Imperial welfare was, if anything, efficient.

"Every soul, a place to work." Was the wartime mantra that was plastered on streetcorner posters, printed on those cute little pink ration cards, and even spoken at the start of those afternoon radio broadcasts.

No hand could stand idle in the Imperium, with every person above the age of twenty-one practically required to eke out a living servicing either the private economies or that of a public institution.

More guns than soldiers who could shoot them, more ships than sailors that could sail them—a war economy exploding in a recursive loop of salaries paid from the royal coffers just to be put back in the form of war bond maturities and income taxes.

And when it was over, when the Axial Powers came to the table beneath their flags, Empress Annia saw no real reason to really shut the scheme down. Farmhands from drifters, mail sorters from recovering morphine addicts—an imperium funded loop of capital all trickling wealth up towards the palace atop Immortal Hill.

And that young Fourth Princess did ask about it to an at the time quite busy oldest sister. "What does it mean to 'work' Naomi?"

"You'll figure it out when you get older." That Naomi Elise had offhandedly dismissed. "… wait, aren't you supposed to be in classes right now?!"

Well, Sophia was about to find out what her 'job' was really gonna be.

And we are actually so, so screwed…

An hour to midnight, with these hallowed halls illuminated by these strange dim-brown fluorescent lamps that shed something near akin to firelight across this place. Casted shadows dance in strange undulating patterns with each flicker of voltage, every square meter of this veritable temple pulsating like some sort of strange creature—watching as a foreign virus passes through it in the midst of a vast waking dream.

The Fourth Princess of the Ensolian Imperium walks on these mirror black floors like a ghost, those black Tiancin robes upon her embroidered with gold fibers detailing an odyssey of flowers and hunted animals, her golden hair loosely done in a self-protracted, post-dinner rush. A cold scowl on her face too, empty breaths in her lungs as she takes each step with silence and control: comfort over practicality, timeliness exchanged for just a little more mental preparation.

And even better, Elodie delivers the good news to her as they walk and talk, papers in hand almost spilling as she tries to keep pace. "Twelve no-shows in total from a policy consolidation, looks like they decided to just force a few representatives from their side of the wall to go to this one. Common talking points for this first group seem to be focused on imperial foreign policy."

Great, something we're good at. Sophia's brain rolls its eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Foreign policy?"

"Imperial foreign policy was the common reference in their audience requests." Elodie informs, handing a stack of seven pages to this young woman. "This group is an even mix between military flag officers and a few magistrates of the lower court. Seems to be consolidated to a Lower Court group, I'd hedge a gamble on them trying to interrogate out your purpose within the Dominion."

"As in… if I'm here to weaken the Dominion?"

"Or take it over, but that's just my guess based on your lil' incident yesterday." Elodie scoffs for just a moment. "You know for a group of disloyal spies your staff's shockingly good at pulling a functional intelligence briefing out of their asses."

"W-what?"

"They're the ones who assembled the profiles." Elodie points. "As your humble servant I suggest you give them a read over. Of course I had your Guardsman cross-check them, just to make sure none of your cadres decided to pull a false-gate scheme on you."

"And?"

"Well, I made some of them double up on a few questionable files. That brother and sister pair are either the most incompetent spies on the continent or geniuses of counter-intelligence. But I'll make sure they… perform up to expectations of course."

Names and profiles, ranks and titles—alongside a short biography for each representative scratched together in quite legible handwriting.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Except…

"Why are these profiles not standardized?" Sophia coldly asks, flipping through these pages.

"These Tian bastards haven't even heard of a standardized template." Elodie casually curses. "Hells, these savages don't even use typewriters to draft these things. It's all hand written."

Following closely behind them the sour voice of Mori speaks up. "H-hey…"

That Spymaster continues. "I suggest you take a look over each of their briefs before beginning. The magistrates you can push around since they already look Imperial-sympathetic. But Magistrate Yun Zhexian…" She takes a moment to lower her voice, trying to slide under the nose of that Guardsman. "He's already quite silvered so he might be an anchor point for the rest of this group if you play it."

Ok, we have our way in. Sophia plots carefully. One domino and that entire house of cards falls.

"Also consider you have three military in this first meeting: two generals and one Admiral. Given the… expedited rate of this audience I wasn't able to access our network. Take care dealing with those, Dominion Generals turn sides the moment they think there's any chance of losing but getting the Admiral to budge might be trying to crack a macadamia nut with a pair of pencils. But between them they represent practically two thirds of the northern force, and whatever's left of the Adranic Fleet."

Chocolate macadamia nut spread. Sophia thinks. On toast, oh my Goddess.

"I've scheduled the total time for this meeting to be around three hours." Elodie flips the pages, entering a new section. "But if it ends early I've told the second group to be on standby. That contains four Sages from the High Court and two Central State Generals."

"I require a break between these two sessions." The Fourth Princess waves with a quick dismissive hand signal. "Fifty minutes."

Half an hour?!

And without a single skipped beat Elodie jots something onto her pad. "Understood. I'll relay that out."

We see what she's doing, don't we? A thought process addresses the Consciousness Committee, taking the speaker's stand as it schemes through what was shaping up to be the greatest work sprint ever executed by this mind. She's put the Sages, the most dangerous group of politicians in the Dominion, on the backfoot. In three and a half hours it will be nothing less than the earliest of early mornings, where even Imperial Avenue would lay deserted from any souls.

Because beneath the pale blue glow of Unudo, no sane mind would remain awake.

Except for one.

"That is quite a late meeting, is it not?" Sophia asks with a sudden self-awareness. "Is that alright?"

"Well, for them they've been awake for Goddess knows how long. So I've taken the opportunity to give them a chance to really 'ferment' in their exhaustion. You'll be taking advantage of your… peculiar… sleep schedule so it'll just be an average late court session for you."

She pauses, letting a trickle of cultural idealism fall to her. "Take no offense to this Ma'am, but this can be seen in some Axial nations as psychological torture. "

Thank Goddess we haven't been married off to an Axial Power then… or else we'd be doomed.

As if perfectly timed this small group arrives before these two black steel doors, towering up almost a story each in scale: dwarfing the humans beneath carvings more ancient than even their Imperium.

"Anything else?" Sophia needs to catch her breath, this almost three hundred meter walk winding her in a pathetic display of personal fitness.

"Other than good luck, Ma'am." Elodie wishes, then pauses. "And I'll be with you if you need anything."

They all watch as Sophia tries not to double over, almost coughing from this fast-walk from her room to this randomly chosen conference hall within the relatively same wing of this almost incongruently built temple.

Mori speaks up first towards that chief of staff, hands on her hips as if preparing to dig for a lost pair of keys. "You got a weapon on you, Elodie?"

"Of course not." There's a tinge of slyness, catching an implication that simply flies over the Fourth Princess' head. "I can't imagine being armed without proper authorization in this most holy place."

The Guardsman scoffs, reaching into a pocket beneath her long robes. "Yeah, that makes sense. Just promise not to tell anyone I let you borrow this~"

A flash of black, machined steel catches the dim light of these halls—the seven barrels of a tiny handgun passed between these two members of Sophia's staff like an illicit note between classmates.

Mori watches as the 'Head of Staff' masterfully checks each chamber of the weapon, those thin calloused hands running themselves across the rims of the bullets seated within their little nests. "Ya know how to…"

"I'm not that out of practice." Elodie turns to the young woman doubling over, now actually coughing, and speaks with a slight edge of concern. "Are you ready, Ma'am?"

Absolutely not. Sophia wants to scream out. I wanna go home!

But instead she simply straightens her posture, cracks her neck, takes a breath, puts on that ice cold scowl on her face, and speaks to this world with an authority unlike anything seen in these halls before. "I'm ready."

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