I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Mitia stood on the platform and, through the densely arranged loudspeakers and a magical mirroring spell, announced to all the people of the realm that ‘Seris National Socialist Federation’ had been officially established.

Different subjects in the various domains listened to the Empress’s proclamation through the loudspeakers, watched the simple coronation ceremony that had just ended,

and then looked at the red banner on the flagpole beside them fluttering in the wind and snow, while all kinds of thoughts flowed endlessly through their minds.

This country really seemed different.

Country name: 【Seris National Socialist Federation】

Capital: 【Sera】

Population: 4.93 million

The federal authority system used an Upper and Lower House system.

The Upper House was composed of the National Socialist Party’s party and government personnel; it mastered government institutions and held administrative power, assisting the Empress and the Speaker–Prime Minister in carrying out administrative work, with ten-year terms.

The army’s party organization was changed to the National Socialist Youth Party, separating it from the ruling party.

The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of War operated independently and were not subject to Upper House control.

The Ministry of National Taxes was reorganized into the 【National Security and Taxation Bureau】, likewise operating independently and not subject to parliamentary control.

The Lower House consisted of nonpartisan worker and peasant representatives and members of workers’ committees; members of the National Socialist Youth Party jointly served, possessing the right to supervise government functions and consult on national policy.

Members and relatives, family members, and master-disciple relations of the National Socialist Party and the National Socialist Youth Party were prohibited from entering the National Tax Bureau and the Ministry of Justice.

Mitia served as the Federal Empress; she simultaneously held the positions of leader of the National Socialist Party, leader of the National Socialist Youth Party, president of the Workers’ Union, Supreme Director of the National Tax Bureau, Marshal of the Federal Army, and Honorary Pontiff of the Holy Light Church.

In short, she had delegated part of her executive powers to the Upper House to assist her.

The Speaker could implement policies to a certain degree of freedom, but major decisions required her participation in discussion and approval.

The Upper and Lower Houses, the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Justice were mutually non-subordinate.

The National Security and Taxation Bureau stood above all four, simultaneously bearing responsibilities of taxation inspection and intelligence agency work, and only she could directly order and operate it.

The former lord’s manor was now the Empress’s office.

Mitia tilted her head, rotated her neck a few times to ease her cervical vertebrae, then leaned back on the sofa and let out a breath of utter ennui: “So tired~”

She had clearly delegated the state affairs, yet she still hadn’t gotten much leisure time — it was indeed a bit absurd.

Sherria Miranda drifted over to the desk and looked at the drafts on Mitia’s table; the sheet placed centrally was filled densely with writing and various strange symbols.

“What is this? What are you doing?” she asked.

Mitia rubbed her wrist and answered, “I was simplifying the script! And also creating a phonetic system; our country’s illiteracy rate was too high — our industrial level couldn’t rise as things were.”

This world lacked educational resources; apart from magic, culture among commoners had been completely crushed. If she wanted to continue developing, literacy campaigns were an unavoidable threshold.

But saying “literacy campaign” was only two words; when she tried to implement it, it proved extraordinarily troublesome — after all, no one had ever done this before, so no one could help her.

As for the previously cultured people within the domains? Sorry, most of them were nobles; basically, Mitia had fed them peanuts.

And the few remaining were Mitia’s treasures; the Party members and technicians’ cultural literacy had all been led by them in classes.

Mitia feared exhausting them to death and dared not give them busywork for no reason, so she could only do it herself~

Sherria leaned on the desk to examine the papers; her two chubby little arms, like lotus root segments, propped up her cheeks while she pondered with a serious look, appearing extremely adorable.

Mitia couldn’t help hugging her and nuzzling again and again, like petting a cat to restore vitality.

“Stop nuzzling, stop nuzzling, it tickles! Say the important thing — do you want to relax some of the policies toward the nobility? Culture really depended on them.”

Pushed away, Mitia decisively refused: “No!”

“Why not? With their help things would definitely be much easier!”

Mitia smiled and countered, “They were cultured; do you know what the most powerful thing about culture was? Assimilation!”

“The people those nobles would educate would, with high probability, be spiritually assimilated into spiritual nobles.”

“Rather than allow that kind of servile spirit to trouble the populace, deceiving and plundering their wealth, I would prefer the people to know nothing and live ordinary lives.”

Sherria looked a little bewildered: “No, that’s too extreme, right?”

“Heh!”

Mitia sneered: “I even prepared countermeasures against members of the party I built with my own hands if they detached from the masses — why should I trust the nobles?”

This was her greatest worry deep down.

Apart from a few literary masters, she simply didn’t trust handing over cultural materials like textbooks to others.

She already had a full set of materials in her mind, but it was temporarily hard to filter what to teach; moreover, she was most concerned with children’s education.

Children’s minds were easiest to warp: either you kept them blind and governed them through the herd effects of propaganda,

or, if you wanted to open their minds, you had to think clearly about how to do it so they would view the world scientifically and rationally, and at least not become aloof and disconnected from reality.

So most of her upcoming energy would be invested in education; after all, she had already won the physical wars locally, but she did not want to lose the war of spirit~

Putting aside the long and weighty task of literacy education,

because industrial expansion had stopped and peace treaties had been signed with the neighboring major kingdoms, her military production capacity could be shifted to civilian use.

Mitia planned to start infrastructure construction at home.

She would first stitch together the complete industrial supporting chain, make up the areas that had lagged because of the military-industrial focus, and later it would be much easier to expand outward.

The Kingdom of Ovinia, shaken by storms and instability, had drawn most of the fire away from her; she needed this brief interval to let the nation and the people catch their breath.

‘Knock knock’

“Please come in!”

Seeing Sherria already tucked to one side, Mitia then invited the person at the door to enter.

Anna pushed the door open with a beaming smile and walked in, placing an unremarkable agricultural produce on the desk: “Look! Isn’t this the potato you mentioned?”

“Fuck!”

Mitia swore and snatched the fruit from the table to examine it closely; it indeed bore some resemblance to the potato from her previous life.

“Have you planted it? Have you tried eating it? How many tubers did its root system form when you found it? Did you count??”

Mitia fired off a string of questions, which left Anna at a loss as to where to begin answering.

One couldn’t blame Mitia for being overly excited — potatoes were extremely important; with them she could feed more people.

“You could eat it, but it was somewhat toxic so you couldn’t eat too much, and… the taste was awful.”

Mitia retorted, “How bad could it be?”

“.....”

“Ugh.....”

“Ptooie ptooie ptooie.....”

Mitia looked skeptically at the thing on the plate — was this really a potato?

Bitter, astringent, and sour; on the first bite she even suspected she had chewed into a tire!

Sherria gagged, then pushed the plate away in horror:

“My god! I will starve to death in this life; I would rather jump from here than eat another bite of this stuff!!!”