But as she looked at Vane, her eyes drifted to the memory of the starving pickpocket in the lower capital. She recalled the boy's ragged tunic, his desperate, flawed theft mechanics, and the sheer volume of structural poverty existing directly beneath her perfect, optimized city.
'If you are going to steal to survive the economic deficit, you must target the weakest link.'
"Request denied," Elara stated flatly.
The court erupted into panicked whispers. Vane turned pale. "B-but Regent! The transport lines! The merchants will refuse to move the grain!"
"The merchants are executing a predatory extortion tactic," Elara analyzed out loud, her voice ringing with absolute, clinical clarity. "They are utilizing the early frost as a localized threat to inflate their margins. The state will not inject a thirty percent subsidy. Instead, you will seize the transport wagons of the top three merchant guilds in the eastern sector under the Imperial Emergency Act."
