His return to a life he had lived ever since coming to this world had him returning to the thoughts he had back when he first found himself within this world.

A world that mixed components of the game with real life.

Even a few years later Julius was still struggling to live purely in the world of the game.

The main reason was his lack of modern conviniences, even as a Lord, Grand Duke, King, and finally Emperor.

His desire for modern products, or foods that once meant the world to him were missing, and worse still could not even be recreated in this world.

Just like his experiments in the first few months, the who process of creating other things that relied on technology or knowledge beyond what the system itself could unlock or that which the public would invent entirely on their own.

Beyond the desire for true cheat weapons like guns which would eliminate the need to deal with the warlords of the world in single combat or battles of attrition.

Julius was personally missing modern alcohol more than anything.

Even as advanced as they had become within the Romanus Empire, the number and types of drinks that had become available were sadly not all that grand.

The traditional Mead, Wine, and Ale were most commonly found in taverns.

Then for the upper class you could find Poiton, a form of early whiskey in a manner of speaking.

And finally a relatively new introduction thanks to his tech advancements Brandy, a form of distilled wine.

However with only the recent introduction of distillation technology the idea of using it on other things other than wine was as of yet not thought of.

However when Julius tried to spread the knowledge on their travels he was simply answered with platitudes that the brewers would try their hardest but it was clear from their faces that they didnt understand a thing he had told them.

Even asking Serena about it later revealed that whatever he said was as if it was being said in another language, one not known to her, though the intent behind the words was known to her since he had discussed alcohol before and how there were many possible types to be made, but he was unable to impart that knowledge on his people.

So the days in which he could just sit watching the sun set with a cold brew in his hand was still far far away in the future possibly even so far that he himself would not be capable of being able to enjoy it himself.

Julius could only grit his teeth remembering all his various failures over the years.

Gunpowder, down blankets, coil mattresses, advanced clothing styles, and now most recently Alcohol.

Just why were these restrictions in place.

The game had already change thanks to his involvement so why rigidly stick to the plot and prevent his involvement to bend the logic of this world?

Thankfully his descent into self derision served as a more than adequate distraction and the hours sailed by, only broken by the frequent breaks to water the horses, or feed the riders themselves.

And now after only a few days of riding south, they had not only entered the home province, Latinium but they were fast approaching the capital city, his personally build city.

The Eternal City.

The grand seat of his empire, a city forged to resemble the ancient city of Rome, but whose placement was far different from reality and the game lore.

His capital was placed in the most defensible location possible.

Within the heart of his lands, surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges that allowed for Mountain pass checkpoints to provide a natrual defence preventing enemy incursion, while the only open region was the southern inland port which had been founded to become Nova Carthago, and acted as the naval defensive line from any enemy Navy that managed to sail deep enough into their waters to threaten a naval landing operation.

Julius didnt really look forward to the return to his office, the return of the paperwork, or the meetings with the various advisors.

This was the one thing he certainly prefered in the game opposed to reality.

In the game you just assigned a character to a position and they held it, sometime youd have to celebrate them, promote them, or give them a gift, to once more secure their loyalty, or decide it was the end and execute the character either by revealing their crimes or sending assassins to silently eliminate them.

But reality... meant actual interpersonal relations, mixed with personal desires, advice for how to do things, requests for more work to be placed on his shoulders, or just the standard bureaucracy of sending things up the chain for approval.

Then throw in his secret intelligence department that performed spying operations both foreign and domestic.

And lastly his own relationships with the women of his life, and the friends he had made since coming to this world.

But his return was required.

The wars had come to an end, however the aftermath from the series of wars had far reaching quakes that continued to cause aftershocks.

Thankfully the core territories were without issue.

But the Greecian penninsula was heating up, and so was the francian region for that matter.

Athenia, which had been defeated without the conquest of their capital city had been moving moves one after another to incite rebellion across the entire penninsula, which was being combatted by his stationed legion within the vassal regions.

But most alarmingly was that the Athenian troublemakers were not alone.

Evidence suggested that they had managed to convince either a portion of or possibly the entirity of Sparta to join in the cause of expelling Romanus inflence as their operations which only were performed on the south, and west portions of the occupied territory had started also appearing in the east opposite Athenia, but along the borders of Sparta.

Upon his return Julius planned to get to the bottom of this, if Sparta indeed had turned their backs on their saviors he in turn would not be merciful.

Then when it came to Francia... it was likely the remnents of Saint Joan’s inflence causing the uprisings to occur.

However her demise was unknown in the Kingdoms territory.

Afterall we had rescued her from the Francian castle and not one survivor remained from that battle.

But while examples were made of the nobility, the Saints body was never released, possibly making many believe she was still alive, captured or still fighting the good fight from the shadows to release her people from the invaders clutches.