Two hours after ascending the throne, Her Majesty Zoe and Her Majesty Theodora, who had just become the co-emperor of the Eastern Solomon, were in endless trouble.

The first is the issue of domestic industry.

Since the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, scientific and technological exchanges between the two sides have been completely interrupted.

So far, the civilian industry of the Eastern Solomonic Empire has recovered to 40% of the ancient Solomonic Empire, and some complex household appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions, etc., have resumed production lines.

In the military industry, at present, it can only manufacture firearms and mortars. This means that there are almost as many rockets, power armor, and planes as there are fewer than any broken rockets, one less plane, and one less of them in warehouses today.

Looking at the various dense reports, most of which were marked bright red deficits, His Majesty Zoe rubbed his brows in distress. She finally understood why her father was going on an expedition to the Seljuk Empire, for a simple reason: no money.

The revenues of the Eastern Solomonic Empire came mainly from the surplus of import and export trade, as well as the output of the mainland, especially the Anatolian Peninsula.

The rise of the Seljuk Empire in the East, which both sucked blood on the Empire's East-West trade routes and threatened the production order of the Anatolian Peninsula, was in the interest of the Empire to start a war.

The only problem is probably that I lost the battle.

So how to keep Anatolia has become a headache and almost unsolvable problem.

The Seljuk Empire controlled the densely populated Caucasus and Syria, and the Battle of Manzikt had as many as 100,000 combatable soldiers, including 20,000 transcendents, which was no match for the Eastern Solomonic Empire, which had less than 20,000 remaining troops.

"Is it possible to borrow troops from the West?" Theodora said seriously, "I, the Solomonic Empire, are known as the 'shield of civilization', guarding the gateway to the East for the Western world. ”

"If Constantinople falls, the city-states of Venis, the Holy Solomon Empire, and the Duchy of Khangri will bear the brunt, and it is better to borrow troops from the three kingdoms in the name of 'defending Christendom.' In particular, the HRE, whose empress Seofano was born in the Imperial Soreilu family, just let her family be in the middle to connect the two countries. ”

"Yes." Zoe nodded and said, "Gordon Burrier, please also go and find out what the Celeru family is talking about. ”

Zaifu Burriel hurriedly bowed down.

"In addition, the position of the Western Holy See must also be taken into account." Theodora added, "Since the split between the Eastern and Western Churches, the technology-sharing agreement has been terminated, resulting in a near halt to the Empire's power armor production line. ”

"It is better to try to reconcile with the Holy See, and in the name of the pagan threat, ask the Innocent Holy See to mobilize a Templar army to assist the Empire in repelling the Seljuk pagan invaders."

"Your Majesty Theodora." Zoe said mildly, "You should know that the split between the Eastern and Western churches is caused by the struggle for the leadership of the mainland's ideology and beliefs. What if the Innocent Holy See asks me to submit to the Orthodox Church and to completely revise the Canon according to the wishes of their Episcopal Church, or even to allow Catholic priests to enter the country to preach? ”

"When the national disaster is at the head, what is the heresy?" Theodora felt that something seemed wrong, but he still subconsciously said his thoughts, "The right to proselytize must not be given, but it seems that there is nothing wrong with revising the scriptures." Since the level of science and technology of the Holy See can lead our country, it is not necessarily impossible to prove that its classics are not entirely undesirable. If necessary, can Patriarch Alexei be persuaded to make some concessions? ”

Zoe was silent for a moment, and then said quietly:

"In that case, then I will go and probe the Patriarch Alexei."

The two Majesties continued to discuss and approve the motions submitted by Zaifu Buriel, and the Imperial Ink Officer, Lady Valomina, quickly recorded the decree from the side. By the time all the government affairs were handled, it was already late at night.

………………

Fast forward to early evening.

Mia, the thief girl, walked down the road in despair, and before she knew it, she was in front of Asker's ancestral house again.

She still has a hard time accepting the fact that Mastro and the others left her behind and went to Kyiv alone with the rest of the guild.

Now it seems that everything was pre-arranged, including finding a reason to deliberately kick her out of the guild, and before that, intentionally or unintentionally, mentioning that Asker's team made a lot of money, in fact, was a hint that she could go to Asker.

It's all about keeping her here.

Mia stood in front of Asker's ancestral home, holding her arms a little cowering.

She didn't know how to face Asker, and she had joked that she wanted to join his team, but she was just trying to find a place to stay for the time being, and then go back to intercede when Mastro was gone.

But now that the Thieves' Guild has all evacuated Constantinople, if Asker doesn't accept her, then she really has nowhere to go.

"What are you doing standing outside?" Asker's voice rang out. Mia hurriedly looked up, and saw Aske standing by the window, his hands propped on the windowsill and looking at her.

"Dinner has just arrived, and you came just in time." He tilted his head and motioned to Mia, "Come in." ”

Mia hummed quietly and walked up the steps, quietly grinding the mud off her boots. When I opened the door, there was already a long table in the living room, on which a variety of food was placed.

It's all takeaways though.

"Listen to me, we have two new members." Asker clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention, "On the right-hand side, Sidlifa from Helsingør is in charge of our team's melee output. ”

The girls snapped and applauded. Only Peggy slapped the table with both hands, stood up and said unhappily:

"She's the output, so what am I? Am I not the output? ”

"No one said there could only be one output on the team, Peggy." Aske explained, "Also, the output of the power system is not the same as the output of the agility system, and you should know that the enemy has a difference between heavy armor and light armor. ”

"In the face of lightly armored and unarmored enemies, the killing efficiency of the Agility type output is higher, because the time for the strength system to shoot once, the Agility type can shoot 2-3 times. However, in the face of heavily armored enemies, a single attack will be severely weakened and reduced, and at this time, the power system output is needed to violently break the armor. ”

"No problem, I'm good at violence." Sidlifa nodded when she heard this, stared at Peggy with transparent azure eyes for a while, and suddenly smiled, "You smell of blood, I like it very much." ”

Peggy pursed her lips in embarrassment, stopped talking and sat back. Sidlifa didn't ask much, but ran between Medea and Peggy, moved a chair and sat down.

"Hello." Medea smiled at her.

"Oh, beauty. Hello hello hello! Sidlifa's eyes lit up and she said quickly.

"And this one is the shadow thief from the Thieves' Guild, Mia. Sinqui Marni. Asker continued, pushing Mia, who was still a little restrained and cowering, out, "She'll be our team's scout, responsible for scouting, responding, lockpicking, and trapping. ”

"Bang Bang!" The girls applauded again and looked at their new companion in a friendly manner.

The 14-year-old girl has healthy, pale wheat skin, large, agile eyes, a small nose bridge, and lips as thin as petals. Although the body has not grown yet, just looking at the appearance is also a full little beauty embryo, especially the shy and timid appearance on the face when he sees the living, it is simply pitiful.

"Come, come, come! Mia, sit on my right! Nora barely made any secret of her affection, pulling open the chair next to her and beckoning her over, as if she were a sister.

"Go ahead." Hearing Asker say behind her back, Mia bit her lower lip and ran to Nora's side in small steps.

In the Golden Palace, when the two Majesties were working all night to deal with government affairs, everyone in the ancestral house had already had dinner, and at Asker's suggestion, everyone began to play a board game card game, the kind that would have to drink a can of beer on the spot if they lost a game.

In this lively atmosphere, Sidlifa and Mia also smoothly integrated into the group - Mia drank so much that she vomited and ran to the toilet four or five times. Sidlifa was also drunk, and drunkenly picked up the spoon on the table, and said with a big tongue that she was going to show everyone a set of knife techniques, and Eleanor and Asker joined forces and took a lot of effort to hold her down.

The next morning, Asker woke up from a hangover with a slight headache.

Esports players should not actually drink alcohol, which will anesthetize the nerves and reduce the ability to react. But...... In this world, it doesn't matter anymore.

He finished washing up and walked to the second floor. It was originally a guest room and a servant's room, but now it is divided into girls' quarters. Walking briskly through the hallway, he knocked on every door.

"Get up! Starting today, the team will have to train every day during the non-mission attendance period! ”

He stood in the middle of the hallway and announced loudly. Now that most of the necessary characters for the team have been assembled (just the Gunslinger and the Arcane Mage), it's time to start strengthening and polishing the team with the esports player's training regimen.

"Ahhh The girls who walked out of the room screamed in unison, and Asker's eyelids jumped at the listen. In the game world of "Iron and Fire", the group of people who play the best are basically male players. Having been in a professional club for a few months, his esports teammates are all men.

Training with a bunch of girls...... It's unimaginable to change to him before.

But awkwardness is awkwardness, and the training plan still has to go on as usual.

Twenty minutes later, the group was fully armed and entered the Isle of Fire with Asker.

At the top of the central peak of the Hearthfire Island, there is already a pile of building materials that were brought in yesterday. Everyone found a place to sit down and began to listen to Asker's plan:

"In the training of professional players, there are different special training for different roles. Of course, since everyone is still new, there is no need to break down the training plan to each person. ”

"My current plan is that for the first month, I'm going to ask everyone to get a thorough grasp of the basics of attack, defense, and evasion. In the second month, I will teach you advanced combat techniques. ”

What does he mean is that we still have to start with the basics? Eleanor and Sidlifa were a little depressed. The two, who had grown up in combat training since childhood, were rather unimpressed by Asker's so-called "laying a good foundation", and were about to speak, when Asker interrupted:

"I know that some people may have learned some miscellaneous martial arts in the past, so they think that their starting point is higher than others, and they can start directly from advanced skills without accepting my basic training. For those who think like this, I can only say: yes, as long as you can beat me, you can skip the basic course. ”

Eleanor and Sidlifa shut up. Hit Asker? Just kidding, it's good to be able to hold up five moves in front of him.

"Do non-melee classes need training too?" Medea raised her hand and said, "For example, I'm a psychiocic and Nora is a healer, and neither of us directly fights on the battlefield, so do we also need to take your basic course?" ”

Aske turned and pressed his sword with one hand. Suddenly, with a bang, the sword came out of its sheath like lightning, slashing Medea in the neck. The latter didn't even have time to scream, but subconsciously shrank up, his hands in front of his chest in fear.

The blade stopped in front of her, and Aske said coldly: "If it is on the battlefield and the enemy's long sword slashes at you, can you tell him: No, I am a spellcaster, and I don't directly participate in the battle, you can't cut me with a weapon?" ”

"I can use supernatural abilities." Medea's face turned pale, and she still excused herself, "Preemptively restrain him with psychic abilities." ”

"Heh, is it too late?" Asker said.

Medea was speechless. In fact, the moment Asker's sword slashed at the head, her first reaction was to curl up, and such a clumsy performance was really irrefutable.