Empire of the Ring

With Princess Isabella gone, there were no official events in the Arirang Autonomous State anymore. As Youngho was trying to sign a stockpile of documents that were waiting for his approval, he felt Suh Min-seok's glance.

"Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Oh, no. I just…"

"What? Are you having problems with journalists?"

"It's not that. I just heard some stories about you from the technicians that had been abducted in Kyrgyzstan recently."

"There's nothing to be curious about. I was just lucky that I was able to save them."

"Is it true that you knocked down nine IS warriors?"

"Warriors? They're just lunatics. What about it?"

"There's a rumor that you and Mr. Park took all of them down without other people's help."

Although Youngho and Jong-il used to be in Navy Special Forces, Suh Min-seok thought it was a ridiculous rumor. Youngho was not happy about that but he did not want to make a big deal out of it.

"Did the journalists found out about this by any chance?"

"No way. The technicians know that this cannot be exposed since we don't want to attract the IS to the autonomous state."

"What if Mr. Park and I have really rescued them on our own?"

"What?"

"Do you think that I can't take those crazy people down by myself?"

"Well, that's not what I meant but we are not living in the medieval times now. How could you have possible knocked down nine men with guns? Also, this kind of an absurd rumor could be seen as the state was trying to spread legendary stories about you before the coronation."

"Well, if you said that to Mr. Park, you'd have to face a ten-kilometer run in full armor."

"So you two really rescued the technicians of the road survey team."

"I said we got lucky. They were all drunk and asleep. We didn't have to do anything."

"Whoa! I didn't think that there was Superman, but you two are like him."

"For the second time, they were drunk."

Youngho made excuses but Suh Min-seok did not seem to care.

He quickly scanned Youngho's body and thought that it was weird that Youngho did not seem to be so bulky. He was actually pretty lean. He did not look too strong either. After scanning different parts of his body thoroughly, respect in his eyes had gone away soon.

He now truly believed that each IS member was fully drunk and Youngho and Jong-il did not have to do anything.

'Oh, this dude. I can already see what he must be thinking.'

However, this was way better than having to explain everything about the rescue.

"Mr. CEO, some journalists are still here after the official interviews."

"Well, they must be the ones who'd want to negotiate with us after taking pictures that could provoke controversies."

As Youngho guessed, Suh Min-seok was startled.

"Whoa, how did you know that?"

"It's so predictable. Freelance journalists without representative companies will try to negotiate with us since their hotel room cost is increasing as they stay here. You can ignore the ones who ask for too much and sort out some sensible ones. Tell them that we are willing to offer stories about the development process of the autonomous state so that they could make articles about it."

As there were not much to figure out from the autonomous state, most of the journalists that had crowded into the autonomous state left to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Only some were left to get stories about the private life of the Archduchess' family.

However, Fatima and Zeynep were too nice that there were no gossip-worthy stories. The two girls visited residents' houses when new babies were born, spent their days with women at the carpet factory, and took kids to playgrounds. There were not much to cover but some journalists who took photos of them when the Archduchess and her sister made a mistake, they wanted to make money to sell it to Youngho to make up for their travel expenses.

Although Youngho did not have to, since the journalists were also guests of the state, he decided to give them something to write about. It was to help make Fatima famous.

Not digging into private matters too far, Youngho was going to make great stories about the Serbian Kingdom's rise and fall. On top of that, if he could slip in some stories about how the Kazakh government had been helpful in rebuilding the Serbian Kingdom, the old president would be immensely thankful for him.

***

Journalists wanted to know everything about the Archduchess, and now Rena was also at the center of their attention. Although Youngho tried hard to hide her, everyone was interested in the child that lived with the Archduchess. Since she called Youngho 'papa' in front of the public, journalists got more curious about her. Moreover, Youngho's secretaries; the follower couple was often spotted playing with her. Rena was naturally photographed by many journalists and they had now found out that she was an adopted daughter of Youngho.

"Suh Min-seok, you said that Rena wouldn't be exposed."

"The kids played around the state all the time and we could not help it. That's why I told them she was an adopted daughter just like Jelyan."

"Oh no. If Katya found out about this, she'd be upset. Her mother is alive and well. Adoption is nonsense."

Youngho worried that Katya might find out about this later, but there was nothing he could do now.

Rena was bold enough to pose for journalists and paparazzi when they asked for her a picture. She felt special to be treated like a little princess.

Surprisingly, no one had made any problem with her just like Jelyan. If it was a boy, people would have made trouble about who was going to be the successor of the Archduchess. Serbian residents were happy that Leon, their future Archduke, had more family members around to grow together with.

Regardless of what was happening outside, Rena was careless. She fell in love with the new life she had now and seemed to have forgotten about South Ossetia. As soon as she woke up each morning, she went to play with Leon and Jelyan. Every day was full of fun. Moreover, Youngho played with her whenever he had time, and it seemed to have made up for her past where she was never loved by a fatherly figure.

"Rena, don't you want to go back to Tskhinvali?"

"Papa, I like this place but I still missed my mom and grandma. So I video called them yesterday."

Because she could talk to her mom and grandmother every day through the Internet, she did not seem to have too much problem with it. Moreover, she was surrounded by many friends and families that cared about her. A day was short when she played all day long with them.

"Is that so? I was going to get you to your mom if you miss her."

"I'm going to live here. I'll go home for breaks."

"But when the break is over, Jelyan and Leon have to go back to Baku."

"I told Jelyan that I'm coming with her."

This was new to Youngho.

It seemed that the kids had made such a big decision on their own. It was funny but not a bad idea. Tskhinvali did not have great education whereas Baku had an international school. It would be helpful for Rena's future. The only problem was what Katya and her mother would think if they heard about this.

***

As the press covered the story about a Danish princess and the prince of the Arirang Autonomous State, the Danish royal family had to admit that they were an official couple. Since it did not want to hurt its state, it kindly described the details about the old Serbian Kingdom and how wealthy was the autonomous state. The family did not want to hear that the princess was marrying into a random family.

Naturally, people's attention was directed to Youngho. He was known as a wealthy businessman that raised the fallen Archduke's family.

Now that the veil was lifted, the Arirang Autonomous State had to make an official stance. Most of it was filled with an expression of appreciation to the Kazakh government. Since it did not cost any money, Youngho thought that it was a good idea to impress the Kazakh government.

"Didn't you give too much credit to the Kazakh government?"

"Well, it didn't cost us anything. We still belong to Kazakhstan, remember?"

"The president must be happy to have improved his image."

As Jong-il said, President Nazarbayev's image to the global community was improved so far.

He had been criticized by the western world because he had been maintaining his presidency for the past 20 years. However, the president was also well-known as a president who had not persecuted a single ethnic group when he was the president of a country that consisted about 120 ethnic minority groups.

His deed made him the generous president who had only been seizing his power to develop Kazakhstan's economy. With the autonomous state's official stance about the Kazakh government, he was now recognized as a generous and bold president who had given land to Serbian immigrants who were gathered to re-establish their old kingdom.

It seemed that Youngho would receive a call from the presidential palace.

He might be appreciated for what he did or asked to help the government to have a summit meeting with the Danish government.

If the Kazakh government wanted to visit other European countries in order to improve its image, Youngho wanted to help it, even by receiving help from the CIA or the Danish royal family. Western European countries would not refuse his visit since he was the head of a country with unlimited oil crude and underground resources. A country with such amount of resources could be helpful for any entity. Otherwise, the Kazakh government might be getting love calls from western countries from now on due to its improved image.

"It was indeed clever of me for informing the press about the princess' visit to the presidential palace."

"Are you complimenting yourself?"

"I should reward Smith too. His role was pretty big in this."

"Hahaha… I thought he was such a cluts, but even he can be of use."

"He bragged that he's now being treated so highly by the journalists who were given the exclusive information."

"Hey, by the way, Korean broadcasting companies requested to interview you. Are you going to meet them?"

"No, why would I do that? I looked at Korean online articles yesterday and they had made so many speculative articles while plagiarizing foreign articles about our state. I'm just really disappointed in them."

"But don't you think that it'll be helpful for Korean people to know that Koryoins were doing well in Central Asia?"

"You are just so naïve. Don't you remember the time when the OPEC provided information about the decrease in oil crude to the Korean government? I can deal with Korean business people but I don't want to deal with the Korean press, officials, or politicians ever."

"Wouldn't the press be different?"

"I think they're all the same. It's better not to deal with them. They won't help us but only cause troubles for us."

It was obvious that letting Korean broadcasting companies cover the story about the autonomous state would only damage the reputation of the state. All sorts of people with ill intent would come to the state when they found out that the Arirang Autonomous State was a good place to live, and he did not want to deal with that. When Koreans were gathered, they were busy to divide groups. He was afraid that this would spoil the innocent residents of the state.

"Also, make sure to keep the foreign business people and technicians that were staying at the state now to be quiet. Tell them that I will chase them away as soon as they provide any story about the autonomous state to the press."