Page | 11 Chapter 1: Plans for the Future and Cliff’s Concerns ONE MONTH HAD PASSED since the events in the Shirone Kingdom. Winter was drawing to a close, and spring was right around the corner. For the past month, I’d focused on crafting a detailed plan with Orsted. Our first order of business: gathering allies. For this, we settled on a three-pronged approach. The first major goal would be putting together an intelligence agency to gather information. Ruquag’s Mercenary Band, the group that Aisha and Linia set up, would work nicely for this. Its top brass were all my people, so I might as well use them. I’d have their full cooperation behind the scenes. I’d structure the group’s global hierarchy such that headquarters maintained contact with each branch, so it would pull in information from countries around the world. I’d design them so that if I ever couldn’t make it to headquarters, I could still visit a branch to learn every detail of the current news. This would be less for Orsted’s use and more for mine. I was placing my pieces on the board, ready to be played. The second goal was to draw in figures of authority and future leaders. Laplace’s resurrection was going to trigger a war—with all of humanity, I suppose. If each nation was prepared, it would only improve their response times when the invasion finally came. So, we’d inform those in power of the coming war and what was at stake. We’d offer whatever little aid we could and have them prepare for what was coming for us in eighty years at whatever pace they could manage. The cooperation of these nations in the coming Laplace war could make our lives as Ruquag’s Mercenary Band easier if we had it—or much, much harder if we didn’t.