"Ah... Aunt, you mean—these three large bandit groups... have already disappeared?"
Candice smiled and nodded.
Cecilia supplemented:
"Strictly speaking, some of them have been reorganized into soldiers under various local lords, while others chose to go to newly cultivated fields of various local lords to start farming again."
Listening to their account, Elashia asked with some confusion:
"Then... can these people be guaranteed to survive?"
Candice nodded confidently:
"Your Majesty, please rest assured. Have you forgotten the orders you gave after controlling the various local lords?"
"Oh..."
Elashia recalled what happened half a year ago.
At that time, she had just transmigrated and was traveling across all of Elasia to ensure that not a single bit of national strength would be wasted in the coup, and no unnecessary casualties would occur.
To ensure her goal could be achieved, after Elashia controlled the lords of various regions, she implanted three inviolable principles in their minds.
The first was the basic principle—absolute loyalty to Elashia.
The second was to ensure efficiency—lords must be diligent in governance, affairs within their territories couldn't accumulate for more than twenty-four hours, and they must work efficiently for at least twelve hours daily on territorial affairs.
If there were important matters, this time had to be extended to fifteen hours.
The third was to delay large-scale peasant uprisings as much as possible—major events in the territory must be reported to the central Government Affairs Hall, while minor matters must be handled according to principles most beneficial to residents within the territory.
Seeing Elashia finally understand, Candice smiled and said:
"Under your previous guidance of 'principles most beneficial to territorial residents,' the compensation for farming for lords is now almost the same as farming for oneself. After paying a symbolic tax that's basically nothing, these tenant farmers basically keep whatever they grow."
"Through the efforts of local lords and the mages we sent, many new lands have been cultivated in the northern frontier. Elasia no longer lacks land resources."
Elashia, somewhat understanding, nodded:
"Oh... that's good..."
Thinking that the main reason these people couldn't eat was lack of land, Elashia couldn't help but ask curiously:
"Hey, why couldn't those people who lost their land cultivate land themselves before?"
Candice smiled and shook her head.
"No, Your Majesty, cultivating land isn't just about turning over wild ground. The cost of land cultivation is quite high. Basically, no one or organization except the government can accomplish land cultivation on their own."
Elashia wanted to continue asking for reasons, but after thinking about it, this didn't seem like something she should manage.
Anyway, Aunt would help her handle everything properly.
Looking again at the map on the table with all the markings she had made, Elashia smiled somewhat awkwardly.
After all, she truly didn't understand these things.
This outsider could previously guide insiders somewhat through things she knew from the plot, but now with the butterfly effect being quite obvious, many predetermined developments from the past plot had already changed.
The bandit groups that should have required mobilizing all of Elasia's strength to quickly suppress had already almost disappeared unknowingly.
Although it was somewhat regrettable that the plan she had prepared for so long was now useless, this was ultimately a good thing.
So Elashia turned to ask Cecilia:
"Then, about how many armed forces not under state control remain in all of Elasia now?"
Cecilia thought for a moment and answered:
"All large bandit groups not under state control have completely disappeared now, but there are still some extremely small bandit groups scattered across the country. Looking at the whole country... the total estimate is around one thousand."
"These are all true villains. There's no need for mercy in dealing with them. Just order local lords to eliminate them on their own—no need to deploy the Imperial Guard."
Having thoroughly understood Elasia's current situation from Cecilia, Elashia nodded with satisfaction.
"Not bad... so this originally very troublesome problem has basically been completely solved by us."
However, Cecilia smiled and added:
"But, Your Majesty, there's still one powerful armed force we cannot control that I think we must subdue."
Elashia knew what Cecilia was talking about without thinking.
"You're talking about Dorothy."
In the plot, if this character Dorothy wasn't handled properly, the consequences could be quite serious.
For the villainous princess "Elashia," this chivalrous character posed an even greater threat than [Human Heroes] like Cecilia.
The reason was simple—this person had no thoughts of loyalty to the monarch whatsoever, doing everything solely according to her inner sense of justice.
Cecilia would be constrained by thoughts of loyalty to the monarch, so even after defeating "Elashia," she wouldn't kill her.
But Dorothy wouldn't be like that.
When she determined that "Elashia" would become a witch who would destroy the country, she would use all means to assassinate her.
Sometimes "Elashia" would be walking peacefully on the street when her head would suddenly fly off.
In "The Fall of Elasia," the CG scene Elashia remembered most clearly came from her.
At that time, "Elashia" was preparing to defile an innocent girl.
"Elashia" was about to succeed.
However!
Just when Elashia in front of the screen was getting "excited," her head suddenly flew up!
The game's ending CG was—under "Elashia's" unwilling gaze, Dorothy standing behind coolly sheathed her long sword and said: "Justice has been executed."
Uh...
It was truly cool, but also truly frightening.
Some people even sued the game company because of this.
The reason was that this not only left them with serious psychological trauma but even affected certain functions.
Even if "Elashia" truly wanted to do good things and was willing to risk certain death to take the human route, Dorothy would only change from an enemy character to a neutral one.
The reason was simple—this chivalrous swordsman had almost natural antipathy toward royal organizations representing public authority.
So recruiting this female knight was absolutely impossible in the game.
But Dorothy not only had powerful strength of level thirty-five from the start, she also had a bunch of subordinates with at least mid-level knight strength!
Moreover, these subordinates were numerous! A full hundred!
So Elashia felt she still had to strive for success.
What if she succeeded?