Herald of Steel

Alexander watched patiently as the translator shamans read, scanned, and tried their best to explain the entirety of the proposed deals to the gathered Helvati leaders.

And sometimes when even they seemed struck and stuttered, Alexander occasionally spoke up to offer his opinions, a subtle helplessness tinged in his voice.

If he had known this would happen, he would have written the document himself.

It was just that he was still not that proficient with Azhak.

Although he tried his best and almost five years had passed, due to all the various work he had to do, the amount of time he could put into his studies was always going to be limited.

So although his passages were still readable, the sentence structure was like a third or fourth grader's, the kind where every sentence starts with, 'and then'.

Alexander blamed this on the fact that his mind already had a template installed, and it proved very hard to replace the modern version for this needlessly long winded ancient format.

Hence he had simply expressed the core idea to the two queens and let them express it in the true, standard legalese format.

It was just he did not expect them to be so enthusiastic about their work.

Alexander had not had the time to properly review the paper due to the serious time constraints as well as a bit of laziness, but now that he was going through the copy, he found them to be much more convoluted than he ever needed to be.

Alexander quickly understood this was probably the work of Lady Parthia.

She had intentionally made the paper harder to read for the natives in order to hide various legal loopholes in the proposed plans, all ready to be used if the need should ever arise.

'As expected of a queen who held power for nearly thirty years. Her ability to plot and pit her own allies is truly something to learn and emulate.'

Alexander thoughts on this sly move was of amazement and something to be learned from.

Because although Alexander might have also thought to plot against the natives, he doubted he would have had the actual skills needed to do what the former Tibian queen had done.

Only five years into taking office, he still lacked that crucial experience.

Plus, his council members and parliament were not even a tenth as treacherous as the Tibian royal court.

Whereas Lady Parthia had to navigate the competing wants and desires of various powerful families and find ways to balance them using all kinds of tricks and plots, Alexander's rule of Zanzan was almost as smooth as ice.

This was because most of the council member under Alexander had gotten their post by earning his trust and not familiar ties, while all the powerful nobles under him had just gotten their armies beaten to a pulp by him.

In front of his huge army, they were simply too weak to cause any significant waves.

Add to that the allure of significant economic benefits in allying with him, thus, other than the most hardcore and fanatical nobles, none really had the spirit to unnecessarily cause trouble for Alexander…. at least not in the near future.

This was one of the reasons why he could leave Cambyses to rule the place while he led campaigns elsewhere without experiencing a splitting headache.

This was the good news.

The bad news however was that this relative peace failed to provide Alexander a stimulating enough challenge for him to practice his wits.

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The result was the vast difference in skills between the man and the lady, for whom such things were bread and butter.

And this quickly let Alexander figure out a flaw in his administration. Which was that he lacked someone with Lady Parthia's equivalent skills among his close advisors, someone he could truly trust.

All such thoughts filled his mind as Alexander sat patiently watching Metztil's delegation discuss among themselves the details of all the various discriminatory laws that were proposed to be abolished.

From time to time, they would ever utter various surprised phrases after hearing something and ask the men next to them to confirm what was written on the paper.

They would then exchange various looks of incredulity to make sure they all had heard it correctly.

Finally, after quite a long while, Metztil broke the murmuring silence with a great, hearty chuckle,

"Haha, Lord Alexander, I will admit you are different from those other outsiders. If these are your proposed terms and you swear to the gods to abide by them, we have no problem agreeing to fight with you."

The man's wide grin and ruddy expression said it all. He had never expected to receive so many generous benefits, a large number of which he had not even thought would be discussed.

It was too 'modern'.

"That is great, Chief Metztil. I hope we can use this to step by step remove all the unnecessary enmity among us." Alexander initially responded with a gentle smile and curt nod.

Then unfurling a large paper scroll, chimed,

"Now, about the lands to be leased to you. We believe this is a fair distribution."

Metztil's large grin instantly faded away as he laid eyes upon the drawn map, which was scattered with tiny red dots all over the place.

The man instantly understood what these meant- Alexander had no intention of leasing close to the 40,000 sq km of land in one lump sum.

He wished to break them down into hundreds of small counties.

"What is this? This is not what we agreed!" Metztil thus instantly lashed out, rage filling his eyes.

Metztil had assumed that Alexander would agree to the initial map 'drawn' by Lord Janus, one that gave the natives access to land from Giant City to their borders.

So now that that deal was being broken, all the goodwill that Alexander had just bought for himself seemed to have been washed down the drain.

The accused man however kept his cool facade and simply chuckled with a gentle hum,

"Chief Metztil, be realistic. You did not think we would give you everything from here to the northern wall just like that, did you? If we did that, where would all the common people living there go? Or the families ruling over those parts?

Of course, your men would have been settled in various groups all over the island. That is common knowledge."

Alexander's defense for his change of tune was simple- he did not clarify the land distribution back then because he found it to be simply implied.

"..." And being called stupid in a roundabout way, Metztil's face went red with rage.

He then clenched his jaws with gritted eyes, "So this was your plan… that's why you gave us such a fine deal…. It was all smoke and mirrors! You never intended to give us anything!"

Saying this in a sharp, hoarse voice, Metztil seemed half ready to storm off and leave with his men.

"It is precisely because I wanted to give your men the land that I made those proposals. To ensure they would not be persecuted in these 'outsider' lands,"

At Metztil's grave accusation, Alexander defended his acts in a very cool, calm voice, keeping his eyes locked onto the bulky chief.

And the powerful gaze seemed like a chilly blizzard to the man, forcing him to quell his fury.

Metztil then unwillingly unclenched his fist, a subtle signal that he was unable to find a good retort.

At that point, he further heard the man say,

"Your wish to live on those lands is also quite foolish. Let us not go into the bloody details of what your armies have done there in the last five days. But surely you are clever enough to know how the people feel about it… they are sure to be absolutely furious.

If your people were to start moving there so soon…. I cannot guarantee their safety." Flashing his palms to either side, Alexander frankly shook his head to express his inability.

"..." And once again Metztil and his delegation found themselves unable to find a good retort

"They would dare… we will kill…" One of the more bloodthirsty man did try to put on a boisterous defense, but one heavy glare from Metztil himself was enough to shut him up so as to not embarrass themselves.

If the Helvati were to conquer and annex these lands, then naturally the man's threat would have had teeth, and all of Alexander's concerns would have been moot.

Any attack on their own would have been met with the swiftest and cruelest retaliation by their army. And indeed there were too numerous examples of victorious armies trampling on the local population to count.

However in this case, since the Helvati would be subjected to the rules of the local lords and it's common, Metztil found the situation to be far more tricky.

A part of him even regretted being so cavalier with his army, looting, stealing, and violating whatever lay in its path.

It was just that after getting set free after so long, the brutish natives really could not keep their itching fingers to themselves.

Even if Metztil had wanted, it was very unlikely he could have kept all his men in check.

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