The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 714: Scatterbrained

Once they were back in Wistover, and the new arrivals were sent off to be processed at the refugee camp, where Dominic was certain they wouldn’t spend more than one night, given their motivation levels, it was time to get back to the paperwork of running a Duchy.

However, that wasn’t the only thing that he had to do.

There were new soldiers here now, to be sent to the frontier lands of Kinewen Province, keeping order in the wilderness until the residents settled back into their homes and new Nobles were assigned to the region.

"Amie, Dave, I will need both of you for this next part. We are going to have to give a bunch of Malton Knights a crash course in what it is to be a proper Wavemates Patrol unit.

Amie, I will ask you to get the [Wings of Light] spells for them made by the Sect. Dave, we’re going to have to teach them about soup."

Amie laughed, while the Trolls smiled.

"Is there a reason that you need to teach them about soup?" Amie asked.

"I’m going to have either mages or trolls go with them to do logistics and drive the supply trucks. But the Malton Knights are mostly pretentious Noble born Paladins from families without the influence to get them into the Royal Knights.

I honestly suspect that we’re going to have to do a fair bit of retraining before we can send them out to patrol the wilderness looking for bandits with any sort of efficiency.

I will go with them on the first patrol so that I can show them around and introduce them to the Barons, and so I can see Kinewen Province from the ground. It might not be as bad as we feared, but it did get hit pretty hard, and it was sparsely populated to begin with.

There might actually be thousands of farmers and small towns just doing their thing without any worries right now.

Letting them know that they can contact the Knight patrols for assistance will keep the peace, and it will spread the word that the region is under our protection in a meaningful sense, not just a political one.

Once the word of that spreads, I think that we can start seeing more residents return, and fewer people turning desperate enough to resort to banditry.

There will still be more than a little of it, as the Capital was lost, and surely not everyone went down with it.

But we will do what we can."

"That was a lot of words to say that you really want them to not make more work for you. But I get you, and soup culture has an advantage over ration packs, in that you can always add more water to the soup if you’ve got extra guests coming."

Mostly, he actually needed to ensure that they were skilled enough with the rifles and pistols that he could send them out on patrol and trust that they weren’t going to ignore the best weapons in favour of using swords.

Noble ideals were all well and good, but they didn’t have much place in bandit suppression.

"I will go get the spell gems you need from the Sect. They’ve been making them in anticipation of you requesting them. I should warn you though, they’re an advanced spell, and have to be made by higher ranking Elders, so they’re going to put a heavy dent in your monthly spending."

Dominic sighed.

"Well, we can start them with a ten-man strike force. That is as many as our Royal Guards, and they’re looking incredibly impressive in training.

I may have forgotten to consider how expensive spell gems could get when I requested so many of them.

We will likely still need a bunch more for the Duchy, just not right away."

"I suspected that might be the case.

We did equip the mages who are going out on classified missions, or escort missions for the Duchy, with some of the new spells. Specifically, the [Shuriken Wall]. That one is just too good, and it really does plow fields well.

We tested with the trolls the other day."

"With the mages tagging along, I don’t think that they will have too many problems. All of the Duskblade Sect’s mission specialists are experts.

But that reminds me, we should put up the [Wall of Brambles] spell around the Academy walls. They’re not much of a wall, as they’re just intended to keep students from wandering off and wild animals out.

With the brambles around them, they would make for a proper fortification."

"Plus, they would be pretty." Dave added helpfully.

The stone walls were good, but covering them in flowers didn’t make them any less sturdy.

"Well, it seems that we still have more than enough to do for the day, so let’s get started with bringing over the new soldiers and introducing them to the training grounds.

We’ll set them up over by the goats for now, as they’ve got their own staff for the horses and don’t need our stable hands."

"There are trolls over by them, we will bring them to the goats and tell them to set camp inside. Don’t worry boss. Everything will be ready for training." Dave insisted.

"Alright. That’s one thing handled, what is next? It feels like I’m so far behind that I don’t know what I’m doing any more." Dominic sighed.

"In that case, let’s have lunch while the soldiers move, and then we can start over with a full stomach." Amie offered, then smiled.

"You know, you don’t actually have to do any of the training or equipping part, other than making them the new gear. You could just go to the forge after lunch and leave the rest to the combat and magic experts," she added.

"Now that is a wonderful idea. I don’t spend nearly enough time in the forge these days. They also need rifles, so I’ll have to make new parts before they can go anywhere.

In fact, I can have the advisors come to me in the forge, instead of sitting in the office all day."

"Whoa there, slow your roll."

Dominic laughed at the bemused expression on the mage’s face.

"Well, Jack certainly wouldn’t object, even if just because nobody comes to the forge, so he could drink while he gives his report."