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With the birth of the Miraldia Federation, I ended up with yet another… no, two more troublesome roles, but for the time being things finally settled down a bit.
If I were to travel through this country to gather allies, at least wait until railways exist.
Thinking that, I spread out a map to plan our next moves.

“Oh?”

This map covers the entirety of Southern Miraldia.

Miraldia actually doesn’t have proper maps.
Perhaps the Senate has some, but the maps surveyed by each city’s governor only cover the surrounding areas.
And for military reasons, they are reluctant to make them public.
As a result, connections between cities are described vaguely, like “three days east on foot” or “if you leave at dawn on horseback, you’ll arrive by sunset.”
No one even knows whether the trade routes between cities are truly optimized.
They’re simply still in use because they’ve always been used.

But this map, though rough, shows positional relationships between cities.
Miraldia is a land with the “Northern Mountain Range” to the north and an inland sea called the “South Calm Sea” to the south.
It’s said there is land beyond the Northern Mountain Range, and also beyond the South Calm Sea.
However, there is almost no contact with either.

The Northern Mountain Range apparently cannot be crossed even in summer without full mountaineering equipment, so trade is out of the question.
As for the South Calm Sea, east-west sea routes are active, so few ships head south.
To the west lies the “Great Sea of Trees,” home to demonkind, and to the east the vast “Wind-Wrought Desert” stretches. Neither can be easily crossed.
Within the Miraldia Plain, surrounded on all sides by nature, there are seventeen cities.
Of those, eight are now allied with the Demon Lord’s Army.

On this map, several trade routes had also been redrawn.

“Oh, Zaria is closer than I thought.”

I see—so until now we’d been taking unnecessarily large detours.
There’s also a relatively flat route to Belrüsa. This looks quite useful.
Very helpful.

The problem is: who made this map?

“Oh, Veit. I see you are already looking at my masterpiece.”

Demon Lord Gomoviroa appeared, floating in.

“Master, did you make this?”

She nodded casually.

“With the cooperation of the dragonfolk engineers. You have long said we needed accurate maps, have you not?”
“I did, but…”

I never asked the Demon Lord herself to go surveying.

“Master, you wandered around under the pretext of mapmaking, didn’t you?”

When I stared at her over the map, she quickly looked away.

“Well, you see, I can observe terrain from the sky. It would be wasteful not to make use of that, would it not?”
“The reasoning is sound, but still…”

Her motives felt questionable, but it was undeniably a huge help.

Still, isn’t this second-generation Demon Lord dumping all the troublesome work on me?

“By the way, you set up the council like that because you didn’t want to attend it, didn’t you?”

She averted her gaze again.

“My late friend, you see, he said something about an ideal system called constitutional monarchy… so you see, I shan’t govern directly.”

Her understanding was completely muddled.
She has sharp insight in magic and natural sciences, but is hopeless in the humanities.
No offense to her, but it’s better to leave politics to the governors on the ground.
We’re not ready for something like a constitution yet, but for now we’ll make do with this system where a monarch and council coexist.

Then I might as well assign some work to the seemingly idle Demon Lord.

“Master, when you have time, could you create about twelve thousand skeleton soldiers?”
“T-twelve thousand!?”
“I’ll have the vampire necromancers under Senior Marlene assist.”
“What do you intend to use that many for?”

Within our Miraldia Federation, Bernehainen, Tübahn, Zaria, and Veiria border the north.
Looking at the completed map, it’s clear these cities form the front line against the north.

“I want to deploy three thousand skeleton soldiers to each of these four cities.”
“On what basis three thousand?”
“The Miraldia Alliance Army can mobilize at most a few thousand at a time. They only sent two thousand to attack Zaria, and even overestimating, five or six thousand is likely their limit.”

I’m not counting citizen militias—only professional soldiers.
Militia lack training and stamina, and aren’t much of a threat in expeditions or sieges.

As an example, I showed a layout of Bernehainen and placed thirty coins to represent units of one hundred each.

“To defend against six thousand troops over city walls, two thousand is enough. But skeleton soldiers lack flexibility compared to humans, so to allow margin, three thousand.”
“If we summon twelve thousand, it will take four months. How about twenty-five hundred?”
“Hmm…”

I removed five coins from the thirty.
It might work, but since maintenance costs nothing, I’d prefer more.

“Then let’s deploy two thousand each for now, and later reinforce with another thousand.”

At my reply, Master sighed.

“Is it acceptable for a vice-commander to work their Demon Lord this hard…?”
“Is it acceptable for a Demon Lord to dump this much trouble on their vice-commander?”

We looked at each other and exchanged wry smiles.

“Well, it cannot be helped. This too is the will of the former Lord.”
“Indeed. Let’s do our best.”

At that moment, Aylia entered the office, so the three of us took a break and discussed things.

“By the way, Lady Aylia, could you tell me about this ‘Conflicting Wasteland’?”

On the map, I pointed to a stretch of land separating the south and north.
According to Master’s survey, it wasn’t barren at all—rather, it was rich land of forests and grasslands.

Aylia’s expression darkened.

“After the unification war, it was designated as a safeguard in case of civil war. Its official name is the ‘Wilderness of Reconciliation.’”

To make it an untouchable buffer zone, it was officially labeled as wasteland and left undeveloped.

“Now that the south is independent, control of it is first come, first served.”
“Indeed. Though we don’t know how the north will act…”

For now, the Demon Lord’s Army has no plans to invade the north.
The Second Division caused too many problems in the past, so northern public sentiment toward us is terrible.
Forcing occupation would only create more trouble. If the northern citizens turned to guerrilla warfare, it would be disastrous.
Still, the north might make a move first.

“Alright. Under the pretext of protecting trade routes, let’s establish observation posts. We’ll build several forts in the Conflicting Wasteland and station small units there. They can also serve as relay bases for our spies.”
“Then let us discuss it at the next council. There will be costs and manpower to consider.”

Construction and maintenance will cost resources, but if we stay shut behind city walls, no information will come in.