It required a pinch of violence and duress, but Robin obeyed Queen Leila’s orders and set out to do as she willed. But before he acceded, Robin nagged them to the ends of the earth to guarantee him a performance incentive.

‘I was going to give him an incentive anyway.’

What he did not know was that Milton was thinking as such.

***

The newly amalgamated Northern Region of the Lester Kingdom – in other words, the old Hildess Republic.

The late Hildess Republic’s main industry was mining.

As the majority of their topography consisted of mountains, there were veins of ores abounds; and the iron ore that came out of these deposits were famous for their particularly high quality. In fact, the Hildess Republic was said to be a nation-sized forge by the other Republics. Added to this was that their other main industry was the production and export of weapons.

This naturally meant that their livelihood and economy depended on mining, and their population consequently centered around mining towns.

Conversely, there was a region that became neglected: namely, the coastal areas to the West. The reason this became the case was their comparatively low potential value.

When the Hildess Republic was still standing, their only trading partners were the other two Republics. Disregarding negligible small-scale black-market trading, exchanges between the Republics and Kingdoms were not...