"'I need a favor. We've been on the road for a while, getting here, and we're just about out of supplies. I've got this and not much else; Shiro's got nothing but the dress,'" Shiro recites.

"Did I specify what the favor was?"

"Nope."

oh fuck

"Makes you wonder how much my phone would've been worth if we had it assessed," Sora muses. "Oh well, we're here now and there's no going back."

This is bad. This is really, really bad, beyond the usual standards for what constitutes a mistake. Parents teach their toddlers not to make or accept open-ended wagers. "Bet that you'll be my friend", "Bet that you won't tell anyone what we did today", "Bet me a favor". They're so easy to offer, as easy to offer as they are to regret, which is why children are cautioned against them time and again until it sticks.

Or until they convince themselves that what they've offered isn't open-ended at all. Sora never asked for lodgings, he'd simply implied it and waited patiently until Stephanie convinced herself it was going to be okay, and now it isn't, she'd thought she lost everything today at the poker table but she has so much more to lose now FUCK.

"Could've been a lot of gold and faithful service. The opportunity cost to get this favor is almost farcical, if you think about it."

"I don't know, Shiro. I think we'll get what we wanted after all."

oh gods no please no please please please no

"Now, here's how you can repay that favor…"

"I'm not sure what genre I was expecting from Disboard, but it wasn't JRPG."

"For now. I'm expecting it to become 4X after we win control of this country."

"I don't know what 'JRPG' or '4X' mean. Are those types of games?"

"JRPGs are games that usually have turn-based combat systems and emphasis on narrative, character development, and assembling a party of allies. 4X is an abbreviation for explore, expand, exploit, exterminate – we may not be able to do that last one. Games oriented around nation-building and conquest."

"You think it'll be 4X and not grand strategy? Elkia's lost a lot of territory recently, we could be fighting defensive wars from the moment we take power."

"'No war,' according to Tet. No war means no troop movements, no logistics, no injuries, no death. We can handle all of the challenges to Elkian territory personally."

"Doesn't rule out a cold war," Shiro points out. "Economic sanctions, travel restrictions, espionage, magical shenanigans I have no particular insight into…"

She looks at Stephanie.

"The crown might have a dozen sorcerers on retainer at any given time, mostly fairies and elves. We can afford to commission artifacts from dwarves; the market for dweomercraft is efficient enough to give us a good price on common services. Extremely powerful spells that comply with the wording of the Covenant but not the spirit are typically nullified by Regenleif or Holo as soon as it's brought to their attention. The greater races have so far left Elkia alone but if they were so inclined they could cause us serious problems."

"'Greater races'?"

"Gods, phantasms, elementals, dragons, giants, angels. Elementals meet all the criteria for a Covenant-protected species but in practice they behave like a force of nature. There are no reliable eyewitness reports of giants in the last century, and they may be extinct. There are two phantasms on this continent, and the one that lives near here does not play games. The other greater races have made no coordinated effort to rule the world since the end of the Last War, but individual dragons and angels occupy patches of territory here and there. The gods remain undefeated and command more respect and obedience than they've won, possibly for fear of reprisal."

Shiro exchanges a smug grin with Sora. It is the smug look of『____』, who have beaten a god at chess and plan to do it again.

"And the lesser races? Who are the opponents that Elkia faces?"

"Mostly the werebeasts^†. The vast majority of Elkian territory lost to foreign powers during my grandfather's reign was ceded to the Eastern Union. Apart from them, the other pressing threat is the elves. Elven Gard is the largest country on the continent and has ambitions of stretching from sea to shining sea. Control of shipping lanes and fishing grounds is rarely an issue but occasionally contested by sirens; the crown has maps of regions where passage is barred."

^†This word is a compound of the words for 'human' and 'animal' with the inflection for hybridization. Translation magic renders it as 'werebeast' for Shiro and 'furry' for Sora.

"And the others? Let's try to avoid unexpected surprises."