Just as Liliana was immersed in her own grand thoughts, her shoulders trembling slightly and uncontrollably, into the sweltering afternoon gale there suddenly mingled an exceedingly faint, yet uncommonly crisp and cold, herbal fragrance of Black Rose.
This unique cold fragrance brushed past the tip of her nose, making this new City Lord's body go suddenly stiff.
Liliana, sensing something, tilted her head slightly, those captivating obsidian-black eyes flowing, her gaze sweeping cleanly toward one side of the stone courtyard, behind that pavilion overgrown with green vines.
She saw, at the edge of that rough stone pillar, a strand of silver hair as dazzling as pure moonlight peeking out half a wisp from the shadows almost imperceptibly, swaying lightly in the wind.
Upon Liliana's gorgeous, pretty face there instantly bloomed an extremely aggressive, peerlessly beautiful smile. She slightly curled her moist lips, and toward the direction of that silver strand, in a somewhat sticky, saccharine, crisp voice, she called out:
"Your Majesty~"
"Whoosh——!"
Almost within one second of Liliana's trailing tone falling, that lovely strand of differently-colored hair, like a startled white rabbit, retracted extremely quickly behind the stone pillar, and in the blink of an eye vanished completely around the corner of the corridor.
Seeing this scene, Liliana, who remained where she was, smiled all the more happily.
She rubbed her burning cheeks with her fingertips, letting that morbid fervor completely engulf her.
Did you see that....
My Your Majesty Sophia, after handling the military affairs of those eighty-thousand troops, actually deliberately strolled alone in secret to this remote little stone-courtyard plaza just to sneak a look at me.
She is clearly worried that I, this newly arrived City Lord, cannot adapt to Mason's rules, and so she is secretly, silently watching over my performance!
Even though I caught her, she still maintained that aloof, cold and proud deadpan posture, and bashfully turned and left...
Oh, my Your Majesty, this disingenuous tenderness of yours really makes my whole self want to sink right in...
And at this moment, at the carved-corridor corner a hundred meters away.
The hem of her silk gown fluttering in disarray, Sophia was using her porcelain-fair fingertips to grip the rough stone wall for dear life, exhaling a long, faint, turbid breath.
In those pale-golden dead-fish eyes there was now filled a deep powerlessness and terror.
This Leighton woman has, due to some strange hidden affliction on the spiritual level, truly turned completely into an irredeemably dangerous person.
Sophia, somewhat troubled, rubbed her temples with her fingertips, and in the deepest part of her heart let out who-knows-which sigh of this afternoon.
Just now, having sat for a long while in the flower house, she had walked over here in passing, wanting to verify whether those improved seeds Irene had allotted to her had been ruined by this woman who never played by the rules.
And the result?!
The moment This Queen came over, I saw her clutching a piece of parchment, laughing alone at the air with her shoulders shaking wildly, even letting out that bizarre laughter that only a villain would have.
No—before the wheat fields of Leighton complete the autumn harvest schedule fully armed, I absolutely must not stay alone in the same room with this woman again, otherwise heaven knows when she'll once more, like last time in the Bedchamber, without any warning forcibly pounce onto my couch.
In order to calm her somewhat feverish and gravely wounded nerves, Sophia simply turned her steps, switched to an entirely different direction, and strode toward the workshop assembly line of the eastern side hall.
Right now the defensive burden of the entire Northern border was as heavy as Mount Tai; only by going to see the production progress on Irene's side could this Queen, who faced crisis at any moment, recover a sliver of meager security.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Before she had even fully stepped through the door of the eastern side hall, waves of leather-striking sounds, even denser and more rhythmic than in the early morning, came rushing toward her like a tide.
Sophia steadily strode into the domed great hall.
As far as the eye could see, the ceremonial open ground, which just a few days ago had looked somewhat disorderly, had now been divided into perfect order by rows of crisscrossing long wooden tables.
Under Irene's command—which barely followed any procedure yet by sheer accident was extremely efficient—a brand-new, era-transcending handicraft assembly line had already begun running steadily within this empty palace.
The long tables were precisely divided into several different work-step zones:
At the front-end cutting zone, dozens of strong farmwives held sharp fine-iron shears, and according to the standard white lines drawn on the tabletop in charcoal, extremely quickly cut the thickened coarse-cloth canvas into uniform armor underlinings.
At the potion-soaking zone, skilled workers wearing thick tanned-leather gloves pressed sheets of fully-tanned beast hide down into wooden barrels soaked with preservative herbs, deftly flipping them.
At the terminal riveting zone, also the most clamorous zone, over a hundred embroideresses with solid needlework skills sat in a circle, sewing three layers of leather tightly into the center of the canvas.
Accompanied by the striking of small hammers, cold-gleaming iron rivets were neatly fixed at the joints of the cotton armor.
Each work step performed its own duty; the cut cloth was naturally pushed to the embroideresses of the next step, with no superfluous stagnation or loss whatsoever.
This unprecedented production procedure caused the armor-producing speed of the entire workshop to begin multiplying explosively in an extremely terrifying manner.
"Yes! That's exactly the right force! Pound those rivets in solid for me!!"
At the very center of the great hall, Irene, sleeves rolled up, was hopping back and forth between the long tables like a pink lop-eared rabbit.
The vest she wore, hung all over with wrenches and small hammers, was covered in fine wrought-iron powder, yet within her sapphire-like eyes was brimming an extremely excited, ruddy flowing light.
"Miss Irene, take a look at this batch of finished products we just made!"
A young little embroideress, her face full of pride, lifted up a heavy ink-black cotton armor and handed it to Irene.
The surface of that armor had neat stitching, fine and tight stitches sealed seamlessly, and rivets glinting with the cold sheen of fine iron were arranged in neat rows across the chest, faintly emanating the herbal fragrance unique to the Black Rose workshop.
Such solid armor, even compared to the inner-guard heavy armor of the ancient southern core, was not much inferior in sturdiness.
"Mm! Your craftsmanship is improving very fast!"
Irene struck the armor hard with her little bronze hammer, producing a dull physical impact sound.
She patted the little girl's shoulder with extreme satisfaction:
"As expected of someone I taught!
As long as we get this whole batch of new armor made before winter, the soldier sisters at the front line will never again have to fear the enemy's stray bullets and stray arrows!
This is the sturdiest iron wall of our Mason's new Order!!"
"Yes, Miss Irene!
Being able to weave armor for Your Majesty and the soldier sisters, our whole family feels extremely proud!!"
The little girl hugged the armor, her moist eyes full of yearning for the future and blind reverence.
Standing in the shadow of the doorway, Sophia quietly watched the rows of coarse-cloth cotton armor circulating in orderly fashion, and in those pale-golden eyes, the resistance originally produced because of Liliana finally melted away a few degrees.
"Your Majesty? You've come!"
In the afternoon of the Yurilland Temporary Palace, the warm sunlight streamed through the carved windows bearing Black Rose reliefs, scattering patches of mottled golden fragments across the mirror-smooth marble floor.
Sophia, having returned from inspecting the workshop, was now leaning expressionlessly against the velvet-cushioned chair back.
A head of long silver hair flowed casually over her slender shoulders like bright moonlight, and on that exquisite, flawless deadpan face, the pale-golden dead-fish eyes were filled with the cold detachment and weariness unique to a seasoned Reincarnator.
She had originally thought that, while Liliana was dispatched off to the stone courtyard to learn the essentials of farming from the Garrison Army's female soldiers, she could finally have a brief, quiet afternoon and peacefully drink a cup of perfectly-warmed black tea.
However, before she could even pick up that exquisite little silver spoon, the tightly shut carved wooden door gave a soft sound.
Administrative Officer Willow, wearing her signature gentle smile, slightly stepped aside to make way at the main doorway.
Right after, a tall and upright figure strode in with extremely regulated steps.
The one who came was none other than the Mason Commander who had fought her way out alongside Sophia all the way from the Royal City, never abandoning her—Bardess.
As one of the core generals who had followed Sophia the longest, Bardess's height was indeed a bit tall for a woman; wrapped in form-fitted glossy-black chainmail, her legs appeared long and her figure crisp, yet without the slightest rough, burly clumsiness.
Her healthy wheat-colored skin glistened with a vigorous luster in the sunlight, and on a face that could be called heroic and bright, there was now written an almost rigid seriousness.
"Thud."
When she reached the edge of the white-fox-fur carpet, still five paces from the throne, Bardess extremely abruptly halted her steps.
She brought her knees together, knelt properly on one knee, her spine straight, and in a highly recognizable, somewhat magnetic neutral female voice, loudly reported:
"Reporting to Your Majesty! The far-western defensive line has sent unprecedented major intelligence!!"
Bardess slightly raised her head, those bright big eyes flickering with extremely fervent adoration, her neutral voice sounding especially crisp in the empty flower house:
"Just two quarter-hours ago, the female warriors of the border outpost sent a flying message!
The new City Lord of Leighton, Liliana, after issuing the Supreme Adjudication Decree at noon today—the main garrison within Leighton City actually underwent a massive, disintegration-like change!
A full ten thousand fully-armed Leighton elite iron cavalry and pike heavy-armored troops are now, like a torrent of ink-black steel, marching mightily outside the outer defensive line of our Yurilland Temporary Palace!!"
As Bardess spoke, she couldn't help but blink somewhat dazedly, her bright voice full of amazement at her own Majesty's supreme wisdom:
"Your Majesty, when those ten thousand battle-hardened elites entered the city, not only did they all voluntarily unfasten their swords, even the commanders of every rank willingly broke up their original duchy formation, shouting that they wished to submit to the reassignment of our Garrison Army!
The Leighton main force in the far west, always renowned for being intractable and unruly, was actually, in the short span of a single meal, completely drained of their last card of resistance by Your Majesty using a mere few sacks of improved wheat seed!!"
Bardess thrust her chest out high, her originally somewhat dazed heroic face full of irrepressible pride.
When I saw those ten thousand elite troops, like docile sheep, neatly stack their weapons at the city gate, only then did I completely understand Your Majesty's far-reaching design!
Your Majesty deliberately, secretly repatriated five thousand Mason veterans this noon, seemingly weakening the defense of the Temporary Palace, but in reality it was a most brilliant scheme of luring the enemy in deep!
City Lord Liliana saw through the empty defensive line Your Majesty deliberately left, and in order to express the most absolute submission to Your Majesty, she had no choice but to offer up all of her own cards, row upon row, with both hands!!
Listening to Bardess's thunderous report full of supreme adoration.
Sophia, sitting steadily in her chair, had her entire porcelain-fair deadpan face freeze extremely strangely, solidly, for one ten-thousandth of a second.
Those pale-golden dead-fish eyes coldly stared at her own reflection in the porcelain cup, and in the deepest part of her heart, she let out the forty-second despairing sigh of this afternoon.
Wait... hold on!!
Ten thousand elite troops?! How did another ten thousand mouths to feed appear!!
She always remembered Leighton not having that many troops—could it be that earlier, when the fighting was raging in Olan, many people had also gone to defect to Leighton?
Sophia frantically tore at her hair inside her heart, her whole cold face in the shadows nearly weathering into a stone sculpture named Despair.
In Sophia's precise-calculation model, one portion was at most just a few hundred, at most two or three thousand patrol guards clad in black iron skin!
But that mentally abnormal female lord Liliana—under what kind of fanatical thinking did she actually forcibly package and ship the entire ten-thousand-strong elite main force guarding the home base to the gate of my Temporary Palace?!
Ten thousand heavy-armored knights in the prime of their lives—just the refined salt, Black Bread, and big-bone soup they consume each day could instantly drain the Administrative Hall's main warehouse that I worked so hard to put in order!
The Improved Wheat that Irene planted hasn't even sprouted a green shoot yet—this sudden liquidity grain deficit, could it be that this Queen will have to go drink the northwest wind this winter?!
And also Bardess.... you fool, what are you so excited about following along?!
Since you have mild cleanliness obsession and OCD, have you not calculated how much loss and pressure those ten thousand will bring to the Temporary Palace's hygiene and logistics circulation each day?!
However, Sophia's expression—which, due to her being extremely worried about the coming full-panorama population-consumption cost, appeared all the more profound, oppressive, and even carrying a few traces of bone-piercing chill—falling into the eyes of Bardess kneeling on one knee below, once again, within one second, triggered an even deeper level of spiritual trembling.
Bardess looked at her own Majesty's cold posture, who couldn't even be bothered to lift an eyebrow, and her originally somewhat dazed little head went buzzing with a hum, the awe in her heart toward the Queen instantly soaring to the height of a deity.
Heavens.... did you see it? This is our Mason's supreme great emperor!
A full ten thousand top-tier deathsworn, each enough to swallow any small nation alive, all disarming and merging into the territory—in the eyes of any monarch of the old era this would be a grand fortune sufficient to be recorded in the annals of history!
Yet in Your Majesty's eyes, it couldn't stir up even a hair's worth of joy or fluctuation!
Within Your Majesty's pale-golden pupils, there clearly flickered a cruel divine gleam that regarded these ten thousand elite troops as some kind of insignificant dust, having long since cast the gaze of the next step's liquidation toward the Empire's expeditionary army coming south two months later!!
Beside her, the equally bland-faced Administrative Officer Willow now gently closed the roster in her hand, and softly added in a whisper:
"Your Majesty is wise.
Commander Bardess, you should now understand Your Majesty's broad-mindedness.
The reason Your Majesty deliberately transferred away a portion of the core veterans was precisely to test City Lord Liliana's sincerity.
Since the other party has sent over all her family fortune, cleanly arranged, then for the defensive grand accounts of the far west over the next two months, we can entrust it all to this Leighton new army to bear."
Listening to Willow and Bardess, one on the left and one on the right, completely imagining her into the true god who controlled the resource allocation of the continent in their fervent conversation, Sophia propped her cheek with one hand, the muscles of her face making no superfluous twitch, only somewhat world-wearily spinning that silver spoon on the tabletop.
No, Willow, I even want to send these ten thousand people back.
But thinking it over carefully, ten thousand more people also means one more layer of guarantee.
Heaven knows just how many soldiers the Imperial Capital actually has deployed?
Every nation imagines the Imperial Capital as a deity, yet the Imperial Capital itself is also so mysterious, making it utterly impossible to fathom their hand over there.
Sophia slowly raised her head, her voice as cold and clear as ever, betraying no ordinary emotional fluctuation:
"Since the people have already arrived, then have Bardess split up those ten thousand Leighton elite troops in batches according to the previous procedure, and merge them into the second-line defensive sequence.
Begin training, the same as the other soldiers."
"As you command, Your Majesty! Your will shall become the most severe contract-lock upon this plain!!"
Bardess's expression turned solemn, and she once again respectfully bowed.
As she rose, she even very strictly confirmed whether both of her feet were stepping within the seam of the same marble floor tile.
Only then did she retreat from the study extremely quickly with uniform steps, carrying that spotlessly polished chainmail.
Within the western Hall of State Affairs.
Liliana, who had just finished writing the dispatch order in the stone courtyard, was now striding across the threshold.
Those marching boots stepped on the marble floor, producing clear and rhythmic crisp sounds.
Her head of black curls, rich as deep night, lifted slightly in the wind, and on her exquisite pretty face there was still a trace of strange flush produced by extreme excitement.
"Where is Your Majesty?
I have a roster of ten thousand of the most elite Leighton knights, as well as the latest reclamation schedule concerning the forced cultivation by the two hundred thousand refugees of the Mafen Duchy, that I need to personally present before Your Majesty's long desk."
Liliana's beautiful eyes flowed, staring fixedly at Administrative Officer Willow standing at the foot of the steps, her voice full of unshakable jealousy and possessiveness.
Willow still maintained that signature gentle smile, unhurriedly closing the roster:
"City Lord Liliana, Your Majesty has just issued an order: the establishment-handover of those ten thousand elite troops is to be handled by Commander Bardess.
As for Leighton City's autumn harvest targets, Your Majesty is occupied with myriad affairs each day; you need only send the results to the Administrative warehouse half a month later, there's no need to specially disturb Your Majesty's afternoon tea schedule."
"No need to disturb?"
Hearing these words, Liliana not only had not the slightest dejection at being left out, but those captivating obsidian-like eyes instead suddenly lit up entirely.
She slightly curled her moist lips, the form-fitted dark light armor heaving violently with her somewhat rapid breathing, drawing out a nation-toppling yet bone-scorchingly cold fervent smile.
No... this is absolutely a secret signal that Sophia deliberately left for me!
The public Hall of State Affairs is for handling the rotten accounts of those seventeen cities' good-for-nothing kings.
Your Majesty saying there's no need to report at the western gate is clearly hinting to me, with that aloof, cold and proud deadpan posture, that such a supreme affair involving ten thousand elite trump cards and the lifeline of two hundred thousand refugees is something ordinary administrative civil officials are utterly unworthy of tallying alongside!
She is letting me, like before in the Royal City, in the deep of night without warning, alone carry these precious rosters, quietly bypass the outer female-soldier patrol line, and go directly into her deep-night Bedchamber....
On the couch emanating the cold fragrance of Black Rose, one-on-one with her, thoroughly verify the core grand accounts of this ownership clearly!!
Thinking of this, Liliana's whole self couldn't stop producing waves of trembling from extreme excitement.
Those vixens who fawned all day under Your Majesty's nose all became, in this instant, insignificant garbage residue!
"Hehe, since that's the case, then This City Lord won't waste time at this public long table."
Liliana reverse-handedly stuffed that stack of parchment, written full of the wealth rosters of two nations, fiercely into her bosom, extremely elegantly flicked the cloak behind her, and turned to stride toward the post-house on the outer side of the Temporary Palace.
This time, she would not only hand over the military authority in full in the deep night, she would also, on that pure and noble Gothic bed, properly settle this grand account concerning the first position at Your Majesty's side with those eyeless female foxes!
Meanwhile, in the garden corridor of the eastern side hall of the Temporary Palace.
"Disaster!! Disaster, disaster!!"
Pink twin-tails whipping wildly in mid-air, Irene, like a pink lop-eared rabbit whose tail had been stepped on, stamping out a string of flustered little leather-boot sounds, came barreling all the way from the deepest part of the corridor straight into the Garrison headquarters that Delilah guarded.
"Delilah!! Something terribly bad has happened!!"
Irene flopped down on the stone-wood long table, not even having time to wipe the sweat at the corner of her mouth, her sapphire-like big eyes full of unprecedented terror and panic, yelling at the top of her bright loud voice:
"Just now over at the inner guard of the western gate, I heard that lewd woman Liliana laughing and talking to herself alone!
That wolf of Leighton actually thinks that Your Majesty not seeing her is some kind of special boudoir hint!
Tonight in the deep of night, she plans to not even wear clothes, and just carry the rosters, forcibly cross the patrol line to night-raid Your Majesty's Bedchamber covers!!"
"Clang!!"
An extremely crisp and violent metal-clashing sound suddenly exploded within the side hall.
Delilah, who had been lazily leaning against the wall, within one second of hearing this sentence, those dark-red beautiful eyes suddenly narrowed fiercely!
She held with one hand that heavy greatsword as wide as a door panel, and shot to her feet in one motion, her head of blazing-fire-like red hair roaring in the sweltering gale, her whole body's killing aura instantly red-hot to the most crazed critical point!
"She dares!!"
Delilah fiercely smashed her sword into the rough obsidian floor, splashing up sparks all over the sky, her dark-red pupils full of extreme master-protection and intense aggressive competitiveness.
That shameless woman, openly provoking the female lord of Black Stone City in the Hall of State Affairs is one thing, but now she actually dares to fantasize about dirtying Your Majesty's noble, pure black gown hem?!
Back then Your Majesty led four thousand soldiers deep into peril, all to rescue me, this unworthy general, from the battlefield!
In Your Majesty's supreme world, I, Delilah, am the iron wall of guards she trusts most!
If tonight I let this shrimp-headed woman who acts with no rules whatsoever fully breach the Bedchamber's defensive line, then wouldn't my dignity as Mason's First General turn entirely into a laughingstock across the whole Northern border plain?!
Although I don't understand what "shrimp-headed woman" means, since Your Majesty calls her that, there must surely be her reason.
"That's right! We absolutely cannot let her succeed!!"
Irene also indignantly slammed the table, deftly fishing out from her little vest her most beloved little bronze hammer and a whole coil of cold-gleaming black musket fuses, her round face full of extreme vigilance.
"These past two days Your Majesty has nearly rubbed her temples to pieces because of the grain shortfall of those seventeen cities.
If tonight she's again, without warning, taken advantage of by this person whose whole head is filled only with thoughts of becoming Queen, then who is to compensate for Your Majesty's spiritual wear?!
Sister Delilah, the two of us will right now bring along the nimblest-handed female warriors of the Garrison camp, and set up the sturdiest defensive line before the gate of Your Majesty's Bedchamber!
Not even a single fly shall think to exchange for Your Majesty's pass in the deep night!!"
On the other side of the long table, the Third Princess Victoria, who had snuck over at some unknown point, was now lazily using an ivory folding fan to cover the corners of her mouth that had nearly curled up to the skyline.
Those two little girls Hailey and Tulan had been busy studying lately, neither of them eating melon.
Victoria felt it was about time to let Hailey, the little historian, relax a bit.
After all, some things are only interesting once they are recorded.
Night fell like a layer of thick black silk, completely covering the entire magnificent Yurilland Temporary Palace.
The bright moonlight poured down through the tall Gothic arched windows, illuminating the deep corridor into a snowy brightness.
In the air, aside from the faint herbal fragrance of Black Rose, there fell in an instant a near-bizarre dead-lock and solidification.
Before the gate of Sophia's Bedchamber.
The scene presented at this moment was enough to scare the soul out of any diplomatic envoy who wandered in by mistake.
In the center of the corridor, several yards wide, the red-haired Delilah, hair billowing, was propping up with both hands that ruby heavy greatsword, her whole self like an unshakable fire sculpture, expressionlessly nailed dead at the very center of the gate.
By her side, the twin-tailed Irene was crouching utterly without dignity on a huge tanned-leather wooden chest, clutching tightly to her chest a new-style musket, her sapphire-like eyes flickering in the night with a cat-like vigilant cold gleam.
And outside them, a full thirty Mason Garrison Army female warriors, wearing fine-iron chainmail and leveling black muskets, stood in row upon row, surrounding the entire corridor so tightly that not even a single grain of old rice could slip through.
"Thud, thud, thud."
At the very second the deep-night bell had just tolled, a string of extremely rhythmic, yet somewhat languid, leather-shoe footsteps broke the tranquility within the corridor at just this moment.
Beneath the sky-filling moonlight, wrapped in a crimson silk nightgown that extremely flattered her figure, her black hair scattered casually like a cascade over her round shoulders, Liliana came strolling gracefully and lightly.
Her breathtakingly elegant lines were displayed to the fullest under the silk's outline, and in the crook of her jade-fair right arm, she was still respectfully holding an exquisite pure-silver tray.
In the very center of the silver tray, there sat astonishingly a bowl of summer-relieving thick soup roiling with dense medicinal fragrance, as well as those two heavy heirloom great seals of Mafen and Leighton, emanating a golden cold gleam.
However, upon seeing the whole row of cold-gleaming black musket muzzles before the gate, as well as Delilah's greatsword as wide as a door panel.
On Liliana's snow-white, peerlessly beautiful face, that originally smiling, brimming tenderness instantly cooled down extremely strangely.
She slightly raised her haughty chin, and within those obsidian-like beautiful eyes there instantly erupted an extremely dangerous, blazing edge full of terrifying jealousy.
"Oh my, my...
I wondered who it was that, in the middle of the night, instead of verifying defense targets in the army camp, was carrying two pieces of iron sheet pounded out by a blacksmith, guarding before the Bedchamber gate of my own Your Majesty like a watchdog."
Liliana slightly tilted her head, her voice full of unshakable mockery and amusement, staring fixedly at the face of the red-haired onee-san.
"So it's General Delilah, and also Miss Irene.
This Queen, by Your Majesty's supreme administrative holy decree of this early morning, has specially come in the deep night carrying the highest defense lists and wealth rosters of two nations, to conduct a one-on-one Administrative inventory with Your Majesty in the Bedchamber.
You two, who can't even win Your Majesty's favor, actually dare to use this kind of cold iron sheet to block the.... exclusive passage that Your Majesty specially left for This Queen in the deep night?!"
"Pah!! Stop playing the rogue here in front of everyone in broad view!!"
Before Delilah could even speak, Irene on the wooden chest couldn't help but roll a great big eye-roll, deftly waving the black musket in her hand, and yelling at the top of her loud voice to rebuke Liliana:
"City Lord Liliana, please take back all those lewd thoughts of yours!
Your Majesty's handwritten order this morning clearly wrote that you are to return to your own Leighton black earth to dig in the mud!
Stop carrying a bowl of stale-rice soup here to act pitiful!
The trick of 'one cannot strike a smiling face' has no use whatsoever on our Mason defensive line!
Tonight, with This Inventor and Delilah here, don't even think of, like before in the Royal City, forcibly pouncing onto Your Majesty's covers without even putting your clothes on properly!
Look at that garment on you—so light and thin it's downright indecent, trampling our Mason's pure rules into the garbage heap!!"
"Indecent?"
Hearing this, Liliana not only had no shame at having her thoughts exposed, but instead laughed all the more, her figure trembling like a swaying flower.
That crimson silk nightgown undulated somewhat enticingly at the edge of the light armor with her suppressed movements, and within those black eyes flickered a contempt that nearly saw through to the core of a piece of rotten flesh.
"Hehe, Miss Irene, upon this plain that has already been entirely covered by Your Majesty's gown hem, only the City Lord who can bring true wealth and the handover of ten thousand elite troops is worthy of possessing the qualification to have a deep-night audience with the deity.
Your guarding here is merely because you saw the favoritism Your Majesty bestowed upon me, and in the depths of your hearts surged an extreme jealousy that cannot be neutralized.
General Delilah, although that ruby greatsword in your hand can smash the windlass of the western gate, before Your Majesty's grand survival ledger, can this kind of violent residue of yours that only knows how to bleed actually conjure ten thousand dan of top-grade fine rice for Your Majesty this winter?
If you know what's good for you, put away all these rotten muskets for me.
If you delay Your Majesty's deep-night resource reorganization, this resulting bad-debt loss—you can't afford to compensate for it."
"Then you can give it a try, and see whether This General's greatsword can chop these golden stones of yours, together with your head, all into fertilizer for this Yurilland field!!"
Veins bulged on Delilah's forehead, and that head of blazing-fire-like dazzling red hair nearly stood on end on the spot from extreme rage!
She flung up one hand, and the ruby heavy greatsword traced a crisp semicircle in the air; amid an ear-piercing tearing sound, the violent sword aura forcibly gouged a deep gully into the marble pillar on one side!
In the center of the corridor, the atmosphere instantly strained to the most crazed critical point; thirty inner-guard female soldiers in unison pulled the fuses of their muskets, the cold-gleaming farm tools and man-killing pikes clashing against one another at the perimeter.
And in the most hidden shadow at the corner of this corridor.
The Third Princess Victoria was sinking her whole self powerlessly into the darkness, using both hands to tightly cover her somewhat burning cheeks, those golden eyes full of a near-intoxicated fervor and shock:
Heavens.... Sophia...'s good little sister.
Just what kind of terrifying and great feminine charm have you hidden?!
Merely by sitting in a room flipping through books, you can make the queen of the far west, the red-haired great general of the Northern border, and the most top-tier inventor in all the world fight like beasts that had lost their reason before your gate, to the point of slaughtering each other over a single night-watch target.
She covered Hailey's and Tulan's eyes, then took the two children away.
This kind of melon—children had better eat less of it.
And at this moment, on the inner side of the tightly shut luxurious gate.
Compared to the asura-field storm outside that nearly tore the entire dome alive off its place, the interior of the vast Bedchamber presented an entirely different yet incomparably cool dead silence.
Beneath the glazed arched ceiling of the room, several magic wall-lamps emitting faint glimmering light illuminated the surroundings into a snowy brightness.
In the air drifted the faint exuberant sweet fragrance unique to Red Maple honey-sugar baking—that was the residual scent of the afternoon-tea desserts the kitchen had just baked with the new-style iron-sheet stove, strictly executing Her Majesty the Queen's command.
On the wide and comfortable white-fox-fur soft chair.
Sophia, having changed into a plain white silk nightdress, was maintaining that standard one-hand-propping-the-cheek posture, sitting steadily behind a long desk piled with administrative documents.
On that exquisite deadpan face like a deity's creation, the pale-golden dead-fish eyes were staring without any emotional fluctuation at the layers upon layers of complex gown hems on her own body.
Listening to the clearly transmitted, ultra-high-decibel hysterical shouting outside about night-pouncing into the covers, the authority of the first attendant, and tearing the other apart alive to make fertilizer.
On Sophia's porcelain-fair cold face, those pupils, always cold as frost and ice, silently closed.
In the deepest part of the Reincarnator's heart, there rose up, extremely rarely and frantically, the most thorough total spiritual collapse there had ever been.
Save me.... someone, please save me!!
Sophia slowly opened her eyes, somewhat distastefully picking up the white-porcelain teacup before her that had already gone completely cold, rubbing her temples with somewhat sour fingertips, feeling that her originally healthy ears were now both full of buzzing impurities.
She slightly turned her head, and through the crack of that heavy wooden door, she could even imagine it.
Outside, that Leighton City Lord wearing the crimson silk nightgown—with what kind of deadpan, fervent, and utterly shameless wild gaze was she now, holding the two golden great seals, sparring with my own guard female soldiers.
But thinking it over carefully.... it seems to make some sense too.
Within Sophia's dead-fish eyes that had no emotional fluctuation, there extremely covertly revealed a trace of subtle, faint relief.
As long as Delilah's heavy greatsword and Irene's musketeer squads are nailed dead outside the gate, then no matter how great Liliana's rogue intentions are tonight, it is absolutely impossible for her to break through this fully-armed checkpoint and forcibly pounce onto my couch.
This way, although it's a bit noisy outside, This Queen's most core sense of security has, this deep night, instead been most thoroughly secured.
Thinking of this, the deadpan Queen, who had originally seemed extremely irritable because of the asura-field storm, finally had the pleasure in the depths of her heart quietly flow out a tiny bit of meager surplus.
She slowly extended her porcelain-white little hand, deftly picked up from the pure-silver plate beside her a fluffy golden Red Maple little cake coated all over with glistening maple syrup, and elegantly stuffed it into her pink moist lips.
This enormous sense of gain—of personally sowing the future, while in the deep of night watching the show and listening to cross-talk—let theearlobes of this sixteen-year-old Queen find, in this instant, the ultimate dignity to go on living.
"Mm... it really is baked quite fluffy."
Sophia took a sip of the cold tea, and in the deepest part of her heart, blandly gave a score to the confrontation outside the door.
However, before she could even fully swallow the cake in her mouth, the enormous red-ink-number deficit on the long desk—the one Willow had just submitted, concerning the daily bread-ration consumption of Leighton's ten thousand elite troops and Mafen's two hundred thousand refugees—once again forcibly crashed into her line of sight.
Looking at the rows upon rows of target fluctuations glinting with a terrifying red gleam, as if to thoroughly wring dry the entire Mason Duchy under the new Order.
The silver-haired girl sitting steadily in the chair had, on her exquisite deadpan face, in an instant once again recovered that cold detachment that dominated all.
The moonlight was like a wash, the bright silver radiance scattering over the fountain in the Temporary Palace's central courtyard, stirring up a stretch of rippling, glittering fragments of shadow.
Only after leading the two little girls away from that dead-silent corridor that had nearly been overturned by vinegar and killing aura did the Third Princess Victoria slowly release the two hands covering their eyes.
She lightly tapped that exquisite ivory folding fan into her palm, looking somewhat helplessly at the two innocent-faced children before her.
"Sister Victoria, why wouldn't you let us watch?"
The six-year-old little historian Hailey somewhat discontentedly pouted her lips, those watery big eyes full of regret at having missed a great historical event.
She tightly hugged that heavy historian's notebook, carefully bound with tanned leather, in her arms, while the thin charcoal pencil gripped in her other hand spun a quick circle at her fingertips:
"I had nearly finished writing just now!
The Leighton City Lord coming to assault the pass in the deep night carrying the supreme wealth of two nations, only to be blocked dead outside the gate by the First Inventor Miss Irene and General Delilah—in the chronicles of the Mason Empire, this is absolutely a piece of palace-defense headline news worth writing a whole page about!
As the little historian personally appointed by Your Majesty, how could Hailey miss such a brilliant chapter?"
Seeing little Hailey's serious look, as if she wished she could rush right back to keep eating melon and recording, Victoria couldn't help but lightly tap her forehead with the folding fan, and teased with a smile:
"Little Hailey, this is not some glorious scene worth recording in the annals of history.
If you write all those crazy words you just heard—about night-raiding the covers, not wearing clothes—into your notebook.
If your Majesty sees it tomorrow morning, that deadpan face of hers will probably go so cold she'll take your little book to use as firewood."
And by Victoria's side, a fair, tender little hand was somewhat tremblingly, extremely lightly, tugging at the corner of her Black Rose cloak.
Tulan—who had once been personally pulled out of the ruins by Sophia in that ruined, destroyed nation—was now timidly shrinking in the shadows.
This introverted little girl, who in former days rarely spoke due to extreme trauma, after this period of recuperation, although her complexion had become much rosier, still had a shy, timid little manner.
Those jet-black eyes of hers appeared especially pure under the moonlight; carefully glancing at the deep corridor behind her from which faintly came firelight and the sound of the greatsword tearing, she, in a voice fine and soft and faint, almost like a kitten's whimper, weakly opened her mouth to ask:
"Sister Victoria....
That.... that big sister wearing the crimson clothes.....
Is she being disobedient in the middle of the night, wanting to go snatch Your Majesty's blanket?"
Little Tulan buried her head very low, her voice carrying a thread of childlike simplicity and lingering fear:
"Before, in Tulan's hometown.... only the very worst, most disobedient bad people would go snatch other people's blankets in the middle of the night...
The big sister looks so fierce—will Your Majesty be frozen by her?"
"Snatch the blanket?"
Hearing this wondrous description full of innocence and childlike fun, Victoria was slightly startled, then somewhat unable to restrain herself, used the folding fan to cover her cheeks, letting out a string of extremely elegant yet utterly delighted low laughs.
She turned around, half-crouched her slender body, extended her fair fingers and lightly rubbed Tulan's somewhat reddened cheeks:
"Tulan is so clever—that bad woman who came from Leighton does indeed want to go snatch Your Majesty's blanket.
But rest assured, that blanket-snatching bad fellow inside absolutely cannot get in tonight, because those two sisters outside the gate who catch thieves are very fierce, and will absolutely not let her trample the rules of the Temporary Palace."
Hearing this, Hailey at the side tilted her head, and within those clear eyes there suddenly flickered a trace of fervent flowing light of sudden realization.
This little historian, only six years old yet having already learned ten parts out of ten of the essence of "deifying everyone" in the Mason headquarters, suddenly slapped her own little head, and exclaimed aloud as if struck by enlightenment.
"Ah! I understand! This must surely be Your Majesty's most profound consideration!!"
Little Hailey, not even having time to pat the dust off her clothes, hurriedly with a clack laid that tanned-leather notebook flat on the stone steps of the corridor, the thin charcoal pencil in her hand rubbing out a rustling crisp sound under the moonlight, writing frantically while somewhat excitedly muttering along in a low voice:
"...Little historian Hailey's special deep-night record:
Today, Your Majesty secretly repatriated five thousand core veterans—in reality it was to set up, in the deep night, a loyalty-flow test targeting all the generals of the entire army.
Your Majesty deliberately did not see the Leighton City Lord, and with this aloof, cold and proud posture, successfully aroused the most extreme master-protecting battle will of Miss Irene and General Delilah, causing the Bedchamber defensive line to fully close-loop within one ten-thousandth of a second, like an iron wall.
And our great Your Majesty Sophia, for the sake of the stability of the Northern border's new Order, would rather alone bear in her room the deficit pressure of several hundred thousand population and the clamor of the outside world, governing all with this kind of bloodless supreme wisdom....
Conclusion: Your Majesty's divinity is, just as expected, unfathomably deep!!"
Victoria somewhat dotingly shook her head, casually taking the hands of little Tulan and Hailey, and leading these two little girls, full of anticipation for the new world of the future, toward the bedroom glowing with warm light, against the somewhat slightly chilly night wind of the central courtyard, unhurriedly.
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