Chapter 31  : Little Phoenix

A meter-tall mountain of documents filled 3 office desks. The entire room is stuffy and unbearable. A little lass and her 2 helpers were busy in work while moving between the desks.

The overly tall mountain of documents made it such that no silhouette of anyone could be seen, only sounds of screaming, footsteps and the scribbling of pen on paper could be heard. This was my first impression when I walked into the office of the City Lord.

On one side of the wall, bamboo swords, take-copter, gomoku and many different types of toys were scattered over the floor with a thick layer of dust over them. Looks like Adam hasn’t been to this room for a while.

TL: Take-copter -> Doraemon’s helicopter while Gomoku is a game like tic-tac-toe except you have a much big board and you are supposed to link 5

Truthfully, to be capable of turning the office into a game room, he is a masterpiece among city lords.

Annie is 1.7m and considered pretty tall for females using human standards. But right now, she resembles a Dwarf student stuck in front of a desk. Looking from the front, only the documents and book can be seen.

A thick black eyes circle is on her face. Due to being overly busy in her fight with the sea of documents, she wasn’t even aware of my arrival.

Walking there, I signaled to stop the helper that was going to call Annie and picked up a few random documents to take a look.

‘The Proposal for the Reparations of the Municipal Facilities that were Destroyed During the Chaos in the 7th to 9th Street’, ‘3 Proposals to Finish the Drainage System Before the Rainy Season’ and ‘The Settlement of the 4 New Tribes in the City’

“Lord Wumianzhe, this is Lord Margaret’s will. All of the B-class and above files of the Internal Affairs Bureau must be looked through by Miss Annie for her opinions for the matter before passing to Lord Margaret to give her opinions. Then, it would be passed back to Miss Annie to look through before going through with it.

That is to say, every file, before any documents are finalized for actions to be carried out, Annie must deal with it once before Margaret gives her own opinion on how the matter should be dealt with. Then, it is passed to Annie for her to finalize the decision, so she has to look through it twice.

This is literally teaching her step by step. I silently sighed. Looks like Margaret really decided to wash her hands clean of these, that’s why she’s using this kind of ‘fill up the holes’ kind of teaching method. She is hoping that Annie could quickly grow to be capable of independently dealing with governance.

“Is that how you Internal Affairs Bureau work? All of the documents must be personally looked over and signed by Margaret? Individually dealing with all of the governance tasks?”

After receiving the other party’s answer as though it was something incredible, I looked at the incredible mountain of documents and couldn’t help clicking my tongue in amazement. The entire population of Sulfur Mountain City is near 3 million. Just thinking about it and you would know that there is an astronomical amount of work to deal with, but to look over each and every one of it? I can finally understand by Margaret rarely comes out. It is fortunate that Margaret is an immortal who basically needs no sleep. But…

“This kind of method to deal with matters of governance is too primitive. It is just like how ancient kings use only their wisdom and knowledge to make judgement. An immortal who don’t need rest and is forever rational could perhaps achieve it but for humans…”

The mountain of files here might even only be accumulation from a day or two. If we were to leave everything to the city lord to handle, she would probably have totally no free time at me.

My job is to create a qualified city lord and not a lunatic who is crushed by work. Thus, I coughed lightly to signal my presence to the city lord trainee.

“Annie, do you know what is the essence of governance?”

—————–

What is the essence of governance? To make everyone contented with life and work? To convert make utopia into reality? To let all the race and tribes live harmoniously?

No, no, it is not that complicated. Governance is just working within a fixed system, ideals and other things can’t be achieved through simply governance means.

But governance isn’t that easy as well. A gap in the administrative organs could result in the workings of the city to stop and an overly inefficient governing body would result in great discontent against the government. It is indeed an existence that no city can go without.

“As the city lord, I… I will try my best to make everyone happy.”

“Don’t think too much with that small brain of yours. I’m just asking you the essence of governance. Forget it, I’ll just tell you directly. Anyway, you really need a rest right now.”

I pulled the lass to one side and indicated the helpers to bring some tea over.

The lass’s face was a little sunken in without a hint of liveliness, the fiery red hair lost much of the luster it used to have. She seems to be avoiding my gaze, afraid that I would reprimand her.

Shaking my head, I can roughly guess what has happened. Margaret is an impatient perfectionist who would always entrust task to her subordinates according to her own abilities.

‘If I can do it, why can’t you’, ‘don’t try to reason with me, hypothetical situations are meaningless’, these kinds of words are her catchphrase. But in reality, as a Saint that is recognized as the ‘Mobile Library’, coupled with her identity as an immortal who is has no limits to her stamina, how can ordinary people keep up with her pace…

As Adam’s disciple, Annie’s combat talent and her physical body is excellent, but for intelligence… For a pure warrior, intelligence can be said to be the most useless stat. Adam that rascal only has 9 points in intelligence (the intelligence here refers to the main stat of a Mage, normal people have 10 points. The basic stats in this novel is very hard to be improved), but he still gets by day to day happily. According to my system, Annie has 11 points in intelligence, making her much better than her dumb father. But if she were to go by Margaret’s 26 point in intelligence standards in learning… She would be driven mad by just learning by the standards of a 13 point, needless to say 26.

Somehow, I seem to see how the Internal Affairs Bureau ended up being her personal organization. She probably couldn’t stand those ‘intelligence-lacking’ ‘inefficient and slow’ subordinates of hers, thus she took on the burden of doing everything. In the end, she got used to it and decided to just do it all by herself.Shaking my head, I decided not to interfere as it is their family affair, I should not be the one to say such things. For now, my goal is only to complete the main storyline quest and groom Annie into a competent city lord…

“Un, after 2 days, follow me to the Underground Alliance. I will teach you about the other job of a city lord. ‘How to use the carrot-and-stick approach to maximize the gains in a negotiation’, but since it is an underground city, I’m afraid that I can only teach you about the stick.”

“Anyway, the goal of this trip is to show our might, so there will be many chance for you to strike out on the way. I will also be bringing the city’s biggest troublemakers like the Beyar brothers, Stormeagle and the other living treasures of my subordinates. You just have to responsible for giving a tough face on the surface and leave the rest to me. We’re going to play big and overturn the entire Underground Alliance.”

“Adam’s Soul Imprint is the Undying Phoenix, making him suited for long battles. As long as you are unable to kill him in a single go, he will absorb the damage and the Phoenix’s Cradle will become stronger and stronger before exploding in one go. It might be an inheritance but you might not be suited to his fighting style. I feel that you are more suited for an offensive style that suppresses the opponent right from the start. This requires battle experience, so give it your best in the fight with the Underground Alliance.”

TL: In Chinese mythology, the more damage/grievance etc. a phoenix goes through during its ‘cradle’ stage before its, the more magnificent and stronger it would be when reborn.

She was indeed still like a little girl on the inside. She would tighten her will and do the governing affairs she hated with a crying face but when you start the topic of something she likes, she would immediately become very energetic and enthusiastic…magic

“Governance? This is simple, isn’t it just solving problems? Find a few merchants that are good at financing and let them do the accounting. Un, just create a new department in the Internal Affairs Bureau and call it the… Finance Department.”

“As for the building of public amenities, we can look for miners, architects and building companies. But, we must first strip them of their self-interest. Right, we could call it the Infrastructure Department.”

“Don’t follow Margaret’s footsteps, it is too tiring. You just have to lay out the backbone and choose people suitable. If they can’t do it well, just change the people on the job. To protect this city in the future, you have to devote much of your attention into training. Hehe, I would like to hear of the heroics if the new generation of Red Lotus Hero.”

“Don’t panic, you are already ahead of that dumbass by a lot. The Adam back then was much more useless than you. He can’t be anymore silly. The first time he tried to settle other people’s feud, he actually…”

Slowly, Annie, who have not slept for 2 days and just undergo a great fluctuation in emotions, actually fell asleep on me while listening to me speak.

Looking at the deeply asleep young lady who was snoring lightly, I can’t help but reminisce the past.

“Humans are really a unique life being. Yesterday, she was still a snotty brat but in a turn of an eye, she’s already an adult today.”

Back then, when Adam brought Annie home, she was so small but now, not mentioning that she has already physically matured, she us already intending to take on the heavy responsibilities that her elder left her with.

Seeing the black circles below Annie’s eyes, I felt a little resentment towards Margaret.

“Seriously, she left Adam to be so carefree yet treats Annie so strictly. Adam too, Phoenix Heart, it is the heart of the Phoenix. Such a heavy responsibility, do you think she will be able to shoulder the truth?”

“Uncle Bones, Big Sister Margaret, Father…” Suddenly, the tears seep out from the sleeping young lady as she calls out our names.

“…Don’t go!! Don’t abandon Annie! Annie will be obedient.”

The dream of the tragedy made my outstretched hand stop in midair…

I never said that that I was leaving and even more so, Margaret and Adam never mentioned that the current city lord was going to die… But it looks like we underestimated this seemingly talkative and sloppy young lady.

It was after a long pause then did I carefully wipe away her tears and caress her hair.

That apologetic mumble was something I couldn’t even hear clearly myself.

“I’m sorry, little Annie. Adults are all selfish… We are a bunch of selfish jerks.”

———–

But what I didn’t know was that in the City Lord Residence, 2 people were speaking the exact same words as me.

“I knew that Roland could solve the problem. Stop blaming yourself, Margaret. Little Annie is actually much stronger than we think she is.”

“…”

“…Stop crying, Margaret. This isn’t like you. If you can’t bear to leave her, you still can choose to stay.”

That’s right, the one who was silently whimpering at the corner isn’t Annie who was hurt unintentionally, but the one who asked for my help. Due to being too worried, she went against her principles of listening in, the perpetually calm Saint Lord Margaret…

Hearing the words of the heartless man, fire of anger started burning in the eyes of Margaret who still had tears on the side of her cheeks.

“You also could have chosen not to die! Then everything would be solved! You selfish bastard!” If looks could kill, Adam would have been pierced by thousands of arrows.

“…Yeah, who asked us to all be selfish adults. It’s just that we are all apologetic to little Annie. Besides… hehe, don’t be worried about it so early.”

“You’re laughing? You…”

“Calm down, no matter what, I am still Annie’s father. There is no reason why I wouldn’t know what she wants and needs the most. Hehe, relax, I have it all planned out. It would definitely be a happy ending, a happy happy ending.”

“I will believe you once more, the final time!! You selfish bastard!” The Saint abandons her image and grinds her teeth while roaring furiously.