[MLV] 50. Forging Alliances (Patreon)

A/N

Apologies for how late it is, but Monday's chap is finally here! Hope you all enjoy this one :D

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When Alicia returned to Alsatia, things had truly changed drastically from what she remembered.

The victory that Lucille achieved against the war minister, Marc-Antoine Courbet, alongside his authoritarian cabinet, had been somewhat resounding. Back when she arrived at Lorienval, she could smell and feel the stench of repressed discontent underneath the facade of Alsatian greatness. Now, it was very much in the open, and she had mixed feelings about it.

The first order of business she had in Alsatia, aside from her private meeting with the crown princess, was to further expand her trading company’s reach by signing more contracts with various businesses and factories throughout the Greater Lorienval area. Most of them were once again aimed at securing machinery and tooling, particularly for her newly planned cloth and textile plants. She also looked into the machinery and tooling needed to establish a cement factory, as it would be another critical requirement for industrial expansion in Orevogorsk and Vael.

There was also a future pressing need to establish facilities that could produce locomotives and railway wagons, as while the Orevogorsk Steelworks was now capable of producing rail, her town didn’t have a dedicated production site to produce the trains that would be transporting goods and people. She expected Concordian support here if the negotiations went well, but she wanted to have fallback plans as well.

As much as possible, she wanted most of her economic plans to have a strong domestic component. Being too reliant on foreign powers wasn’t going to be good for Vael. Their usefulness therefore must remain supplementary, and nothing more.

Unfortunately for Alicia, social unrest meant that there were too many disruptions at the moment throughout the Alsatian economy. The prices of machinery and tooling were elevated, and when she placed orders, the lead times they gave her were also longer than usual. Apparently, the empire’s economy was still struggling to return to business as usual, mostly due to sporadic wildcat strikes, lockouts, and factory occupations caused by labor disputes that persisted even after the Third Estate called for the end of disruptions to the economy.

While the Third Estate’s strategy of mobilizing the people against Marc-Antoine Courbet worked, it seemed that Alsatia’s commoners tasted enough power for the first time that they were now emboldened to use it even without approval from the top.

Relying on Alsatia won’t be a smart idea for now, Alicia concluded as she walked out of a cement-producing establishment on the south side of Lorienval. I guess it’s inevitable considering what happened.

While having unofficial business ties with mankind’s largest market was a major boon to kickstarting development in Alicia’s town, times change. Now was truly the time to begin major pivots to her original economic strategies. She had to address the last gaps in the vertical supply chain of Orevogorsk’s heavy industries and finally wean it off from heavy reliance on the Alsatian market.

Later, she finally visited Lucille’s estate at their scheduled private meeting. As always, she was greeted warmly by the servants and guards of Chateau d’Montclair, something that made her feel welcome. She even saw Antonio and Leonardo’s mother and little sisters, all of them now working as maids at Lucille’s estate.

A faint smile grew in Alicia’s face. The silver lining about everything that happened was that Lucille managed to save and improve many Vaelrin lives.

Soon, she finally met Lucille in her office. This time, she was flanked not just by Lorraine but by the former powerful distortion of the Rhonne Exclusion Zone. Leonardo, it seemed, joined Lucille’s retinue as well, wearing a uniform similar to the one used by Lucille’s knights, though with a darker color scheme. Naturally, questions immediately bubbled in Alicia’s mind.

“Welcome again to my estate, Alicia,” Lucille said with a smile. “And yes, I know it’s surprising, but I’ve hired Leonardo to become one of my knights. He’s now technically my strongest knight, though our arrangement is unofficial, and we had to fabricate a new identity for him because he’s supposed to be dead. But, so far, it all worked out well.”

“Nice to see you again, Lady Alicia.” Leonardo gave Alicia a small grin after nodding to Lucille’s explanation. “I like working here.”

“That’s good to hear, but I thought being associated with Vaelrin was trouble for your image?” Alicia asked Lucille.

“So what? My popularity is at its highest at the moment. That’s why I’m leveraging this moment to silently include Vaelrin in my team,” Lucille said, giving Alicia a confident smile. “I’m not exactly being too overt about it, but I’m not going to hide it either. This way, I’ll slowly normalize working with Vaelrin to the public and eventually integrate them with the Third Estate’s movement to liberate the people from Marc’s tyranny. People won’t get used to their presence otherwise.”

“I see…” Alicia was skeptical of this plan, considering how awful the normal Alsatian soldiers were, so she feared that there might be a backlash… but Lucille did have a point.

If she’s planning to legislate and enforce the rights of Vaelrin, it has to start from somewhere, and she’s the only one with enough popularity to do that…

For now, she simply hoped that Lucille’s gamble was going to work out. There were millions of Vaelrins living in Alsatia that Alicia would never be able to evacuate to Vael, simply because Vael was already struggling to maintain its present population. Even with improvements in agriculture and industry, at most, Vael’s limited land would only be able to accommodate the increase in population of an industrialization-induced baby boom.

Her evacuation effort previously during the Rhonne crisis was unfortunately going to be a one-off thing. The fate of the rest of Alsatian Vaelrin therefore was now in Lucille’s hands.

“Anyway, Lorraine, please fetch us the tea and biscuits. I’ll have a really long chat with her,” Lucille said to her knight with a smile. “You may leave as well, Leonardo.”

Both of them nodded at Lucille, then left the room.

Later, while Lucille and Alicia did idle talk, Lorraine came back with warm tea and snacks. Finally, they began to discuss serious matters, something that they should have done back during the crisis but simply didn’t have the time to do.

That was, of course, first, Alicia’s true nature. She told Lucille everything she hadn’t told her yet, the details of how she was transporting things to Vael, her true position in Vael, and even the ongoing dealings she had with the Concordians. She thus gave Lucille her homeland’s strategic position, and Lucille took a while to process that.

“I see…” a slight hint of pity was etched in Lucille’s face. “So it was worse than I thought.”

“I suppose, yes…” Alicia admitted.

“International developments have been a blind spot for me. I’ve always been far too focused on domestic issues since it’s all I can control. I didn’t know Concordia’s tentacles reached that far north. What even is my bastard brother doing? Containing Concordian expansion is his foreign policy.”

“I’m not sure either. We’ve seen no Alsatian presence in Vael itself so far.”

“You cannot trust the Concordians. Just like us, they’re cold-blooded imperialists seeking more colonies and protectorates. While I seriously doubt Concordia has interests in directly ruling Vael, they will certainly seek to expand their influence there with sweet-sounding promises until they can control your foreign policy.”

Lucille took a sip of her tea.

“In the end, I can tell their only goal is to turn your homeland into cannon fodder. Do not fall for it.”

“We’re not. We know it well. It’s just… we don’t have many options to work with here. Concordia is the only Virtuous nation willing to even talk to us. What else are we to do?”

Alicia smiled bitterly.

“Are we supposed to stay isolated forever, and thus, stay poor and destitute? Even if it’s bitter to work with a nation planning to backstab us, if it’s our only way to enter the international stage as a partner for other nations, then… we’ll have to swallow our pride for now.”

“I understand. I doubt that I’ll decide differently if I’m in your position. If it’s any consolation, I’ll steer Alsatia’s foreign policy to reconciliation and normalization with Vael once I take the throne.”

That lifted Alicia’s spirits a bit.

“Thank you. It’s my dream to integrate my homeland with foreign markets. That way, not only will we enrich ourselves, I hope that by trading a lot, we’ll also cultivate peace.”

It was Alicia’s most important goal, she told Lucille earlier. Peace between mankind and Vaelrin. While trading carried risks, like Vael exposing its economy to its mortal enemies, Alicia also knew that peace was a two-way street. Unless Vael took steps to integrate itself with the world by acting like a respectable partner everyone could work with, it would never find peace.

Vael must make itself useful to other nations so they wouldn’t go to war with Vael, and other nations must become useful to Vael as well so even the most bitter Vaelrin in her homeland would find it hard to start a conflict with the rest of the world.

They must find a way to become a part of the international stage, no matter what.

“In that case, for now, I advise that you work with the Concordians for now,” Lucille said. “Take the benefits you can from a partnership with them, and try to appease them. Once I take the throne, then I can contest their influence in Vael. This will give you the chance to play both sides.”

“Play both sides?” Alicia asked, bewildered. “Wouldn’t it be better if Alsatia and Vael become formal allies one day?”

Lucille shook her head.

“You and I may be friends, but remember, once I take the throne, the empire won’t be under my full control. I can steer foreign policy behind the scenes to give your homeland opportunities, but that doesn’t mean that this country will suddenly become friendly with Vael. Alsatia is far too big, stubborn, and obnoxious for me to immediately change its character.”

“I don’t disagree with that. I did notice that you don’t fully control your allies,” Alicia remembered the current situation outside of Lucille’s estate. It was certainly not pretty. Well, it was better than before, but tensions were still high.

“Indeed. The Third Estate have a mind of their own even when they rally behind me. It’s to be expected. They’re a broad coalition of different classes and interest groups, only united in opposition against the aristocracy and the war minister. One day, the Third Estate will collapse under the weight of the contradictions between their factions.”

Lucille sighed, “Sometimes, I wish things were much simpler. For now, though, my most pressing concern is defeating that bastard brother of mine and finally taking my rightful throne.”

“I’ll do my best to help you do that.”

“Thank you. Though, I still haven’t even actually repaid you for your contributions during the last crisis.”

Lucille leaned back on her seat.

“I remember something you said back then before we went to the exclusion zone,” Lucille said. “Something about the origins of black dungeons. I presume you came here because you needed my assistance.”

“Yes,” Alicia nodded. “Again, I don’t have full evidence about this, but I think I know what’s causing the formation of black dungeons, and I doubt that I’m able to solve this on my own.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“Simply put, the magic crystals we now use to power industry, and all kinds of machines… using them, I believe, leads to disturbances within normal dungeons. Eventually, they snap and turn into black dungeons.”

Lucille seemed pensive for a while as she processed that. Placing her hand on her chin, she narrowed her eyes.

“I remember a researcher in my academy having a hypothesis similar to that, though his peers called his findings nonsense,” Lucille said. “Unfortunately, he was never able to fully prove the connection until he died of old age, considering he had no way of accessing black dungeons, and no one took up on his research after that.”

Immediately, Alicia’s eyes lit up. “Can you please try getting me copies of his research?”

“Certainly. I have extensive connections in my academy to do that. Though, I’m more worried about the possibility of this theory of yours being right. You do know what this means, right?” Lucille asked.

“Yes. It will… be a bit of a problem,” Alicia said.

“That’s underselling it. The bedrock of the economies of the industrialized great powers is magic crystals. We cannot just stop using them. We will have to find alternatives in that case, else people wouldn’t give it up, and even then…”

“That’s why I’m here. Lucille, can we expand the scope of our alliance to research this and find solutions?” Alicia asked. “We can share our findings and progress and collaborate. I hope that this way, if this theory is right and the truth comes out, that Alsatia and Vael will be in a good position to quickly make a pivot.”

“Of course. I was already about to propose it. Though, again, as of now, it cannot come out of this room that I have an alliance with a Vaelrin noblewoman,” Lucille stressed. “Hiring Leonardo into my personal guard is one thing, but collaborating with foreign interests, and that might be pushing it.”

“I understand. I have no plans to reveal myself to the public here anyway. It would ruin my business if I was anything but a normal human woman.”

Lucille smiled.

“Okay. Then it’s settled then,” she then extended her hand. “Let’s save our countries together.”

Alicia, without hesitation, took the crown princess’ outstretched hand.

“Let’s save our countries together,” Alicia repeated, a confident smile growing on her face.

She felt like for the first time in centuries, she just achieved something new.

An alliance between an elf and a vampire.

At one of the towns near Orevogorsk, a silver-haired, noble vampire met an armored draco, who sat in front of her. The tavern they were in was rather lively today, with people talking to each other loudly and boisterously, adventurers and mercenaries all fighting over quests to subjugate monsters teeming in the countryside.

Thus, their conversation easily disappeared in the background noise.

“It’s good to see you, Lady Claire,” the armored draco said with his cold tone. 

The woman with the cloak smiled. “You must be Vittorio, no? The leader of Orevogorsk’s security forces?” The woman asked. “What do you want from me? And why should I talk to you?”

“We’ll see. It depends on your answer,” Vittorio replied. “Tell me, what’s the Regency Council’s stance on Vael’s mortal enemies?”

The vampire tilted her head.

“And why does that matter? I may not be the best judge of character, but I believe Lady Alicia is a firm pacifist,” Claire said. “Aren’t you too? Are you trying to find irreconcilable beliefs between us?

“Answer my question.”

The vampire leaned back on her seat, an amused smile growing on her lips.

“I have not seen a draco as bold as you, Sir Vittorio,” Claire praised. “Alright. It’s not like this is a secret. The stance of the Regency Council remains the same. We must retake the lands mankind stole from us. We would never deviate from that.”

“And do you strongly believe that?”

“House Allister lost so much land that should be ours. It is my duty to retake all of that.”

The draco stared at Claire intensely for a bit, as if temporarily hesitating over whatever plan he had on his mind. But then, his gaze hardened.

“Alright. Then I have a proposition with you, Archduchess.”