“Now, first of all, I was informed that some unruly ‘brawls’ are about to happen inside or at least outside the fortress. I had made an arrangement that Shakil, my replacement, had the same legal capacity as mine although apparently there is still a draconic legal clause that stated that these matters would require my full attention.”

These words were said with carefree yet fed-up tone indicating the owner of the voice was exasperating.

“So in light of this current event, as all of you as my witnesses here today, I hereby make a declaration to recognized, sanctioned and deemed these conflicts to be legal and valid and each and every one of them will abide and accord to the rules and laws agreed by Athryshiayl and the Eight Three Tribes.”

With a solemn and indifferent tone as though it was practiced and said so many time, the declaration was made official.

The many guards in the crowd were stunned as well as those who were watching on the side-line.

“J-just because you said so, you cannot ignore the procedure of written agreement!”

The same man, who was the main instigator of this incident, was stammering an opposition.

“Who said that I didn’t prepare as such? Shakil, take out the agreement papers.”

Upon hearing this, Shakil took out something from his sling bags. It was a stack of papers.

“Like usual, for every conflict, fill out the paper. Since these conflicts are known and already primed to be legalized, failing to do so will result in punishment for refusing to adhered to the agreed laws and rules that had been set down by both side of Athryshiayl and the Eighty Three Tribes.”

In an almost monotone drawl with a trace of boredom, the crowd was stunned more by the fact that the voice was not actually recorded voice playing back but it was actually playing a live voice.

What was this new magic?!

And so with this, everything that happened on that day proceeded with an orderly and sombre manner. Grievances were resolved and majority of the unsuspecting guards were happy with the result. The few instigators had quickly dispersed from the scenes.

--

One month and a half had passed since the mass conflicts incident and here I am, inside the office for representative in the Fortress with the boring nine to five job of administrative bureaucracy.

Symokiva is now much more peaceful in a relative sense. Conflicts or disputes occur every now and then but there were no incidents where it occurred without legal binding.

With the patrol schedules that I had created back then during my time in Endless Western Reach and detailed mapping of pathways in Symokiva, I’d improved the security in every place and route. There were almost no reports like last time when there were reports of supplies being waylaid or any intrusion from the tribal outcasts.

Of course, I made it looked like it was a collective effort of the six summoned.

In the north, the rumours about Summoned being cursed had died down, replaced by rumours that the land of Symokiva will face a trial that will decide the destiny of Symokiva and Amak-Zab, their interpretation of the Planet-Spirit, had intervened by giving them a blessing in a form a holy water. This rumour had circulated wildly and it authenticity was further boosted by other shamans that made similar claim.

I don’t really know what happen but as long the result was within what I at least had expected, it’s fine then.

I didn’t forget the main reason why we were on the north, which was the issue about unsanctioned conflicts and disputes that happened on the border of the north. After some more reading into the thick tome of ‘Laws of Symokiva’, I issued a written sanction publicly displayed like how Hammurabi had put stone slabs with his law codes along the border of the north.

After doing that, there was no whiff of any reports about any new unsanctioned conflicts and disputes had happened. They probably knew that they had drawn the line.

In the west and the east, both tribes went quiet after the mass-conflict event. Rather than stifling them, I made proper measures to indirectly limit their more volatile activities to undermine the authorities of the summoned.

Ghiscra had made another similar communication devices based on the first invention but it only transmitted written message or SMS. I can’t wait the day when we make our own social chat group.

I also had told her about railway technology or engine for vehicles but my suggestion was cut short when she informed me that apparently, as revolutionary as the technology she had made possible, when she sent the report letter of her result and success, it would first undergo review whether this technology would been approved for ‘various uses’ which will be mainly conducted by two responsible organization which is the Eomancer Council and Enchanters Association.

Well, that solved one of the questions I had about this world. I never understand how the fact that they could create a home system that uses Eomancy to fulfil the everyday duty of maintaining household and appliances or well-thought lighting system of floating light that they can’t do better in term of inventions.

I refuse to believe that eight hundred years of recorded history with well over nine summoning, that no one had tried to achieve technological advancement as out of all that summoning; someone was bound to come from a world with futuristic technologies and scientific achievements like Tevalini.

In light of the revelation of a review, I can see why the technologies here show such disparity in some aspects. First, they probably controlled most unapproved information on advanced techs submitted by past summoned and probably stashed them somewhere in a secret cache.

The speculated reason was also simple. They wanted to control the masses. Even though it can improve the living standard and indirectly improve all aspect of the whole hegemony, making such technologies was also a sort of power and making them widely available to them was also the same as giving that power to the masses.

Athryshiayl practiced a caste system but it’s still much better than the one that classical India had. If they readily made these technologies distributed can you imagined how close the gap that divided the social classes would be?

Even though I considered myself as an egalitarian that has a personal perspective of what is equality, I can emphasize with those who wanted to keep the status quo because I acknowledged the inherent danger and downside of equality.

The other two rational reason without involving politic is that first, the danger of technologies. Just as new techs bring benefits, there’s also the fact that it can be abuse. Look at dynamite. Alfred Nobel made it with the intention of improving the productivity of mining but as soon it was given to the world, militaries discovered that it was more useful in blowing up buildings and people.

Lastly, most natives here relied heavily on Eomancy. If ‘Necessity is the mother of Invention’ then there’s a lack of necessity as Eomancy is already sufficient enough to satisfy the needs. Though, the Communication System is definitely step-up for distance communication.

Then again, just as I mentioned about the Home System and the Water system, there’s the Eomancy Energy Grid System to power up all the Fhagecs and the Water Utility System for the water public circulation so some of these techs were approved.

“You looked awfully concentrated today.”

From the side, Vefal had suddenly appeared but I was used to it. Once in a while, she would leave my side, conducting some counter-espionage in the shadow with her literal [Shadow].

“Yeah, I mean, our tenure here is about to end and I was thinking about the technologies of this world. This would be our last week.”

“Good that you still remember. You do realize you have an important job later on right?”

She smirked as her face got closer.

“You and Ghiscra are too dependent on my cooking. What if one day, both of my hands are unusable? What then? Even if the advance Light Green Eomancy spell ‘Restore’ can fix them, there’s a period of paralysation before I can use them!”

“Then you learn to use your feet’s to cook for a while! I mean you are the ‘generous lover who can do naughty cooking’!”

Hearing that, my face fell on the paper that I was checking. Why can’t Ghiscra keep that a secret especially from this persistent failure of a lover? Always teasing her significant other while tolerating his cheating behaviour other woman!

“Well, this is the last paper, no wonder my face hurt since it wasn’t enough to cushion the fall. Fine, go first without me, I’ll be there shortly.”

I dismissed Vefal with a wave of my hand. She skipped around to the door while with a coy-ish demeanour.

“Well, hurry up lest Ghiscra accidentally starved herself again.”

I chuckled on that last remark. It was about two weeks ago when I found Ghiscra foaming on her mouth as she haven’t eaten anything on that day. It started about a month when she requested for me to cook for her every lunch since she was so engrossed with a further research on how to improve the communication system.

Nowadays, our relationship is akin to an older brother and little sister although I think she’s older than me. She’s still couldn’t make eye-contact with me and still am terrified of other males except us summoned but she acts like a spoiled yet sensible little sister towards me after we finished the trip to the north.

Well I’m done with the last paper, let’s prepare.

--

With just the six of us, behind closed door and the atmosphere of a private dinner with the roundtable lavished with foods that I had made from the recipes that I had accumulated in my months of cooking, we all conversed excitedly and it was noticeable that all of us had gotten closer with each other.

Ghrukka sighed audibly.

“I apologized for not being of any use during the time of upheaval.”

They probably had that pent-up inside as they had played any significant role during our tenure here.

“No worry, Ghrukka! Who said you didn’t do anything?! You were the work administration saviour to me since the amount of paperwork we had for the last two months could filled an entire library and you’re the best of us when it comes to human or rather non-human resource!”

I said those with pure honesty. Seriously, I never thought public servant’s work was this much of a hassle and you know, surprisingly for a being mostly consist of tentacles, Ghrukka truly knows how assign work placements and settle internal disputes. Guess the amount of erased memories gave them a profound understanding in the social aspects.