Rebirth of the Phoenix God

Chapter 129: Hesitation

"This place feels really different."

Even with how in hurry I was to make the report about the fake fire flower garden, one couldn't simply fly into a city. With the best-case scenario oscillating around several years in prison and in the most likely one, an instant death due to being a potential threat, descending down the skies and travelling the last remaining kilometre by foot was definitely the better option.

Yet, even outside of the city itself, the entire area was starkly different from what Fen experienced so far. 

Starting with the lands of the empire, outside of the poor and defenceless villages located in the few safe spots around the country, most of the populace lingered in or around cities. According to the rule of thumb, people would settle only as far away as one could still spot the city, so that in case of emergency, its safe walls would be reachable. 

As the young man moved north, the area around the walled-off towns where people would live slowly started to increase. With the exception of the main imperial highway that had its own environment to work with, only reaching Kinar would allow for a great change of the country architecture.

With the milder climate and more abundant resources, the republic was far richer than a vastly bigger empire to its south. Greater and richer population amassed on a way smaller area resulted in perfectly invested and supplied determination of the humans to carve out more and more parts of the world for themselves. 

This very basic difference in the way of thinking might be the reason why Kinar flourished while Empire seemed to be on its last leg, despite being created just a few historical moments ago. 

"Different? How?"

Leaning her head slightly to the side, Orsha didn't give any hints about the most likely death of her companions influencing her. Hopefully, all the suddenly appearing events made her forget about that part, or maybe she was just that good at hiding it away. Either way, Fen was glad that he could still gaze upon her delicate smile.

"Back in the empire No, even in the area of the capital, it would be unheard off to see what you can see right now."

Outstretching his hands towards the vast areas of fields that spread around in every direction, towards the villages and small settlements teeming with life, full of people rustling about their days.

Even near Gauna, the capital city of the republic, it would be impossible to see something like this!

"Well, that can be easily explained. If you learned the history lesson that is."

Feeling his interest being piqued by the mention of the history, Fen allowed himself to fall deep into his internal monologue, trying to uncover what kind of historical hints would serve to explain how vastly different those two areas of the republic could come to be.

'Wait, is that all?'

Suddenly enlighted Or to be more precise, suddenly turning dumb enough for a moment long enough to stop trying to decipher the meaningless details and just look at the general plot of the republic history, Fen almost failed to stop himself from slapping his own face in disgrace at his own inflexibility.

It was so obvious! There was only one element that recurred through all the phases of the history that Fen learned about the empire. While one could focus on the glorious exploits of the pioneers, insane discipline and fighting spirit of the mercenaries or any other topic that the Old Kingdom made known about itself during its time, there was only one element that described the history of that country.

The development of communication.

For as long as the influence of the Phoenixian ruler continued to grow, both he and his descendants could keep expanding their network system. On the few maps that the young man had a chance to see, there was only one thing that all of them got perfectly the same. And there was no denying this one point, the roads to the east were far greater than anything that Fen saw in any of the places he had a chance to visit so far. 

"Our ancestors started by settling in two coastal cities to the east. As their influence grew, their reach started to move deeper and deeper inland, allowing both of the initial colonisation centres to expand their roads parallel to each other. Only when they conquered the entirety of the Kindabian great plains, the two roads meet. That's also where the former heart of the old kingdom was, concentrating the majority of wealth and population in this logistical centre of the entire country."

The road on which they were walking was one of the highways set up by the old kingdom. Fen didn't even need to ask to confirm this, as with the bird's eye view that he had previously on the area he could tell that it was the entire settlements following the road rather than the road squeezing through each of them. It was a clear hint that this highway was in place for far longer than the fragile, wooden huts of the locals.

Surprisingly, the road itself didn't have all that much marks that would remind anyone looking at it how old it was. Rather than that, it seemed as if some kind of lost knowledge required to make this kind of roads was lost, leaving only the faulty version used all over the empire and the countries further from this former centre of innovation.

For the rulers of the lands of the former Old Kingdom, this has to be akin to a cheat when comparing to the cards that the rulers of the far western and northern lands had to deal with. 

"But already in Gauna, you can see that at the point where they settled it properly, the momentum of the young kingdom was dying. No longer was the entire country focused on the road setting effort. Obviously, important routes connecting to the trade centres, other capitals and so on were made constantly but when taking the scale into account, that was generally the end of the age of great constructions. What you see to the south, in the empire, are just the dying efforts of the stagnating colossus."

Moving his head to the side, Fen cast a glance at Orsha. With the city walls of the city housing her academy already appearing in their field of view, he didn't really have that much more time to learn about her ideas on the topic. Given how they could never meet again in their lives, Fen couldn't help but strive to get to the bottom of what the girl was talking about.

"But wasn't the young kingdom period the shortest? Do you wish to say that the actual golden age was a period during which the power of the old kingdom broke?"

That was certainly a novel way to think about it. Hanging his head for a second in order to wrap his thoughts around this new outlook at the matter, Fen quickly found out some points that could prove the girl's words, but by the time he straightened his back again, his thoughts were already filled with just as many counter-arguments against her words.

"Strange, isn't it?"

Sending Fen a wink, Orsha smiled lovingly before wrapping her hands behind her back. While this wasn't something grand or history-changing, this single expression of hers managed to calm Fen's worry about the state of her mind. While so far, she didn't voice a single protest against leaving her companions behind, the young man could feel that as the two of them calmed down on the road, those bothersome thoughts started to plague her mind/

"Obviously, the High Kingdom phase saw a lot of expansion, growth, new trade deals and overall, an insane splurge of wealth in which anyone could dabble. As long as you had guts and just a tiny bit of luck, extreme opportunities only waited for you at every corner!"

Almost failing to stop herself from shouting the last words out loud, Orsha suddenly stopped in her track, just as they were about to enter the hearing range of the city's gate guardians.

"But have it ever come to your attention that that wealth, those opportunities had to come from somewhere? The young Kingdom was a period when everyone was united in the effort of excessive labour for the betterment of all. Only when the higher-ups of the old kingdom realised that expanding their lands by force for the sake of robbing riches and claiming more serfs would be more profitable in the short term, did the true downfall of the old kingdom began. Just when everyone could basically enjoy a rain of gold that was about to continue for the next hundred years."

Only after saying those words out loud did Orsha pick up her pace, pushing towards the city. Yet, the young man stood in his place as if some bolts suddenly grew out of his feet and mounted him to the ground while the girl was saying her monologues piece. 

'Isn't that exactly what I'm doing right now?'

In this one moment, a wave of hesitation hit the young man. To add the value instead of losing part of it just to change the owner. During the war, everyone would lose. That was given, proven by the trail of burned down villages that marked the path of every army in existence. And right now, Fen was about to claim someone else's house, just because he managed to best him!

Wasn't that exactly the same thing that this girl just claimed to be responsible for the downfall of the greatest country to ever exist?