G Tourist City, 18 months ago
"Wow, she really did it! Auntie is amazing." Althea exclaimed as her emerald eyes watched the news aptly. She had been worried for a whole day. Fortunately, the news coverage was real-time so they didn't have to suffer too much.
[Eden country has officially received majority development rights of the Yuckan Valley. Forming a partnership with Yuta Country, they will begin sustainable extraction within the year.]
[The Yuckan Valley is one of the few valleys with a biodiversity index of Moderate—now very rare in our contemporary world.]
[Eden country will now be safeguarding this place, and our Scientists will be at the forefront of sustainable research in the area.]
It could be said that the mission to Yuta country was a resounding success.
"Not just her, Gill as well." Her husband's low velvety voice sounded beside her as his warm hand wrapped around her clothed stomach.
She turned to look at him curiously, soft hand on his chest. "You can tell me now, right?" After seeing him not worried at all about the deal, she had a feeling this guy knew a lot! It was probably top-secret before, but maybe she could hear about it now.
Oh, how curious.
Garan looked dotingly at his wife who had sparkling eyes. His naughty hand caressed her curvaceous waist.
Since she was no longer worried, perhaps they could finally be lovey-dovey again? "It depends." He said, teasingly. "I've been suffering for a whole day, you know…".
Without further ado, she abruptly sat on him and wrapped her arms around him, meeting his lips. His eyes widened a little and he sat still as she parted from him and placed many pecks on his face, his nose, and his lips. Over and over.
"Husband… husband~ Please tell me?" She asked coquettishly, resuming her pecks.
This adorableness, combined with the feeling of her softness, made him snap like a mouse trap.
…
Althea only got the answer to her questions several hours later.
Apparently, the deal wasn't meant to be so one-sided. However, about a year ago, an insurgent group rose up and caused chaos around the whole Yuta country. The military couldn't defeat these scum.
A special ops team—led by Gill—went to Yuta country to fix this internal conflict. It wasn't that the mission wasn't dangerous but they managed to get information about the group about the insurgent group's internal workings.
And this was, amusingly, all due to the online activity of the leader's son.
"What makes it more interesting is that the leader of the insurgents was an illegitimate child of their monarch."
Althea chuckled a bit. Not only was the younger generation the accidental source of a detrimental leak, but the insurgent leader himself believed the throne should've been his by virtue of his being the eldest (Illegitimate) son.
Althea rested her head on her husband's wide shoulder, a little amused. "What a drama…"
"Tsk tsk. That's why you should always hire on merit." She mumbled, "Otherwise who knew what they'd do accidentally."
Garan nodded, just staring at his beautiful wife lounging on him.
"However, it definitely wouldn't have gone so smoothly without Auntie Mathilda in the front line." He said, "After all, it could've just gone the other way—we may have been able to receive backlash for prying into other people's property and business.
"Yes. I can't imagine anyone but Auntie actually pulling it off."
"Indeed…" He said, and Althea didn't notice his eyes darkening until she was already flipped over.
"Now, I have told you everything." He said, "It's time for my reward…"
Her eyes widened, gently pushing his face away from hers, trying to escape his massive body hovering over her. "But you already—"
But her meek questioning was shut by his lips on hers.
She succumbed in the end, of course, she did. Anyway, she really ought to reward him well indeed.
____________
Altera. Present.
Now that the basic structures of the Offices have been planned, Althea decided to organize the hiring process of their staff.
After all, they alone would have a bit of a challenge with the current population, let alone when their number surged.
However, a lot of these fields were not her specialty. Even with her helpful and omniscient tablet, she didn't dare hire based on her own knowledge.
She hoped the positions would be based on merit eventually. Like having exams, and the like.
In the end, she decided to include an initial screening process with the help of the system. A basic exam with an ideally massive pool of questions they would be answering. Basics like the person's character and proper expertise would also be determined at this point.
She sent the notification to all officers (and elders) to create their own questions and answers. When there were more supervisors hired, she'd ask them as well.
She wasn't afraid of leaks, because each employee who accepted the recruitment was to sign a virtual contract. Some of the main pillars of this were integrity, loyalty to the territory, and the avoidance of purposely doing anything that could put the territory at any sort or degree of disadvantage.
After this initial screening, the applicants would then go to a face-to-face interview with their respective future bosses. Their sincerity, resourcefulness, and skill would be the primary characteristics to be determined here.
Eventually, she would have a full office of government officials who would be sincere to the territory.
Speaking of office, she also had to tell Oslo to build a building near the Village center, but not too close to hinder its potential expansion.
It was a four-story building, which was the maximum they could build until legitimate concrete was available. Each office would at least have half a floor to themselves. As for the interior, it would be modeled after the typical offices, but with more interior decoration, interior plants, and just an overall less plain and boring design.
She smiled. Now that a lot of the experts were in place, she could finally rest her mind on some distracting territory problems.
She could finally start doing what she really liked—researching!
After all, she was the Elder of Plant Research now, was she not?
She ought to start doing her job!
She couldn't upgrade with the mobs outside anyway. Tsk. Might as well do what she did best.