Abuse of Magic

Chapter 182: Revised Laws

"Alright dad, you have a report for me?" asked Joseph, walking into his father's office.

William held up a finger as he finished writing something, then set his pen down and turned to him.

"The owner of a herd of sheep has requested payment for thirty-two lambs, that he claims a dragon ate."

Joseph laughed. "That must be from the dragon that came to take me back to his Mother if Dragons."

"I figured, but I wanted to make sure it was alright to pay him, since you are the reason the dragon hasn't left yet"

"No, that's fine. Anything else?"

"I have several things. I have news from the mages. They have made several breakthroughs in attempting to make such magical metals as mithril and adamantine, by using RUIN on normal metals such as aluminum and titanium, after they've been enchanted into mithril and adamantine."

"Ah, great! Those two are easy to make when you use EARTH TO STONE and STONE TO METAL."

"Their report says that the aluminum becomes mithril when enchanted, but acts like orichalcum until they use RUIN, then they can enchant it further. The titanium becomes adamantine. The aging effect of RUIN seems to stabilize them."

"I wonder how the dwarves will take this news? Those are very precious to them."

"Our dwarven diplomat seems to think that they will be very disturbed, and cautioned us to tell the king only after we could form a stable gate between the realms for trade."

"Fair enough," nodded Joseph. "Focus will need to be made to create PURIFY METAL and ISOLATE. This will allow us to control the formulas in various alloys of metals, as well as stones."

"All twelve districts of your current kingdom, now have paved roads, using the best formula we have found for durability so far. The sewers are finished in eleven of the twelve districts. There are bath houses set up in every district center, and most of the sub-districts have finished construction as well. LIFE tools have been provided to the public in every neighborhood. All told, a lot of work has been completed in a very short time."

Joseph smiled as his dad shook his head, glancing through the next couple of pages of notes.

"Make sure my regards go out to everyone who helped and their spouses for such sacrifice to the kingdom," said Joseph, thinking about how hard everyone had been working. With the Wizar template, overworking was going to be something he would have to keep a close eye on.

"I want every Wizar who worked over 90 hours, and every non-Wizar who worked over 60 hours, in the past week, to get three days off, to rest," added Joseph.

William nodded, marking it down on his list, then turned to the next page. "All of the schools, government offices, clinics, and parks should be finished by next month, and then we have harvest, which will take a lot of hands."

"Great," acknowledged Joseph as he moved over to the spare chair his dad kept in his office. Throwing himself into it, he gazed up at the ceiling.

"The laws are the next thing," said William grimacing.

"Ah, well, I have news on that! Have you started getting anything back on the requested laws from the people yet?"

"Not really. It's only been a day or two"

"Fair enough," said Joseph, waving his hand at that, then continuing. "I think I'm going to have Justice Spots put into place throughout the kingdom, utilizing the LAW rune to determine guilt for the most part. Because everyone has such a high acceptance with following the law, I think they will take care of most of the problems that can arise among my people.

"Because there are so many different types of people in the kingdom, it will probably take decades to work out all of the problems. I imagine we have managed to deal with all of the immediate and urgent cases by this point, and I'm sure there will be more as people settle. I am going to revise the current laws majorly, once I return from the Mother of Dragons. I'm thinking there will be three main laws."

"Only three?" squeaked William.

"Yes, three main laws. There will be a handful of lesser laws, but three should cover most every problem that arises with our template."

"The template is pretty strict when it comes to following the law," conceded William.

"I'm going to need you, Theodore, the prime minister who came with the prince, and Walter, from the north, along with Ormir, the previous beast-kin king, to oversee the influx of new law requests while I'm gone. I'll go over them when I return. It's a good thing that their lives were utter shavist before they came here. They can see that we're trying, and are more forgiving of our inexperience."

"That's good?" asked William, looking at him curiously.

"Dad, I have so many different laws in my head, that I'm struggling to make some good basic laws. If I wasn't so busy running around keeping the world from being destroyed, I could focus on them more, and do a better job."

"Can you at least tell me what those three laws you have in mind, are?"

"Alright. The main statement for our kingdom, will be: Every member of the Wizar race is a citizen of the kingdom and every citizen of the Kingdom of Wizar is considered a Wizardian citizen, or Wizard, regardless of legal status, i.e. slavery. The main core laws will be:

1) A Wizard may not harm the kingdom, or through inaction, allow the kingdom to come to harm.

2) A Wizard must protect the existence of Wizards if such action does not conflict with the First Law.

3) A Wizard may not harm a Wizard, or through inaction, allow a Wizard to come to harm, if such action does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

"These laws will apply to allied countries and their citizens, at a lower priority than to Wizards. And they don't apply to non-allied countries."

"That works," said William, thoughtfully. "That allows the execution of criminals as harmful to the kingdom, but also demands the Wizar sacrifice themselves if a threat to the kingdom appears. This also applies to you?"

"Yes. It also means that payment of taxes is for the good of the kingdom, so Nidhogg should be happy."

William laughed and shook his head. "That also takes care of suicide and murder; forces people to look out for each other, yet allows people to sacrifice themselves for the better good of someone else. We can get rid of all of the laws that everyone has been complaining about."

"Yep, and it defines feeding the people who refuse to work, as harmful to the kingdom, and the problem disappears. This should prevent assault of all kinds, and winning in a fair competition of business, law, etc. will not be considered harming someone. This will also allow for us to add some lesser laws, that apply to those who have social norms different to others, without causing too much trouble.

"I want the age of adulthood to be decided by the base race, but make it a quarter of that race, because of the Wizar template accelerating the growth by four."

William nodded and took down the notes. Joseph knew he had perfect memory, just like him, but he didn't have the magic to copy notes without writing them, in order to pass them on to the council.

"Are you leaving now, then?"

"Yes, before too many more lambs are eaten," chuckled Joseph, climbing out of the chair and heading for the door.

"Finally!" grumbled Stella.