Yae Miko's diplomatic letter really was gutsy.
She actually dared to directly roast her own Shogun inside official correspondence.
Then again, given that certain lightning shut-in's mental state…
Yeah, she really might never read those reports.
As for how to reply to this diplomatic letter—
That wasn't much of a problem.
Sumeru was now rich, powerful, and firmly established.
When you had enough strength and enough leverage, everything you did naturally came with confidence.
After skimming the letter, Idris set it aside and turned back to Cyno.
"Anything else that needs reporting?"
Cyno shook his head.
"No, Grand Sage. That's all."
After all, Idris had only been gone three days, not three years.
It was unrealistic to expect major upheaval.
Idris nodded, then asked,
"Then about the prisoners you've been rounding up—in the desert and the city both.
What's their situation now?"
"How many people are we talking about in total?"
Cyno answered crisply,
"Counting from the time you first assumed office, we currently have over 4,000 people imprisoned."
"Roughly two-thirds are from the desert."
"But those truly deserving of execution are less than one-tenth of the total."
"Grand Sage, according to your earlier plans… are you intending to have them all executed?"
Idris shook his head.
"No. Keep them for now. We'll put them into labor reform later."
"In Liyue, there's a place called the Blackcliff Forge.
It's specifically used to send convicts to work the mines."
"I've got several research projects lined up that need a lot of raw, physical grunt work.
Jobs that are dirty, heavy, exhausting—that sort of thing is perfect for prisoners."
Cyno bowed his head slightly.
"Understood. Everything will be arranged per your orders."
"You've worked hard," Idris said. "There'll be more I need from you later. You can go for now."
Cyno clasped his fists again and left.
After that, Idris summoned several other key figures in Sumeru City to report in—
their recent work, and the overall state of the country during the three days he'd been away.
Only after making a full circuit of debriefs did Idris finally understand:
Why ancient emperors rarely enjoyed "secret tours among the people."
Because the more fun the trip…
The harder the workload snaps back at you when you return.
By the time he managed to find the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata (the Great Tree King), it was already late.
So, for this last portion of business, Idris simply had her come to his own room.
Their relationship was… unusual.
He'd scolded both her and Nahida to their faces more than once—
yet somehow, that only made them closer.
As the head elder of the Alchemy Faction, Rukkhadevata listened while he laid things out:
"Because of the treaty I signed with Fontaine, the Alchemy Faction in Sumeru is going to focus primarily on Bloodline Pills for the next few months."
"With the number of Wither Plague patients here now almost down to zero, there's no need to keep funneling all of our resources into antidote production."
"It's good for the students to rotate formulas anyway.
They can treat it as high-volume practice."
Rukkhadevata gave him a sharp side-eye.
"'A few'?"
"Idris, have you actually listened to what you just said?"
"Fontaine has tens of millions of people.
If we seriously tried to 'save the whole nation' with alchemy alone, then even if our entire faction, plus you, plus every furnace in Sumeru worked non-stop for an entire year—"
"At best, we'd only manage to save a fraction of their population."
Idris answered calmly,
"Who ever said it was our job to save them?"
"It's a country's own duty to survive its own crises."
"Our role is, at most, that of a profitable merchant or guide."
"What we can do is provide them an alternative—
a different path than the one originally laid out for them. Nothing more."
Hearing his unabashed bluntness, Rukkhadevata could only roll her eyes again.
"So you really are making a fortune off their national disaster."
Idris shrugged.
"Disaster profiteering presumes that they actually get saved by my method."
"And that they accept the price."
"Support always comes with a cost. Claims of 'help with no price attached'—that's the real lie."
"Besides, 'profiting off disaster' usually refers to looting a fallen country."
"Fontaine hasn't fallen. Far from it.
So calling this 'disaster profiteering' is still a bit inaccurate, don't you think?"
Even as a matured God of Wisdom, Rukkhadevata knew she couldn't out-debate him.
All she could do was sigh.
"Fine. This era belongs to your voice anyway."
"If I ever get the chance to see Egeria again—the original Water Archon—I honestly don't know how I'll explain any of this to her…"
After all, Idris was still technically her last Grand Sage.
Though this particular sage had… flipped the board in every possible way.
Once the business talk had wrapped up, Idris changed the subject.
"Right. How's the World Tree doing?"
He still remembered that, when he saved Rukkhadevata, he'd also planted another tree in that space—
a World Tree that specifically embodied human malice and negative emotion.
Where there was light, there had to be shadow.
A World Tree that only carried virtue and law would always be incomplete.
Rukkhadevata nodded.
"The tree where I once resided is steadily recovering."
"The corruption and forbidden knowledge that had plagued it are being drawn little by little into the 'evil-leaning' World Tree."
"Even so, it's a very long process. The damage from back then was too severe.
At this rate, even with this method, full purification will still take years."
That was only natural.
It was a level of corruption she'd only barely been able to suppress at the cost of her own life.
"But there is something encouraging," she added.
"That 'malice-aspect' World Tree—though its power is ominous, its temperament is surprisingly gentle, especially toward us."
"It seems you were right—
Even a fierce guard dog won't randomly bite the ones it trusts the most."
Nahida, sitting nearby, nodded.
"But the World Tree's most important duty is to maintain balance and record the world's history."
"Is that new tree actually able to handle such a responsibility?"
Rukkhadevata shook her head lightly.
"Who knows? Right now, its only true administrator is you, Grand Sage Idris."
"In terms of how it records events, I don't have the authority to interfere."
Idris waved a hand.
"Then leave it for now."
"Treat that little World Tree as a cloud backup."
Nahida blinked.
"Cloud… backup? What's that supposed to mean?"
Idris immediately brushed it off with a vague explanation.
But after being fooled by him this many times, even Nahida could tell—
the bastard was definitely dodging the question again.
Her lips curved into a quietly annoyed smile… and she switched to mental transmission with Rukkhadevata.
A moment later, the two Dendro gods started performing a tag-team routine.
Rukkhadevata smiled gently.
"I also heard, Idris—over in Fontaine, you did something quite special."
"You personally fought the Water Dragon Sovereign… and won, didn't you?"
Idris raised a brow.
"That battle wasn't exactly subtle. Give it a few days and at least half the world will know."
"What about it?"
Nahida continued,
"It's just… we know you didn't fight him merely for the sake of the Bloodline Pills."
"There were… other reasons."
Rukkhadevata followed up smoothly.
"In our judgment, Neuvillette—the Water Dragon Sovereign—is the most likely among all the elemental dragon kings to fully reclaim his ancient authority first."
"And once he fully awakens, he will almost certainly come to understand the true mission of the primordial dragon kings."
"When that happens, the first target he chooses to strike down—
there's at least an 80% chance it will be meek little Nahida here."
"As the weakest combatant among the archons, she'd be the easiest to fulfill that duty upon."
"So, Grand Sage Idris, you fought him in advance—
to show him your absolute strength, and to tell him one thing with your fists."
'If you want to lay hands on her, you'll have to get past me first.'
Nahida's cheeks flushed crimson. She scooted closer and gently placed her small hand on top of Idris's.
"So I wanted to say… thank you."
"Thank you for going that far… for my sake."
Idris didn't bother arguing.
He just lazily lifted his eyelids.
"And this is exactly why I don't like people who are too smart."
"Rulers prefer to keep clever idiots at their side—
not pure geniuses."
Nahida giggled.
"Hehehe~ Then I must apologize."
"Maybe in your eyes, I used to be nothing more than a clueless, disobedient little child."
"But after spending all this time learning from you, I've picked up quite a lot."
Aside from all sorts of… ahem… unusual knowledge, she'd also developed a very accurate sense for his personality.
She now knew exactly how and where to tease him.
Two Wisdom Gods performing in sync like this—
Any normal person would be exhausted just trying to keep up.
Rukkhadevata sat down on Idris's other side, still smiling kindly.
"So that means your duel with the Water Dragon was something you'd planned well in advance, hm?"
"Otherwise, you wouldn't have come up with such a neat excuse to make it look reasonable on the surface."
"Looking at it that way, it really does seem like you're quite fond of small-statured girls."
"Otherwise, even considering Nahida is your 'secretary,' I doubt you'd have gone so far ahead of time to account for her safety."
Idris took a calm sip of tea.
"Even if I am nominally your 'Grand Sage,' the two of you don't need to constantly overanalyze what type of woman I prefer."
The two goddesses glanced at each other and chuckled.
"But according to some ancient records," Rukkhadevata said lightly,
"A man who ascends to kingship at your age—"
"By now he'd usually already have an empress and be preparing to name a crown prince."
"You don't even have a queen yet."
"As your two 'princesses,' how could we not be anxious?"
Idris rolled his eyes so hard they nearly hit the ceiling.
"Have you two had enough?"
"I'm not even twenty-five yet!"
To read advanced Chapters, head over to p@treon:
patreon.com/nani_kaito