Chapter 372 - Declaration of independence

As they were a few months away from completing the rebuilding of the Crutal Castle, King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll got a rather unpleasant message. One of which in many terms can be considered a nightmare both pride-wise and economical-wise.

Grand King Talato Irontooth the sixth, ruler of Meridionali Ignis and in command of every domain in the ill.u.s.tratian motherland has send a message. Short said, he is in command of the Richest Country in Ignis! Well, in sub command. King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll takes all of the big decisions, or at least he used too.

Now technically, since King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio l took Command of the motherland 200 years ago, all of the Domains in the Alliance are supposed to send a monthly 10% tax of the incomes here to the Crutal Castle.

This explains how and why King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll had millions of gold coins in the royal treasury up here in Occidentis Ignis, specifically in the Crutal Castle before it got exploded.

Now getting to the bad news, Grand King Talato Irontooth the sixth has declared independence from the ill.u.s.tratian Alliance, meaning Grand King Xakro can no longer control Meridionali Ignis and can't earn the 10% tax from them. Rather odd wordplay and decision, since the ill.u.s.tratian Alliance takes root where most ill.u.s.tratios live, Meridionali Ignis.

Now normally, it wouldn't be this easy to get an entire Country out of the Alliance and it wouldn't be a good idea either to anger a crazed with power man. But the thing is, Grand King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll has lost his Electus like powers and is practically a normal human now.

Considering the Soldier count in Occidentis Ignis and Septemtrionis Ignis (Of which Grand King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll still has control over.) he can't really do anything to punish this rebellion or best called declaration of independence.

Specifying what the independence parchment contained, it went a little bit like this. "Grand King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll, I feel proud to announce that due to your extensive fails in the battle against the Snow Ignites, it has been easier than ever to no longer be under your command and ruling. Rumour has it that you even lost your God like powers, my sources confirmed that Rumour."

Upon reading this first paragraph, King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll could notice clearly where this went even though this Parchment is covered with Talato's ego. Xakro covered his face with one hand and murmured. "This Bastard."

Afterwards he went ahead and read what else this Parchment has to offer. "The ill.u.s.tratian Alliance has been nothing but a financial and population drainer for my Domains, we are done fuelling your battles and obsessions, we will only look in to restoring our Domains to their former glories, and you feeding on our riches is clearly a barricade. We won't be dumb enough to attack your Countries in the middle of the worse population drop in the past 2 Eras but I can't say that you will hold your throne for long, I'd be lying."

"Did this fool really send this message right after I paid the debt?" He murmured in anger, cussing and hitting the arm support of his throne over and over until it no doubt broke.

He glanced at the messenger which has been armoured to the teeth, wanted to blast a Fireball at him and blast him out of existence. He doesn't miss his Inner Demons but would sure do a lot to get his powers back.

Deciding to cage his rage after noticing that the Messenger didn't even flinch, he took another glance at the parchment in aims of reading the third paragraph. "If you wish for my forces to not set foot on your domains, you need to make a compensation. See my Grand King, my people are rather rattled due to this war started by your urge for more domains. They have lost families, businesses, and I'm lacking a lot of craftsmen. To tame this situation, I will have to donate millions of gold coins to increase the quality of living and restore what you have damaged. Those are gold coins that I know you can't pay me at the moment."

Reading this angering paragraph, he stood up from his throne and started walking back and forth. Holding the parchment behind his back and cussing over and over. "Not only did he do this betrayal, he even asks for gold? Is he crazy or at the edge of becoming crazy?" He shouted, kicking the throne as if it had something to do with it.

Standing on his feet, he finally read the fourth Paragraph after noticing the messenger's glare. "The compensation you need to give is 250 million gold coins! I don't care how you get them and I don't care if Occidentis Ignis has to burn in order for you to attain this goal. You have fed on my domains for over 200 years, I won't be bold enough to ask for that Gold as well but get me my 250 million. You have time until January at the 212th year, meaning you have 10 years to pay this debt. Prepare for it, either the gold or the Soldiers. Because if you fail or refuse, my Armies will strike your domains from all sides no earlier than January 212."

At the end he has even signed this parchment, the signature is unmistakable and King Xakro has seen it countless times. This is indeed a letter from Grand King Talato and he indeed has left the ill.u.s.tratian Alliance along with all those Domains.

This is a nightmare income wise and a nightmare pride wise too. Grand King Talato has obviously taken the chance of making his domains richer than ever, and used King Xakro's battle failures against the Snow Ignites as a valid excuse.

While the base of this declaration of independence is all due to the fact that King Xakro has lost his corrupted Electus like powers, Talato knows quite well that there won't be a power crazed man after him due to this decision so he took it!

Getting 250 million is no doubt a hard task, even after giving it a quick assumption, with the current Arsenal of Kingdoms under King Xakro's control be it here in Occidentis Ignis or above their heads at Septremtrionis Ignis. Even if they raise the taxes by 30%, he can't even pile up 100 million!

Drastic business measures have to be taken or drastic military upgrades, King Xakro ill.u.s.tratio lll has a bit above 10 years to decide what to do!

Walking to a close by table and grabbing a Parchment, an ink and quill after he swiftly wrote. "I'll tell you my decision a bit before the deadline." He kept it short, and in some terms it might sound like he is declaring war. But war will not hit the Continent again at least for 10 years, King Xakro wants to handle this situation without killing more people.

"Here." He tossed the parchment, and yelled. "Now get the hell out of my Domain. From the new year it will be considered trespassing, penalty will be death. Stay the hell out of my lands!"

...

Meanwhile, on the other edge of this fine continent, bad fate has struck the less fortunate. Mentioned in previous Volumes, due to the recent past war with the Snow Ignites, 250 men and women and kids have been harvested in Frozen Toe Kingdom with the aim of using them in the war.

All that remained in Frozen Toe Kingdom, were elderlies. Left for dead, left with no resources or men who can bring those resources. All they had was gold saved up for retirement, but it proved useless for obvious reasons.

No merchant is crazy enough to withstand such harsh weather conditions for what, 300-500 gold coins a month? And no civilian of the Frozen Toe Kingdom has what it takes to travel through the blistering cold.

The result, every civilian has died out of hunger and turned in to a frozen corpse after. Every single civilian has died, and the 250 people send in war likely died as well. Frozen Toe Kingdom has officially become a dead town.

Now the man who found out about this information thanks to some external sources, is King Zar. And although he feels sad about not being able to help them in time, not even knowing what happened before the damage was done, war-wise this is an amazing opportunity.

Well profit-wise it is just a bad move since Frozen Toe Kingdom has no natural resources, survival alone is hard and a lot of heating sources are required.

But what King Zar wants out of this domain, is Outposts. He plans to plant small military camps there, for now the main outpost will be Frozen Toe Kingdom but afterwards he plans to build more of them apart from each other.

This will no doubt cost a lot to maintain, but it will provide him with upper advantages in war. Be it to prove a point or to attack Meridionali Ignis from both sides, it is always a good idea to have a bigger millitary, even if it is on the other edge of the Continent.

As a start he sent a message to Bale Town, asking for the 40 Guards he lend them there to return. Getting those 40 Guards won't neccesarily be hard, and he plans to hire 60 more in order to build a full platoon.

Now feeding these Guards won't neccesarily be a problem since Pameres Kingdom has its own food resources such as hunting, plus receives different varieties of Exported food.

To make sure that feeding them doesn't neccesarily tip in the income too much, they will be a bit savvy with the food they deliver. Of course each Guard of this Platoon will eat twice a day.

Furthermore they will receive a salary and will train there, since they will be taking this mission far away from their families they will be paid a bit extra. Experienced or inexperienced, they will earn 150 Gold Coins a month each.

So King Zar will only have to worry about paying their salaries which will now take 15,000 Gold Coins from the Budget.