Enlightened Empire

Chapter 271

In a different life, during his childhood, Corco used to love old cartoons. To him, the cliché imagery of a person stranded on a lonely island had always possessed an innocent charm.

The tiny island in the form of a half-sphere, made entirely of perfect, yellow sand and surrounded by endless water. One palm tree would sit on its very peak, with a single coconut hanging below its leaves. Back then, he had always wanted to end up on one of these peaceful little islands, if only for a day. To him, it was an image he was fond of. Or rather, he had been, until very recently.

With dim eyes, the King of the South stared out into the endless ocean. Unlike the blue waters in the cartoons, these waves were green, since they were the waters of the Verduic Sea. If he hadn't guessed wrong, the Verduic Sea was shallow for an ocean, which facilitated an incredible growth in fish, plant life and microorganisms just below its surface.

The green color came from the many algae which dominated these regions. Though of course, the water was only shallow compared to other oceans and still far too deep to wade through, which was what he really wanted to do right about now.

Standing on the white sand of the beach, the king turned around, to the small island in his back. Again, the image was different from the memories of his childhood. Rather cute and easy to grasp in its entirety, this island was a mess, its end impossible to see from here. After all, reality was different from cartoons.

This specific place could be considered tiny among the Verdant Isles island group. In fact, it was small enough that he had struggled to find food or fresh water even after half a day's journey. Even so, it was large enough to get lost inside, truly the worst of both worlds. No doubt he could also expect endless mosquitoes – loaded to the brim with malaria – once he entered the jungle that started a few meters away from the shore and covered the entire island.

Ever since his arrival, he had searched for ways to make clean drinking water, but had come up empty. Quaint coconut trees were also rare to come by. By now, he was starving, parched, and the relentless rays of the sun battered down on his body.

Tired out, he plopped down on the hot sand and stared into the waves again. All around him, the weather was as beautiful as it was deadly, but he could hear a rumbling somewhere in the distance, like the promise of an oncoming storm. Now he had gotten his childhood wish, but it turned out that tiny islands in the ocean were not as great as they were made out to be.

With nothing better to do, Corco thought back and tried to remember just where things had gone so terribly wrong.

While the actors inside were still taking in the applause of the audience, the two most important guests had left early to avoid the crowd. Without anyone to observe them, they transformed back into nobles as Corco and Sumaci were awaited by their guards outside of the theater.

“What a shame that we couldn't stay to pay our respects. Those colorful dresses and the fanciful music, weren't they just fantastic?” Sumaci raved as she danced out of the theater's side entrance.

“Sure they were.” Croco tried to humor her, but clearly, his enthusiasm wasn't enough for the verdant princess. With a nasty look, she stared at the king like few others would dare these days.

“What do you mean, 'sure'? Wasn't the play to your liking? What was wrong with it?”

By now they had reached their palanquin, so at least he didn't have to answer the question right away. Both of them stepped inside the box and sat across from each other, which gave him enough time to think. Even though he came up with many diplomatic replies in the process, his final answer didn't change. While he knew that it would cause another argument, he wouldn't change his words for anyone. Now that he was a true ruler, there was no more reason to hide his thoughts or lie to others. Why would he do so, for anyone?

“I mean... ‘The Wilted Flower’ is a play even I've seen before, and I've been exiled from this country for almost a decade,” Corco explained. “Their production also looked more like a street performance with fancy costumes rather than a professional play. Since all actors are travelers these days, I know you must have found these people performing on the streets, but that still doesn't excuse the sloppy writing and delivery. Overall, they tried their best, but were a bit amateurish, don't you think?”

“Oh, and you think you could do better?”

With a shallow smile, Corco dismissed Sumaci's biting question. Stuck in his head were all the classic plays and stories of another world with centuries of artistic development behind it. Many of these stories would be hard to adapt for a Medalan audience, but he still felt confident.

“Of course I could,” he thus said. “It's just that I'm always busy and never have time for idle stuff like writing stage plays. If I could take a month off from my work, writing a world-renowned play would be easy as pie. I mean, are you forgetting who you're talking to here? I'm a great master, and all great masters are good at everything.”

Although his words were dismissive of the theater, they only extended to the quality of the performance and were relative to his own experiences. They were not a slight on the actors themselves. While most Medalan lords would despise traveling folk like singers and actors, he didn't really look down on the performers of Medala, just the same as Sumaci.

For her, performers were far more normal than they were for the local nobility. After all, in the Verdant Isles, rules imported from Chutwa were far less common than they were in Medala. As a result, their society wasn't quite as stratified and the verdant folk were a bit more accommodating towards entertainers there than the locals here.

For the most part, they were considered on a similar level to merchants: Mostly useless, but still a proper part of society. At least they wouldn't be driven out of the cities or flogged in the streets after every poor harvest.

As for Corco, he knew what sort of fame actors and musicians were bound to gain with the rise of modern technology. While he had never been one to worship famous people for being famous, he understood that their profession was also one with nuance and complexity. Even more, they fulfilled an important function in society as they influenced the local culture, so they deserved his respect just like most other professions.

“Right. Then why not show us all how incredible you are and prove your talents?” Sumaci asked, egging him on.

He was sure that the perennially bored girl just wanted a new play to watch, but unfortunately, he hadn't lied. That really wasn't something he had the time for. So instead, Corco decided to show off a bit and pretend grandeur. Most people would lose interest whenever he did.

“Ahaha, I would, but I don't wanna discourage everyone else.” He laughed and brandished his arms around in an exaggerated manner. “Who would dare compete with the great William Shakespeare?”

“You know, sometimes, I have no idea what you're talking about,” Sumaci said, unimpressed by his knowledge of classical literature. “I often get the feeling that you're just making things up. In reality, I think you're not half as smart as everyone says.”

“Same,” Corco agreed. “I'm hardly smart, just more knowledgeable than most.”

He was well aware of his own shortcomings. As far as the king was concerned, his memory was a bit better than that of most, but beyond that he was just an ordinary person with an extraordinary advantage. Sometimes he was jealous of real geniuses like Egidius, but in the end he thought that everyone had their role to play, genius or not.

“Well, you are spreading your knowledge at least, so there's plenty of room for others to catch up,” Sumaci said.

“And much to catch up on as well.” Corco added with a distressed face. “Never enough hours in a day.”

Although he had been teaching for almost ten years at this point, he was still only just moving up to what he would consider advanced high-school knowledge. He jumped around the tech-tree quite a bit to gain as many advantages as possible, but he realized that they were still far off from internet and atomic bombs.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's a good thing.

“Well, if you spent more time in your school, you would see better results, I'm sure. Over the past trium, you only held class twice. Though I assume that's down to your workload as well?”

“What can I do?” Corco shrugged a helpless shrug and confessed his woes. “The job of a ruler is never over. All of us have become victims of our own success, really. In the last couple years, Saniya alone has ballooned so much that we struggle to keep up with administration. That doesn't even include the countryside, Harkay or all the additional influence we've won over the rest of the south. The worst part is that I haven't gotten any more help ever since we started. We're still working with the same number of accountants we had when we arrived in Medala. At least it seems like my men have their apprentices trained soon. Once that's done, all of them can start as proper accountants themselves. Best of all, they'll get apprentices of their own, at which point we probably have just about enough hands to keep up with all the paper work.”

“And then you have time for more lessons again?” Sumaci asked with a hopeful face, one Corco was happy to dignify with a nod.

“Not only me. Everyone has been struggling to attend the lessons, right? I mean, even if I'm there, the classroom is only half full unless it's a special lessons for lawyers or doctors or such. In the end, things are moving fast, so we all got our hands full. Atau's been away for years now, and your brother hasn't been around much either.”

“Yes, brother has been forced to spend more and more time on the Verdant Isles.” Once she was reminded of her home's situation, Sumaci's smile faded. “We just can't get a proper grip on the situation there.”

“So it's that bad then?”

For a while now, Corco had received persistent reports about the troubles on the Verdant Isles, so he was well informed on the topic. Still, it was good to hear the details from someone closer to the source. And who would be closer to the source than the daughter of the green king?

“The blue king has been gathering strength,” she began. At this point, they had been allies for years, and there was little reason to hold back, even on such crucial information. “Over the past few seasons, pirates have begun to attack travel routes that have been under control of the green king for generations. Anyone with any sense knows that those pirates have been hired by the blue king. But so far, there is still no evidence. The blue king denies it as well, so we can't openly antagonize him or the other kings get an excuse to gang up on us. As for the blue king himself, he says that such attacks are impossible for him, since he lacks the resources – especially the money – to orchestrate them.”

“Well, the blue king was supposed to be the weakest of the colored kings, right? So his claims are hard to deny.”

“True, but we have more than just a little evidence that he has been getting massive support from within Medala. Though we still don't know if the support came from the central or northern kingdom.”

“Yeah, we've seen recent ship movements along the west coast to that effect, but they're always disguised and they travel from different ports every time. Unless we use a lot more resources on the investigation, it'll be hard to tell who's responsible.”

Lost in thought, Corco frowned. These sort of questions could often be answered by whoever benefited most. However, his spies had been more focused on Medala's internal struggles, so he needed more information to come to any conclusions.

“So what do the other kings think about all this?” he asked.

“The rest of the kings are staying out of the conflict so far. They seem to think that two kings tiring each other out will be good for their own standings in the long run.”

“They're probably right.”

“Father has been trying to convince them of our path through economic strength, but the blue king's disruptions have slowed down his plans by a lot,” the girl said in frustration.

To Corco, the troubles in the Verduic Sea were a huge problem as well. With the Weltalic Sea in the east occupied by fleets from Arcavia, their only overseas outlet for trade was the west. If the situation in the Verduic Sea were to further destabilize, only the land route would be left for trade. Worse yet, Pacha had already shown in the last war that he didn't mind cutting off their land trade, even if he made some enemies among the northern nobility.

Back when he had set the country's future course, Corco had made the southern kingdom's economy highly reliant on trade for a reason. This way, they could speed up their own growth by a lot since they didn't have to wait for local wealth to keep up with their production. Further, with their financial strength they could project far more power beyond their borders without firing a single shot. However, Corco had also made the country vulnerable in the process.

“I guess we should focus more on the Verdant Isles issues. We can't just leave our allies hanging can we?”

Thus, as he looked at Sumaci's relieved smile, he decided to get more involved in the issues across the sea. That had been his first mistake.