After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

As the world's goddess, Gaia knows best what sacrifices the chosen one must make to accomplish the task.

Not all "chosen ones" are outsiders. Rather, outsiders like Margarita are a minority.

As the world's goddess, Gaia has created countless chosen ones to fight against the attacks of demons.

These exceptional individuals certainly possess foresight and ability that transcends their time, and they can indeed elevate the strength of the entire region to a new level... but this comes at a price.

...

During the time of Guberian, Gaia used the divine power of some deceased gods as a consumable to forcibly create a chosen one, and then could only watch helplessly as he sank the entire country underground and perished together with the demon.

In the ancient continent of Orros, in order to create a chosen one, Gaia had to lower the level of the local source of magic by one level—although the original plan was not to make the continent of Orros so impoverished, who could have imagined that the saintess would choose to burn everything with fire?

Dealing with the Sirens is relatively easy... however, the vast majority of land-dwelling Sirens have already been introduced, and the remaining amphibious Sirens have become Isgardians...

There were no chosen ones in the Kingdom of Eden. After all, in a sense, the Kingdom of Eden was the place where the gods invested the most—but who could have imagined that they would fail as well?

After a crushing defeat, Gaia was forced to place her hopes on a new "Chosen One" and one of the "variables"...

Margarita is one of her creations—although Gaia used the remaining magic power from the sunken Arlandis when creating Margarita, at the last moment, Margarita's appearance still caused the already scarce magic power of Ysgard to drop another level.

On the continent of Elusia, Benjamin Roman was originally Gaia's most confident creation.

but...

Ugh.

"I never expected this to happen... Or rather, who could have imagined that such chaos would occur in the place with the most abundant resources and the largest population?! I even sent that [variable] there precisely to make the base there better..."

"So, you nagging old hag, don't you dare take this opportunity to poop on my bed! No, wait, why are you possessing a bird?!"

Gaia never imagined that such a terrible thing would happen on the continent on which so many hopes were placed...

It's bad enough that the chosen one died at the hands of their own race, but even the "variant" almost died there...

If Gaia had a chance before she fell asleep, she would absolutely, positively not have left Yang Hao there... But speaking of Yang Hao...

Yang Hao was the best "variable" she chose and nurtured.

He wasn't chosen by fate; he was born to be a minister, yet he became a monarch...

In order to enable him to better assist in his work, Gaia initially chose to pair him with Margarita... after all, their compatibility was, in some ways, even stronger than that of the best lovers.

To use Gaia's analogy, if they were to actually sleep together one day, it would be to the point where both of them would ascend to heaven the moment they entered—Margarita is extremely adept at political thinking, so naturally, what she needs, given her relative lack of national development planning ability, is a supporter focused on development.

Yang Hao plays just such a role.

After all, that was agreed upon during the "transaction"—so in order to help Yang Hao better adapt to your role, Gaia specifically enhanced his rational thinking ability while slightly reducing his empathy...

After all, with the protection of a political strongman and the ability to produce tangible results, his worst fate wouldn't be too bad, right?

Even if it were on another continent, Benjamin was a politically astute and powerful figure. If Benjamin protected Yang Hao, Yang Hao could bring the continent of Elusia under the rule of a single nation, naturally allowing him to exert greater strength in the face of the impending demonic calamity...

But... who could have imagined it?

Gaia leaks right there.

She never imagined that Benjamin would die at the hands of his own people.

Yang Hao, who lacks empathy, will be persecuted because of his hard work.

A team that could achieve 1+1=10 through close cooperation can collapse due to the absence of one of its members.

...It would have been better to be born in Ysgard with Margarita according to the original plan—if it weren't for the emergence of a united nation in the despair of the continent of Elusia, Gaia would probably be filled with regret already...

Ugh.

Fortunately, the final result was not bad.

Gaia, who had transformed into a crow, was grabbed by the wings and thrown out of the window by Margarita.

As she flew into the sky, she gave Margarita a piece of advice:

"Consider it something I owe you—that ring, you'll need it when you're with him in the future. Besides, you're both from the same hometown, so let's talk about things related to our hometown."

Gaia disappeared.

Time began to flow again.

Margarita sat on the bed, looking at the bed covered in bird feathers and sighed heavily.

Chapter 10: [The Demon in Metal Armor] - 8K

...December 28th to December 31st.

Yang Hao and Margarita's work is progressing smoothly.

After completely shedding their burdens and no longer holding back, they exerted more than 120% of their strength in their respective areas of expertise and successfully achieved the results they desired.

By making promises for the upcoming New Year, Margarita successfully stabilized public sentiment and also used the promise of "free food and lodging during holidays" to successfully relocate residents from the surrounding forest area.

Although some people were still worried about whether their livestock or property would be stolen, after seeing that the Nationalist army in Issugard chose to conduct drills on the spot and promised to provide compensation, even the most worried people chose to relax instead of grabbing the soldiers by the collar and asking them one question after another.

Even those unregistered individuals received proper treatment—Margarita couldn't save all the unregistered individuals, but at least she could save those she could find.

In this way, most of the residents around the mine and forest were relocated.

Yang Hao's reconnaissance and encirclement plan has once again yielded new results.

First, there were the results in reconnaissance—although the magical machines couldn't go very far underground, under the control of Elena and the magical puppets, they still managed to find passages throughout the forest where demonic activity was evident.

The demons seem to understand the principle of "a rabbit doesn't eat the grass near its burrow" or "a cunning rabbit has three burrows"... They don't always come out of the same hole to hunt, but rather change their hunting grounds and entry and exit routes from time to time.

To make the hidden pits look more plausible, they would even deliberately plant fast-growing plants at the entrances and exits of the pits... This is perhaps knowledge they learned from the captured humans.

"Previously, I learned trap setting and concealment techniques from hunters; this time, I learned planting techniques from herbalists or farmers, and even animal husbandry from herders..."

"No, are there really that many skilled people among the unregistered residents? If you ask me, hunters are one thing, but herbalists, farmers, and ranchers... how could these three professions possibly become unregistered residents in the countryside? Even if they committed crimes, they should be wanted criminals, not nameless unregistered residents! What's going on here?"

Yang Hao was completely baffled by this. Faced with Yang Hao's question, Nia simply shrugged while drinking her New Year's beer.

“There are quite a few people in Isgard who know this kind of knowledge—it’s knowledge that’s in textbooks, and even undocumented people can find ways to access it.”

"No way, how can someone with technical skills become an unregistered resident?"

"That's unavoidable. After all, many people live outside the law—even in the city, there are plenty of capitalists who commit numerous crimes in the name of freedom, not to mention the countryside and suburbs..."

At this point, Nia paused for a moment, glancing several times at the location of Lalumia and the others as if wary of an enemy approaching. Then, she deliberately moved a few steps closer to the table where Yang Hao was lying:

"Well, Mr. Yang Hao, you should know this, right? Although this part of our country is a continent, overall, it only has one slightly raised mountain range..."

This means that if a famine occurs in any year, the disaster will sweep across the entire agricultural region without any hindrance, completely destroying our agricultural area.

The birth of "unregistered residents" is also closely related to disasters—after all, in times when people could starve to death... it was normal for people in impoverished areas to abandon or kill newborns they could not raise.

However, some abandoned newborns will always survive for various reasons, but... Your Majesty Yang Hao. Due to the imperfections in our country's population classification policy, coupled with the reality of insufficient officials... our country is unable to verify the true identities of those surviving children one by one, and naturally, we cannot register their household registrations.

Especially considering that some people simply refuse to trust our official institutions, preferring to remain savages in the forest rather than return to civilized society...

The emergence of unregistered individuals was thus inevitable.

The "unregistered" in Ysgard are a special group that only grows in large numbers during times of famine.

On the one hand, they are not counted in the population of Isgard—because the official population of Isgard must be registered, and their names cannot be found in the population register at all.

On the other hand, those who are not from Isgard but live on its land also have the opportunity to learn all sorts of knowledge... Even if they are illiterate, through observation and learning, they can still master many essential survival skills.

Considering the special nature of "unregistered residents"... they generally prefer to live in groups in the forest, naturally becoming objects of study and feeding for the demon mother's nest.

It just goes to show how different the national conditions are in different places. Yang Hao sighed. These undocumented immigrants with unique survival skills have now become the targets of the demons' learning. To prevent the demons from continuing to learn from them, a way must be found to rescue them from the underground farms...

However, this is quite difficult.

Based on the reconnaissance conducted over this period, the underground passages of the Demon Mother's Nest are interconnected, and considering its depth, it has become a complete underground kingdom.

Yang Hao still doesn't know how many undocumented immigrants have been abducted and taken underground, let alone the impact their rescue would have on Isgard...

Ugh.

Thankfully, Margarita has already forcibly taken away any undocumented immigrants she could.

Otherwise, if we let them continue to stay in the forest, it will only cause more trouble.

Yang Hao sighed heavily, and just then, Elena came skipping over. Taking advantage of his unpreparedness, she stuck out her tongue at the bewildered Black Dragon. This increasingly mischievous girl then brought Yang Hao the latest news.

They have completely locked down all the upward passages from the Demon Mother's Nest. Furthermore, the equipment Yang Hao requested to be manufactured yesterday has been completed and is ready for immediate use.

Furthermore, the magical dolls have also prepared new equipment specifically for the underground environment... These new bodies, which are shorter and integrate weapons and tools inside, will definitely bring demons an exhilarating experience.

But to be honest... all of this was just a prelude.

The real issue remains Nia's situation.

"...How is Kino and the others' exploration progressing?"

"It's finished. Although we don't yet fully understand the overall structure of those tunnels, we've confirmed that those passages all lead to the original location of the Demon Mother's Nest... But then again, the Demon Mother's Nest is so huge, it shouldn't be possible to move it, right?"

Nia handed a piece of intelligence from her small bag to Yang Hao. After studying it briefly, Yang Hao nodded and said, "They need to prepare for the worst."

Nia was unable to participate in the Roman Demon Realm incident due to her own special circumstances. Therefore, Nia certainly couldn't comprehend the extent of the demons' madness...

Yang Hao deeply understood: a master of the Demon Realm would actually risk his life to try and exchange one life for another for the future of his race... Under such circumstances, it would be reasonable for the Demon Mother Nest to forcibly cut its body into a size suitable for movement, right?

...Although it feels as absurd as a patient lying in a hospital bed voluntarily amputating their own limb in order to be transferred to another ward as soon as possible, such an absurd thing is actually normal for a species like demons that prioritize the collective.

We need to be prepared—Yang Hao took a sip of wine, waved to Fen and the others who were busy in the distance, and then they were about to confirm the battle plan.

In the distance, New Year's fireworks soared high into the sky in Isjugard. Even though it wasn't midnight yet, the people of Isjugard chose to celebrate early. Or perhaps, this was a deliberate act of manipulation.

"As expected of Miss Margarita."

Watching the demon's larvae retreat back into the tunnel because of the sudden fireworks, Yang Hao subconsciously praised them a few times, and then assigned tasks to everyone amidst the fireworks.

The most important objective of this raid on the Demon Mother's Nest is to locate and seal it off, while the secondary objective is to rescue the "illegal immigrants".

The key to the mission is to contain the demon.

Yang Hao couldn't let a single demon escape these underground tunnels. But sealing off such a complex network thousands of meters deep in one go was indeed too much to ask.

So Yang Hao's plan is...

Poisoning.

The literal meaning.

After sealing off all possible passages, he ordered his soldiers to simultaneously flood all the entrances and exits with high concentrations of poison gas—and this "poison gas" was no ordinary poison. After all, demons had undoubtedly evolved resistance to conventional poison gas after a long and bloody war, so the "poison gas" Yang Hao planned to use this time was, in a sense, the divine power of Lalumia.