Herald of Steel

Alexander's main concern with this heavy rainfall was not necessarily the flooding of the city. If the water can rise, it can also fall.

Thus even if the roads and houses got water clogged, it would cause a bit of problem for the people, but eventually all this would subside on its own.

Hence what seemed truly dangerous to Alexander was the potential loss of his strategic grain reserves and other stocks in the warehouses during the time.

He did not want to wake up the next morning to suddenly find the water had smashed through all the warehouses and washed away all his hard earned grain and other finished export products. That would be bad on so many levels.

Hence he had close to 2,500 men deployed to solely protect those critical resources.

Alongside this concern, Alexander's main secondary worry was the sudden spread of unforeseen fires across the city.

Now, this last part might seem odd given the torrential rainfall battering the city, thus logically it should be impossible for fires to spread.

But in this age of wooden buildings and open cooking fires, it was very much possible for fires in the interior of buildings to burn them to a crisp while the outside remained soaked.

And if that fire was hidden by broken rubble, such as a building that collapsed in the winds, it could, shielded by the debris, continue to burn and spread throughout the 'undergrowth' despite the ambient soggy environment, killing everyone trapped.

So Alexander sent a similar number of men to keep a lookout for such occurrences.

"Have the remaining 2 battalions at the barracks as reserves. They should be ready to reinforce any of the formations as needed."

"And lastly, the second legion should rest and be ready to march out by the morning. I fear other powers might want to take advantage of our distraction and snatch some land around the border. We cannot let that happen."

Thus at last finishing his order, Alexander quickly transposing the same words into paper, before stamping and signing it to make it official.

"...." While Hemicus received the edict with an unimpressed facade, understanding Alexander was contradicting his own previous excuses with this decree. Enjoy exclusive chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

But for obvious reasons he did not point it out and instead quickly glanced at the paper, confirming its content.

"What about you and the central district? Or the workshops?" Hemicus then posed with the slightest of frowns, finding the two regions missing in the order.

"The city guards can take care of here. We have many patrols." Alexander lightly answered with a brush of his fingers. Since he lived here, naturally security was much tighter, with even the guard's headquarters being here.

"As for the workshops, they are on the Cisran Hills. There won't be much flooding there. And even if there were, we have the hidden mercenaries. If things turn truly dire, they can help." Alexander lastly reassured.

"And the suburbs? The surrounding fields might also be flooded. We should be ready to quickly rescue the animals and livestock in the countryside." While the bodyguard captain, finding there was little to complain about, quickly moved to the next issue.

And this sort of in depth questioning somewhat surprised Alexander because Hemicus was not known for being this shrewd.

He was of course no fool, but his intelligence was more geared towards military and tactics. Not how to rescue flood victims.

As for this explanation- well Hemicus could think like this because it was something he had intimately dealt with as a child.

In fact, he had lost his family to such a flood, with his father and a few brothers drowning just as the flood began.

Hemicus used to live near the river, so when the water suddenly rose at night, they were caught completely off guard.

The furious current smashed through a part of their houses while they were asleep, taking anything and anyone in its way with it, to the point that Hemicus never managed to even find their body.

As for his mother and the rest of the siblings, they had somehow managed to quickly climb onto the roofs of their hatched house and take shelter there.

But without any rescue, most slowly died of dysentery and various other sicknesses through exposure to the elements, a lack of food, and most importantly clean water.

Hemicus even clearly remembered as a child of just seven years having to push his dead sister of only 3 from their roof into the surrounding water because she had begun to smell after being dead for 2 days.

The rain made her once fair flesh quickly decompose into something far more green and far less inviting.

It took a whole week for the flood water to subside and by that time, only he and his two younger brothers were left alive- having somehow managed to survive off only rainwater that they cupped their hands to gather from the falling sky.

However if you thought the heavens were done testing them, you would be gravely wrong.

Because right after that horrendous ordeal, the young and naive orphans were quickly cheated out of their lands by their greedy uncles, and sold into slavery.

They had always coveted their brother's fine land as it was immediately next to the river, so the soil was many times more fertile and it was a breeze to irrigate. You just needed to dig a few ditches and channels and the water would flow freely.

Hence Hemicus and his brothers lost everything within the span of just two weeks, exchanging plows and hoes for the chains of slavery.

The trio were brought by Nestoras and his mercenary group and by now, he was the only one still alive of his bloodline, his other two brothers had fallen in battle.

Life was indeed very very hard in this time and age.

And probably his life experience was one of the reasons why Hemicus was this insistent on evacuating Alexander- he had a sort of deeply engraved trauma.

….

Alexander on the other hand was not much aware of any one of this, as Hemicus predictably never talked about this.

Hence the bodyguard captain's penetrating query caught him a bit off guard, forcing him to quickly think on the spot. Alexander had not certainly thought that far ahead.

Fortunately, the answer was not that complicated, thus adjusting his posture, Alexander solemnly announced, "If things turn that bad, then have the second legion do that. We will only need them to fight if the enemy moves."

"....." The silence coming from Hemicus finally meant he had nothing to complain.

….

Having received all the relevant explanation, the man quickly stepped out of the study, ready to carry out the order.

While seeing him leaving, Alexander's heart let out a silent groan at the thought of all the additional work he would likely have to do.

'Fucking hell… It's one stupid disaster one after another. I was so happy that I finally got the bank going. And now…. Fuck, it's like I am cursed.'

He was unable to believe he was being hit by such a natural disaster out of absolutely nowhere. Especially when things were starting to just settle down.

According to his analysis, there should not have been any major developments in the near future, letting him grow for a while in peace.

But as they say- Man plans but God disposes.

…..

"What happened, you look irritated?"

Coming out of his study, Alexander was quickly met with this curious query from Cambyses, who lifted her head from behind a screen of fanned cards.

She was currently in the games room, playing a game that was a mixture of poker and jenga with Ophenia, Gelene, Camelia, and the two visiting ladies.

The special rule here was that instead of playing with money, the one with the worst hand had to take a shot and then move a jenga piece. Thus the game got increasingly harder as the contestants got increasingly drunker, their hands shaking more and more.

As for what happened when the jenga tower fell, well Alexander had only played the adult version with his wives and there, the rest of the players got to 'bully' the culprit in various ways.

For example- they might be teased in sensitive places for a certain time but constantly denied release.

However the current version was of course a much more family friendly version, so there was probably not even any punishment. The tower falling itself might have been the penalty.

As Alexander swiftly recalled the rules of this homemade game, Cambyses's ask by now managed to draw the attention of the rest of the table, who also all turned to give Alexander a similar look.

And the heat of so many gazes was enough to quickly break him away from these thoughts.

"It is nothing. I simply called Hemicus to arrange for the two Highnesses' escort." Alexander lightly brushed across the matter, not wanting to reveal the truth.@@novelbin@@

He had no evidence of anything as the rainwater had started to only creep up now and thus thought revealing this information would do little but cause panic.

He also really did not want to deal with any type of nagging right now given his already acrid mood.

"*Hic*... should we get ready?"

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