As the three shot through the skies, Aziz glanced at Minister Pauline. “Ma’am, do you still have your Fief?”

She shook her head. “Gone. Knights and the other semi-divinities are far weaker now. The Abyss Sovereign truly took pains in making an equalised world, even on Orb — Dominions and Fiefs, which once enabled their users to slaughter any opponents who couldn’t resist them en masse, are now gone. It’s not a problem for me, though, since we operate on a more humane basis.”

The implicit comparison to their geographical neighbour made Aziz smile. The Southern Assembly’s richer second and first tier cities used lots of manual labour, and once in a while, small protests were said to break out. A single Knight was more than enough to handle a small unruly mob, and if the protestors were too many, a Lord would be dispatched instead.

No matter who was sent, however, the fact that Knights and Lords had a proto-Fief and a Fief respectively meant that any attempts to kill them typically ended in flowing rivers of blood. However, now that these two tools were absent…

Aziz rubbed his nose. Maybe the Abyss Sovereign wasn’t so bad after all.

“What are you thinking about, my dear colonel?” Marie asked, her bright eyes fixed on his nose. “Are you, perhaps, taking joy in the incapacitation of the Southern Assembly’s labour force?”

Narrowing his eyes, Aziz turned to his boss. “How did you even guess? I didn’t even make a peep!”

“Well, you had this very sadistic, gleeful expression on your face. Considering that there’s only one thing you’d hate to such an extent, it wasn’t all that hard for me to make an appropriate guess, no?”

Aziz felt his face, which felt as expressionless as ever, and then eyed Marie. “I’m quite sure I didn’t make the expression you described.”

“But I guessed your thoughts correctly.”

“I was disciplining my face well. There’s no way I would make such an unsightly expression.

“But I guessed your thoughts correctly.”

“Furthermore, I—”

“But I guessed your thoughts correctly!” The marshal grinned. “That’s just how it is. You can refute me all you like, but you can’t deny the fact that I surmised your thoughts from your face alone. That’s a claim with evidence, so deal with it.”

Aziz muttered some choice words under his breath, and then turned to Pauline. “Speaking of a problematic workforce, what about the Western Holdings?”

“Yeah, they’re probably screwed too. Once the peasants of the Western Holdings realise that Fiefs and Dominions no longer exist, things are really going to change around there,” said the minister. “I hope the nobles of the West realise that, or else they’ll be in for a really nasty surprise.”

“I can see the headlines now,” said Marie. “First Lord in history to be killed by a rioting crowd. That would be the worst legacy to leave behind, if you ask me.”

“Nah,” said Aziz, “there’s probably a few more legacies on that level. Like dying while on the toilet, or from smacking into a cliff while flying. Wasn’t there one Paragon who died when he tried to bash through a cliff with his body alone?”

“There’s such a fool?” Pauline asked, interested. “Who?”

“I can’t remember the name, sadly.”

“Tch.” Marie shook her head. “How useless. You’ve been improving your memory and your reasoning capabilities over the past few years, so why can’t you remember an anecdote as interesting as that?”

“Well, when you’re doing work your boss threw down onto your shoulders…”

The two of them continued to exchange banter as they followed behind Minister Pauline. Their destination was the custom-built command ship of the entire expeditionary fleet, a ship built for maximum protection for everyone on board. Unlike most of the fleet, which had been requisitioned from the Five Lands’ merchants as a whole, this command ship had been designed to house the brains of the Five Lands. It was a far larger version of the individual command ships, like the S.S Anne Aziz was on earlier.

“Right,” said Aziz, “speaking of command…where’s the First Aerial now?”

“They’re currently being commanded by Major Hans,” Pauline replied, after checking through her Display. “You two were quite badly injured, but Hans and the others had stayed back with the rest of the First Aerial, so they’re still in a fighting fit condition.”

“You were badly injured?” Aziz asked, looking at Marie from head to toe. “I knew it. You were just relying on the Exo-Skeleton to look tough, weren’t you? You’re as battered as me, or even worse.”

“Yeah, she asked me to keep it a secret from you,” Pauline chimed in, causing Marie to splutter.

Dodging Marie’s attempts to cover her mouth, the minister continued on and said, “She even used my name to get a personal room to heal up in. I’m not sure what she was thinking, but since she was actually immobile for a day or two, I suppose she wanted to avert some rather embarrassing situations.”

“I did not,” Marie replied hastily. “I just wanted to make use of my rights as a top official of the Republic.”

“Mm, sure.” Pauline nodded, rolling her eyes the whole time. “Totally not because of anything else, right? Like a certain subordinate or anything.”

Marie blinked. “I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but my thought process back then was that a boss needed to maintain a façade of invulnerability in front of her subordinates.”

“Wait, was that it?”

“What else were you thinking?” Marie asked. “Come on. And besides, knowing Aziz, he would definitely stop me from getting out of bed to do work if he knew I was this injured.”

“…that explains your absence for the last three days, then.” Aziz glared at Marie. “If anything happened to you or if your condition worsened, the kids would probably beat me up. Do you not have any pity for your poor underling? It’s bad enough that you have a rabid fanbase, but they’re staring at me to protect you!”

Pauline laughed, a tinkling sound that seemed at odds with everything else. “Alright, enough. Thanks for making my day, but we’re now arriving at Mirai. Get your game face on; it’s going to be a mess inside.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, ma’am.”