Stability

Now is the time to grow our strength.

Book 5-5.1

As usual, the end of the war was decorated by sorrow.

There were more deaths from the warriors protecting the tribe than the warriors who went away to war this time, but none of that mattered to the families of the warriors. The only thing that mattered was whether they lived or died.

Since Pareia encouraged warriors to take wives and have children, the remuneration to the families of the dead warriors was the most important issue.

There was also a different problem if you probed deeper into this issue, and that is of course the ratio between men and women.

That was a problem in the entire desert, but it was significantly worse for Pareia which had now unified the entire Eastern Desert.

Population 2,000,000.The 18 to early 40 year old men who needed to serve in active duty was less than 300,000. This was causing a serious issue now that they had gathered all of the families of the tribes that were involved in this past war.

Approximately 60,000 warrior were killed in the last two wars with the united tribe and the Shuarei. Out of the 60,000, around 20,000 of them were the breadwinners. The tribes protected the warriors and the warriors’ families, and since the dead warriors died for the tribe, it was natural that their remaining family members will be cared for by the tribe.

But that number was pretty large.

With 20,000 warriors dead, there would be at least 100,000 family members at minimum. This was why they could not start the private property distribution in the conquered areas like they had done in Pareia right away. They did not even have enough to even provide for the families of the dead warriors right now.

The thankful aspect was that because their population grew due to the unification of the Eastern Desert, they could rely on more people to do manual labor, and to do it more effectively. Most importantly, with the reduction of paths that had to be avoided, Pareia’s treasure chest Edwin, could now be more aggressive with his trades without worrying about theft.

“Sigh~ you are asking for such a difficult request.”

Seeing Edwin let out a long sigh and lower his head, Runa felt a bit apologetic. He knew it was an extremely difficult request, but he had no other choice.

“If we cannot ask such thing to Edwin-nim, who could we ask? Please help us. This is not a deal of any kind, but a request from Pareia.”

“Unfortunately, it is impossible right now. Whether it is wheat or really any type of food, the market prices are rising significantly. I understand the Eastern continent getting nervous, but these royal bastards of the Western continent are about to go to war over a woman’s handkerchief. Just how stupid can they be?”

“The Western continent going to war?”

Employing spies takes quite a lot of money. They were focusing all of their information in the Eastern continent right now that they were clueless to what was going on in the Western continent. That was why Runa was surprised and asked Edwin.

“Yes. And it is for an extremely stupid reason.”

“I am curious.”

“Sigh… it is to regain their honor that even a dog would not care about. You will laugh once you hear the story.”

Edwin wanted to provide Runa with the wheat that he was asking for even if he needed to take on extra burden. That way, he would be able to take an advantageous position in a deal with Pareia in the future. Unfortunately, the cost of wheat in the entire continent was flying up right now. In addition to wheat, the market price of edible animals, iron, etc, were all at least three times higher than the past month.

It was because the Western continent was getting ready for a potential war as well. However, the flames of war were burning extremely hot at such an early stage that Edwin was this angry right now.

“Sigh~!”

Edwin let out another long sigh before starting his story.

There is a small kingdom called Stalina in the center of the Western continent.

This Stalina Kingdom has been ruled by a queen through the generations, and sits between the three strong nations of the Western continent: the Inama Kingdom, the Narrate Empire, and the Litmus Kingdom. Stalina has played a shrewd diplomatic tug-o-war with all three nations to have its independence and neutrality approved by all parties.

The true reason this Stalina has managed to maintain its independence in the midst of these three large nations was because it was serving as the buffer zone between the borders of all three nations.

In addition, there were diplomats from all three nations who resided in Stalina, that this could always be used as the final line for negotiations.

But the most important factor was the fact that the Stalina Kingdom and the three strong nations were all family.

A good portion of the three strong nations’ royal families had been a part of arranged marriages with the Stalina royalty; so the current emperor’s and the royal blood had at least a bit of the Stalina blood mixed in with it.

Of course these nations had arranged marriages as if they were eating dinner, but they had been through multiple arranged marriages throughout the years that there was a decent level of familiarity. Most importantly, the Queen of Stalina, as well as her daughter the princess, were both stunningly beautiful.

Stalina’s royal princess Eropei Lot Lucia became the famed beauty of the Western continent from the moment she showed herself at a ballroom when she was fourteen years old, and naturally, this news had spread to the three nations as well.

All three nations had princes who were quickly reaching the age to be married, and all three of them had fallen for Eropei at first sight. That meant that there was only one solution. As they had done in the past, they would send an envoy on Eropei’s 18th birthday to respectfully ask for her hand in marriage.

The Queen of Stalina could not help but be put in an awkward position. She only had one daughter, but three nations came to ask to marry her. If she had it her way, she did not want to give her daughter away to any of them, but she could not do anything about it as all three were the strong nations that could easily suppress her kingdom.

Accepting any of the three wedding proposals would immediately start a war.

A wedding proposal from a prince was not an easy problem to resolve, and this situation was probably as terrible as it could get.

If not, would the Queen even have blamed her own daughter Eropei for it?

After contemplating what to do for a long time, the Queen decided to invite the princes of the strong nations to Stalina. The princes who firmly believed the Queen of Stalina was their future mother-in-law naturally showed up, and the Queen made them all gather together.

One everyone had gathered, she tried to push the problem off to the princes by saying ‘I only have one daughter and three suitors, so please come to a decision between the three of you. You are all men and proud knights, please make it so there will be no issues in the future.’

Since all three of them had identities that could not be ignored, the Queen thought that they would have to cleanly give up if they lost, no matter what the competition may be.

Unfortunately, the problem only got bigger from there.

None of them wanted to give up. They did not even try to find a competition to compete with. Eropei had to become their wife no matter what.

She was more beautiful than a flower and brighter than the sun. How could anybody give up on such a woman?

The three princes were sharing some thorny words with each other before they ended up taking out their swords in the end. Seeing the princes take out their swords, their security details took out their swords as well.

One of the princes were killed while the other two princes became crippled.

With the three nations that controlled approximately two thirds of the entire Western continent about to go to war, it was natural that pretty much the entire Western continent would be affected by it.

Edwin seemed to be frustrated after sharing this long story and quickly gulped down the water on the table.

“Does that make any sense? An entire continent going to war over a single woman?”

Runa could only shake his head in disbelief internally.

“Do you know what the funniest part is? The flower of the war, the princess named Eropei who has been given the name ‘Flower of Blood and Death’ has disappeared with her guardian knight.”

“What do you mean?”

Edwin made an angry expression that was directed at the root of the potential war and responded.

“What else could it mean? Princess Eropei already had a man she had given her heart to. These idiotic princes had fought over a woman who already had a man she loved.”

“What an amazing princess.”

“More like what a shithead of a princess. Tens of thousands of people may die because of her. According to my sources, the Stalina, as well as the three nations who still have not given up, have all sent teams to track her down. Just what they can still do even if they find her now……”

As someone who was urging warriors to have multiple wives, Runa could not understand. As Edwin mentioned, why would they go to war over a single woman?

It led to a short duration of silence between the two. The conversation had flowed in an odd direction, but that was not the important thing right now.

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