#rei stecker

In Molden Kingdom he exposed a shitty monarch and let a legitimate heir take the throne, but he flipped the Empire over completely.

He even says as much explicitly:

[Cale planned to destroy the Empire and the church from the bottom up.

He needed to do that in order to fill them with his own people so that he could restructure the entire place.] (chapter 224)

He destroyed the Alchemist’s Bell Tower, killed the tower master, deposed the emperor and the entire imperial family, and replaced everyone in power with his hand-selected and groomed candidates.

He picks the new leader of alchemy out of the slums; just barges into his house, tells him to sober up and shape up, and installs him as one of the not-empire’s new main power players.

He selects Rex as his ‘leader of the people’, gives him stateship homework (chapter 165), and makes him the new acting king.

And of course the new religious leaders—Holy Maiden Hannah and Saint (soon to be Pope) Jack—are also Cale’s people who he has rescued, sheltered, and enfolded into his massive found family.

Like damn Cale, that’s being a ‘kingmaker’ in the most comprehensive sense and then some.

Cale really looked at the Empire (the only one on the continent by the way) and went, “Hm. Don’t like that.”