Moving the Capital

After dealing with the mages within his realm, Leon immediately returned to Camelot and told his ministers that he intended to move the capital.

Moving the capital was a major undertaking with far-reaching consequences. The interests involved were too complicated to untangle, but the moment Leon spoke, every interest group had to fall silent and yield.

After spending two days designing the new capital's city plan, Leon handed the blueprints to Luther. Luther and the other ministers looked dismayed. The new capital's immense scale and staggering cost were secondary concerns; the real problem was that they couldn't understand the plans at all.

"My king, what are these?"

Leon looked where the minister was pointing and explained, "Oh, this is the train station, this is the railway, this is the new capital's main thoroughfare, and this is the enormous plaza in front of the palace..."

"My king, what is a train station?"

Even after Leon's explanation, the ministers were still seeing stars. They didn't understand a thing.

Seeing his trusted ministers in such a state, Leon knew there was no point trying to explain it to them. It was hard to understand without seeing the real thing, so he decided on the spot to handle it himself.

"Luther will oversee domestic and foreign affairs. The rest of you must cooperate with him. From now on, I'll be focusing on building the new capital."

After dumping the affairs of state on his father, Leon gave the order, then brought his wife and daughter, along with two commanders, to Londinium. There, he immediately conscripted fifty thousand people from the surrounding area to build the new capital.

After evacuating all the city's residents, Leon opened with a blast of Rhongomyniad: Anchor Release.

A few days earlier, Leon had led his army in capturing the city. The battle had caused some damage, but most of the buildings had survived intact. Now, with a single devastating strike, he reduced most of Londinium's buildings to rubble, leaving nothing but broken bricks and debris.

"From now on, this city will be called Caliban!"

It had originally been called London, but no matter how he looked at it, the name didn't feel right. This was his new city, and keeping the old name felt awkward.

Leon's plan for the new capital had one defining feature: it would be huge! The royal city would be huge, the palace would be huge, and the roads would be wide. In short, he wanted to build a grand spectacle.

In Leon's plans, he had even left enough room for future bus stations, highways, and expressways.

When he put the peasants to work clearing the rubble from the old city site, he waited a full three days, but the workers still hadn't cleared away the debris. They hadn't even finished a third of the site.

This was nowhere near what Leon had expected. In his mind, building the new city would take a year, and after that, he still had all sorts of things to deal with.

Leon was so angry he wanted to kill someone, but Morgan, his wife, stopped him and took him to see the peasants at work. They weren't slacking off or cutting corners. They were doing their utmost, and this was simply the fastest they could manage.

With no other choice, Leon stepped in himself. In less than a morning, he cleared the old city site. At noon, he cut down a small hill and moved it over. By afternoon, he had used the hill to compact the new city's foundations, and even dug a series of wide channels for future waterways.

As tens of thousands of laborers watched, they saw for themselves why Leon was king.

Seeing how useless the laborers were at the task, Leon had the army lead them into making steel, iron, and cement instead. He knew the basics of the process, and Britain had more than enough coal, iron, and limestone.

As for Leon, he built the city by himself.

Three short months later, Morgan had just finished exploring the Spirit Tomb and was building a new Magecraft workshop when she saw a magnificent city rise from the ground.

The city walls were faced with white marble and stood more than thirty meters tall, stretching so far in either direction that the ends were out of sight. A river ran through the city and flowed out to sea on both sides. The main road at the front gate was more than three hundred meters wide, and at its end stood the royal palace. The palace rose even higher than the walls and was shaped like a pagoda.

From a distance, the whole city looked white, almost otherworldly.

Morgan stared at Leon in astonishment. Her usually cool voice trembled faintly with disbelief.

"Leon, did you do this? In such a short time?"

Even though she had greatly overestimated her husband's strength, she was still shocked time and again by how inhumanly powerful he was.

"Haha, it turned out all right."

Leon's face was openly filled with satisfaction. The sense of accomplishment from completing such a vast undertaking all by himself was unlike anything he had felt from winning a battle against overwhelming odds. Victory on the battlefield had become routine for him.

Building the city reminded him of playing in the sand as a child, building castles. It was the purest kind of joy.

After three months of hard labor, Leon wasn't tired in the slightest. Instead, he felt utterly relieved and triumphant.

Leon took Morgan's cool, fair hand and led her into the city. "Let me show you around. This will be Britain's capital from now on: the new city of Caliban."

Once inside, Morgan found the buildings even more astonishing. The homes of ordinary people were somewhat cramped despite their height, but every other building was magnificent.

As Leon showed off his work, he pointed out the royal palace where they would live, the main road paved with marble blocks two meters thick, the crisscrossing underground sewers, the thirteen-story library, the vast academy, the arena that could hold more than fifty thousand people, the great bathhouse connected to the river, and the observatory that seemed to reach the heavens...

Morgan stared in amazement. Most astonishing of all, she couldn't sense the slightest trace of Magecraft anywhere in the city. It was all built from ordinary brick, stone, and steel.

But how was that possible?

Seeing Morgan's shocked expression, Leon was delighted, though he still felt unsatisfied. "The city's mostly done. I just haven't finished some of the details inside."

Leon wasn't good at painting murals or carving sculptures for the buildings, so he'd decided not to embarrass himself. Besides, he didn't have time for it.

But that was all right. He had already planned for it. People in Europa were skilled at painting and the arts, so he could just bring some back later.

The Germanic People were out of the question. They'd never been any good at that sort of thing.

Morgan slowly recovered and pointed to a building near the city gate, shaped like an umbrella canopy. "Leon, what's that? You haven't told me about it."

"That's a train station..."

"A train station? What's that? A train?"

At Morgan's puzzled look, Leon paused, then decided to explain further. "Morgan, do you remember the model of the Steam Engine I made? It's a vehicle powered by that."

Morgan remembered. She had once made Leon destroy those contraptions, and she hadn't realized that he had secretly kept them—and now planned to use them on a large scale.

"Didn't you promise me you'd throw it away? Why did you keep it?"

"Morgan, don't get upset. Just hear me out." Hearing the urgency in her voice, Leon quickly put an arm around her to soothe her. "Morgan, this thing will be incredibly useful. Why do you hate it?"

"I don't know. I just do."

Morgan couldn't explain why. It was like the instinctive hatred between natural enemies, a deep revulsion that came from both body and mind. She couldn't make sense of it.

"You can't even explain why you hate it. How can I destroy it just like that? I'll use it to transport troops and goods, and it'll be far more efficient than anything we have now. It'll be invaluable in future campaigns on the continent... Morgan, just agree to let me keep it for now. If you see something wrong with it later, we can destroy it then."

After Leon's persuasion, Morgan slowly nodded. She opposed the idea and hated it, but for now she couldn't see what harm it would cause, so she could only let her husband have his way.

If she ever did see something wrong with it, she would destroy it, even if her husband tried to stop her.

Once the new city was complete, Leon notified the ministers in Camelot that the relocation of the capital had officially begun.

When the ministers saw Leon's creation for the first time, they were even more overwhelmed than Morgan. They stared in astonishment, unable to speak for a long time.

As the relocation proceeded, Leon didn't get involved. Instead, he went to lay railway tracks with the laborers.

In just six short months, before the relocation was even complete, Leon had already laid two railways connecting Wales and Scotland.

He had built four locomotives for now. In his spare time, he had also taken advantage of the Thames River's proximity to the coast to build a large shipyard. There, he built an ironclad and a steamship to test them for naval warfare.

Laughter and playful shouts rang through the palace garden.

"Smack! Daddy, play..."

Two-year-old Mordred could already speak a few simple words. She was perched on Leon's head, clutching his golden hair tightly in her little hands.

Leon shook his head from side to side, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, making his daughter squeal in surprise and laugh gleefully. She was having the time of her life.

The sound of hurried footsteps approached. Leon lifted Mordred down and turned to look. His elder brother Joe was walking over with a gloomy expression.

"What is it?"

Joe looked indignant, his anger difficult to hide. "My king, the Roman emperor has sent an envoy to the royal city. The man was unbearably arrogant. He brought a letter from the Roman emperor, demanding that Britain submit to him and pay tribute on schedule."

"Huh?"

Leon was stunned by Joe's words.

Was Lucius Tiberius really that bold? How dare he make such outrageous demands when facing a demigod of the mortal world like him?

Once he recovered, Leon was not angry at all. Instead, he was overjoyed.

"Summon the ministers. I'll meet this Roman envoy in person and see what he has to say."

Leon had been worrying about not having an excuse to launch a campaign in Europa. He hadn't expected his opponent to deliver one right to his door.

He had once sent merchants to Europa both to buy grain and to gather intelligence on the various countries, so he could plan his future campaigns.

After Attila and his Hunnic Empire brought about the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Sword Emperor Lucius had emerged out of nowhere. In just a few years, he had restored Rome to its former glory. With his immense prestige, he had radically reformed the old system and won the support of many Romans.

Especially after Leon executed numerous mages within Britain, mages from across the continent had flocked to serve Lucius. He also possessed a powerful Demon Sword.

Given all the circumstances that had worked in Lucius's favor, Leon couldn't help but marvel: this man was truly one chosen by fate.

When Leon met the Roman envoy with his ministers, the man was startled at first by Leon's enormous stature. After that, he kept his head held high, wearing a haughty, overbearing expression.

The envoy didn't even bow when he saw Leon. He simply stood where he was, took out a letter, and handed it to him.

Leon skimmed it. In it, the Roman Sword Emperor accused him of failing to obey an order issued centuries ago by Gaius Julius Caesar to pay tribute to Rome. He also accused Leon of secretly controlling the region of France and demanded that Leon go to Rome in person to stand trial.

The letter also warned Leon that Rome would go to war if he didn't comply.

At that, Leon burst out laughing. He handed the letter to the ministers to read in turn, then looked at the envoy.

"Do you know what's in this letter? Your emperor wants me to submit to him and pay tribute every year?"

"Of course."

The envoy lifted his chin, ignoring the British nobles glaring at him. He sneered to himself. As expected, this was a remote land untouched by civilization.

They had built such a magnificent royal city in this barren, barbaric land of Britain. Who knew how much manpower and wealth it had cost them—or how much strength they had left?

"Britain was once a Roman province. Now that my lord has restored Rome's rightful rule, Britain must return to Roman governance. That is only right. I urge the Lion King to decide quickly. Otherwise, once the fighting begins, Britain will be turned into hell."

As he listened to the envoy, Leon continued to smile. He felt no anger at all.

It wasn't that he had become magnanimous. He simply felt as if he stood above everyone else, looking down on them.

I'm invincible. Do whatever you like.

"Go back and tell your emperor, Lucius, that Britain will not accept these unreasonable demands. Tell him to get his neck ready. I'll come and cut off his head."

"I'll repeat your words to the emperor, every last one."

The envoy seemed to have expected Leon's response. He said nothing more and left the hall.

After the envoy had gone, Leon looked around. All the ministers were red in the face with anger.

"Ministers, tell me what you think."

What could they say in response to Leon's question? Leon had already said he would cut off Lucius's head himself. They couldn't very well oppose that.

"What else can we do? We have to fight!"

"This campaign will be the perfect chance to show those Romans on the continent what Britain can do."

"Exactly. With our strength now, we have nothing to fear from Rome."

After everyone had voiced their support, Luther said, "The army is currently being equipped with a large number of new weapons. They're easier to use, but the troops aren't familiar with them yet... As for provisions, this year's harvest and our existing reserves should be enough to support both the army and the navy for about half a year."

Ever since Leon had made an ironclad, he had immediately sent people to Europa to gather saltpeter. They had managed to get some over the past two years and had made enough cannons for the army to conduct a round of drills. This was the perfect chance to take them out for practice and hear them roar.

If Magecraft made them useless in this world, they would find another way.

"Then we'll do as you say. The army and navy will launch the campaign together. The navy will enter the Mediterranean Sea to provide support. Sir Lancelot will lead the vanguard and open a breach on the continent for our army to pass through."

Leon swept his hand out and gave the order.

Only two thousand troops would remain in Britain to keep the peace. The rest of the army, more than ten thousand strong, would set out alongside the navy's three ironclads, determined to end the war with Rome in a single campaign.

In a word, they were staking the fate of the nation.