A short while later, Zelsys was the new owner of a monstrous bike and the tools to keep it running - paid for in three thousand gelt and several pieces of dungeon jewelry.

“Now I’ve just got to give it a test drive,” she said, turning to Zef. “C’mon. There’s enough space for two.”

Near the top of Rigport’s great lighthouse - whose very peak and central spire were the sole portions reserved for lightkeepers - in the former king’s throne-room, and presently disposed-of mayor’s office, two figures argued. A tall, black-haired woman in loose-fitting red robes, and an authoritative nobleman with a young face and old eyes, wearing Pateirian military uniform.

“I will not have you march your freaks through the streets and drag random civilians out of their homes to be executed,” said the woman. “That is not occupation, or even conquest - it is pointless slaughter. Do you expect we will be able to just ship in illiterate rice farmers to run the city after your dressed-up convicts kill or cripple everyone that cares about this place?”

“Since when are you one to oppose extreme measures? You of all people should know well how effective my methods are at drawing out potential threat factors - the “good men” that just can’t help themselves when they see injustice being perpetrated.”

“Perhaps against shallow-rooted villagers and tribals,” laughed the Woman in Red. “Wasn’t it you who they assigned to the Scorchlander Colonies after the first uprising? Oh, I certainly wonder what happened mere months after the instatement of your measures… Ah, yes. The Second Uprising.”

“Would you be so kind as to clarify what you are daring to imply?

“Oh, I’d be more than happy to, since you know so well the importance of face, that no matter how much I criticize you in private, I only do so out of concern for the greater good. The issue with your measures is simple - ripping out the troublesome elements in a small, young, disparate or unstable community by the roots will not cause too much trouble… But doing so here? It will churn the earth and dredge up every desperate measure - lest you forget the consequences of similar measures that we are still dealing with...” she explained, knowing full well how much the older man wanted to silence her, and what a herculean mental effort it must be to hold back his violent urges for the sake of face.

“And those are?” he asked, words dripping with ice-cold venom.

“Pargona Blockade War. Eight-thousand prisoners of war separated into groups of a hundred and ritualistically blinded, one man in every hundred left with one eye, after which they were shipped off back to Ikesia and left on the coast to find their way back. Do you know what came of them? Don’t answer that. Of course you do - you voted in favor of the blinding! Cao Hu’s Brass-eyes have been wreaking absolute havoc on our trading fleets, and their spoils have been found in the possession of Kargarian clan merchants - who, as you know, are all but untouchable to us if they so wish to be.”

”Need I go on? Need I bring up the Wendigo Battalion? The Distorted? The Serpent of the South? Pine Tree riots? None of them are yours, true, but they were all born from the same thing.”

“Retribution.”

The man sighed, “You’ve made your point. Now clarify what that point is.”

“Pointless cruelty works only to undermine the purpose of conquest. The Snow Devils share their northern cousins’ resolve, they will not submit under direct pressure.”

“My methods are not merely direct-”

“Oh, but they are. Walk the streets. Go to one of your staged protests. Read some of the underground magazines. They mock your undercover agents even now, calling them glowbugs to mark them as so poorly disguised that they veritably glow amongst actual civilians.”

“THEN WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST WE DO?!” he exploded. “Go on, if you have a better idea, spit it out! I am listening!”

“We’ve faced this issue before - entrenched holdouts, unwilling to compromise in defeat…” she drawled, smiling at the older man, striding towards him that her bare legs parted her robes. In a flash, his eyes grew lecherous and scanning, anger quickly mixing with and being subsumed by lust. She had to hold herself back from laughing at how easy it was to rile up one of these old-timers and turn that tension in her favor.

“What did we do then? It is you who has a lifetime of military campaigns under your belt, general - I am naught but a clever upstart,” she continued, reaching out with her right hand and gently brushing his immaculately-shaved cheek with her claw-like red nails.

“Cultural subversion. Gradual replacement,” he breathed after a moment of gathering his wits. “We import our own faster than the native population grows, have them integrate while ensuring their loyalties lay with us. In a generation or two we’ll have enough of a foothold to just round up and exterminate the remaining natives without destabilizing the region.”

So close.

He had gotten so close to arriving at the correct conclusion, and yet he strayed back towards pointless brutality so readily.

How could a man be so blind to the very reality that unfolded beneath his own fingertips? A kingdom’s foundations could not stand upon the backs of the broken and oppressed, let alone those of an empire - nay, such empires would be readily toppled by their own subjects the moment the spires at the top so much as wobbled… And even if that old fool’s extermination somehow went through, she simply would not accept being the viscount for a bunch of subsistence farmers - a glorified tribute collector by any other name.

Now she had no choice but to snuff him out, lest he threaten the greater good.

The Woman in Red believed in the Emperor’s Divine Maxims, in the Empire’s foundational ideals - regardless of whether his subordinates or even he himself still upheld them.

If her ambition demanded her to go against the Emperor’s will, then so be it.

She had been a puppet once.

Never again.