Hearing this, Liliana, far from immediately walking toward Willow, instead took one great stride forward.
Within that pair of obsidian-like enchanting eyes, the scorching flowing light all but condensed into substance, wrapping the silver-haired girl upon the throne up in full.
"The affairs Your Majesty has entrusted to me, I shall naturally verify and reconcile each and every one, down to the last detail."
Liliana, brimming with smiles, faintly lifted her chin, that close-fitting dark-black light armor setting off her soul-stirring, graceful figure all the more alluringly.
She did not even spare a single glance for that trayful of golden national seals; she merely gazed at Sophia with eyes full of tender affection:
"However, the greatest asset I have brought to Your Majesty this time... is right here.
So long as it pleases Your Majesty, whether it be the sovereign authority of Leighton, or this very person of mine, both are at any moment yours to dispose of as you see fit."
The instant these words left her mouth, the air within the entire western Hall of State Affairs seemed in a single moment to be utterly set ablaze.
The several newly-appointed City Lords standing at the foot of the high dais had their expressions turn, in an instant, into a brilliant medley of changing colors.
Most especially the female City Lord of Black Stone City, clad in a deep-purple robe, who had today, in order to be able to come and have an audience with Her Majesty, deliberately dressed herself up with the utmost care.
Yet now, hearing this newly-arrived Queen of Leighton actually declare her heart's adoration for Her Majesty so utterly shamelessly in the great hall, this shrewd, mature beauty had her pair of long, lovely eyes snap and fix themselves dead upon Liliana.
Noticing those several lines of intensely hostile gazes around her, Liliana tilted her head slightly to the side, a flicker of haughty, cold contempt flashing across the depths of her eyes.
She exceedingly elegantly brushed at the black curls tied behind her head, and in a voice that was soft yet arrogant enough for the whole hall to hear crystal-clear, slowly said:
"I hear that a few mornings ago, in certain newly-surrendered cities, the lords—in order to win a sliver of Her Majesty's pity—actually went, bright and early, with spades in hand, to muck about in the mud-fields in person?
Heh heh, truly a pack of coarse, vulgar tactics unfit to grace the stage.
What I have brought this time is half the realm—enough to prop up the new Order of the Black Rose.
Certain little vixens who know only how to fawn with handfuls of mud had best hurry up and withdraw those sticky, disgusting eyes of theirs, lest they soil Her Majesty's pure and noble black skirt-hem."
"You...!"
The female City Lord of Black Stone City trembled violently with rage, that mature, graceful cheek of hers flushing crimson in an instant from the extreme humiliation.
In one corner of the hall, Irene was grinding her pearly teeth until they creaked.
This damned brazen hussy!!
Barely through the door and already opening up with her ultimate taunt—does she really take this Inventor's muskets for mere decorations?!
Everyone else wore looks of displeasure; Liliana's sudden appearance seemed bent on shattering the rule that everyone knew but no one spoke of.
Only the Third Princess Victoria, off to one side pinching her ivory folding fan, at this moment had her pair of golden eyes utterly full of gleeful exhilaration.
On the surface she feigned a docile, eyes-on-nose, nose-on-heart air of meekness, yet that exquisite folding fan was waving madly before her cheeks—no one knew that behind the fan, the corners of her mouth had nearly curled clean up to the roots of her ears.
Marvelous! Simply too marvelous!
The very moment the wolf-bitch of Leighton stepped onto the scene, she launched a full-frontal, face-to-face barrage straight at the seasoned vixen of Black Stone City.
This is plainly the ultimate shura-field within the court of the Black Rose, over the authority of 'first attendant at Her Majesty's side'!
I wonder by what manner of grand, sweeping means our flawlessly-scheming Queen will, in the next instant, flatten the betting line of this vixen and this wolf-bitch with a single slap?
Upon the throne.
Meeting Liliana's tender, affectionate—even faintly morbid, possessiveness-laden—scorching gaze, Sophia, seated steadily in her chair, had her pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes, upon that whole porcelain-fair deadpan face, blink with utmost composure.
In the deepest depths of the reborn one's heart, that surge of distaste and resistance toward troublesome figures, in this very second, at last transformed entirely into a frenzied roar.
Hold on a second!!
This woman's hide really does thicken far too fast—before, she only dared express her thoughts when no one was around, yet now, in front of a great crowd, she's actually started playing the rogue.
In order to safeguard that pure skirt-hem of hers and a bit of peace and quiet for her ears, Sophia decided to employ the means most capable of utterly sobering up this person whose head held nothing but the notion of becoming Queen, and to deal her a cold, hard rap.
The girl's fingertip hooked against the black-lacquered armrest, giving off a cold, metallic clack.
Then, she tilted her head slightly to the side and, toward the placid-faced administrative officer Willow beside her, coldly spat out a single word.
"Present it."
"As you command, Your Majesty."
Willow bowed elegantly, and then, under Liliana's somewhat puzzled gaze, neatly presented a thick stack of parchment ledgers—densely covered all over in red ink with figures written in deficit-red—to the very front of the long table.
Sophia lifted the white-porcelain cup before her, her voice cold and clear without the slightest trace of mortal warmth, carrying an unshakable, supreme majesty, settling down with a thunderous finality within the hall.
"Liliana, since you keep harping on about realms and sincerity, then first reconcile, clean and clear, this burden here in my hands.
You slaughtered to your heart's content on the ancient road just now, but with the Mafen Duchy's defenses there having wholly disintegrated, a full two hundred thousand homeless displaced people and routed soldiers have appeared out of nowhere.
Add to that the fact that your Leighton has only just been through a deep-palace civil strife, and the stale-rice reserves in the main warehouse are barely enough to even get through this winter.
The bread consumed every single day by the entire populace of these two places is, for my Mason's new Order, an enormous bottomless deficit-hole."
Saying this, the silver-haired girl tilted her head slightly, that pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes radiating a cold, frigid edge that regarded everyone as nothing but pure labor force:
"Since you've come to throw in your lot bearing the entire supreme guidance authority, then starting from this very noon, you no longer need to go back to Leighton's deep palace to be Queen.
From now on you are the City Lord of Leighton; a portion of your troops is to be transferred over to Yurilland.
I will issue you the workshop's newest improved wheat seed.
Within the next half-month, whether it be the plains of Leighton or the wastelands of Mafen, every last inch of black earth must be turned over for me, and the whole population must get down into the fields and sow the Improved Wheat!"
Sophia's tone was cold as frost, without a shred of superfluous emotion.
"Before the target concerning this winter's grain stores comes down, if I see a single mu of land falling behind, or a single grain of wheat concealed or missing from the reports...
Liliana, then from then on you will never again have any need to set so much as a single step through the western gate of this Temporary Palace."
This near-harsh verdict—one that might well be called squeezing a sovereign of a nation like a coolie—rang out across the entire western Hall of State Affairs.
Hearing this, the female City Lord of Black Stone City could not help but flash a cold, gloating sneer in the depths of her eyes.
Did you hear that, woman of Leighton?
Her Majesty holds your beauty in utter disdain!
In Her Majesty's eyes, you are nothing more than a high-grade labor force used to fill a grain shortfall!
And yet.
Liliana, standing stock-still at the very front of the long table, after listening to this whole string of near-impossible, ultra-high-intensity farming tasks—
her whole person showed not the slightest dejection; on the contrary, that pair of dark eyes, after a brief blankness, actually erupted in an instant with a near-morbid flush and ecstasy!
Because within the domain of her thoughts, this cold verdict of Sophia's had already, thoroughly and completely, been transmuted into the most profound, most magnificent, top-tier romance in all this world.
Heavens... Sophia, you—you actually hold such high expectations of me!
You packed off those seventeen good-for-nothing kings of the cities and only allotted them the target of scattered plots.
Yet the moment you laid eyes on me, you entrusted into my hands, holding nothing back, the very grain lifeline of the two most core, most enormous nations!
A punishment? No, no, no—this is plainly your ultimate trust in, and test of, my, Liliana's, ability to take command of the grand situation!
(Talk about clueless—) And what's even more important is...
You actually said that if I fail to complete the target, then from then on I'll have no need to enter the western gate again?
The western gate is the public venue where ducal state affairs are handled!
The unspoken meaning behind your words is plainly that, so long as I make the wastelands of these two nations grow thick with wheat and utterly fill up the deficit in your main warehouse...
from then on, whenever I, Liliana, come and go from the Temporary Palace, I can bypass this side-hall corridor entirely and walk that exclusive passage which leads straight to your deep-night Bedchamber!!
At the very thought of this, Liliana's whole body could not stop itself from shuddering, wave after wave, from the extreme excitement.
The beautiful Her Majesty... that warm, soft bedding!
That supremely beautiful face was filled with unshakable resolve; she once again dipped into a graceful bow, her voice turned somewhat hoarse from the extreme fervor.
"Please set Your Majesty's heart entirely at ease!!
Never mind the grain for several hundred thousand mouths—for the sake of Your Majesty's grand design, I, Liliana, even if I have to claw open every last inch of rock in Leighton and Mafen with my own fingernails, will absolutely, within half a month, make every stretch of wasteland grow thick with the cyan wheat sprouts of the Black Rose!
This time, I will surely become the most perfect... number-one grain-producing magnate under Your Majesty's command!!"
Gazing at that Queen of Leighton below—face flushed scarlet, who-knows-what farcical scheme conjured up in her head, even her breathing turned hurried—
Sophia, seated steadily upon the throne, somewhat at a loss, rubbed her rather sore temples with her fair fingertips, and in the deepest depths of her heart silently let out this early morning's n-plus-first sigh.
Sophia felt rather helpless.
With that fervent gaze of Liliana's—as though she could hardly wait to bury herself in the soil as fertilizer the very next day—could she really, truly, farm the land well?
In order to prevent this brand-new City Lord, whose head was full of nothing but fervent notions, from running wild on Leighton's soil, Sophia, after the meeting adjourned, in the end still—with something of a headache—handed down a written order.
She dispatched several garrison-troop female soldiers from the Mason home base who were quite experienced in farming, to go and instruct Liliana in the sowing affairs to come.
On the small stone-courtyard square off to the side of the Hall of State Affairs, several sacks of Improved Wheat seed that had just been hauled out from Irene's workshop were neatly stacked against the wall.
Two Mason female soldiers, clad in black chainmail with short swords at their waists, were at this moment standing beside the sand-plot with somewhat subtle expressions.
Each held in hand a refined-iron tilling plow, watching this dark-black-light-armored beauty before them who was, with brimming enthusiasm, rolling up her sleeves.
Even in this scorching afternoon, once Liliana set to work she betrayed not the slightest trace of the daintiness one would expect of a Queen on ordinary days.
Her black curls, rich as the deep night, were bound up exceedingly high, and as she bent down to grab a handful of earth, her close-fitting light armor outlined that soul-stirring, graceful figure to a degree one dared not look upon directly.
The two Mason female soldiers standing to one side exchanged a glance and, while skillfully fiddling with the farm tools in their hands, could not help but lower their voices and whisper into each other's ears in the faintest of murmurs.
"Hey, did you see that?
This Leighton City Lord's gusto is honestly even greater than those prisoners of war outside the city working for a ration of bone broth.
You're not from Mason so you wouldn't know—this Lord Liliana, back when she was in the Royal City... once crept into Her Majesty's bedding in the dead of night!"
"Huh? Keep it down! Do you have a death wish?
But still... take a look at that waistline of hers, and look at that face, pretty as a fairy's.
No wonder, in the Hall of State Affairs just now, even that seasoned City Lord of Black Stone City was driven pale in the face by a single sentence of hers.
Her Majesty's gaze just now was cold enough to drop ice shavings, yet this Lord, of all things, after taking a scolding actually smiled sweet as though she'd eaten maple sugar—you tell me...
just what manner of arrangement did she and our Her Majesty have in the past?"
"The way I see it, Her Majesty must hold her in extremely high regard in her heart.
Otherwise, why would she allot the most precious improved wheat seed, the very first batch of it, entirely to Leighton's soil?
This loosening and tightening, one after the other, is plainly a profound, far-reaching favor unique to Her Majesty.
Hurry up and get to work; don't go losing Her Majesty's core asset."
Listening to the female soldiers' whisperings beside her ear—ones they thought were concealed yet which had in fact long since fallen, word for word, into her hearing—Liliana's pair of flawless obsidian eyes held not the slightest anger; instead, the smile at the corner of her mouth grew all the more resplendent and smug.
Did you hear that? Even the personal-guard female soldiers at Sophia's side have seen it.
To give the best wheat seed, the very first batch, all to me—if this still doesn't count as favoritism, then what on earth does?!
My Your Majesty~ my Sophia, your mouth speaks the coldest of words, yet the ledger in your hand reckons more tenderly than anyone else's.
It seems Sophia doesn't really dislike her all that much after all—perhaps she's simply wholly preoccupied with matters of state, and just hasn't awakened to this side of things yet.
The young female soldier off to one side reined in her thoughts and, somewhat tremblingly, stepped forward, performing a respectful military salute toward Liliana, then pointed at the sandy soil on the ground and explained in soft, gentle tones:
"Lord Liliana, the sowing of this Improved Wheat is not the same as the ordinary barley you've seen before.
Miss Irene gave special instructions in the workshop: these cyan wheat seeds, soaked in potion, are exceedingly sensitive to the moisture and depth of the soil."
As the female soldier spoke, she neatly used the small refined-iron trowel in her hand to scrape open a shallow furrow in the black earth:
"When you turn the soil, the force in your hand must be steady—no more, no less, exactly two inches deep.
Too shallow, and the thirsty little birds of the Northern border will spot it at a glance and steal away Her Majesty's bestowal clean.
Too deep, and the chill beneath the ground will freeze the seeds to death, or else slow their growth rate so they can't keep up with the harvest schedule before autumn.
So long as the soil is covered tight and firm, these rows upon rows of wheat sprouts that grow out will all be the bedrock of confidence for the Black Rose new Order."
"Two inches deep, covered tight and firm..."
Liliana followed the female soldier's gesture with her gaze; those plump seeds, each one shimmering with a faint cyan glow in the sunlight, fell into her fair palm, giving off a faint, refreshing fragrance of herbs that seeped into the very heart.
At the mere thought that, so long as she scattered these cyan treasures all across the wastelands of Leighton and Mafen, she could then openly and aboveboard go downstairs to exchange for a pass to an audience with Sophia, this former Queen's heart felt as though it had been stickily plugged up by a lump of honey-syrup, numb and tingling something fierce.
"Very good, I've committed it to memory."
Liliana gathered up her palm and, somewhat languidly, tilted her head to the side, snapping her fingers toward the several Leighton inner guards at her flank, her voice in an instant restored to that coldness and ruthlessness belonging to a ruler.
"Did you understand the Mason officers' words?!
Once you're back, tell every manor lord and mayor within Leighton's borders: if the spade in their hands so much as tilts a hair's breadth askew, This Queen will take them apart and make fertilizer of them!!"
Before the two Mason female soldiers had even finished explaining the remaining farming essentials concerning "how to use the new-type tanned-leather fertilizer," Liliana had already, somewhat impatiently, sat herself down at the stone table off to one side.
Her slender, jade-like fingertips fiercely dug out a sheet of fine parchment, and with a backhand motion she fished from her little pouch a quill pen soaked through with black ink, and, borrowing the sky-filling scorching afternoon gale, set down upon the paper, scratch by scratch, a string of crisp, exceedingly aggressive handwriting.
It was a supreme decree of judgment to be dispatched to the Leighton City home base.
"To all the personal-guard Commanders and the heads of every great merchant guild garrisoned throughout Leighton's borders:
This Queen has, at noon this very day, formally and in full presented every legitimacy of the Kingdom of Leighton before the seat of Mason's supreme Queen, Her Majesty Sophia.
From this point on, Leighton shall no longer be a nation, and is wholly renamed Leighton City.
The garrisoned home camp is to immediately, in accordance with the circulation guidelines of the Black Rose new Order, draw out a full half of the entire regular army stationed along the western defensive line, as well as of the elite Leighton iron cavalry.
Without any stopover, led personally by the First Commander, they are to rush at full gallop within three days to the outer perimeter of the Yurilland Temporary Palace, and be merged wholesale into Commander Bardess's second-line garrison sequence, to be dispatched personally by Her Majesty!
Any stubborn noble who defies the order and disobeys, or who produces so much as a single coin's delay in the accounts, is to be, on the spot, charged with the capital crime of colluding with the old era... and obliterated in liquidation!!"
Liliana, with utmost crispness, stamped down upon the paper the red fire-wax representing Leighton's supreme sovereign authority, then slapped it hard against the chest of her personal guard, and let out a long, long breath.
Sophia just said she wanted me to transfer a portion of my troops over to Yurilland to help her hold the defenses.
This plainly means she has seen through that the southern Imperial Capital's grand army might march north at any moment, and that, having just packed off five thousand veterans from her side, she is precisely at the moment most lacking in any sense of security!
She has left such a core defensive vacancy to me—how could I possibly fob her off by sending over a mere few hundred ordinary men?!
If I'm to give, then I'll give the most perfect half of my elites!
Liliana's enchanting eyes glittered with a near-frenzied fervor and obsession; she rose to her feet, gazed off toward the direction of the rooftop greenhouse not far away, that supremely beautiful face full of unshakable resolve:
"Crack troops, plus the land of those hundred thousand mouths in Mafen...
Sophia, my flawless Your Majesty, I'll just have to wait and see—the day all hundred thousand mu of this Improved Wheat grows out...
what will those Northern border native vixens who cluster around you all day long have left, to compare themselves against me with?!"
Sophia, who had originally strolled over this way intending to sneak a peek at whether Liliana was studying properly, was met with precisely this scene.
Clutching the parchment, her whole face beaming with an exceedingly radiant smile, and even now and then letting out a "heh heh heh" sound from her mouth, Liliana laughed until her shoulders heaved.
Terrifying. This woman is truly terrifying.
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