The wet nurse problem was also settled by Selene-chan. She promised to send someone truly trustworthy.
The thing about wet nurses is that if someone like Kasuga no Tsubone emerged, the situation would descend into immediate chaos. I mean, Kasuga no Tsubone was incredibly competent, but that was the problem. If Wifey or I were to die young and someone used their position to build a ridiculous faction through personal connections, it would be the start of a Nation Destruction RTA.
If an ambitious wet nurse assassinated me, Wifey, and the other children to play politics through a Child Emperor... well, that would be a terrifying prospect. That was why I needed someone from the Neutral Faction—someone who didn't lean toward any specific group and, ideally, lacked any ambition for palace politics. Of course, finding someone like that was easier said than done.
In the end, I just dumped the entire problem onto Selene-chan. Since it was impossible to find someone with absolutely zero ambition, we simply had to ensure they could monitor one another.
Pien! It was like a complete puzzle game.
Ideally, I wanted my children to grow up as happy simpletons. Specifically, the kind of simpletons who would run full speed while flying a kite, not looking where they were going, and slam straight into a fence. But I suppose that wouldn't be allowed. I decided I would try to talk with them as much as possible.
With that settled, the next issue was the wedding. We had to figure out what to do.
"If we hold it now, it will look like we rushed into it because I became pregnant. Therefore, we shall use this planet in Chronos," Veronica declared.
She was referring to a certain piece of empty land. It was originally an agricultural planet, but it was so remote that the population had apparently dropped to zero due to an aging society.
"We shall turn this entire planet into a wedding venue," she added.
"Huh?"
"We can simply take our time with the development! A small portion of the budgets from the Galactic Empire and Chronos should be enough to manage it. Rather than fussing about it now while my belly is starting to show, it is better to act as if the development simply took a long time and hold the ceremony later with the children in tow."
Ah, I see. If Wifey said so, I was on board. We had to develop the planet anyway.
I also had to keep an eye on Parcion-kun. I needed to disperse their power as much as possible to ensure they didn't start a rebellion. It would be best to gradually facilitate their Chronosian-ization through education and entertainment.
The Parcion Religion was a similar story. Since temples were being set up for arson in various places quite conveniently, I decided to have them relocated under the pretext of "protection." Temples that were ready for secularization would receive preferential treatment. As for the others, I didn't care.
Abolish serfdom, stop claiming territory, don't arm yourselves, don't collect taxes on your own, and end the right of the first night. I had no patience for "children" who couldn't follow basic laws like those. They were unwanted elements in society, which meant arrest and suppression.
Furthermore, I wouldn't let them be involved in my wedding. They were a stray religion unrecognized by me. Since their Head of the Chronos Religion had picked a fight with me, they had no one to blame but themselves. They should have been grateful I even let them remain as a legal entity.
Moving forward, the Parcion Religion would have its resources drained for a while just trying to mend relations with the King of Chronos. I wasn't going to go around slaughtering them; I would simply ignore them. If the opposition tried to gather, I would crush them, but if they wanted to get along, I would be kind. If they tried to bribe me, I would expose them and dole out punishment. Regardless, I had to ensure the organization didn't rot. I had to pass this world on to my children, after all.
Anyway, preparations for the wedding began. The facilities I had previously planned to build for the ceremony were repurposed for something else. Between baseball, soccer, basketball, professional wrestling, and the newly established foreign leagues, we needed a massive number of venues.
And so, planet development continued. In the midst of all that, I continued my relentless pressure on Parcion. Those who didn't listen were suppressed. I ignored those who merely spoke ill of me, but I struck down corruption wherever I found it. A little bit of corruption was one thing, but what those guys were doing was way over the line! It turned out you even needed a law-abiding mindset to engage in successful corruption.
Consequently, for some reason, the masses took my side. I arrested the regional armies that had turned into gangs one after another and organized the maintenance of graves. As a form of "harassment," I planted Zashiki-warashi-chan shrines and Mini-Himorogi-chan grown from selected branches. I had Tatiana visit to perform Chronos Religion-style ceremonies.
It was perfectly fine. The Parcion Religion was essentially the same broad category as the Chronos Religion, just a different sect. When the residents showed reluctance, I made a simple declaration: "You're free to refuse, but priority for cemetery construction will go to Chronosian Believers and Buddhists."
For the most part, the burial problem was serious. People were dying constantly. You couldn't just bury them in random spots, and the Parcion Religion had lost all its funeral know-how. For the elderly, this was a problem looming right before their eyes. No one wanted to be incinerated at a trash disposal site and discarded as industrial waste by the Parcion Religion.
The residents couldn't go against the demands of the Silver Generation. We didn't explicitly demand that they apostatize from the Parcion Religion; we just told them we were building temples and shrines to manage the graves. The cemeteries would accept followers of the Parcion Religion too, but the funerals had to be conducted via the Chronos Religion. After all, for the Parcion Religion, funerals were now a lost technology.
Hahaha, they should have been glad we were a Japanese ethnicity so casual about religious matters!
As for the funding to maintain the Chronos Religion shrines, it came out of the public health budget as grave management fees. I also set up crematoriums and funeral halls. No one was going to say "I hate cremation!" when the alternative was being burned with the literal trash. I just made sure I was ready to throw a punch if they did.
Lepsitol reacted to this movement with surprising sensitivity. Despite being a country of heartless, economy-first atheists, a bidding war broke out over who could attract more Chronos Religion temples, Gaming Buddhism sects, and Zashiki-warashi-chan shrines. It turned out they wanted graves, too.
Yes, yes, I thought. Crematoriums and grave maintenance for everyone! However, rather than large traditional graves, Lepsitol seemed to prefer the type of funeral hall where you built a skyscraper and a grave popped out at the press of a button. Choosing a system that even we had internal debates about was a bit strange, but whatever.
Since I had firmly captured the hearts of the Silver Generation—the ones who actually held power—my reputation began to climb.
Furthermore, the issue of the Parcion Religion exercising the "right of the first night" exploded. It was the absolute worst of the worst—a system where you had to pay up if you didn't want your bride to be used as a toy. The younger generation hated it with a passion. I hated it too.
Naturally, there was a massive wave of people converting to the Chronos Religion. By the time the Parcion Religion's followers had dropped drastically and they came crying to me, it was already too late. It wasn't like some dramatic broken engagement story; I genuinely couldn't intervene anymore even if I wanted to. I have emotions too, and there was no way I was going to tell people, "Please, go back to the Parcion Religion. I beg you."
By the time the number of believers in the Zashiki-warashi-chan shrines reached several hundred million, the Shrine Authority of the Galactic Empire began to panic regarding her official status. Until then, they hadn't been able to reach a conclusion because no one really understood what she was.
I didn't understand her either. No one did. Even Suematsu-san just worshipped her because she happened to be there.
Then, a document from the era of the First Emperor was suddenly "discovered" in the rafters of a historic shrine. It was in perfect condition, without a single insect bite—specifically, a scroll that looked as if it had been inked roughly a week ago.
Apparently, no one had found it during the restoration work right after the Zork War. Pointing out that it had clearly been made just last week would have been considered boorish. It was given a backstory: she was the Highest-ranking God of the Empire worshipped by the First Emperor, whom the previous emperor had intentionally hidden.
If you just blamed every misfortune on Maro, everything worked out for everyone.
Everything was going well. It was going so well it was almost frightening. Nothing had ever gone this smoothly before. Usually, the pattern involved some kind of hellish catastrophe occurring.
Hahaha!