The city had returned to its usual level of activity. Only few would know of the troubles the council had during their first election. The populace of the city didn’t need to know, and they probably didn’t care. As long as they got a strong leader from this new system of governance, they’d be more than happy to take the extra trouble along with it.

In a modest house near the western edge of the council residence area, a greyborn was pacing down the hallway. His ears twitched in excitement when he came up with a plan that would both benefit him in the next election, and greatly develop the frontier’s economy.

His train of thoughts halted when someone knocked on the door. Lev knew this could mean only one thing.

They’re finally back.

There they stood, dressed in the clothes he’d grown fond of. Rapha sported her usual bronze chestplate and shoulder piece, still painted over with the now disbanded, Harem Guard’s striking red motif. Volker wore his usual cloth, although this one wasn’t as dirty as the one he wore in the cavern.

It felt familiar to Lev, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of suffering they had to endure on their way here. Countless Hivelings and Sky devils plagued them on their trip, sometimes even snatching greyborns away from the group.

Lev shook his head, what am I doing? Let’s forget the past, they’re here now so I should inform them.

“Lev, is everything alright?” Rapha managed to say, with Volker behind her, a look of worry on his face.

“I’m fine, really,” Lev said as he motioned the two to come in.

Lev’s house was nothing special, to human standards at least. He wasn’t sure for which creature the house had been scaled up to, but its previous inhabitant certainly hadn’t been a goblinoid.

The house was decorated with a few scattered pieces of wooden furniture, along with a mirror at the end of the hallway that led into the living room. It still had that same ancient scent they smelled when they first discovered the frontier. It wasn’t emanating from the furniture or other items they’d crafted later on, instead, it was coming from the structure itself.

Lev prepared seats for them and sat down.

“Trading,” Lev suddenly spurted out, catching both Rapha and Volker by surprise.

“W-what are you talking about so suddenly?” Volker said, sweat forming on his forehead.

“It’s quite simple actually. Volker, you've heard the news by now. You know that I didn’t become the High Chief, right?”, Lev said, not displaying a hint of regret from the outcome. Volker got overwhelmed by a weird feeling, one that he’d always feel when Lev started rambling off his ideas out of nowhere. Though, seeing Lev rejuvenated from his loss, he quickly got out of his stupor.

“Y-yeah, sorry to hear that. We really expected you to win actually,” Volker answered, before realizing that he had better omitted that last part.

Rapha stood up, “Lev, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, sit down please. You’ll want to hear this as well,” Lev stated, his eyes glowing.

“We’re going to establish our first trade route, and not just any trade route, we’re going to re-establish an old one. One dating back to Ainshart’s time.”

Both Volker and Rapha leapt out of their seats in shock.

“And we’ll use those masked abominations to strengthen our intel on its whereabouts,” Lev continued, ignoring the two now pale goblinoids in his living room.

Volker tilted his head, confusion written on his face. “The ones you said inhabited this city? Didn’t they all disappear before we came to the city?”

Lev turned towards the wall, where a bird mask was displayed and said. “Some of the city’s scouts found traces of the things, including some ramshackle huts. From what I heard, the creatures were in such a bad state that we’d be doing them a favour if we captured them.”

Rapha tilted her head at Lev’s actions and asked. “No offense, but even if we capture these masked people, we can’t even talk to them, right? Besides, what if they refused to cooperate?”

Lev smiled as he took down the mask and inspected its features. “We now have members who can speak multiple languages ranging from common languages like ours and Brizilum to obscure ones such as ancient Ainshartian and maybe those creatures happen to know one of them. Not to mention, there are ways to communicate other than speech, Rapha. And about their cooperation, I’m sure we can come with an agreement but if we don’t,”

Lev snapped off the mask’s beak causing both Rapha and Volker to flinch. “There are other ways to force them to cooperate.”

Rapha lifted an eyebrow as she frowned. “That would be taking it too far, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, they did try to kill you.” Volker interjected.

Rapha took a glance at Volker. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against punishing the masked freaks but I’m not going to take part in eradicating them. For whatever reason, the things abandoned the city and now, from what we heard from Lev, they’re basically crawling in the mud.”

Lev chuckled. “Who said anything about eradicating them?”

“Wasn’t that what you meant when you broke the mask?” Rapha asked, confusion written on her face.

“I did that to emphasize that the punishment would be heavy, but there are other ways to punish a population. Ones that aren’t as wasteful as committing genocide or torturing them.”

With open eyes, Rapha muttered. “You’re going to make them slaves like the Jiira’s soldiers.”

Lev clicked his tongue. “I didn’t turn the Jiira into slaves. They’re one of us now, but before they can fully join us they have to pay a slight debt. This method both provides us additional manpower and makes it easier to integrate others to our side.”

Rapha rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever you say. Now since you’re discussing your plans with us, that means you’ll take us along, right?”

Lev nodded. “Indeed, I want you both to prepare our men for all the scenarios we trained for. Volker, I’ll also need you to bring Grasha, Raban, and Orva along. We’ll need their expertise for this task. Rapha, I want you to bring along your crossbowmen and some of our light ballista teams.”

Blinking, Rapha inquired. “Isn’t bringing siege engines a little too much? Not to mention, they’ll slow us down and we’d need to get approval before we can take them out.”

“I’ll get it for you. It’s necessary to bring them along as insurance, we’ve only been ten months in the area and we’ve barely explored the north-east and the north in general, who knows what kind of dangers we’d face along the way.”

Seeing no flaws in this logic, Rapha shrugged. “You do have a point.”

“Now then, are you both ready?” Lev asked the two in a commanding tone.

Volker saluted and yelled. “Sir, yes, sir!”

While Rapha grinned. “I’m ready. Let’s see what we’ll find out there.”

“Hopefully something positive.” Lev replied and the three went their ways to manage their own preparations.