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ArabicArknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 44
Chapter 44: Dancing on Three Eggs
“Madam Nasti. A pleasure.”
Ernst gripped the outstretched hand of the cold-faced Sarkaz woman. Despite the biting chill in the air, his mood bordered on the triumphant.
Bringing this idea to fruition had been an uphill battle ever since Cliff first proposed it. The path to establishing formal contact with Rhine Lab was anything but smooth. Whether looking back at the history of his old world or examining the current state of Terra, massive corporate conglomerates operated by their own rules. When an enterprise swelled to a certain critical mass, the governing bodies of smaller nations simply lacked the use to contain them.
In the worst-case scenarios, those governments became entirely compromised, reduced to mere puppets dancing on corporate strings.
Ernst remembered the glaring examples from Earth—the East India Company swallowing entire subcontinents during the British Empire’s zenith, or the United Fruit Company treating Central America as its personal playground. Here on Terra, one only had to look at the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce to see a nation entirely devoured by its own commercial sector.
He had deliberately avoided using sheer governmental authority to grant special favors to his brother Enciodes’s Karlan Trade. Instead, Ernst engaged in a slow, agonizingly persistent campaign to reclaim profit margins from the various local industries Karlan Trade had monopolized. It was a necessary friction, engineered entirely to prevent Kjerag from suffering that exact corporate subjugation.
Establishing the Engineering Department, placing his trusted confidante Aurora at its helm, and actively courting foreign experts to overhaul Kjerag’s archaic infrastructure were all calculated strikes under this guiding philosophy.
Yet, preventing a domestic capitalist from suffocating the state was only half the battle. You could not simply invite a vastly superior, entirely uncontrollable foreign leviathan into your home just to balance the scales against a local threat. If the local faction seized power, the rot at least remained contained within the family pot. If the foreign power took root, a single misstep would see the entire nation carved up and sold for parts.
Because of this, Ernst had maintained a heavy veil of suspicion regarding any deep cooperation with Trimounts’ elite research firms.
It was Ho’olheyak who ultimately dismantled that hesitation.
Beyond her habit of casually teasing her employer, the newly appointed secretary possessed a razor-sharp political acumen. Recognizing Ernst’s deep-seated paranoia about foreign capital, she had cornered him with a ruthlessly succinct breakdown of their reality.
‘Boss, your caution is entirely justified, and your foresight is rare,’she had murmured, her tone devoid of its usual playful lilt.’But I must ask you to look at the board. If Kjerag refuses to use external power, can it truly elevate itself? Or rather, can it ever reach that utopian standard you envision by relying solely on its own frozen soil?’
Ernst had found no answer to give her.
Ho’olheyak had stripped away the rhetoric to expose a bleeding truth. Kjerag was a tiny, impoverished nation burdened by isolationist traditions and stagnant technology. Placed against the sprawling, hyper-industrialized wilderness of Terra, their only genuine assets were the rugged resilience of their people and the silent watch of Kjeragandr.
But this was a man-eating world. The international theater operated on the law of the jungle, and it made no exceptions for good intentions. In the eyes of the superpowers, simplicity was just another word for ignorance, and resilience merely meant you could endure being bled a little longer.
When foreign warships shattered the ancient isolation of the East on Earth, the invaders cared nothing for millennia of refined philosophy, benevolence, or humility. Artillery shells did not respect poetry.
Kjeragandr was a true deity, yes. But a god could not shield Kjerag from the march of progress forever. Ernst knew the histories of this world. A thousand years ago, the Emperor of the great Yan had mobilized the absolute might of his empire to slaughter or banish every deity that refused to bow to the imperial decree. Now, with the modern era birthing terrifying new war machines by the decade, how many salvos of originium artillery could Kjeragandr’s divine snows actually withstand?
It all looped back to a brutal, timeless maxim: fall behind, and you will be beaten.
To the empires of Terra, they were a hammer, and Kjerag was a rusty nail. The only reason the blow hadn’t landed yet was a matter of scheduling. If the nation did not harden its shell, the iron fist would eventually crush them into the permafrost. But if the nail became forged steel, the hammer would shatter upon impact.
Ernst had spent his previous life in a sprawling, stable superpower. That lingering comfort had temporarily blinded him to the sheer fragility of his current existence.
The fate of a small country was a perpetual wager at a rigged table. Winning a hand didn’t guarantee a seat among the elite, but losing even once meant total annihilation.
‘It’s like dancing on three eggs.’
He exhaled a quiet breath, watching the frost plume in the air.
Enciodes, born and bred in this harsh reality, had internalized that truth long before Ernst arrived. It was the exact reason Victoria loomed so heavily in Karlan Trade’s expansion. Establishing a secondary headquarters in the County of Ascalon and spending more time breathing Victorian smog than Kjerag’s crisp air was Enciodes’s way of securing a hammer of his own.
If Ernst continued to drag his feet, relying on Kjerag’s pitiful domestic output and Kjeragandr’s divine favor to check his brother, his total political defeat was a mathematical certainty. Enciodes, backed by Victorian industry, could actually deliver tangible miracles to the people. He could build the roads, feed the hungry, and drag the society forward. Ernst could offer beautiful speeches, but empty rhetoric could not forge steel or heat homes.
To win this shadow war against his brother—and to keep Kjerag’s destiny firmly in his own grip—it was time to burn his illusions and play a much more dangerous game.
Kazimierz was drowning in its own toxic war between the old nobility and the corporate new blood. Victoria had already crowned Enciodes as its chosen proxy. Columbia, therefore, stood as the only rational counterweight.
More specifically, Rhine Lab. A seemingly straightforward technological powerhouse that, thus far, had shown Ernst no overt political fangs. He could maintain the initiative here.
Standing against the biting winds of Trimounts, Ernst tightened his grip on Nasti’s gloved hand. He met her eyes with absolute sincerity.
“Thank you for accepting our invitation. Kjerag welcomes you as a true friend.”
Nasti studied the handsome young Prime Minister, a flicker of genuine confusion breaking her stoic facade. She pursed her lips and slowly withdrew her hand. “You show an awful lot of enthusiasm toward a Sarkaz.”
“Are you ashamed of your bloodline?” Ernst asked, his tone perfectly level.
Nasti narrowed her eyes. “Of course not.”
A faint, easy smile touched Ernst’s lips. “Then Kjerag will naturally find no reason to discriminate against its friends.”
Nasti paused. The biting wind whipped at her coat, but she suddenly found herself intrigued by the prospect of this grueling, isolated contract.
God helps those who help themselves.
Catching the quiet ambition radiating from the young man, she evaluated him anew. At the very least, this Prime Minister was far from boring.
“Yes, this is the Kjerag Government Office.”
Inside the cramped, low-rise flat currently serving as the administrative heart of the nation, Monch pressed the receiver to her ear.
Due to a catastrophic lack of actual personnel, she had been heavily recommended by Sciurus Browntail to serve as the temporary head of operations while Ernst was off touring the continent and swindling foreign investors. Because she had previously done Ernst the favor of pointing out the location of Kjerag’s master ledger, he had signed off on the absurd arrangement without a second thought.
Monch was absolutely not one of Sciurus’s loyalists, but in the grand scheme of things, it hardly mattered. The government was a hollowed-out shell. The office was so barren that even the local rodents had packed up and left to avoid starvation. With literally zero other candidates available, the daily tidal wave of local petitioners fell squarely onto Monch’s shoulders.
She stared at the ceiling, utterly exasperated by the web she was caught in. What exactly was her job title at this point? Gnosis had planted her to spy on Sciurus. Sciurus had then outsourced her to fill in for Ernst.
Was this espionage, or just layered corporate outsourcing?
‘I am a covert operative!’she screamed internally, rubbing her temples.’And I am definitely not getting double pay for this!’
Releasing a heavy sigh, Monch pulled a stack of requisition forms closer. She couldn’t really blame anyone but herself. One of her superiors was a cold, calculating fanatic who viewed human emotion as a rounding error, and the other was hopelessly love-struck and listened to far too much gossip.
“This is Karlan Trade. I am Enciodes.”
The deep, magnetic voice cutting through the receiver instantly froze the complaints in Monch’s throat. The tone was measured, heavy with an unspoken authority.
The boss’s boss was calling the front desk?
Monch bolted upright, nearly tipping her reclining chair backward. She cleared her throat, forcing her voice into a crisp, professional register. “Sir? Mr. Ernst is currently out of the office.”
“I am aware. The official correspondence for him is already in transit,” Enciodes replied, his pacing slow and deliberate. “I am speaking directly to you, as the current acting head of the Kjerag Government.”
Monch swallowed hard. “Understood. How can I assist you, sir?”
“The matter concerns an upcoming diplomatic arrival,” Enciodes stated. “Prepare the necessary protocols. The husband and daughter of Victoria’s Duke of Windermere will be arriving in Kjerag to attend the Turicum train ribbon-cutting ceremony.”