.

The military school was for training such professional officers.

‘Additionally, it also serves as a pilot for public education.’

We also planned to use the know-how gained from teaching elementary education to illiterate officers when the national conscription system was introduced, and to eventually lead to a system of compulsory education.

“Is this enough, Pasiphae?”

Pasiphae smiled and nodded once.

“That’s enough. I’m also trying various things besides the technical school. You know I’m building a steel mill, right?”

Previously, I had told Navy Admiral Horatio that I had discussed mass-producing cast iron cannons with Pasiphae.

As she decided to build new facilities to mass-produce cast iron cannons, she decided to build a steel mill so that she could produce steel in the future if she was going to produce cast iron in large quantities anyway.

“It’s called a steel mill, but for now, it’s just a cast iron workshop for mass-producing cast iron. We’ll start with small blast furnaces and gradually build up our expertise in blast furnace production, improvement, and operation.”

“It will take quite a while to extract steel.”

“Yeah. It will take a long time. We’ll only try other things after we’ve stably mass-produced cast iron. It’s best to look at it long-term, like the school, and forget about it.”

Even if we extracted steel, there would be few ways to use it anyway.

We don’t even have the mechanical equipment to use steel.

It’s not for nothing that we’re creating a factory-based handicraft industry.

“Just wait a little bit. There are a few pieces of mechanical equipment that our department is making. Like spinning machines, and they’ll be finished next week.”

Spinning machines, spinning jennies.

I chuckled inwardly.

Isn’t that the mechanical equipment that sparked the Industrial Revolution on Earth?

She was really doing her best to bring the empire’s technology to the Industrial Revolution.

“Oh, and there’s something I want to show you.”

Pasiphae took out an object wrapped in a towel from her arms.

“A pistol?”

“Look at the firing mechanism.”

“Oh ho.”

There was no fixture to hold the matchlock [an early type of firearm].

Instead, there was a fixture holding a flint, a cock [the hammer of a firearm].

“A flintlock [a type of firearm using flint to create a spark].”

A flintlock has a structure in which, when the trigger is pulled, the flint held in the cock strikes the cover on the front hard, causing sparks to fly and firing the bullet.

The firing method that the Imperial Rifle Corps had been using was called a matchlock, in which a lit rope was attached to a fixture and fired.

However, this method was prone to the matchlock going out easily, and there was a risk that the matchlock would touch the gunpowder and cause an explosion, so stability and reloading speed were poor.

The flintlock was an advanced method that solved these problems by using flint instead of a matchlock.

“Didn’t you give up on production because there were many defective products?”

I laid the cock back and pulled the trigger. Then, with a click, the cock sprang forward and struck the cover hard.

“Skadi said earlier that the expansion of industrial facilities was over. That’s also true for the armory. We can now stamp out the firing device more uniformly than before.”

“What is the production volume?”

“We still can’t make many per day. We’re slowly transitioning to flintlocks while maintaining matchlock production, so the recruitment of technicians is a bit delayed. But the facilities are in place, so we’ll catch up with matchlock production before spring comes.”

Since the daily production volume of the Olympus armory is about 20 units, that meant that the production volume of flintlock muskets would be about that much next year.

“Not bad.”

“There are two more things besides that—”

Just as Pasiphae was about to continue speaking with a smile,

“Your Majesty.”

A guard came into the conference hall at a rapid pace.

“What’s going on?”

“A human has come from the East.”

“A human has come from the East?”

Not a small southern country, not the East, but the Far East?

And the tone that a human had come was also strange.

The guard hesitated for a moment and then spoke again.

“They say they are a human who escaped from a human ranch in the Lizardmen’s kingdom beyond the Nerup Plains. They have come to see Your Majesty.”

Human Ranch (2)

“A human who escaped from the Lizardmen’s human ranch?”

How could that be?

I narrowed my eyes and thought.

‘Was there a human ranch in a place other than the Southwest Peninsula?’

In my memory, the human ranch was only on the Southwest Peninsula.

Since the entire Southwest Peninsula was a human ranch led by the representative system, there was no reason to create a human ranch in another place. Wouldn’t it be inefficient?

‘The only human ranch I know is the setting that other races individually managed ranches before humans migrated to the Southwest Peninsula.’

In fact, I had never seen a group large enough to be called a ranch in a place other than the Southwest Peninsula.

But now, there’s a human ranch in the Lizardmen’s kingdom?

“Could it be a lie?”

Imperial Chancellor Skadi asked, reading my thoughts.

“We’ll know when we see them in person.”

Even though I said that, I was sure.

That they really escaped from a human ranch.

‘Other races are capable of anything.’

In particular, the Lizardmen were a race that valued offering humans as tribute to their gods more than using them as slaves.

Isn’t it common for people to be indifferent to the food they eat but care when they offer it on the ancestral table?

Similarly, it wouldn’t be strange if they maintained a human ranch, saying they would offer livestock they raised themselves as tribute. The reason I didn’t discover it was that they disposed of the ranch before the main story.

Thump, thump…

The sound of weak footsteps echoed in the conference hall.

A scarred woman supported by a guard entered.

She kept her head down and covered her eyes as if holding her forehead with both hands.

【Lv. 46】

Quite a high level for a human.

“Lower your hands and raise your head.”

She trembled like an aspen tree at my words.

Without lowering her hands or raising her head, she cowered and tried to step back, so the guards on either side of her held her.

“It’s okay. Don’t force her.”

I dismissed the guards.

Because I know why she fears me.

Because her high level allows her to sense my soul.

“······.”

It took time for her to calm down.

She trembled as she breathed and raised her head.

Scars with scabs in torn places, deeply etched wrinkles, and cloudy eyes revealed the hardships she had endured to get here.

“I, I···.”

She tried to say something but raised her hands again to cover her face and gasped. She lowered her head again and trembled.

Emotions were welling up.

I got up from my seat and approached her.

As I got closer, she stepped back as if running away.

“Don’t be afraid.”

I took her hand.

Light emanated from my hand and enveloped her body.

The light that enveloped her body healed her wounds and healed her soul, so she soon stopped trembling and looked at me with wide eyes.

“Are you human…?”

I erased the light and smiled as I replied.

“Do I not look human?”

“Hah, but how… how can this—”

“Is it important to question the reason? What’s important is that I am the human you seek. As the only being who can save you.”

“······.”

“Tell me. Where did you come from, and what are the hardships you face?”