Demands

The destroyer SDS Arrow sank, killing dozens of sailors.

The Arrow's crew was a penal unit composed of criminals, sent out instead of serving their sentences. Since they had been told they were being sent on the easy mission of merely controlling the river, there had been no significant resistance.

Criminals who would have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment would now be portrayed as heroes who died serving the South and used for propaganda.

That was the full extent of the concern over the casualties.

"Lucilla, what about the intelligence mages we dispatched to the East?"

As expected, my attention was more focused on the mages.

We could produce another destroyer at any time, but finding mages loyal to us and willing to serve in intelligence was not easy.

Of course, we had been systematizing and teaching the magic that had previously been passed down from master to disciple, but... it would still take several years before we saw results.

"Fifteen of the twenty have returned safely, and the remaining five are on their way back. We believe none of them were discovered locally."

"That's a relief."...