Herald of Steel

Chapter 1452 Hemicus and Flood

Alexander's main concern with this heavy rainfall was not necessarily the flooding of the city. If the water can rise, it can also fall.

Thus even if the roads and houses got water clogged, it would cause a bit of problem for the people, but eventually all this would subside on its own.

Hence what seemed truly dangerous to Alexander was the potential loss of his strategic grain reserves and other stocks in the warehouses during the time.

He did not want to wake up the next morning to suddenly find the water had smashed through all the warehouses and washed away all his hard earned grain and other finished export products. That would be bad on so many levels.

Hence he had close to 2,500 men deployed to solely protect those critical resources.

Alongside this concern, Alexander's main secondary worry was the sudden spread of unforeseen fires across the city.

Now, this last part might seem odd given the torrential rainfall battering the city, thus logically it should be impossible for fires to spread.

But in this age of wooden buildings and open cooking fires, it was very much possible for fires in the interior of buildings to burn them to a crisp while the outside remained soaked.

And if that fire was hidden by broken rubble, such as a building that collapsed in the winds, it could, shielded by the debris, continue to burn and spread throughout the 'undergrowth' despite the ambient soggy environment, killing everyone trapped.

So Alexander sent a similar number of men to keep a lookout for such occurrences.@@@@

"Have the remaining 2 battalions at the barracks as reserves. They should be ready to reinforce any of the formations as needed."

"And lastly, the second legion should rest and be ready to march out by the morning. I fear other powers might want to take advantage of our distraction and snatch some land around the border. We cannot let that happen."

Thus at last finishing his order, Alexander quickly transposing the same words into paper, before stamping and signing it to make it official.

"...." While Hemicus received the edict with an unimpressed facade, understanding Alexander was contradicting his own previous excuses with this decree. Enjoy exclusive chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

But for obvious reasons he did not point it out and instead quickly glanced at the paper, confirming its content.

"What about you and the central district? Or the workshops?" Hemicus then posed with the slightest of frowns, finding the two regions missing in the order.

"The city guards can take care of here. We have many patrols." Alexander lightly answered with a brush of his fingers. Since he lived here, naturally security was much tighter, with even the guard's headquarters being here.

"As for the workshops, they are on the Cisran Hills. There won't be much flooding there. And even if there were, we have the hidden mercenaries. If things turn truly dire, they can help." Alexander lastly reassured.

"And the suburbs? The surrounding fields might also be flooded. We should be ready to quickly rescue the animals and livestock in the countryside." While the bodyguard captain, finding there was little to complain about, quickly moved to the next issue.

And this sort of in depth questioning somewhat surprised Alexander because Hemicus was not known for being this shrewd.

He was of course no fool, but his intelligence was more geared towards military and tactics. Not how to rescue flood victims.

As for this explanation- well Hemicus could think like this because it was something he had intimately dealt with as a child.

'Fucking hell... It's one stupid disaster one after another. I was so happy that I finally got the bank going. And now.... Fuck, it's like I am cursed.'

He was unable to believe he was being hit by such a natural disaster out of absolutely nowhere. Especially when things were starting to just settle down.

According to his analysis, there should not have been any major developments in the near future, letting him grow for a while in peace.

But as they say- Man plans but God disposes.

.....

"What happened, you look irritated?"

Coming out of his study, Alexander was quickly met with this curious query from Cambyses, who lifted her head from behind a screen of fanned cards.

She was currently in the games room, playing a game that was a mixture of poker and jenga with Ophenia, Gelene, Camelia, and the two visiting ladies.

The special rule here was that instead of playing with money, the one with the worst hand had to take a shot and then move a jenga piece. Thus the game got increasingly harder as the contestants got increasingly drunker, their hands shaking more and more.

As for what happened when the jenga tower fell, well Alexander had only played the adult version with his wives and there, the rest of the players got to 'bully' the culprit in various ways.

For example- they might be teased in sensitive places for a certain time but constantly denied release.

However the current version was of course a much more family friendly version, so there was probably not even any punishment. The tower falling itself might have been the penalty.

As Alexander swiftly recalled the rules of this homemade game, Cambyses's ask by now managed to draw the attention of the rest of the table, who also all turned to give Alexander a similar look.

And the heat of so many gazes was enough to quickly break him away from these thoughts.

"It is nothing. I simply called Hemicus to arrange for the two Highnesses' escort." Alexander lightly brushed across the matter, not wanting to reveal the truth.

He had no evidence of anything as the rainwater had started to only creep up now and thus thought revealing this information would do little but cause panic.

He also really did not want to deal with any type of nagging right now given his already acrid mood.

"*Hic*... should we get ready?"

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