The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 397 – Sledgehammer

There are many ways to measure the success of a country.

All of them are wrong. I am not here to give the truth. I am the Goddess of Hatred, is it my job to reveal truth? Even if I knew it, would it be my role to share it? No. Truth is some great thing that exists for the likes of the Goddess of Order, of Peace and of Love. Truth is a grand for those who wish to seek it out but at the end of the day, the man who lives a lie still lives. What that man’s truth is, not even he knows. Does it even matter?

Measuring a country is much like measuring a man. Before we can even start debating the merits of either, we have to debate what merits to measure in the first place. A grand economy or equality? Technological progress or birth rates? The ability to win a war or the ability to outlast defeat? Likewise with the man, the most basic question of intelligence or strength? Of good looks versus good humour? Of wealth or love or inner peace?

At the end of the day, what metaphysical value any these things have is not for me to decide. It is not even that I am choosing to discount these things because I feel it is not my role to debate them. I simply do not care for what tales of morality there are to spin. At the end of the day, a farmer is a farmer, a recession is a recession, a war is a war and no amount of fiddling with definitions can change these things. Strength is strength, everyone knows strength when they see it.

I would compare it all to my own demesne of Hatred. The only fools who debate what hatred is are those who have never experienced it. Once felt, there is nothing quite like it. Likewise, only fools debate the merits or failings of hatred. There is nothing to debate. Hatred does not care for rationality in the same way that Love does not care for rationality. All men who hate, hate for the same reasons that others love. These are thoughts of passion and not reasonability.

Much like a horse, I do not stroke Hatred’s head, I do not put it to sleep, I don’t care for its thoughts. I drag Hatred to the fields and I put it to work. Nations too are like horses, I do not come with the intention to change them into cows. I come and I decide whether they will be for field work or cavalry. In this case, although there are plenty of ways to measure the success of a country, do any of them matter?

No.

Some things simply are. For each man who measures a nation in terms of ideology, ten men measure a nation by the price of cigarettes.

- Excerpt from “A Goddess and an Idea”, written by Goddess Malam, of Hatred

A week had one hundred, sixty and eight hours. Even since Olonia had couped the government of Lubska, she felt as if she was working twice that amount of time and when she looked at her schedule, she didn’t even know how it was possible. Somehow, it was. Somehow, when she messaged Arascus for help that one time, the man had sent just enough administrators to help her keep up without making her redundant. That, she was actually fond of. If there was one thing she wouldn’t be able to stand it would be foreigner bureaucrats came in to manage her country because she wasn’t able to.

And the sweeping reforms all fell under the six month mandate she had declared in which she would fix the nation. Six months had been an awfully short time in the past, now, six months felt like all eternity. Olonia’s First Half-Year Plan, her name was part of the title, was almost entirely curated by Arascus. She could pretend that she had done something to try and give her input, but all that she had really done was just choose the order of which counties would be developed first. Now, the Goddess of Lubska walked around old country trails and fields through the mountains. In a thick coat, with a team of men behind her to attend the queries raised by passersby. Arascus had told her to go to the south because there would be earthquakes here, but other than that. But maybe she had arrived too early? She doubted Arascus was wrong but the quakes weren’t happening. It was a good chance to see how exactly the Empire had come to renovate her country.

And the Empire was efficient, Olonia couldn’t claim it wasn’t. Eastern Lubska had food problems still, the whole country lacked the technicians Arascus wanted, the military still needed supplies and everyone still needed a job. Lubska had been hit particularly hard by the Epan War. It didn’t have the imploding economy of Doschia because the economy, even previously, had relied on being a breadbasket for the continent.

It had been a long process although in hindsight, it was so predictable that Olonia kicked herself no one in her government had seen it. Three years ago the Doschian and the Rancais economies started to slow down, for what reasons, Olonia honestly did not know. The governments of those nations, which had been effectively subsidizing Lubskan agriculture suddenly stopped. And whereas their economies were slowing down, Lubska’s agriculture sector simply stopped. Without their largest customers, food prices crashed in Lubska so greatly that not a single farmer turned profit. Jozef’s government had stepped in. Then last year, they had decided that if a continent wasn’t buying, there wasn’t a reason to grow enough food to feed a continent.

And just like that, Lubska’s largest source of revenue, jobs and stability had shut down. It did not shrink or contract. That would imply something would have been left after the fact. It shut down and now Kirinyaa was stepping in with the fertile soil of the Ashlands. Maybe if the massive farms were still around, they would be able to try and compete with Kirinyaa. That was a losing battle though and everyone knew it. Initial soil samples from the Ashlands were so rich that fertilizer wouldn’t even be needed.

And it was up to Olonia to heal this illness. Jozef had been unable to do it. His attempt at bandaging the wound was to employ most of the country into the military. The man was now taking a break six feet under the ground so that effectively summed up how well his bandaging had worked.

But it wasn’t like that whatsoever, was it? Olonia smiled to herself as she walked down a winding road towards the mountains in the south of the country. A week had a hundred, sixty and eight hours and this week, she was hoping to work place half that amount at the most. Arascus had actually told her she was doing a good job, that now all they could do was sit and wait and see what came of the reforms. It was so horribly honest that Olonia couldn’t help but be amazed at the fact the man phrased it like that. In the past, she would have to push and argue before someone admitted that the only thing left in the equation was time. No, it wasn’t like that whatsoever. This wasn’t Lubska trying to resurrect itself from the dead, this was Lubska being resurrected by full might of the Empire. If its army was an undefeatable shield to beat back any foe, then its economy was a sledgehammer that smashed through every and any problem it came across.

There was plenty of finesse, Olonia knew there was. Just being the Empire was rich didn’t mean it threw endless money at the problem, but to pretend that it was some ingenious economic theory no one had ever heard of was also wrong. This was not a dagger stabbing in the dark and it wasn’t a bow about to make the shot of life time. It was the well-placed blow of a sledgehammer that would crush in one blow.

Olonia sighed as she looked at the mountains in the distance. Southern Lubska was the next place that the hammer was aimed at, and she had arrived here mid-blow. In these quaint mountain villages, with old tractors still ploughing fields that were only for local communities. But those tractors, old wrecks from a time before even the Epan Community, much less the Epan Coalition, the ground they ploughed on and the people themselves were the only things that were old.

The street Olonia wandered along, the Goddess’ entourage of a dozen men and two vans behind her, was perfectly smooth. It could have been one of Lubska’s highways and instead it was merely connected one village of fifty homes to another. And it was wide, enough space a pair of cars to comfortably pass each other by. Ditches for channelling rainwater from the nearby fields had been dug on either side. In the distance ahead them, a pair of small diggers were working on extending the ditch. Two miles behind, Olonia had passed by some huge tractor towing a machine that planted trees. These regions got heavy snows, the trees were so that that the locals knew were the road lay even when it was snowed over.

Olonia had to smile to at that, devilishly simple, she didn’t know why the whole country didn’t have that.

And as she entered the village and saw people wave and approach her, she also saw the Empire’s sledgehammer strike with all its might. A few adults came to give their greetings. Some were too scared to do much more than wave from a distance. This village didn’t even have a local mayor or figurehead; the village’s politics were run from a county office that was twenty miles away. But eventually, someone was brave enough to approach the Goddess.

A child, a young boy who ran up to Olonia. He stood in new clothes. This place had been under White Pantheon occupation during the Epan War and now the boy had clothes that looked as if they had just been sewn. Olonia smiled as she knelt down and pulled her snow white hair to the side. “Hello.” She made sure not to speak too loudly, the boy just barely reached to her knees.

“Hello.” The boy said awkwardly. “Are you the Goddess?” He honestly sounded doubtful.

“I think I am.” Olonia replied gently. It was almost funny as those green eyes scanned her with nothing but curiosity.

“You’re big.”

“I am.” Olonia said. “How old are you?” The boy stared at Olonia for a moment and shook his head.

“My dad said I shouldn’t tell how old I am to strangers.” Olonia wanted to burst out in laughter.

“That’s good.” She said and looked around. A few people were watching her. A few more were being quizzed by the men Olonia had brought with her. If there was one way to measure whether Arascus’ sledgehammer was good at demolishing her people’s problems, it was to ask them herself. “Could you show me around?” Olonia asked.

“Why do you want to see?” The boy asked. Olonia stared at the boy and shook her head. Was she really stuck on how to answer? She wanted to see because it was her people? Because she wanted to make sure everyone was fine? Because she trusted Arascus, but the highest form of trust was certainty and there was only one way to achieve to that.

“Can I not?” Olonia asked. She stood up and made a sad face.

The boy reacted to that how she wanted him to. “I’ll show you.” He said. “But!”

“But….?” Olonia trailed off.

“Beat me in a race.” Olonia stared at the little boy. Was she getting annoyed? She was. It wasn’t endearing. Maybe it would be to Agrita, definitely to Agrita, but Olonia was not Agrita. She would ask nicely but there was a limit to what people could say. At the end of the day, she was a Goddess. Her size alone was enough evidence of that.

“Can’t you just show me?” Olonia asked. Not only that, wasn’t it humiliating? How many people made demands to Olonia?

“To the post!” The boy said excitedly, pointing to a lamppost near a set of houses. It had to be new, the paint on it was so clean it could have been put up yesterday. Should she let the boy win? Olonia looked down at him again. Behind it stood an old house with a wooden fence that was falling down. Next to the building was a stack of new planks.

“If I beat you, then you’ll show me around?” Olonia asked.

“Mmh-hmm.”

“Count down then.”

“Three, two, one, go.” Olonia let the boy take off first, then beat him. It wasn’t a race. It wouldn’t be a race if he was an adult. At the end of the day, humans did not race Gods. Olonia got to the post before the boy crossed a third of the distance. He stared at her in awe and surprise. “You really are a Goddess!” His exclamation wasn’t endearing. It wasn’t even a compliment. Olonia simply felt bad that she took this so seriously in the first place.

“Can you show me around your village then? To see all the new things?” Olonia asked. And so the boy began his tour. He was eager and earnest, although he did stop looking up at Olonia after a few steps and instead just talked to the air before him. Frankly, Olonia couldn’t blame him for that, he practically had to bend his spine into a right-angle to look up at her. He led her around, showing all the new houses and explaining where all his friends lived. Eventually, he came to a stop before a construction site. It was just the foundations and one wall which had been built so far. A team of men were off in the distance as a huge truck with a crane was unloading a large crate. The site was fenced off only insofar that wooden sticks had been stuck into the ground and fixed with red string. There was a sign facing Olonia, a huge board that all the plans for what was being built. The boy gave his commentary. “This is the hospital.” The sign said: Clinic.

“Is it new?”

“There was the old doctor here but it was old.” The boy said. “You didn’t want to go in there. There was birds in the roof.” Well… Olonia looked at the pictures that were displayed. They weren’t building a hospital by any means, but it was going to be a full clinic. One image was of a vial of blood: Your new blood testing lab which returns results back on the same day!

“Oh wow.” Olonia said. “Birds in the roof?”

“Birds in the roof! You could here them when you went inside.” The boy began to walk again, apparently not excited by the prospect of a fully furnished clinic being built on the edge of his village. He pointed to a caravan close by. “The builders lent that to the doctor for the meantime.” Olonia raised an eyebrow. She had seen that style of trailer before during the war. And then she realised what she was looking at.

A sledgehammer. There was no other way to describe the Empire. This wasn’t some delicate dagger that found a marvellous way to give these people health, nor was it some bow that brought about a lucky method which just so happened to work for this area. This was the full might of the Empire, coming down, demolishing the old clinic, building a new one and even giving the doctor an auxiliary medic trailer from the military. Lubska would have never done this alone because Lubska simply did not have the strength or capabilities to.

“This is my school.” The boy came to stop before a building that did not look like a school whatsoever. Instead it was a small building, no larger than a barn. With two floors and a football pitch next to it. “This has been fixed already though. When the soldiers were coming through here, they camped in the school for one night.” And Olonia looked down at the boy once again. He said it so flatly that it seemed unreal.

“What was that like?” Olonia asked.

“That was fine.” The boy replied. “I didn’t have to go to school then.”

“Were you not scared?”

“Oh no.” The boy replied. “They just passed by.”

“And what did they do?”

“They camped in the school.” Olonia placed where this village was on the back. It had fallen early in the war, before Iliyal had even arrived to help out. So the fighting had just passed them by then. “But inside, it looks better. Last week there was a truck that came and I saw everyone take computers out.” He pointed to the football pitch. “And that is new too, it was just a field before and you had to watchout for the root.” He put his hand to his belt. “The grass was this tall. I wasn’t allowed to go there because everyone was scared I would get bit by a tick.”

And the boy continued the trek. Olonia needed to see it to believe frankly. In no world would she have ever believed that such a turnaround was possible and yet it was. This tiny village at the foot of the mountains, far away from any major cities, away from tourist destinations, away even from major transport routes had been forgotten. Olonia could not even blame the governors and administrators who had forgotten it, it was rightfully forgotten. Why send money and spend manhours here when both could be spent somewhere else? Even those who talked of inefficiency in cities and money being spent badly wouldn’t raise issue with forgetting this tiny village.

And yet the Empire remembered.

The Empire had come. Roads had been laid. A clinic with birds in the roof was now receiving a blood-testing lab. A school with one teacher and maybe two dozen students was stocked with computers. They had a football field.

If Olonia had any doubt in her mind that she shouldn’t have joined Arascus, this visit changed it. The boy led her and the boy explained. And then he suddenly changed topics. “And this.” The boy said flatly. “Is the earth shaking.” Olonia felt it the moment he said it. Shaking from below. There was no other way to describe it. She had felt artillery impact close to her during the war, this was akin to that except instead of localised, it was everywhere. And instead of being a single impact, it was constant and unending.

“Does that happen often?” Olonia asked.

“This is the earth shaking.” The boy repeated, looking down at his feet. He jumped back suddenly and held Olonia’s leg as if it was a tree trunk. “Miss, the earth is shaking!” He shouted. “Look! Look!” He was pointed around. That answered the question. If he had such a strong reaction, it had to be uncommon. “Look! Look! The mountain!” And in the same way that the boy grabbed onto her, Olonia suddenly wanted to grab onto someone else.

Olonia stood and stared at the mountain in the distance. A beautiful mountain, covered in a blanket of green grass with outcroppings of trees. A path was leading up to it, with cars speeding away. Birds too were escaping and trying to put distance between themselves and the rock. The peak, snow-capped even in late summer, moving and shaking, with several small avalanches already cascading downwards. “Let go of me.” Olonia ordered and put distance between herself and the boy. Of course Arascus had not sent her to sight-see. Of course there was something to do. A Divine was much too useful to waste by sending them on a break.

An eagle cried from above as Olonia called upon Bielik. He roared and appeared from behind a cloud, somehow his feathers but that white fluff to shame with how pure they were. In the past, she had thought this animal made her unstoppable in combat. Now, she was afraid to show him off in case the giant monster would get shot. Olonia felt the animal swoop down, she jumped at the exact right moment and landed on its back.

All thought that Arascus had sent her here to take a break was suddenly gone. Of course he wouldn’t, that wasn’t like the God whatsoever. It was the duty of every national Divine to lend their assistance whenever disaster struck their nation. That didn’t matter whether it was avalanche or landslide or flooding or war or disease.

Yet now, as Bielik waved his massive wings through the air, Olonia realised her jaw was open. That wasn’t a landslide.

The entire mountain was starting to collapse.