"Your Majesty."
"Yes?"
"Lord Lan Qingyou now has a territory as large as Maple Leaf Territory, yet she has no noble rank. Might it be appropriate to grant her a suitable rank first?"
Taylor's words instantly cooled the enthusiasm of everyone who had been chiming in.
The two were so obviously playing off each other that everyone could tell they had arranged this beforehand.
A noble rank.
That was unquestionably a good thing.
After all, having a noble rank meant becoming part of the Empire's inner circle.
It meant having one's own fief, collecting taxes, and even making laws.
In the past, they would certainly have done everything they could to obstruct the rise of a new noble.
But this time was different.
This was Lan Qingyou.
This was Lan Qingyou, the once-in-a-millennium dual Title Holder who could construct a massive defensive magic array single-handedly.
And she had saved their mansions last night.
Naturally, no one would stand up to object at a time like this.
She already had her fief anyway, and they had even "contributed" its residents and some of its shops.
Of course.
The most important point was that the Old Emperor was willing to grant her a noble rank.
Naturally, they would not object.
After all, by this point in the Empire's development, all the land that could be granted had long since been handed out.
Even the territory Lan Qingyou had named "Maple Leaf Territory" had actually belonged to the royal family.
Their actual losses amounted to only a few residents.
Spread across most of the nobles, each of their territories had lost no more than a handful or a dozen people.
That was still within an acceptable range.
"A noble rank, yes. Having such a large fief without a noble rank is rather inappropriate."