Wooing the Empress with Modernization

I finally hit the jackpot and won ten million dollars. But in my excitement, I slipped on a stray beer bottle and freakin' died! When I opened my eyes again, I had reincarnated as the useless heir of a washed-up, ruined noble family. Suddenly, a voice chimed in my head. [Cold-Hearted Empress Conquest System initiated! Host, please present flowers to the Empress!] I absolutely lost my mind. "Screw off! I hadn't even cashed out my ten million dollars, and you want me to play some stupid dating sim? This is a scam. I’m out!" With no other choice, the system reluctantly compromised. [If you can make the empress fall madly in love with you, your reward will be one hundred million dollars and a ticket back home!] Hey, who actually turns down that kind of cash? Game on! I will be the ultimate simp if that’s what it takes. Armed with world-class strategies and modern tech, I launched a national development plan. Building infrastructure and saving the kingdom? Easy money. Soon enough, the empress’s look of pure disgust turned into absolute obsession. She was practically begging me to rule the empire right alongside her. Just as the system announced my victory and prepared to send me home, I realized only kids choose between options. The cash, the empress... I’m keeping both! Smirking, I used my maxed-out system points to rewrite the source code and force open a permanent portal between our worlds. "Hey, are you the manufacturer? I need ten excavators delivered straight to the portal coordinates. My wife needs to expand her palace!" Chapter 1 "Congratulations! The lottery ticket ending in 69420 has successfully hit the top prize this period. Your payout is ten million dollars!" Looking at that massive string of zeros on my phone screen, I was so pumped I could jump around in joy! "I’m rich! I never have to act like a corporate slave for that balding boss of mine ever again! Luxury cars, exclusive clubs, a massive mansion... I've finally made it!" In my pure excitement, I chugged a huge gulp of beer. Just as I was about to jump onto my bed to pull off a celebratory backflip, my foot slipped right on a stray rolling beer bottle. The back of my head slammed hard into the rusty corner of my metal desk. A wave of agonizing pain hit me, and my vision went completely black. Dammit! I hadn't even cashed out my ten million dollars yet! ... "Master! Lord Valerius, please wake up! Your father just died on the battlefield. If something happens to you too, House Valerius will be done for!" A frantic, loud shaking pulled me back from the dark void. I forced my eyes open. What caught my attention was an elegant-looking but incredibly rundown ceiling, alongside a servant in historical clothing who wept so hard his face was a total mess. Suddenly, a massive flood of memories that didn't belong to me rushed into my brain. Alden Empire. The only son of the Grand Protector of House Valerius. He even shared the exact same name as me, Asher Valerius. Unfortunately, the original owner of this body was a total deadbeat, a spoiled brat who was an absolute failure at both academics and martial arts. His father had just been ambushed and killed by an enemy army at the border. Yet before his body had turned cold, his political rival—the powerful prime minister—had already sent local thugs to their front door to squeeze them dry. The original owner of this body, already completely overwhelmed by grief, was brutally beaten by those thugs and literally died of pure shock and rage. That was the only reason an unlucky bastard like me took his place. Just as I was frantically processing all this information, a sharp electronic chime suddenly echoed in my mind. Ding! [Host soul detected. Cold-Hearted Empress Conquest System has successfully bound to your soul!] [Deploying beginner quest. Proceed to the main gates of the royal palace immediately, drop to your knees, and yell 'I love you, Your Majesty!' three times.] [Reward for Success: Charm +10] [Penalty for Failure: Executed] I froze, completely stunned. Then, a wave of absolute fury rushed straight to my head. "What the fuck?! "I haven't even cashed out my ten million dollars, and you dump me into this godforsaken place as a total nobody? And now you want me to be a desperate simp?! Screw that! Not in a million years!" The System had clearly never encountered a host with such a fiery temper. Its mechanical voice glitched and sputtered for a second. [Host, please calm down. The system is designed to mold you into the perfect heartthrob. As long as you win over the empress...] "Shut up! I'm a highly sought-after Ivy League graduate! I'm not some brain-dead main character from a trashy romance novel! "Send me back right now, or we can both go down together!" I refused to back down an inch, immediately channeling the exact energy of a miserable corporate slave absolutely ready to throw hands with a toxic HR manager. Right at that moment, a loud bang shattered the air as the front gates of the estate were violently kicked open. Several burly, scar-faced thugs carrying wooden clubs barged into the courtyard. The leader, a guy with a nasty scar across his face, spat on the ground and shouted arrogantly, "Is that useless Valerius kid dead yet? If you're still breathing, hurry up and hand over the deed to this estate! The prime minister made it clear—as of today, House Valerius is history!" Chapter 2 I stared at the bunch of mobsters, and the fury building up inside me finally found an outlet. "Run, Lord Asher!" my servant cried out, collapsing to the ground in pure terror. Run? My ten million dollar lottery prize was gone, and I was desperately looking for something to take my anger out on! I grabbed a heavy brick from the courtyard that had been bracing the leg of an old table. My gaze turned ice-cold as I marched straight toward them. Even though the original owner of this body was rather useless, he at least had taken basic lessons in martial arts. Taking on a few street thugs was a complete walk in the park. "You little punk, you're asking for—" Scarface didn't even get to finish his sentence. I slid to the side, dodging his swing, and slammed the brick smack into his face with perfect precision. Scarface shrieked and hit the dirt. The remaining thugs froze in shock, but I didn't give them a single second to react. I snatched away one of their wooden clubs and started swinging, aiming directly for their joints and below the belt. Within thirty seconds, the entire crew of hooligans was lying on the ground, groaning and rolling around in agony. I stomped my foot hard right on Scarface's chest, pointing the blood-soaked club right at his nose. "Go back and tell that garbage prime minister of yours that if he even touches a single brick of House Valerius' estate, I will dig up his ancestors' graves! Now get the hell out of here!" I threw the club aside, took a deep breath, and spoke coldly in my mind. 'Hey System, did you catch that? I only believe in clearing obstacles by force. I'm not following some simp game's rules. If you want me to do your dirty work, you better rewrite the rules!' The System went completely silent for a full minute before it finally caved. [Strong will detected from the host. Modifying core logic...] [Modification complete! New mission issued. Host, please display your legendary governing talents to make the Alden Empire exceptionally powerful, prompting the empress to fall for you naturally.] [Ultimate Victory Reward: A guaranteed ticket back home and a direct transfer of one hundred million dollars into your bank account!] The second I heard "one hundred million dollars", my eyes practically lit up with greed. 'Deal! Call me a simp all you want!' I slapped my knee in pure excitement. 'Forget making the empress fall in love with me, I would literally stay up all night tiling every single floor of her palace for that kind of money! That hundred million dollar prize is as good as mine!' Now that the goal of building an empire, getting filthy rich, and returning to my world was set, I started planning my opening move. My father of this world died in battle, and his military power had been completely stripped away by the corrupt prime minister, Victor Hoyle. Following in his footsteps in the military was a dead end for me now. The Alden Empire heavily favored scholars over warriors, meaning that if I wanted to turn the tables and get close to the cold, aloof Empress Catherine Alden, there was only one path forward—the Imperial Governor Selection. "Lord Asher, you... you'll be participating in the Imperial Governor Selection?" My servant, Tobias, watched me pack up the last two valuable vases in the estate to sell them for ink and paper. His jaw practically hit the floor. "But you can't even read the most basic books!" "Quiet, you know nothing. This is what we call knowledge changing your destiny," I replied without even looking up as I prepared the writing instruments. On the night before the results were released, a crowd of noble heirs gathered at the capital's finest saloon, sipping wine and reciting poetry. The moment I walked in, the prime minister's arrogant nephew sneered at me in a mocking tone. "Well, well, if it isn't the useless heir of House Valerius. What's the matter? Did you realize you're no good with a sword, so you came to embarrass yourself in front of real scholars?" "Hahaha! If a loser like him passes the exam, I will literally eat this entire wooden table right here!" The whole room erupted into roars of laughter. I didn't even bother giving them a glance. As I walked past their table, I casually dropped a single line. "Make sure you scrub that table clean first. I'd hate for you to get food poisoning when you eat it." Chapter 3 Honestly, getting to the final round of the exam was a total nail-biter. After all, I'm from the modern age, so my historical writing skills looked like straight dog water. But hey, I played it smart. Years of surviving the modern school system wasn't just for show. Even though the examiners roasted my writing style as "utterly crude and unrefined", the management concepts I threw in were so far ahead of their time that I literally clutched my way into the final round of the selection. On the day of the final round, I finally saw her—the legendary cold-hearted empress, Catherine Alden. She was breathtakingly gorgeous but completely aloof. There was a deep, unshakeable exhaustion written all over her face. The Alden Empire was dealing with disaster on both the domestic and international fronts, and the treasury was so broke it was growing cobwebs. "Lately, the treasury has been running on empty, and our border troops are facing severe supply shortages," The Empress’s crisp, cool voice echoed through the grand hall. "Do any of my ministers have a real plan to bring in funding?" Prime minister, Victor Hoyle, immediately stepped forward. "Your Majesty, I believe we should raise the agricultural taxes on the peasants while cutting back on all unnecessary spending." The rest of the court officials nodded along like mindless drones, spouting nothing but pure, useless filler. A flash of disappointment crossed Catherine’s eyes as her gaze swept over our group of top candidates. "What about the rest of you?" I took a deep breath and stepped right out of the lineup. "Your Majesty, I think Prime Minister Hoyle's plan is absolute garbage. It’s short-sighted and completely brain-dead!" The second those words left my mouth, the entire hall gasped. Victor practically shook with pure rage. "Watch your mouth! You’re just a clueless kid. What do you know about running a country?!" I let out a cold laugh. "Raising taxes on the peasants will only cause them to lose everything. It'll ruin families, and ultimately spark a massive revolution! However, I have a real strategy." I threw my shoulders back, delivering a loud, confident pitch that blended modern macroeconomics with historical insights. "First, we completely scrap the poll tax and switch to a land-acreage tax system! We will tax people based on the actual size of the property they own. That will force the wealthy, elite families who hide their massive estates to finally cough up the money they've been hoarding! "Second, we implement a tax leverage! We will place hefty luxury taxes on the mega-rich merchants while lowering taxes on agriculture and small businesses. This will encourage trade and funnel tax money to support our farmers! "Third, we issue government bonds! The crown borrows money from wealthy businessmen, backed by the credit of the empire, and promises interest returns. It turns stagnant money into active capital!" The entire hall went dead silent. The scholars who usually loved talking in fancy circles just stood there completely shell-shocked, their brains totally melting trying to process it. Victor was sweating bullets trying to find a counterargument, but my logic was an absolute iron fortress, leaving him zero room to argue. Up on the throne, a brilliant spark erupted for the very first time in Catherine’s perpetually cold eyes. She stared intensely at me. She clearly thought I was arrogant, maybe even way too obsessed with money, but every single one of those three strategies struck directly at the worst corruption plaguing the Alden Empire. "Brilliant! A land-acreage tax and using commercial taxes to fund the farmers!" The empress suddenly stood up, absolutely thrilled. Shutting down all objections on the spot, she loudly announced, "Asher Valerius, I am personally naming you the top candidate of the selection! Effective immediately, you are appointed as the Vice Minister of Finance, with full authority to fix our national treasury!" I bowed to accept the honor, my lips curving up into a smirk. Step one of building my empire was officially locked in. I just got a whole lot closer to that hundred-million-dollar prize! Chapter 4 I barely even had time to warm my seat as vice minister before an urgent report came in from the south. The Southern Riverlands had just been hit by a once-in-a-century flood. The main dam had completely collapsed, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians homeless and displaced Right on cue in the royal court, Victor seized the opportunity to make his move. "Your Majesty, since our newly appointed Vice Minister of Finance possesses such extraordinary talent with his strategies, dealing with a little water should be a total walk in the park for him. I formally nominate Vice Minister Valerius to head south and handle the flood relief matters!" That old fox was positively toxic. The national treasury didn't have a single cent to its name, and he wanted me to fix a massive flood? This was a blatant setup to watch me fail so he could have a legitimate excuse to have me executed. Even Catherine hesitated, throwing a deeply worried glance in my direction. But I didn't even flinch. I stepped right forward, looking completely heroic. "I accept the mission, Your Majesty! If I fail to build a brand-new dam within ten days, you can take my head on a silver platter!" The entire court looked at me like I was a literal dead man walking. Ten days? With zero funding and zero materials, even a miracle worker couldn't fix a broken dam. When I arrived at the disaster zone in the Southern Riverlands, it was total devastation, with tragedy stretching as far as the eye could see. To make matters worse, the local corrupt officials weren't doing a single thing to help. Instead, they had actually pocketed the government's pathetic relief funds and swapped the emergency food supply with moldy, dirt-filled grains. "Sir, a traditional packed-earth dam is never going to hold back a flood of this scale!" the engineering official traveling with me cried out, panicking. "Who said anything about using packed earth?" I let out a cold laugh before slipping away to a quiet spot where no one could see me, and woke up the System. "System, use the points I racked up from winning the Imperial Governor Selection to buy me the recipe and manufacturing blueprint for old-school cement!" The second I got the blueprint, I immediately drafted the local refugees into a workforce, blasting rock quarries and setting up makeshift kilns. We blasted a crazy mix of limestone, clay, and iron slag together at extreme temperatures. When the first batch of dusty gray powder was mixed with water, blended with crushed stones, and poured over iron bars scavenged from an abandoned weapons vault, the craftsmen genuinely thought I had lost my mind. Pouring mud straight into water was supposed to stop a flood? Fast forward three days later, the cement had completely cured. The engineering official took a massive sledgehammer and swung it with absolutely everything he had against the new cement barrier. It left nothing but a tiny white speck, without even a single hairline crack. Instantly, everyone gasped in awe. "It's a miracle! A literal miracle! Vice Minister Valerius must be a saint send by God!" The crowd collapsed to their knees in the dirt, weeping and reaching out toward me like I was a living saint. With the dam securely holding, it was time to settle the score. I immediately brought in soldiers to lock down the local governor's estate and dragged out all the secret ledger books hidden away in their vaults. "Vice Minister Valerius, these ledgers are incredibly messy and involve dozens of different businesses. It'll take at least two weeks just to make sense of all this fraud," the governor's secretary muttered, sweating bullets. "Two weeks? Please, I’ve mastered complex financial auditing. I could balance these books in my sleep!" I had my men haul in a massive wooden board and started drawing a giant Excel spreadsheet right onto it. I introduced standard double-entry bookkeeping: every debit must have a credit, and the two must always balance out. The corrupt officials thought they had designed the ultimate bulletproof scam, but against modern accounting, their books were absolutely riddled with massive holes. In just three short hours, I traced the exact destination of hundreds of thousands of stolen silver coins with absolute clarity. The local governor—who happened to be Victor's prized golden boy—was still aggressively shouting in my face. "Asher Valerius! I am the Prime Minister's personal protégé! You wouldn't dare touch me—" "You're exactly the one I'm looking for!" I drew the legendary imperial sword Catherine had gifted me before the trip and swung it without hesitation. With a clean slice, his head rolled right across the floor. "Open the vaults! Distribute the food! Seize every single asset belonging to these corrupt politicians and funnel it directly into disaster relief!" I stripped off my fancy court official robes, threw on basic clothes, and jumped straight into the muddy water to carry sandbags alongside the refugees to reinforce the levee. What I didn't realize was that on a nearby hillside, a slender figure wearing a hooded cloak was quietly watching my every move. It was Catherine. She had slipped out of the palace incognito because she was too anxious about the disaster to stay behind. She watched the guy who usually acted like a total slacker in the royal court, now completely covered in mud with bloodshot eyes, confidently taking command in the middle of a torrential downpour. Catherine felt her heart skip a beat. Ding! [Alert: Empress Catherine Alden's affection levels are skyrocketing. Current Affection: 60%] Hearing the ping echo in my head while standing in the freezing mud, I wiped a splash of dirt off my face and flashed a massive grin. With the Southern Riverlands crisis officially solved, I made a triumphant return to the capital, bringing back millions of silver coins confiscated directly from the corrupt officials. The national treasury went from dead broke to completely loaded in a single day, and the way Catherine looked at me was so intense she could burn a hole through me. But Victor was now completely backed into a corner. He knew with absolute certainty that the second I secured my political position, he was a dead man. So, taking advantage of the fact that the main imperial army had been deployed to the borders to keep the barbarian tribes at bay, the old traitor teamed up with foreign spies and launched a massive coup right in the capital! A rebel army of a hundred thousand men, made up of Victor's private forces and bribed capital guards, marched forward and completely surrounded the royal palace. Meanwhile, the total number of loyal troops left to defend the capital was barely ten thousand men. Catherine stood tall with a longsword in hand, fully prepared to go down with her country like a true ruler. "Asher Valerius," she said, suddenly walking up to me. Her voice trembled slightly, her eyes filled with a heavy, devastating mix of longing and pure finality. "I have ordered my elite guards to escort you out of the city through a secret underground tunnel." I froze, completely stunned. "What about you, Your Majesty?" "I am the ruler of the Alden Empire, and I will not run away." Catherine's eyes welled with tears as she suddenly reached out and pulled me into a tight, desperate hug, her tears soaking right through my shoulder. "As long as you stay alive, the empire still has a future. If there is a next life... I don't want to be the empress anymore. I just want to be your wife."