Nihonkoku Shoukan: Beyond

Chapter 36: Storm Brewing Over Rodenius

The town of Arkney, Argonia Province, United Presidia, 5th March, 1640 CCY

Ever since the end of the Lourian Invasion, the break up of the Louria Kingdom, and the formation of the United Presidia, the people of Arkney have experienced a massive uptick in the quality of life that was never seen before. Being the border town near the southern mountain range, it's an important hub of transport that connects Quila, Qua Toyne, and United Presidia. Ever since its inception hundreds of years ago, this town has always been a stop between the three countries, bringing untold amounts of tax money for the town.

But the good times stopped for the town sometime in the last hundred years ago, when the ruler of Louria enacted anti-demihuman laws. Before the war that broke it apart and rebuilt it, Louria always found itself as a pariah among surrounding nations due to their human supremacist policies against demihumans like elves and beastkind alike that were started a hundred-twenty years ago under the brutal reign of King Hark Halvar Louria XXX.

The once shining gem of Rodenius enacted a racist policy so extreme that not even the people of the Holy Milishial Empire were exempted, including a visiting delegation who were taken hostage during a pogrom in Jin Hark. To this day, no one really knows how that came about, but the HME was enraged by this provocation and sent an armada to decimate the Lourian Navy, as well as bombard the coastal settlement of Louria Kingdom and quarantine the country from the rest of the world. Unlike the Japanese, the Holy Empire showed no mercy toward the barbaric Louria. As magic shells rained down, hundreds of thousands of people died, just for the irrational hatred of some people.

The extreme response of the Holy Empire is mostly due to the fact that elves not only made up a large part of the Empire's population but also many high-ranking noble families up to Emperor Milishial VIII himself. Furthermore, to enslave or kill a citizen of the Empire is to declare war on the Empire itself. After three days of merciless bombardment, Louria finally yielded and returns the Milishial hostages, but by that point, Lourian soldiers had already beaten, tortured, and even raped some of those hostages, including members of nobilities. As a result, the HME completely cuts off diplomatic relationships with Louria and revoked their aspiring status to be recognized as part of the Civilized Countries, going as far as forbidding anyone doing trade with them. The name Louria become a forbidden word. Any Lourians who ran away from their devastated country were forced to renounce their ties to Louria completely, else they'd face persecution from the HME or other countries who were very much afraid to face the Holy Empire's wrath. Although Louria had tried to appease the Milishials by offering their elves a special "Honorary Human" status, the Empire refused it regardless and imposed a total quarantine on the Rodenius kingdom. As if the world's premier superpower would accept such an insulting title from a country they deemed lesser than them.

The HME quarantine of Louria was so thorough that the entire country was effectively cut off from the rest of Elysia for the last 75 years, only allowing limited trade with a few neighboring Philades countries, only because the HME realized that they needed food. It was only twenty years ago that the quarantine was lifted but even then, that was only in a formal capacity as everyone, including Mu, was so scared of angering the HME to the point no one dared to openly sell commodities such as weapons to Louria anymore, leaving their military severely under-equipped for a kingdom of its size and forced to rely on pure manpower alone. Even regional powers like Parpaldia had to keep their support to Lourian war efforts as covertly as possible to avoid political complications.

Due to this sentiment, the trade between Louria and countries in the Philades couldn't be done in large numbers and they often had to grow much of their own food to feed their own people. The isolation from the surrounding countries had led to the decimation of Lourian's once prosperous economy and culture. However, thanks to Louria's relatively arable lands, they managed to make ends meet for a while, but nevertheless, as their populations grew, Louria soon found themselves overstretching their agricultural capability until its breaking point. As a result, beneath all of the racial posturings, one of the main end goals for the invasion of Qua Toyne was to secure the bountiful lands of the demihuman-populated country in order to feed Louria's increasingly starving population.