Chapter 1511: Another Meeting Between Lords
Alterra Town
At this time, the Alterran Elders were meeting with various Lords was ongoing. Some were looking a bit tired, some were solemn, while others were just watching what was going on, listening quietly.
They had snacks and tea on the linen-covered table to ensure a comfortable meeting, so that they at least wouldn’t go hungry during the event. It was a long meeting, after all.
The first agenda was that Basset Town—now co-led by the Ine and Ort families—had sent a request for an alliance with them. The Ine and Ort families were the families of the two elders who ultimately ended the life of Bentro, the former Lord of Basset Town.
Their children had just married, and the offspring that would come out of the union—in a month, they heard—would be declared the new heir. He’d even be Lord as soon as he reached Level 10 as well.
Considering the two families were powerful in their own right, they managed to help Basset recover to some degree despite the losses during the war.
However, in order to get back to their heyday, they’d definitely still need some time. Sadly, as it always was in this cutthroat world, they were not allowed to develop in peace.
Apparently, they had received information that Batco Town was planning to attack them.
Batco Town was a Town about 500 kilometers North of Basset Town. They had always been old rivals, apparently, and had been to wars a few times in the past.
They seem to have upgraded to Town at around the same time. However, Batco had never quite won against Basset Town, and one big reason was because of the strength of the two families.
It was just that recently, Basco had apparently partnered with a City. The name of the City was Gaggoi City, a very new City, a few thousand kilometers Northeast. This was a new territory to them, and it was quite far away from their sphere of influence, so they had no clue what was happening on that side of the world quite yet.
The second agenda was Voumi and Valov Town, which were impending problems that’d explode sooner or later. As a region, the others would definitely be affected.
Rather, if Alterra fell, the others would definitely not have a good time.
So far, their strategy had been keeping them busy by watching each other as well as starting some internal issues within their ranks. So far, only Voumi Town had been infiltrated.
They could not do much within Valov because they had much stricter systems, so they could only depend on getting Voumi to annoy them on its own.
Anyway, while they could delay it as much as they could, a direct conflict—whether or not it would end up in a war—was inevitable.
For now, they discussed these two particularly urgent matters.
These were all region-wide concerns, so she called in the allied lords to join in the discussion. Making carelessly big decisions when it could affect other territory’s survival was not something they could do, nor were they willing to hold deep liability for.
At the very least, the allies would make decisions for themselves. This way, no matter what happened, they couldn’t entirely blame it on Alterra.
"I think we can ally with Basset Town," Shiro said. "I know they’re not clean, but the worst trash is gone."
Yassop, sitting behind Raine, nodded. "Better more allies than enemies."
Raine couldn’t help but feel worried. "It made quite a few enemies before, and it’s being threatened with a war. Wouldn’t they ask for help often?"
"We will, but it wouldn’t be for free," Mathilda said. "A few of you should know by now that our assistance is never cheap. We will also inform the nearby alliance of the next moves, but it would be up to you whether you’d want to get involved."
Garan nodded, adding a few details. "However, kindly make the decisions within an hour of the SOS so that our side could plan well enough, knowing which resources we could mobilize."
It was here that a knock disturbed the meeting, and one of the secretaries poked his head through the opening, an excited smile gracing his face.
"They’re here!"
...
Chatters exploded in the meeting room, with many of the richer Lords taking out their aether letters to write to their people. On the other hand, Althea looked at her panel to see the Population List.
Her eyebrows rose, impressed by the new numbers.
Of course, with the other Lords here, she didn’t say it outloud. She simply looked at the secretary. "How many?"
"Overall, the alliance received more than 8000 new elementalists..."
"The other territories had at least a few hundred new recruits as well, with Belluga Village managing to recruit more than a thousand."
Many looked at Raine, impressed. Even Shiro couldn’t help but take another look. According to his message, which received a response nearly as soon as he sent it, it seemed like Fos was only able to get a fraction of this number.
Still, that was actually more than he expected, and those hundreds of elementalists would greatly increase the overall strength of the territory. It was just human nature to compare, that’s all.
Althea chuckled. It seemed like she’d have to add a few more dormitories and midrise buildings with this. That should be fine, she’d just add more parks after the expansion.
The meeting went on a break after this. This was so that the Lords could talk to their people, while Alterra’s Elders could receive reports from their spies and soldiers.
About an hour or two later, the meeting resumed, this time discussing some of the new findings the returnees brought in with them.
The main concern was the mysterious white powder that was designed to affect the mind.
"Our scientists have analyzed the components of the drug and we know they were not made of any rare materials," she said. She did not specify what they were, but they could easily be found in nature.
Combined with a good chemist, it wouldn’t be difficult to recreate.
This meant that it wouldn’t be difficult to mass-produce either.
"It’s been a couple of months, and it has already reached the nobles of Voumi Town," Loki said, a solemn expression on his face as he reported. "Someone is pushing it, at least someone from Town level as well."
"When someone’s pushing it, this means that its spread would be faster..." he paused.
"And it’ll likely develop into... a pandemic."