The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 739: Inform The Commander

Chapter 739: Inform The Commander

The Knight nodded as Dominic laid out the plans. “Alright, I will inform the Commander to await the arrival of administration staff that will accompany us on our mission. We are currently drawing lots to see who has to do the reports, so they will be more than welcome to take over the duties.

If there are any others who need to join us, I can ask the mages to hold the portal a bit longer.”

Dominic shook his head. “No, only the ones that are going on tour will join you directly, and I will have the three cities’ representatives delivered directly by the mages.

Just let the Commander know that he is free to take care of business, and that in the eyes of both nations, the claim to Nobility made by any of the bandits is invalid, as they have been stripped of their ranks and declared deserters.

That’s the important part.

You can inform the farmers as well, so that if there are any sympathetic voices among the locals, the news will get back to the bandits.

Once they know that nobody will be backing them up, they may begin to reconsider their life choices.”

That didn’t seem likely to either of them, but it was a very politically correct answer, and gave them all the justification that they needed not to grant the typical considerations that surrendered Nobility were given.

In fact, claiming a false Noble title was a capital crime in Dagos, so they wouldn’t get much sympathy even if they ran home to complain.

The Knight returned to the portal, and Dominic sent a troll to go get the men who would be travelling with the Knights. Or, as it turned out, the man and woman. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but the ones assigned to go on the road this trip were a husband and wife pair.

That could be either very interesting or very chaotic for the Knights.

But it was two workers to take care of the paperwork, they wouldn’t have to do it themselves, and that was good enough for most of them.

The others might be a bit more picky, but they were professionals, and they would adapt quickly enough.

As usual, everyone else was more prepared than he was. Or at least Amie was, and she had informed everyone else. So, within minutes there were more mages on location, and the travelling workers were in place with their belongings.

“Perfect, we can get this all sorted, and begin the hard work of making the Provinces actually operate efficiently.

Let me know if there are any shortages at all, and any signs of mismanagement.

I won’t jump right to intervening, but it might be a case where they simply don’t know better, and we might just need to have someone come by for a few weeks and lend a hand to get their Baronies on track.”

The workers nodded. “Understood, Your Grace. Rest assured that we have prepared for exactly this contingency, and we have brought many textbooks to help us formulate operational plans for any of the Nobles who are struggling.

It’s a common function of the Provincial Governors, though they usually just use the standard template operations form that every young Nobleman learns in basic schooling.”

A few of the mages chuckled. Everyone knew those. They covered basic crop rotation, budgeting, and the costs of essential supplies.

They weren’t just useful for the Nobles who supplied them for their workers, they were based on what the common farmers actually spent, and how they operated. In some ways, it was outdated, certainly here in Wistover things were better run.

But if you just followed the guidelines, only a natural disaster would make you fail.

Well, perhaps they couldn’t be too hard on the new Nobles, given the circumstances. But still, it was best if there was someone available to help where needed, as well as keeping the reports.

They knew that Dominic intended to cycle them between cities, but they also knew that if they made themselves indispensable to the Nobles of the region, the Barons would speak up on their behalf to help them get permanently settled.

The concerns about corruption were not a mystery to them, and they also knew that the temptation to abuse their positions would come eventually.

But they also knew that neither the Duke nor the Duchess was well known to be the merciful sort, and that would be enough to keep any thought of doing things that might get their faces on a missing person’s poster.

At least for a few years, or decades.

The only downside to this posting was that being so far away from Wistover meant that they were unlikely to get the promotion when a supervisor for them was inevitably appointed.

Unfortunate for the career minded, but not the end of the world to be stuck in senior management.

Dominic pretended that he couldn’t see the mental calculations on everyone’s faces as they prepared to start their new jobs.

He had no intention of simply opening portals to go visit the cities every few weeks, so the representatives could basically do as they pleased, as long as they didn’t slack at their actual jobs.

Besides, Alexis was the one that they had to look out for, not him.

She knew all the tricks, the way that money greased hands in the Palace, what sort of influence could be bought from people in their position, and how much it would take to train a new person after transferring them the moment she became suspicious of their motivations.

Those were all things that they were going to have to teach the young Princess as well, but not anytime soon.

For now, they were too busy just trying not to let her eat things she shouldn’t.

Fortunately, the blankets were durable, and they simply got soggy when they inevitably made their way into her mouth. It was anything that was small enough to actually fit that was the danger.