I Only Want to Enjoy Life But My Little Sister Want Me to be King

|3rd POV|

Varodos bit his fingernail in frustration as he read the letter in his hand. In his hand is a letter from one of the few merchants that work for him telling him about an army marching north. The letter tells him about the Solaris Army marching north, and they are about to besiege Myr.

He doesn't know what to do. He thought that declaring war against the Solaris Kingdom would be nothing but an easy war, but that was not the case.

Not only did their army get defeated, they got defeated soundly. All of the Sellswords are gone, and all the money they spend to hire them does not bring anything. Now, he and the rest of the magisters need to worry about the incoming army that will lay siege to their city.

He doesn't know what to do now. To hire more sellswords, they need a lot of it. Sadly, they already spend most of their money to hire that many sellswords. That is the reason why he called the other magistrates to discuss their situation.

He waits for a few minutes before all of the magisters arrive in the war room.

"As you can see, we are in trouble."

The other magisters have already received the same letter as him, and they know what Varodos means by that.

"We need to do something. Give me an idea."

"Just hire more sellswords. Why are you that worried? They only won because someone leaked our plan. Now, we don't need to worry about them knowing our plan. We also have a wall to protect us."

"That is some stupid way of thinking. Even if that is true, they have the ship's superiority and can attack from the sea."

"We have Tyrosh for that."

"Hah! As if they were willing to fight against them after their humiliating defeat. Their Archon runs away from battle while his fleet gets destroyed. They have two choices in this incoming war. They will stay in their city and let the Solaris Fleet sail through their territory undisturbed, or they will surrender when the incoming fleet comes to their city."

The other magisters frown at that news, and some of them even nod their head in agreement. As much as they don't want to admit it, what Varodos says is true. The chance of the people of Tyrosh refusing to join the war is high, especially when they are defeated in the first battle.

"How long can we last if they besiege the city?"

Varados looks at the magister who says that and says.

"At the moment? We can last for four months without any reduction in food consumption. However, if we ration the food, it can last for at least a full year. If we can still access some of the ocean, we can last for three years."

"What if we don't feed the slaves?"

"We can last for a year or two without rationing."

The one asking questions nods his head and is already planning for the worst.

"Then we need to buy more food to store."

"That is impossible. We need that money to hire sellswords because I know they will ask for a higher price after our defeat. What makes matters worse is that the biggest food supplier is our enemy. This is the reason why I reject the notion of attacking the Solaris Kingdom. We need to be self-sufficient before attacking the largest food supplier in Essos."

Varados shakes his head and says.

"What has already happened has happened. We cannot change the past and need to move on."

He doesn't want to discuss what has already happened and wants to move on. There is also the fact that he is one of the biggest supporters of that plan. Just like the others, he is blinded by greed and does not think for other scenarios.

He thinks they will win, and the notion of defeat never once appears in his mind.

"Bah. You are just saying that because you are one of the biggest supporters of that plan."

"If you don't have anything useful to say, please stay silent. We are discussing how to handle this situation."

The middle-aged man sneers and says.

"Fine. However, my previous statement holds true. We need more army than food. It is a shame that we cannot buy food at a lower price; we can still buy some from Westeros. It is at a higher price but cheaper than buying some from Pentos."

While Pentos still have slaves that they try to hide by masking them with different names, they have a close relationship with Braavos and never lower their price for anything when trading with them.

"In fact, we can inform the King of the Seven Kingdoms about the Solaris Kingdom attacking us. They hate them, no? We can hire them or at least get a discount when buying their food."

"That is true. At the very least, we can get them to fight against the fleet. However, we need to bribe them. We need more money than we have."

"Money that we don't have."

Varados nods his head and says.

"We can borrow some from Braavos."

"Why not borrow from our bank?"

"What? Are you stupid? Our bank does not use gold. There is a reason why our ancestors created that bank. We are running out of gold and want to swap the use of gold because we use them to pay for the sellswords, slaves, and food."

The first and second-generation magistrates of Myr wanted to change the currency so they could use the gold to buy slaves and hire sellswords in the past. However, because of the constant imports and lack of exports, they spend most of their gold while they don't have anything to compensate for all the gold they spend.

"Anyway, we need to ask the Iron Bank to lend us some money. As much as we hate to ask Bravoosi for money, we need them."

Varados looks around and says.

"I need one of you to lead a small flotilla to Braavos and ask for a loan. I think this should be enough."

He writes a number on a piece of paper and places it on the table.

"While we wait for the money to arrive, we need to prepare the defense against the Solaris Army."