Today was the day of the general meeting for Geola’s officials. This meeting only happened once per season and was much longer than the usual weekly status meetings. There were no limits to the variety of topics as long as they affected Geola in some way, even if it was vague.

Crali waited until all participants arrived in the room that also served as her office. Angin was slumped on the sofa in a corner, looking even more lazy than usual. After Geola reopened, she had become like this, a sight that always made her daughter gnash her teeth. She also wanted to enjoy life and laze around instead of managing this trading city, where problems appeared all the time!

When everyone was seated, she looked at them one by one before speaking.

“Thank you for coming. Let’s start the general meeting. Who wants to talk first?”

Olaqin, the health department’s head, immediately stirred in his seat. Crali nodded, and he smiled.

“I think we should start with good news. The Roklera outbreak is almost a thing of the past now. The great majority of our population is now vaccinated, and the number of cases reported each day is diminishing quickly. We also offer free vaccination to any visitors. Our strategy and efforts paid their fruits. Just a bit longer, and the disease will be fully eradicated. We’ll also continue to maintain a small amount of vaccine in stock and vaccinate children to avoid any future relapse.”

As he said, this was great news, if not unexpected. Finally, they could pour their efforts into other directions and prosper once again.

“Excellent job, Olaqin, and everyone, really. I believe we can all agree we’re glad this is behind us now.”

All the participants nodded in approval, a smile on their faces. Eilin, the head of external affairs, who also manages Geola’s information network, regained her composure first, her face much more serious.

“In that case, let me go next with some bad news. We just received information that the Taende empire emerged victorious from its confrontation against the Northern Alliance.”

“What? Already?”

“Curses… That’s not good.”

“Do you have more information?”

“We need more details.”

The officials’ reaction proved how critical the topic was. Crali acted as the meeting facilitator and calmed everyone down.

“Be quiet, all of you. Eilin, go ahead and tell us everything. We need to plan for the future.”

“Yes, miss. Fortunately, it’s not the worst-case scenario for us. It seems Emperor Jirak pushed for the war to end as fast as possible. According to our estimations, they would have won eventually with attrition and relatively light losses due to the difference in global power. Instead, because they forced it, the casualties have been catastrophic on both sides.”

“Do you have precise numbers? Especially the high-ranked fighters.”

“Yes, that’s what we paid the most attention to. At the start of the war, we believe the empire had between 40 and 45 high-ranked combatants. The Alliance, on the other hand, had about 20 to 25. The last few battles were complete grinders, in particular for the high-rankers. They pushed them to attack aggressively, and we think they lost more people than their enemy. Added to that the ones lost during the rest of the war… We estimate they should have between 10 and 20 left, including the few ones from the alliance who surrendered.”

“How stupid. Using such precious fighters as expandable…”

“Emperor Jirak must have felt great pressure to show his capabilities.”

“Jirak has always been an arrogant moron. No need to find him any excuses.”

As “princes” and “princesses” of their respective territories, they had indeed had the opportunity to meet a few times. Even though Geola couldn’t be compared to the empire, no one could deny that it still played an important role in the southern parts of the continent.

All of that was before the empire, or more precisely, before the recently ascended Emperor Jirak showed his will to conquer his neighbors to restore Taende’s past glory. From then on, most countries had distanced themselves from the empire diplomatically, knowing full well that their turn would come eventually.

The northern countries were the empire’s logical first targets, to clear the enemies at their back first before moving toward a different direction. The Northern Alliance had been the response to this one-sided aggression, a union formed of most countries north of the empire to resist together. Now that they failed, the empire would reorganize itself and prepare for its next war.

“Still, this result is indeed bad news.”

“We could have helped more if not for this ill-timed epidemic…”

“Even then, we’re so far away from the north. No matter what, I doubt our help would have changed much.”

This remark from one of the officials made Crali think of Tila. She now understood why her mother had insisted so much on being on good terms with him. With his power, delivering goods and weapons to the Northern Alliance would have been a piece of cake. This thought made her frown. Just thinking about the guy’s smiling smugness put her in a bad mood.

“We need to prepare for what comes next. 10 to 20 high-ranked combatants… The war ended much faster than expected, but this result is better for us. The next war won’t be as easy for the empire.”

“But what if Emperor Jirak chooses to go south… There’s no way our neighbors who keep killing all their high-rankers would have any chance of resisting.”

“Hmm… This is tricky.”

“What to do…”

Crali let the meeting participants exchange opinions for a while before interrupting once more.

“Eilin, do we know the ranks of the surviving high-rankers?”

“We know a few. Three rank 7, four rank 8, one rank 9. The rest is uncertain.”

The last part made everyone scowl.

“A rank 9... Vrin?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s a problem.”

“Couldn’t that guy die with the rest, too?”

“We can’t ask for too much. Killing a rank 9 is no easy task. And there might be more left from the ones we’re not certain about.”

“How worrisome…”

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