Chapter 1019 War Was Still War
"We need to split off part of the military to form a new police unit." Kana was next to Creige, staring at the newly appointed officials. Neegal was also part of this lineup as the new general of the demon army.
"Will this police unit be for only the capital?" An elf asked. She was one of the few elves left in the Sea of Stars, as most had been enslaved in one way or another. Because of their youthful beauty, elven women were highly sought after in the slave trade, which reduced the elven population over the years. So pure blooded elves such as the one who had just spoken were very rare now.
"No, they will be formed in all large cities and towns within the domain. This way, if anything happens, they can be called upon. Think of them as knight squads." Kana explained. The elf woman nodded her head in understanding before writing a few things down.
"Your Highness, is this not going to spread the military too thin?" Neegal asked.
"No, what our empress has said just now makes sense. If we use people I have already trained, it will cut down on needing to train others for the police force. General Neegal, you, of all people, know the benefits of my training. It makes all of our soldiers perfect for all situations, and this also allows for some of our troops to be fast tracked to higher positions of authority. And as it is right now, our military is not being used for nothing more than guarding our borders. We have thousands of men just sitting around, so even if we did go to war, we have plenty to spare." Camlia explained. She was in charge of all training, so she could be said to be third in charge under Kana and Creige. During official settings, she would call Creige and Kana by their t.i.tles.
"I guess this is true," Neegal answered with a sigh. He seemed to have wanted to say more, but he could not fight with Camlia. She was too strict, and he would suffer afterward.
"Ahem…." Creige cleared his throat. "How is the road construction going? We need to make sure that all settlements are not left without proper road access."
"About this, Your Majesty…. We have run into an issue with materials not reaching us quickly enough. It seems monsters from the mountains have begun attacking our supply lines. Even with the military guarding them." A dwarf replied as he stood up. He took out a file and pa.s.sed it to Neegal, who then pa.s.sed it to Creige.
Creige took the file, which was a map of the mountain range showing the many spots that were marked with an X. "This map shows all the attack points. If you look at the number of attacks, it has been increasing as of late."
"It seems this needs to be investigated. I will take a look myself tomorrow." Kana knew it was too late not to check on things, but she could not allow her people to get hurt and killed due to monsters.
"We are also having the same issues with food supply lines." A beastkin stood up and pa.s.sed a file to Neegal, who once more pa.s.sed it to Creige. "Each spot seems to be close to the outer forest, which all areas seem to be connected to near the base. From what I know, monsters are not blocked by the barrier, so I am wondering if this is some kind of trick of the Cline family."
"Oh? What makes you think that?" Creige asked.
"Because when you see the areas that are being attacked, they are not near dense forests where many monsters would roam. But near the edge of the border with plains or small wooded areas. In one spot, there is a town on the other side of the border, a human settlement, but they are not being attacked at all." The beastkin replied. His expression showed just how exhausted he was. It seemed he had been trying to figure this problem out for a while now. "Just in case, we have captured a few of the monsters who have attacked and sent them to the research facility, but no cause of why they are only attacking us has been found as of yet."
Creige looked at Kana, who shook her head. There were many ways of making monsters attack certain targets, but she did not have enough details to know which may be the correct reason. "I will need to go out and check on this as well. The two incidents may be related. If the Cline family has a way of controlling monsters, then they might be using them as a means of waging war against us or even scouting our weaknesses. It may also be on the n.o.bles. Either way, I will get to the bottom of it. So for now, we will tighten our guard around these two sectors as they are essential to the growth of our demon domain."
"I will send out a thousand men to each area." Neegal did not hesitate to offer to send out more men.
"Alright, just try to keep the supply line flowing. If you run into any issues, the people come first. Protect them at all costs." Kana wanted to make sure that Neegal understood that lives mattered more than resources.
Neegal bowed his head as he said: "Understood, Your Highness."
"Reclamation of farmland and rebuilding and expanding are our top priorities at this time. Official Nell…." Creige called out to the elf girl.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Nell was startled that she was suddenly being called out.
"I know this may sound off, but I do hope you will settle down with another elf soon. You are one of the few remaining female elves." Creige knew what he was saying was coming across wrong, but he felt that the elves should somehow boost their numbers once more.
"I…. I already have someone in mind." Nell blushed as she looked at a male elf sitting across from her. Seeing this, Creige smiled and nodded. "Good. I hope you and the other elves will be able to bring back your clan to the peak they once had in the past. We will end this meeting here. If you have any other things to discuss, please send them to my office. I will look it over."
After the meeting was called, Kana, Camlia, and Creige all gathered in his office. "What do you think about these monsters?"
"If what is said to be true, then it might be highly likely. If this is the case, once we find proper evidence that it is indeed a n.o.ble of the Cline royal family, we can take measures to make sure it never happens again. My threat last time worked well, and even now, many demi human and demonkin are crossing over into the demon domain. This also crippled the workforce for the humans. I can see why they would want to halt or slow our rise. They are probably worried that our quick advancement will enable us to finally move to take more land. Not that they are wrong but still." Creige answered.
"Either way, since they dare touch our people, whoever is the culprit will pay for their actions. They have had many months to try to find some kind of weakness, and this seems to be it. Even I did not see this coming. But I can not stop monsters from entering our demon domain. If I do, then we would have less food for our people. We can not let people starve. Monsters are the biggest source of food we have while trying to get the farmlands going once more."
"We can always send more people to the borders. Neegal has men just sitting around. As we are all stronger than those idiots, we do not need so much security in our area. We can even have them patrol outside the barrier." Camlia suggested.
"This may work. I planned to reclaim some land anyways. Since we can pick off some open land and forest that is not settled yet and make it part of the demon domain, we might as well do it now." Creige scratched his chin. They had always planned to take over the entire Sea of Stars, so this was actually a good chance.
"Mm… We can even take some cities and towns as well, as long as they ask to join us. I can surround them all in a barrier, making it impossible for them to come and go." Kana did not want to shed the blood of innocents, so she figured using different means to make them give up would be easier.
"We will wait. And let our military do some of the work for us. Sister in law, I will leave land expansion to you. Kana will investigate the monsters, and I will try to speed up resource gains. We need more of basically everything." Creige could only do this for now. He was not ready for a full frontal attack, and he knew Kana wanted to do things slowly in case they took hostages. But he also knew no matter how things worked out, war was still war.