Swarming Sovereignty

Chapter 109: Full-Scale Conversion

Lucia, Regent of the Glens, was sitting at a desk that seemed to be too large for her, staring down at the paperwork in front of her. She had been given classes on how to rule, but she was coming to realize that they had been inadequate for preparing her for the real thing.

She was hoping it was just a side-effect of overseeing the conversion of the entire country, which was turning out to be more complicated than she had expected, Oath or no. There were just…so many things she had to juggle; she had to keep track of what places had and hadn’t been converted, get a list of any and all of their requests and decide what was feasible now and what needed aid from the capital, track down all of the Eckharts, Amelia’s old family, and, finally, respond to any people who had chosen to rebel and reject rule altogether instead of being subject to the Oath and send out task forces to deal with them before they got out of hand.

That last one was, fortunately, something that had only happened once. It was a little-known way of escaping Oaths, but it was one that not many chose to use; by choosing to rebel or renounce citizenship to one’s home country, one would escape the compulsion of the Oath, but it was a steep cost; you had to well and truly mean it, in practice meaning you would have to commit to a full-scale rebellion, become a bandit, or live as a hermit, never to interact with society again.

It was fortunate that next to no one knew of that exploit; the vast majority of Oaths did not affect anyone but people in positions of power, and coming up with the exploit independently within the five or so minutes it would take for an entire village to begin conversion was next to impossible. The one rebellion that had occurred was from a marchioness who had, apparently, decided that she was capable enough to rebel and not be crushed once news spread.

She had not been capable enough. Lucia had thought ahead when dealing with the nobles, and the delegations sent to them had been made up of experienced soldiers, made all the stronger by their conversion. According to the marchioness’s own report, she was jumpy because one of her most trusted aides had failed to report back from his latest errand, and when she saw a regiment of soldiers at her gates, some of whom had distinctly monstrous features, she began trying to escape.

At that point, the Oath activated, and she knew something was up. She had already been considering ways to expand her influence, and had a somewhat sizeable set of local troops, so when the soldiers reached the gate of her manor and converted the guard, she made her will to rebel and attempted to escape with some of her retainers in tow.

Fortunately, her path to her stables would have put her on a collision course with the soldiers, so she opted to flee out the back. She made it a ways out into the plains surrounding her manor, but she had quickly tracked down by specialists from the soldiers and converted before she could cause any real damage.

After some discussion with her mothers, Lucia decided not to give any punishment; they had unilaterally decided on the surrender and conversion of the Glens, and if people were strong-willed enough to take the initiative to fight back in what they surely saw as self-defense, then it wouldn’t be held against them.

Of course, this was bound to happen a time or two more; only about a fourth of the nobles had been converted, and about an eighth of the villages and towns. That being said, all the major population centers near the capital were converted, so about half the total population was part of the swarm now.

Still, despite the workload she was glad she had taken this position. Her mother was in dire need of a break, and it felt good to give her one. She stifled a yawn as she focused her attention back in on her work, being nearly done with the day’s tasks.

Unfortunately, she was interrupted only a few minutes later by a knock on the door. After she called out for them to enter, a messenger carefully opened the door, clutching an envelope in a hand. “Your Grace, the other nations have sent a letter intended for your mother. How should we handle this?”

“Through the priority channels, I assume?”  Lucia asked. The priority channels were a series of small holes in the teleportation wards around the castle, the coordinates of which were only given to select people in other countries. Nailah had introduced them as a way to have more secure messaging with other sovereigns, under the assumption that teleportation was harder to intercept than a traditional messenger, which was…normally true, were one to discount Amelia.

It was not without downsides, of course, you had to have a highly skilled mage to be able to teleport with that level of precision, and opening up holes in the teleportation ward was a risky thing to do, but Nailah had considered it worth it. Only a couple of their most trusted allies had these channels, of course, but Lucia made a mental note to have them closed the moment the conversion of the Glens was discovered.

“Yes, from the Sapphire Empire.” The messenger replied.

“And it’s been scanned for danger, right?”

The messenger nodded, and Lucia held out her hand. “Let me read it.” She instructed.

The messenger obediently handed her the letter, and Lucia opened it, scanning its contents.

The letter read.

Lucia set the letter down, frowning. She would have to get her mother to pen a reply, and pray that her now having smaller and slimmer hands hadn’t affected her handwriting too much. Not giving a response or giving a suspicious response would blow their cover, and while she had no intentions to hide what was happening forever, she would at least like to wait until both Aura and the Glens were completely converted.

“We’ll have to get Mom involved.”  Lucia sighed. “Please draft a letter appraising her of the situation and leave it in the overnight mail spot along with the original letter.” She handed the letter back to the messenger, who gave a quick bow and withdrew from the room. Lucia sighed, looked over the last few documents, then stood up and left the office, off in

“R-right!” Connie said quickly, giving Amelia a quick squeeze before disengaging from the hug and heading towards the dining room. “I’ve kept the food fresh using magic, so it should still be just as g-good as it was the moment it was done cooking. J-just…don’t expect much from it, okay?”