Chapter 37: You Grab the Dishes, I Flip the Table—Reckoning!

Sherria’s position was easy to arrange—just give her the title of secretary.

However, her petite figure really made people feel out of place, even evoking a sense of guilt for using child labor.

Because of this, she deliberately used mental magic to diminish her presence.

Mitia had also asked her why she did not transform into an adult.

Sherria first stressed once again that she was just short, not a child! Only then did she give a slight explanation.

In truth, this was actually a common adaptive mechanism shared by all long-lived races.

To put it simply: the mind was bound by appearance.

It was not that long-lived races did not age, but that their timelines differed from other races.

Their brains automatically slowed the intake and feedback of emotions in order to allow enough time for forgetting.

No matter how their environment, abilities, or knowledge changed, their minds would always remain at a level consistent with their appearance.

Only when they actively wished to remember a person or an event would their timeline synchronize in frequency.

And this was also one of the reasons they considered Mitia strange—her emotions were far too abundant.

Playfulness aside, Mitia soon returned to the Commander’s Residence with Sherria and began her preparations.

Since she already knew someone wanted to strike at her, she absolutely could not follow the enemy’s rhythm in defense—that would be the lowest approach.

The first step was to examine the strength of her own forces.

Over the years of external development, Astal had stockpiled massive amounts of raw materials.

Soldiers had undergone sufficient training, and they even had enough leeway to put some of the eligible civilians through reserve training.

At present, Astal’s standing army numbered two hundred and fifty thousand—forty standard divisions.

New metal ammunition had completed rearmament improvements.

Hundreds of cannons, more than twenty thousand machine guns, with each company at least equipped with two machine guns.

The reason for not having many cannons was simply because they were still being iterated.

There was no need to produce too many old-fashioned cannons.

Once they went full throttle on producing field guns, the numbers could increase rapidly.

But Mitia was in no hurry here—she was still waiting for engines to mature.

Then the field guns could be hauled by vehicles, not by livestock such as horses.

A forty-division army was an enormous strain on Astal’s population of just over two million.

It was sustained purely through massive trade revenue.

It could be said that even if the Pontiff did not attack, she would likely have to unleash her forces within the next two years anyway.

At her request, the Supreme Military Council convened in the Commander’s Residence.

After briefly explaining the grave situation they faced, they began to study and arrange attack plans.

The process was lengthy, requiring extensive analysis and discussion, as well as detailed troop deployment and arrangements on the tactical level.

But the strategic principle was very clear: replace defense with offense.

First launch a rapid strike deep into enemy territory.

Then have engineering units follow up, building fortifications and laying railway tracks to create transfer stations.

Once the offensive line stalled, they would sweep back to eliminate remaining enemies, then return to the defense line for trench warfare.

This way, Astal’s small homeland would not be directly threatened, ensuring the smooth operation of industry and continuous supply of materials and ammunition to the frontlines.

As for the Pontiff—if you strike on the first day, then I will strike on the fifteenth.

While the military council was still adjusting and enriching the operational plan, Mitia diverted most of her focus to consolidating her own power and preparing to root out hidden issues within her domain.

She reorganized and refined her previous governance policies and slogans, and formally established the National Socialist Party, serving as its first Party Leader.

This time, Mitia was ruthless.

She not only intended to attack outward but also to directly spark uprisings within the kingdoms of the steam revolution.

She would provide them with supplies and ammunition to form armed forces, and with ideological guidance as spiritual armament.

All the civil officials previously sent out to the provinces to spread new policies and investigate their implementation were recalled by Mitia.

They were the group most keenly aware of how much benefit her policies had brought to the common people.

They were also her most steadfast admirers.

Mitia organized them into the first Party Guard unit.

Their first mission was to abolish all religious sites within Astal, especially the widely-followed Goddess Church.

Since they were the enemy, every means available had to be used.

Because in this soon-to-be established new nation, if there must be faith, then only one faith would be allowed!

And the methods of Mitia’s guards were brutally simple.

Kick open the doors, aim a howitzer at the idol for ten minutes.

If the deity believed they were wrong, then divine punishment should strike the disrespectful.

If nothing happened, then too bad—the idol was executed by cannon fire, the church seized! Any clergy who resisted or dared fight back—regardless of age or gender—were executed by artillery without exception.

She had even prepared for localized riots.

Twenty of the forty divisions were split apart to cooperate with the Party Guards, ready for armed suppression at any moment.

At this crucial juncture of confronting the Church head-on, she wished for all the potential zealots who could be roused by the Pontiff to jump out, so she could get rid of them all at once.

Mitia intended to use her years of accumulated prestige to clash directly with this vague, intangible deity.

Then she would have howitzers aimed at idols, let the civilians count down themselves, and finally blow them apart before their eyes—forcing them to recognize the true essence of such intangible things.

At first, there were still indignant crowds loudly hurling insults.

But once soldiers confiscated a large cache of wealth from inside the churches, everyone fell silent.

When they themselves had only barely eaten their fill for a few years, seeing such wealth in the churches left most of them unable to reconcile the disparity—especially when it was precisely those they had just cursed who had fed them.

Of course, there were always a few fanatics who lost their reason and rushed out to fight the guards.

Their fate was inevitably to be cut down by a few bullets.

In the end, the soldiers even took a few copper coins from the corpses—ammunition fees…

Witnessing the bloody scenes silenced the other civilians further.

They simply went back to their work quietly, while the image of God in their hearts began to subtly crack.

Seeing the vast amounts of gold, silver, jewelry, and grain transported back from across the land, Mitia was taken aback.

Though she had long known that the Church was rotten, she had not expected them to be this good at amassing wealth.

It seemed that wherever her army went in the future, the first stop would always have to be the churches.

At the same time as dismantling the Church, Mitia did not forget to take over the vital needs left vacant by them.

First, she carried out ideological work with most of the former clergy, rehiring those who could be re-employed.

Second, the barefoot doctors she had trained earlier officially took up their posts—working with manuals in hand, while verifying and taking on apprentices.

In this world, she kept the term “barefoot doctor.” It meant they all came from the broad masses of ordinary people, one with the civilians.

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