“Nope, no problem at all. Are you going to want the embassy in the trade city or in the capital city?”

  Emperor Amn says “In the trade city, that way Shiro can keep an eye on our merchants. Not only to protect them, but to make sure they don’t cause any trouble.”

  “The main problem that I am worried about is any racists among the merchants. Both those that come to my lands and those that target my people who come here.”

  Emperor Amn says “That is one of the reasons that I want a strong security force at the gate, to protect your people. I don't want some idiot on my side causing an incident that creates tensions between us.”

  “There are going to be incidents, there is no way to prevent them. Our goal should be to keep them small and controlled. Then we issue harsh punishments and that should discourage all but the dumbest of problem people.”

  Empress Atesh says “That is a good way of handling things. I think Shiro can learn a lot about ruling from you.”

  “I will teach her what I can, but honestly I am just making all this up as I go. I also won’t be around all that often, there are a lot of things I need to do to be ready for the war with the demons.”

  Shiro says “That’s fine. I am sure that I can learn a lot just from interacting and learning about different cultures. Not to mention that I will get the chance to interact with your subordinates. I am sure that there is a lot I can learn from them.”

  “Considering there is a lot that I can learn from them, you are certainly not wrong. As to cultures, you might be a little overwhelmed since there are dozens to learn about. Not only does each tribe of beastmen have their own, but there are also the elves and beast clans to learn about. You will be quite busy.”

  Shiro says “This is sounding better and better! That is exactly what I want, new people to interact with.”

  “You will definitely get that. I hope you aren’t uncomfortable around other species.”

  Shiro says “Honestly, I’m not sure, I haven’t met any other than you, but you don’t make me nervous. Although, when I first met you I did find you a little scary.”

  Lin says “That’s not uncommon, Ash is kind of intimidating until you get to know him. It is even worse when you meet him for the first time in his new form. I am glad he was pretending to be human when I first met him.”

  Taking that as an opening, Shiro and Atesh drag Lin off for some girl talk in another room. Luckily, they take the baby with them, leaving Amn and I alone to discuss politics. It is a good opportunity for me to ask for some advice on getting my government set up and running.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He can’t really help me when it comes to all the different races, but he has a lot of advice for how to organize a government. Mainly, he has a lot of stories of mistakes his predecessors made for me to learn from. I am very glad that I don’t have long established noble families that I have to deal with.

  Compared to what human nobles can get up to, the politics of the clans are simple and straightforward. My biggest problem is going to be finding people that I can trust not to abuse the power that I give them. I feel like I should be able to use a spell to help with that, but I can’t think of one that will work.

  That means that I will need to create one and I can think of a couple that would work. I can either make a spell to put people under a magical oath or some kind of spell to lead me to who I need. Neither will be easy to create, but it should be possible with Lin’s help and the tower library.

  Personally, I am leaning more towards the spell to lead me to the perfect people for the job. People like Pol that I can just give instructions and trust them to get it taken care of. Those kinds of people would not only be trustworthy, but will also go above and beyond simple instructions.

  The more I think about it, the more I like that idea more than using magical oaths. Those can be countered or the people under oath and find loopholes and work to undermine them. Even under oath, I wouldn’t completely trust them, meaning I would need more people to monitor them.

  I quickly decide that the locating spell is going to be the first option and only if it doesn’t work will I look into the oaths. With that settled, I start creating an outline of the form that my government is going to take. Again, Amn’s experience proves invaluable as he mentions things I never would have thought of.

  A government needs so many departments that even in my old life I had never heard of. This being a magical world, a government here needs even more than that. Instead of a department to monitor the internet, I need one to monitor mages.

  I also need a department to track magical beasts, their uses, and the sale of their parts. I don’t see a need for that to be monitored, but Amn quickly explains why it is needed. This world isn’t free of drug use, the drugs are just different and made from weird materials.

  Luckily, that makes them much more expensive, enough that most users are nobles or rich merchants. While I shouldn’t have as much trouble with that, once the gate is open it will still be a concern. I could easily see the nobles in the kingdom, empire, and Free Union becoming a problem.

  Unfortunately, according to Amn, these drugs aren’t the kind that just get you high. They give you power, which can be a high of its own, the power is based on what it is made from. The drug, if made well, can even grant an ability that the beast had for a limited time.

  However, if the drug is poorly made there is a good chance that the one who uses it will go berserk. Despite that risk, there are apparently plenty of nobles willing to take the drugs. Amn tells me about several incidents caused by nobles going berserk and causing a slaughter.

  “I wandered across quite a bit of the continent. How come I never heard about these drugs?”

  Emperor Amn says “Probably because you didn’t spend much time with nobles, especially the kinds of nobles that use these drugs. Not to mention that these drugs were created on the southern coast so they are a lot less prevalent on the northern side of the continent.”

  “That makes sense. I do tend to avoid nobles as much as possible, but I would still think I would have heard about the chaos.”