Chapter 523 Marcus’ New Job

After Retharin had left and Marcus was officially appointed to the position of representative, the attitude of many of the ice elves changed.

Now no one gave him weird or hostile looks, and more often than not looked at him with a sort of reverence.

Also, he was now considered an honorary citizen of the city and was able to move about it on his own without any trouble.

Along with this he also received his own place, which was quite a large apartment of around five thousand square feet.

However, along with all of the perks his new job brought him within Glenna Reota, he was certainly having to work hard for them.

Many of the highest-ranking members of the ice elf society wanted to get to know him, and hopefully win him over.

This meant that a majority of his time was taken up by dinner and tea parties, as well as private meetings.

Still, Marcus made sure to attend all of the ones that he could to build up better relations himself. Especially with the families who had members on the council..

‘Ugh being a politician is hard work.’ Marcus thought as he slid into a hot bath after a long day of work.

It had already been a couple of weeks since he had officially become the representative of Borealia, and he had been doing his best to get through certain items the king wanted him to.

The first was to increase trade relations, since as of right now the only goods that passed between the two nations was the ice elves’ winter melons and magic cores from Borealia.

Luckily, he had just gotten enough votes on the council to push forward a more compressive trade agreement that would further strengthen relations between Glenna Reota and Borealia.

Still there were other things that were taking more time and that had some push back.

One of which was an exchange of artisan techniques which the ice elves were very careful to keep to themselves.

Their methods of building structures was definitely more advanced than Borealia, and they had what Marcus had to say was a far better infrastructure.

Of course, Borealia as a whole has a much greater population than Glenna Reota. Being between four thousand to five thousand times greater than the around seventy thousand ice elves that lived in the city.

‘Well maybe I can help convince them when I demonstrate my forging skills in a couple of weeks.’ He thought while planning out his next move.

As he had come to learn more about the city, he found that the number of forgemasters they had were incredibly small, with even their best only having a skill level of four.

This was due to the fact that they simply did not have any raw adamantine to work with at all, with only a few very old weapons in their city being the entire stockpile they had.

In terms of actually military might the ice elves were sorely lacking in the weapon department, mainly focusing on magic rather than their weapon skills.

Though in a way they were also stagnated by Retharin’s protection, as they had not had to face any major threat alone since the inception of their city.

But Marcus now knew that there was a time limit to this, as Retharin was only going to be sticking around for another three hundred years.

And while this may seem like a long time, for the ice elves that on average lived for five hundred years it was less than it would seem.

So, while none of them knew it, strengthening ties with Borealia was going to be in their best interest for the long-term stability and safety of their city.

After his long soak, Marcus got out and sighed, before putting on another dress and heading to his next meeting. Keeping up the appearances he had agreed to.

…

Quickly the months of spring passed by and Marcus’ time in the ice elf city was coming to its end.

During this time, he had worked really hard during these last few months to increase the relationship between Glenna Reota and Borealia, and his efforts had certain not gone to waste.

He had managed to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time by integrating himself with the higher ups in Glenna Reota, and by practically not resting.

It had been tireless work, but he had managed to get four very important policies passed.

First any ice elves or their family that had left the city to visit or live in Borealia, could come back to the city without having to get the council’s permission every time on a case-by-case basis.

Second, was for a sharing of artisan techniques where each culture would be able to learn from the other.

Third that one hundred citizens from Borealia chosen by the kingdom and reviewed by the council, would be able to visit Glenna Reota for two months during the summer to learn about the ice elves’ culture

Finally, and probably the most important, was an exchange event of students from Borealia’s Royal Academy, and Glenna Reota’s Institute of Education.

For a place as closed off as Glenna Reota these were some very big steps, but they were still only the beginning until the two nations became closer and more intertwined.

“Irene, I still cannot believe that you managed to get so much done within just a few months. Normally the council takes at least a year to make a single decision.”  An ice elf councilor said, praising Marcus in between sips of his glass of wine.

Currently they were at a party, where all of Marcus’ greatest supporters and the more progressive and on average younger ice elves were celebrating.

It was quite the lavish event and many people had been heaping tons of praise onto Marcus’ shoulders.

Unfortunately, Marcus could care less about their praise and was beginning to feel the mental fatigue of having to act interested in everything everyone said all the time.

At this point he was just going through the motions waiting for his time here to be over so he could go home and relax.

‘Well, I at least earned a good amount of money from this job from the kingdom. Four hundred platinum coins per week is pretty good, not to mention all of the gifts I received from these rich ice elves.’ Marcus thought as he robotically nodded his head through a conversation he did not care about.

Eventually the evening started to wrap up, and when it was socially acceptable for him to leave without ruffling any feather, he went back to his own home and passed out for the first time in three months.

Waking up the next day he felt like a new person a great weight taken off of his mind.

Even with no need to rest, the constant use of his mental energy to keep up with the bustle of his life as a representative had taken its toll on him.

‘Ah, today is finally the day. I can go home and no longer care about any politics and just enjoy some relaxing time with my friends and family.’