(Risa POV)
"Seriously? This is it?" I muttered to myself as Althea carried me into the castle's conference room to meet all of the nobles who'd survived the culling, having not done anything too against the law since they gained their positions.
Including the young prince, who had a look on his face that screamed 'I REALLY DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!' there were twelve.
Out of more than two hundred nobles, only twelve had any sense of patriotism at all. Technically, we'd spared all of the children, too, but most of them were either too young to replace their parents, or too influenced by their parents to be good potential rulers.
Out of over 200, 12 nobles were left. That was it. The standing military hadn't been culled to that extreme, luckily, but my White Force was stretched dangerously thin keeping the peace.
And the surrounding smaller nations weren't much help at all. In fact, I'd sent most of my captains, like Sadie, out to their capital cities to intimidate them into submission after getting messages from Pipo about them preparing for war, taking advantage of Farmus's current weak state. Luckily for everyone, a calamity-class monster or two showing up in the middle of your royal castle was rather useful when it came to dissuading threats.
Thank god for Pipo. Without him, my White Force's numbers wouldn't be nearly enough to keep the peace across the entire country, and countless innocents would've died by now.
But naturally, I didn't have any desire to keep this up indefinitely. Farmus was basically dead. As the one who'd killed it, it was my job to set something new up in its place.
"Kid. You're the new king." I said, patting the poor prince on the back.
"Why me…?" He actually muttered aloud, looking nothing like a king. I couldn't really blame him. The noble beside him, Marquis Muller, put a hand on his shoulder to comfort the young king before addressing me.
"What are your demands?"
Earl Hellman beside him piled on to that, "I understand that you're selling the possessions of the nobles that you're killing. Are you looking for reparations for the monster nation?"
"None and no." I responded, "That money is going to go back where it belongs. The national budget. And you're going to use that budget for the betterment of your entire nation, not just the noble class."
"Wait, was that your entire goal? To eliminate Farmus's reason for declaring war? That's why you killed all of those nobles?!" New King Edgar realized.
"Needed to happen. At least I looked for evidence before carrying out the slaughter. No innocents died here." Edgar's eyes went wide as he realized the implications behind my words, then he went silent.
"Victor, bring in the new nobles." I called.
Victor complied, entering the room with ten children in tow.
"Children? You're joking." Hellman exclaimed.
"They all have a bare minimum education." Victor assured, giving a half-bow to Althea and I.
"Thank you, Victor." I said.
"Yeah, he's right. We can all read, write, and do math. Better than the idiots who had these jobs before." One of the kids said, sitting down between Edgar and I and putting his feet on the table. Based on the information in my database, that must've been Luka.
We'd picked these kids up based on a variety of requirements and circumstances. The girl across the table from Hellman, for example, was an orphan girl who'd been raised by the Holy Church. She'd be the Church's official representation in the new government.
Luka was actually the illegitimate, youngest son of one Earl Nidol Migam. Last year, when Migam had lost his extra support from the government, the bastard had actually chosen to sell his own son rather than cut back on his spending. As a result of that, Luka hated useless, greedy nobles with a vengeance.
"It doesn't matter if we somehow manage to replace the noble class, and fund the whole operation. Our military has been-" Muller began to think aloud. Luka cut him off, finishing his thought.
"Decimated, yeah. We're screwed. No peacekeeping, no protection from outside threats. Unless…" He looked at me expectantly.
"My White Force will fulfill those stations, for now. Meanwhile, we'll also help you build your military strength back up. All we ask for in return-"
"Is for us to fix this country's stupid economic policies and laws. But we need an assurance from you. Even if you got rid of all of the corrupt idiots, nobody wants to be a vassal state." Luka told me. Unusually smart kid. Bold, too. I kinda regretted the fact that the real king was the wimpy kid beside him, holding his head in his hands as he barely stopped himself from going unconscious from stress.
"Don't worry about that." I told him, "You won't be a vassal state. I have no desire to leave my White Force here forever. It's a massive waste of manpower. Come outside. I have a plan for that."
We emptied the entire castle. It'd already been completely ransacked, too. There wasn't anything useful left inside the castle at all. All it was, was a gigantic symbol of the former regime.
So I had Althea wipe it off the face of the map. Until a newer, better one could be made, one of the empty mansions nearby would serve as the capitol building. From there, the remaining nobles would deal with all of the annoying work that goes into dismantling a terribly useless government and starting anew. All of my work was done. Just had to leave my White Force behind.