Chapter 578: His Majesty’s Morning Meeting
It was the same executive hall in the King’s Palace, but Fei wasn’t familiar to the decors and the interior design.
Fei was a minimalist, and he preferred simple styles. Therefore, when he first came to the Azeroth Continent, he didn’t like the overly fancy and bright design of his palace. Thus, since the city underwent renovation, he changed up his palace as well.
The good thing was that the project wasn’t costly. All the gold and silver furniture and decorations were moved and sold off, and the palace was now a lot simpler. There were now a lot more plants inside the palace, making it look like a garden.
Fei was sitting on his old stone throne that was clustered by two lion-like demon beast statues, and Little Raccoon was standing on his shoulder intimately, looking at Fei’s ministers curiously.
In front of the throne, there was a long rectangular stone pond that was about one meter wide. Some duckweeds were floating on the surface, and a few small fancy fishes were swimming in the pond.
“Your Majesty, the messenger of the Military Headquarter from St. Petersburg has been waiting for you for three to four days now. He asked you to go and see him, and he has a ton of ridiculous requests……” Brook said as he sat on a stone chair; he projected his voice so that everyone in the hall could hear him.
“Ridiculous requests? How ridiculous?” Fei smiled; he was very curious about it.
Fei returned to his palace half way through last night’s celebration, and Torres later reported that the messenger of the Military Headquarter tried to find him last night at the party. After not being able to find Fei, this messenger lost his temper and destroyed the atmosphere of the entire celebration. Drogba and Pierce who were short-tempered as well almost tried to beat that arrogant messenger up.
The agents Chambord had in St. Petersburg already passed the information about this messenger named Barkov to Fei through the Letter Office, so the king knew him well.
This person was a little nobleman from a weak family, but he somehow jumped on Crown Prince Arshavin’s bandwagon and started to get in power. In order to get recognized by Arshavin, Barkov did everything he could. He framed a lot of noblemen and military commanders who were either on Second Prince Dominguez’s side or held neutral stances, and you could say that his hands were covered in blood.
Since this man was sly and tactical, his political enemies couldn’t find his weaknesses and evidence of his crime. Therefore, the crown prince liked him, and a lot of people didn’t dare to mess with him even though they hated his guts. It was rumored that this man was the dagger in Arshavin’s hand which couldn’t be stained by blood.
Since the Military Headquarter ordered him to be the messenger and asked him to come to Chambord to get more information on the Jax Battle Zone, it was clear that the crown prince was behind all of this.
To be honest, Fei didn’t know why this prince, who was known as polite and welcoming of talents, hated him so much. From the look of things, it felt like the crown prince wanted to get rid of him.
Therefore, Barkov was clearly up to no good.
“My lord, that messenger has been wandering around Chambord, and he visited a lot of influential people in the city. Almost all the officials in the six administrative departments of Chambord received gifts from him, despite the ranking of their positions; even Bast and I got gifts from him. From the way he talked, he isn’t respectful toward Your Majesty, and he is trying to stir up……” Brook knew about everything that was going on in the city, so he reported in detail, “Also, this messenger is very interested in things like our teleportation array at the gate and our [Dragon Slayer] crossbows. He had asked us to provide the blueprints several times. Also, several officials in the bylaw enforcement ministry told me that he is also interested in the central water system, sewer system, traffic light system, etc. There had been some terrible incidents where workers and low-level mages were kidnapped and interrogated for the blueprints and core magic arrays!”
Perhaps because the king influenced him, Brook used a lot of technical terms in his report.
“Eh? From the sound of it, this Barkov has good eyes……” Fei thought about it and said, “Send someone to tell him that I’m busy and can’t make time to see him. Also tell him that if he wants to see me, we can talk about it in half a month.”
“As you wish!”
Fei glanced around and got a little emotional.
Except for a dozen well-respected elderlies who were elected by the people of Chambord to attend these meetings, make public announcements, and clarify the rumors and misunderstanding around the new laws, other people in the hall were all mid-level and high-level officials.
Since Fei raised his blade and wiped out all the corrupted nobles in Chambord, most of these officials were young; the oldest one among them was younger than 40 years old, and the youngest one was about 19 years old. These people were all promoted based on talent and competency rather than backgrounds.
They would be the key to Chambord’s future rise.
Although the king was powerful, he couldn’t manage a kingdom using force alone. Therefore, since Fei was a king who was hands-off, these people in front of him were more irreplaceable.
“Half a year ago when I led our troop on the expedition, a lot of you were still regular citizens. Now, you are all key figures in the kingdom, and I recognize your faces and remember your names. I’m pleased with the work that you guys have done so far; it is clear that Mr. Bast and Mr. Brook couldn’t have done everything at Chambord alone. Therefore, you guys are all heroes of Chambord as well!”
What Fei said moved these people.
This young king who had a legendary past was charismatic enough to engage people with a few words and make them admire him.
“Eh, since you are all here, I have an announcement to make; it is going to be a lot of work to get everyone here again. In half a month when full moon arrives, I will be marrying Mr. Bast’s only daughter, Ms. Angela, and the archery professor at the Civil and Military University, Ms. Elena. I hope all of you could attend!” Fei said with a bright smile on his face.
Fei talked to Bast about this last night openly. To his surprise, this future father-in-law of his agreed to it readily; he wasn’t mad at all. The fact that Bast accepted it so easily worried Fei a little.
After a while, Fei figured that since Bast was from a noble family and acted strictly according to the etiquettes of nobles, he probably wasn’t opposed to polygamous relationships that were common to see in the noble’s circle.
Applauses instantly sounded in the hall.
Based on tradition, the king already passed the usual marrying age. In the Zenit Empire, a lot of princes were married at 12 years old.
This was a serious matter. The king already got canonized by the empire and was older than 18 years of age, but he still wasn’t married. A lot of people in the kingdom and the empire had been talking about this.
Therefore, Fei’s subordinates were happy for him when he made the announcement.
The two most beautiful girls at Chambord were finally claimed.
Of course, there were a few young men who were fond of the beautiful and powerful Valkyrie, and they were a little disappointed. However, on the second thought, only the king who was a talented genius was fit for marrying a girl like Elena. If anyone else said that he was going to marry Elena, the young men in the city would throw out white gloves according to tradition and challenge him.
The king’s marriage ceremony was treated as a grand celebration.
The officials in the Finance Department and the Rites Department quickly walked up and said that they would take care of all the planning and logistics.
The atmosphere in the hall got warmer and warmer; this just went to show how popular and loved Fei was as a king.
After the official meeting, Fei asked Bast, Brook, and Jessie to stay behind. According to the tradition of the Holy Church, after Fei officially gets canonized and becomes the bishop of the Black-Cloth Shrine, the headquarter of the shrine was going to be placed in Chambord.
In the next while, Jessie would be walking around the city and trying to select the best location for the new church.
This was an important matter, so Fei reminded Bast and Brook to coordinate with Jessie well.
After that, Fei returned to the back hall to have lunch with his fiancées.
Then, he quickly went to the back mountain of Chambord; all the key secrets were hidden inside the underground cave.
The old city already changed so much, so Fei couldn’t wait to see the underground cave that was the core of the project.
It was going to be an underground city filled with miracles.
P.S. A big shout out to Riando AR and Adrian Z. Thanks for the support on Patreon!