Steel and Mana

"Is that the latest report from Pion?" Sasha asked, leaning over my shoulder and kissing my face while I was reading my morning news in my office.

"Uhum." I hummed, my mouth occupied by a toast that I was munching on. "Are you going out?" I asked after freeing my throat up, looking at her, all dressed up.

"Um, Mikan is holding a sermon today, celebrating our victory within the church. We are going with her, and then we will take the kids to walk around a little. They love the attention they are getting from people."

"Don't get them spoiled!" I joked, making her laugh and patting my head before leaving.

After being left alone, I returned to my breakfast and the report, which was also a transcript of the investigation Matilda conducted on the captured nobles. There were no surprises to be had about her verdicts. Most who supported her sons were now either stripped of all ranks or straight-up executed by her soldiers. The latter sentences were, most of the time, more of a mercy kill because multiple of them were injured beyond any conventional help. As for her sons, they would also be exiled from the family and stripped of all ranks and power before being sent to Avalon to be in our care.

I was going to use them to train my people, especially those who have power in the governing body of Avalon. It will be their lesson on how to act around foreign diplomats. Later, it is inevitable that we will have them living here, including foreign merchants who could also be spies. So, I want to start their training in a way that could be controlled.

After everything has settled down, Matilda will also start sending her caravans over so people can access our territory and see our advancements. We are finally opening up, and I don't really know what it will entail, but I am confident that my people could withstand anything.

Now, I only had to write a message that would be radioed over to Pion, telling him to also send Vash Tobrok home with his son, who would take over the Black Lands. The fact that they didn't execute him told me that Matilda was leaving his fate to me to decide. Okay... From now on, they are our vassal state in all but name and will do as we say. First, I will send people over to establish proper coal mines and install purification formations because if my workforce has black lungs, they can't perform, nor can they prosper.

With the immediate issue of a rebellion being settled, my attention was drawn to fine-tuning the tattoos that would be part of our future pilots 'Knighting Ceremony'. Merlin and I devised a simple spell developed from the bracelets we used on Mikki at first. There is going to be one within the cockpit, locking the primary core of our mechs, and only when the key sits in the pilot's chair will it unlock the machine. It will be unique to all pilots and their mechs, a decision that we debated about for a few days because of its pros and cons. But I decided that we would lock it down, especially because if one ever gets captured, it will pose another layer of defense for enemy wizards to break into it.

"Now, as for the winter..."

We –and I mean that Father and I– decided that because we would be together on the frontline this winter, we would coordinate accordingly. His mech was being prepared to be the bastion of our defense. He will have a shield spell attached to his back, standing with the regular troops and providing magical defense. If any long-range capable monsters come through, we have to be prepared. Then, with the cannons installed on his shoulders, he will be bombarding the enemy lines with our howitzers, using his own Marker to relay data to them.

On the other hand, I will be the first in line to stop the enemy with the Princess, meeting any behemoth that may want to come through. To counter them, I am also making Merlin attach a new 'gauntlet' on the Princess, one that Yuri was ecstatic about after she heard the news. Because of the monsters' magic and possible defenses, we need our hijacking magic to be ready and deployable. I just do hope it will work as flawlessly as when Merlin used it. With that on the hand of the Princess, being at the forefront, maybe I will be able to disrupt any high-level spells Godzilla wants to throw at us.

I even played with the idea of putting that formation on one of the spearheads, so some prototypes are being carved out right now. I would try throwing it into an appearing formation with good aim. It could be a literal injection, causing it to backfire in an explosive way. At least, that is what we are hoping for. As for shielding, I will also have my own, but in a much smaller size, only operating close to my machine's surface.

All of these preparations for it inspired me a lot, making me decide that my own machine would focus on support. It would sit at the back, provide markers for my troops on the ground, shield the backlines, and conduct the battles it partakes in. I would be like the king piece in chess, moving slowly, one tile at a time, but I could oversee the fighting and react in real time to the most minor changes. Or create the openings we need with a well-placed, long-range shot. Napoleon also didn't lead his troops from Paris... And boy, did he love his cannons.

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Within the borders of the Black Lands, in a tiny mining town's tavern, Clara was sitting at the window, writing into a tiny handbook with a thin piece of charcoal. It was in the middle of the day when most people were at the local mines, toiling away to gather the black rocks and wheel them over to the warehouses, where they would be put on carts and ferried up north. No wonder the inn was empty, yet even if there were others there, they wouldn't be able to talk to her, ending up just like the innkeeper.

The moment the middle-aged man looked at the narrow piece of paper Clara showed him, his mind gone still, his eyes diluting as the spell activated, burning away the slip and placing the poor man into a trance. It wasn't permanent or damaging, but it gave Clara the time she needed to write down everything and collect her thoughts while the man would not remember her being there at all.

It was getting close to winter; the days were becoming shorter and shorter while the temperature was falling fast. She didn't remember when was the last day without clouds or rain, not that she had any mind to complain about it. Not when weird changes were happening at every corner the closer she got to the Frontier.

The land under Matilda Zimmermann's was as she expected. There was a bit of chaos and multiple empty holes in its government, but she was working on stabilizing the political landscape after exiling his sons. What she found weird was her elite bodyguards and their surprisingly tough-looking armor. She tried getting her hands on a set, but no matter who she sent, they were unsuccessful in procuring even the smallest piece.

Thieves? Dead, gutted when caught in the action. Prostitutes? None of those soldiers ever took up on the offers. Bribes? The ones offering money to just take a look at their armor were dragged to the dungeons, and she had to infiltrate the palace to poison them. Whoever they belonged to, they were not ordinary soldiers but more like Death Troops, the same kind of fanatics that her family trained, protecting the Undying Lords.

After wasting a handful of resources, she at least learned that they were Avalonian soldiers who supposedly lived in a new city within the Frontier. So, after learning about it, she decided to move on and enter the Black Lands. Here, she found even more strangeness as a handful of similarly dressed troops, along with a multitude of normal-looking soldiers, were overseeing production.

She and her agents had been infiltrating multiple towns and mines, gathering information. She was astonished to record that previously unknown magic was being used daily and that it was given to regular people to oversee and ensure its function. She has yet to learn the reason as to why, but it seems they were doing something to the smoke and ash that was so prevalent in these forsaken lands.

At first, she thought it was some kind of way to poison or mind-control the locals, but then again, why would they do it while their own people were present? Did the armor make them immune? What about the regular troops? To get her answers, her people tried again, aiming not at the well-armored soldiers but at those who looked much less trained—the kind of faces she would expect of a militia from the Frontier.

It was a success, not immediately, but on the third try, using the charm of a woman, she finally got her answers from one of her subordinates lying down with such a guard. What she managed to extract was that they were a freshly trained unit, being pushed through a newly developed training session in the Duchy of Wheat and being in service of Baron Elliot. Because they were still under training, they were sent here to gain experience in active duty. What surprised Clara was the fact that they were paid soldiers, not conscripts. No baron should have that type of wealth.

Her next move was to gather information about the Duchy of Wheat, going back to the days when they were an important, high-ranking family's home, guarding the north. They fell in one of the beast tides, and, as the region got sliced up more and more in subsequent families taking over it, they ended up with a much smaller size than their initial size. There shouldn't be any wealth remaining with the current nobles, who were only barons, nor with the viscounts in the Frontier. The only logical answer was that Mirian Ishillia was funding them, which would also explain the magic she was witnessing, including the armored troops. She was building her secret forces far away from the eyes of the True Emperor.

"I need to cross the border, but it is being guarded way too closely. Even if we manage to cross it, we can easily land in hot water and enter a city. We need to look legit..."

While murmuring, she was already planning how she would set up a caravan and took on transporting the black rocks over the border. With the funds they had on hand, it shouldn't have been hard, and she had a year before she had to report back to her Lord.

"With winter coming, fewer caravans should want to make multiple trips in the snow... If they are this desperate for these black rocks up north, probably to fight the cold, we could slip everyone through in a few months..."

With a plan before her, she felt like everything was back in order, suppressing the first shock she had received after discovering sorcery being used so openly. One thing she already was sure of, though, was the fact her Lord would have to prepare to unleash his magic to quickly and effortlessly exterminate the rebel forces when they outlived their usefulness.