Chapter 206

Could it be that he was crying with joy?

They didn't dare to think too much. After all, it was the commander's matter and had nothing to do with them. All they knew now was that the war was won and they could finally rest.

Orson held Lite and patted her back gently until she recovered and then let go of her.

"Okay, Li Te, everything is over. Don't think too much about the next step. Come back with me."

"Yes." Lit nodded, stretched out his hand, and took the initiative to hold Orson's hand.

There are not so many ifs in the world. She only knows that the only thing she needs to care about now is to do the things in front of her well.

The fire continued for several hours into the night, as the last sparks dissipated and the night sky returned to darkness.

In order to prevent Giovanni from faking his death, the coalition forces formed a tight barrier outside the Duke's palace.

After the fire was extinguished, the coalition troops went to search and, as expected, found a charred corpse in the Duke's mansion.

A large part of the temperature generated by the flames was borne by the air, and it was impossible to burn Giovanni's body to ashes. The last trace of dignity he sought became a luxury.

After a simple comparison, it was confirmed that the deceased was Giovanni. In this way, with the death of the Duke of Napoli, the war in the south was about to come to an end.

Of course, it is definitely impossible for Giovanni to be buried in such a dignified manner. After his body is wrapped in white cloth, it will be transported to the north. In the city of Saint Laurent, a public trial will be held, and then his body will be buried. The body was burned at the stake, and at that time, his body would finally be reduced to ashes.

As for Downey, after being eliminated by Leeteuk with the magic elimination circle, he lost his power and became completely different from a normal person. His muscles were atrophied and he had dementia. As well as the jail sentence at the subsequent trial meeting, it was difficult for him to survive. This year.

As a result, the position of Duke of Naples was vacant.

In the empire's inheritance laws, collateral families are not much higher in succession than those of other clans. In many cases, collateral families are even deliberately excluded to avoid suspicion, and this time is no exception.

A week later, in the city of Saint Laurent, there was an imperial meeting.

Royal representatives, military representatives, representatives of the duchies, city representatives, Imperial College representatives, business representatives, etc. discussed the candidate for the Duke of Naples. At the meeting, 70% of the votes approved Orson to take over the position of the Duke of Naples. Offer of position.

In principle, the empire does not allow one family to control two duchies at the same time. Therefore, two days before the imperial meeting, Lucius announced to outsiders that Orson would break away from the Stranik family and establish a New family.

This approach was obviously to avoid suspicion, but not many people raised objections.

The reason is very simple. No matter how close the Orson and Stranik families are, they will no longer be a family after the separation. Maybe the relationship between the next generation will be very good, but what about the next generation?

In the thousand-year history of the empire, there are countless examples of relationships weakening due to family separation, and even eventually becoming enemies.

As long as the two families are not too close after the separation, after a few generations, the relationship between the two families will sooner or later fade away due to various disputes.

After being successfully elected, Orson came to the stage to prepare his speech.

Orson walked onto the stage and looked at the crowd, including many people he knew.

Elsa, the representative of the royal family, Sister Olivia, the representative of the duke, Teacher Tris, the representative of the college, and Chelinina, the business representative, all these acquaintances were looking at me with a sense of expectation.

Orson cleared his throat, and then said: "I am honored to be able to obtain the title of Duke when the Duke of Naples has no owner. I would like to sincerely thank Your Majesty and everyone for your support."

"However, since I am still studying at the Imperial College and have no energy to deal with the affairs of the Duchy of Naples, after I become the Duke, I plan to set up a cabinet to manage the Duchy of Naples on my behalf, and the ministers of the cabinet will be selected. They are elected jointly by the cities and counties."

As soon as this statement came out, the whole place was in an uproar.

"This is a political experiment. I believe that a government elected by everyone can better represent everyone's interests. Similarly, if the government is completely one-note, it will be easy to ignore the power of the people."

"I will follow up on the specific policies in the Duchy of Napoli.

It will be implemented slowly during the implementation of the policy, so please look forward to it. "After saying this, Orson bowed deeply to everyone and then left the scene.

In the audience, even the people who supported Orson had expressions of disbelief at this moment.

The title of Duke is noble because only these people in the empire can exercise supreme power over large areas of land.

However, for such a supreme reward, Orson now actually wants to hand it over to a local in Naples? Is he crazy?

As a foreigner, it was very difficult for Orson to convince the earls of Naples. Now that he is delegating power, most places in Naples will no longer have anything to do with him in the future.

When Giovanni was in office, he did a good job in centralizing power in the duchy. Orson wanted to make Naples autonomous.

At this time, the military representatives all turned their attention to Alsace.

Alsace also smiled.

Yes, Orson had made it clear to him a long time ago that he would not serve as Duke of Naples, or in other words, would not exercise the administrative power of a Duke. The Duchy of Naples would remain autonomous and would not favor anyone. one party.

This was enough for Alsace.

Orson wants to remain neutral, so let him remain neutral. When the outcome of his fight with Elsa comes out, he believes that Orson will generally defect to him.

When the imperial meeting adjourned, Orson was directly blocked at the door by Li Te.

"Orson, although I will never question your decision-making, but can you tell me why you did this..."

Lee Teuk stood in front of Orson with a puzzled expression on his face.

"We have sacrificed so many casualties for this place just to support you, Orson. Why are you..."

"Li Te." Orson interrupted her, and then said earnestly: "Don't forget what our purpose was in the beginning. Of course I can directly become a duke, but as I said, there are all kinds of problems. This is the best solution now.”

"Besides, I have already said my words. Instead of asking the reason, what we should do now is to do a good job in the aftermath."

With that said, Orson glanced at Chelinina who was waiting for him not far away, and walked straight towards her.

"Chelinina, regarding the revitalization plan of the Duchy of Naples, shall we discuss it then?"

"Okay~" Chelinina agreed. "Naples is my hometown after all. It's such a mess now and I don't feel comfortable looking at it."

"Besides, my money is now your money." She smiled, not caring that Li Te was following Orson.

"Then~the remuneration must be negotiated first~"

"I will recommend you to be a cabinet minister. As a native of Naples, coupled with your current business status and my recommendation, I can give you the administrative power you want."

"Pfft, Orson, do you think I'm too snobbish?" Chelinina couldn't help but laugh when she heard Orson say this seriously.

"That's not what I care about. You know what I care about most."

With that said, she glanced at Li Teuk next to her, and then said: "Okay, I have something else to do, so let's not talk about it for now. Just tell me what resources are needed when the time comes."

"Yeah." Orson nodded and watched Chelinina leave.

"Orson..." Lite looked at Orson beside him. "Why do I feel like you are being taken care of by sister Chelinina?"

"Don't talk nonsense, it's nothing."

"But I see that the relationship between the two of you is a bit unusual. Do you want me to report to Sister Olivia?"

"Girl, when did you become part of Olivia's camp again?"

"Hey~"

Volume Three: Strange Stories from the Snow Country and Storms in the Imperial City

Chapter 1: Long-lost date

After the war in the south ended, Orson and Leeteuk also returned to the Imperial Academy.

Not long after the two returned to the dormitory, there was a knock on the door.

"Big brother! And brother Li Te, are you back?"

Lena's energetic voice was outside the door. As soon as Lite heard Lena's voice, he quickly came to the door and opened it.

You know, the military life in the south can be said to be quite boring, and Virgil who went to the south with Li Te was too serious most of the time.

Now seeing Lena as a pistachio again, Li Teuk naturally couldn't wait to meet her.

Opening the door, Lena said directly as expected

Pounced in.

"Hehe, brother Li Teuk is really back!"

She came to Liteuk and hugged Liteuk's waist, and Liteuk also hugged Lena.

"...Brother Lee Teuk, have you gained weight?" The two of them were hugging each other like this, and Lena suddenly said out loud.

"Ah?! No!" Leeteuk quickly denied, and then let go of Lena's hand.

"But...why do I feel that Brother Li Teuk's body is softer than that of the elder brother? Isn't it because he has more meat that he becomes softer?"

Lena reached out her hand and tapped her chin, asking in confusion.

Lite shed a cold sweat at this moment. Fortunately, he didn't hug Lena for too long just now.

Although my clothes are loose, I can still feel something strange when I put them on.

At this time, two more people walked in from outside.

"Sorry to bother you." Liangka saw that it was Lite who was receiving her and said hello politely.

"Well, it's okay. Long time no see, Lianka." Seeing this, Li Te quickly changed the topic, and at the same time secretly thanked Lianka in his heart.

If it hadn't been for her, Leeteuk wouldn't have known how to flexibly change the subject.

"Thank you so much for taking Lena with you these days." She said this and made an invitation gesture for the two of them to enter the house.

Orson had just finished changing his clothes upstairs. He had an appointment with Olivia to go out tonight, so he needed to prepare in advance.

No matter how unscrupulous he is, he will still feel guilty after being separated from his fiancée for so many days, so he wants to surprise Olivia on their date tonight.

When he came down after changing his clothes, he happened to see three women chatting on the first floor.

After this period of training, Lee Teuk has become able to cope with such social interactions with ease, although the main reason is because everyone is acquaintances and know each other.

After seeing Orson coming down, the three women all stared at Orson.

"Well, what do you think I'm doing?" Orson looked at the girls in front of him in confusion.

Lianka blushed and looked away.

Liteuk was still staring at Orson.

Only Lena spoke first:

"Brother, you look so handsome today. Are you going to go out on a date with the young lady?"

It’s no wonder that a few people think so. Orson is a minimalist in his own dressing. He doesn’t usually like to wear flashy clothes. He also chooses the most conservative style for his dress, just like a middle-aged man.

But today, he rarely changed into a light blue formal suit, and he deliberately styled his hair. Compared with his usual calmness, his whole person had a different style - if you ignore that he was still expressionless Words of expression.

"Huh? You know?" Orson asked doubtfully.

"Well, Orson, it's true that you have been unfaithful to your sister!" At this time, the blushing Lianka suddenly said.

"..." Orson looked at Lianka who was pointing at him, very angry, and sighed helplessly.

"No, Lianka, don't I know who you are?"

Saying this, Orson pointed to his temple.

"Think about it with your cute little mind. If I go out on a date with another girl, it must not be Olivia, right?"

As a result, Leeteuk was unhappy when he heard this.

"Orson, you've just come back, why are you so anxious to go out on a date with Olivia?" Li Te said, pretending to be pityful.

"Oh, it's such a pity that the hero has to pass the beauty test."

"That's right, I thought the eldest brother was a very career-minded person. What's that word called... Oh yes, indulging in beauty!" Lena also echoed from the side.

At this time, Orson came to several people and gave Li Te and Lena a light tap on the head.

Seeing this, Lianka closed her eyes subconsciously, waiting for Orson's chestnut to fall.

But how could Orson dare to knock Lianka? He directly skipped Lianka’s process.

"You little guys, what are you thinking about all day long?" Orson said, explaining his reasons.

"Your sister Olivia is my fiancée. For the sake of the empire, I have not been with her these days. I don't even have much normal correspondence with her. I must make up for it."

"Think about it, if there is someone you like in the future and they are willing to pay so much for you, won't you feel guilty?"

Li Teuk curled his lips when he heard this.

"I wish he could take the initiative like that

a little. "

Orson could only pretend he didn't hear these words.