Ugh...

  I hate Arthur, making me come all the way to the capital. I honestly didn’t pn on going, but Heather and other people in the pace wouldn’t stop pestering me about it, fine! I’ll go to the stupid meeting, but I’ll make it quick since I have to go to the dwarf country. Since I received a letter from Rushka and she told me to come over for a celebration or something, it seems the empire kept their promise, and the war is really over.

  Of course, with the help of Heather, I printed the shit out of it for the news, propaganda at its finest, albeit I didn’t exactly exaggerate too much, I did manage to end the war, since I’m the ‘new’ town lord, it’s important to increase my image in the public eye, or so the advisors told me, there’s a lot of people that I really don’t care about in the pace, I mostly ignore them or send them to Heather, she’s the one that I trust to tell me the important details.

  And so, I’m here sitting on a carriage on my way there, I can’t teleport since I don’t know how the capital looks like, but Celestial does, still I was advised to not teleport there given that the messenger also had to make the trip back, and the pace knights wanted to accompany me as a sort of guard job but, eh, I ordered them to stay, I don’t really feel like I need them, plus I feel at ease if they protect our town instead, Celestial is there as well, so I doubt anything would be stupid enough to try anything while I’m gone.

  The road is quite bumpy, and looking at nothing but scenery gets dull really fast, so much for another world, it really has no difference in vibe when going on a road trip, like maybe the pnts and vegetation it’s different but, they’re trees and pnts at the end of the day, nothing new or eye catching.

  To say it was boring it’s an understatement, we’re going surprisingly fast, but I was told it would be a full day trip. I sted a whole 6 hours in this carriage before throwing in the towel!

  “Driver!”

  I yelled to the man in charge of the giant lizard that’s taking us to the capital.

  “Y-yes, midy?”

  “Is the capital straight through this dirt road?”

  “Yes ma’am, fortunately Welst is a town next to the capitol, so it is”

  “Great! I’ll speed up ahead! I’ll see you there tomorrow”

  “Wait! Midy!”

  The driver yelled asking me to wait, but really, I told them this is pointless and a waste of time, for now I mad dashed straight through the dirt road. I'm faster than the lizard and it’s refreshing to stretch my legs after those grueling 6 hours of nothingness.

  ...

  ...

  I’ve been running for a while, but I finally found the town, capital, whatever, it’s quite huge, bigger than my town, but it does look pretty simir, medieval random town, the schedule was for us to arrive tonight, sleep as a guest in the pace, and then the meeting and stuff, but,I just made a point to remember the huge pace in the middle, the guards look weird at me since I’m just eyeing the pace, I’m remembering for future teleportation, and after thinking I got a good grasp of it, I went back home.

  “Heather!”

  “Marisa!? weren’t you on the way to the capital!?”

  “Yes, but I got bored!”

  So change of pns, I spent the afternoon home, and the night with Heather. It's 100 times better than whatever that annoying king can make for hospitality, or maybe, I don’t know.

  Next morning, I was woken up by the messenger, why in the heck did you come back!? Whatever, I’ll just teleport them with me, now that I can.

  “See, wasn’t that much faster?”

  “Sigh... yes Midy, it is faster”

  “Great, the meeting it’s ter, so I’ll go sightseeing!”

  And so I abandoned my traveling companions, once again. They’re on their hometown, I believe they can make their way around, as for me, I simply went around, there’s more different kind of people here than my town, some of the streets are really busy, and the random stares are reduced, but not completely gone as people still look at me from time to time.

  Stores, markets, same old, same old, what I’m interested is the red district~

  It exists in my town but A, I’m the town lord now, and B, they don’t really want me as a client, here hoping it’s different here!

  ...

  ...

  The answer is, no, sadly...

  To begin with, not everyone is open, granted that’s a given since it’s morning, the few who opened however, thought I was just pying around and sent me on my way like some random child, and one very low and rundown one thought I was looking for employment of all things.

  Just no, I have some pride, also it made me angry for some reason, so I was moments away from ripping the old guy’s innards off from him.

  Before I knew it, time flew past me, and the meeting it’s just about to start, fifteen minutes or so. I don’t like being te, but I also despise waiting, so I’ll get there just in time, a quick jump through the air and I’m at the entrance of the pace.

  “Lady Marisa, please come inside”

  It seems the guards of the royal pace know me, not surprising but still funny since they were giving me the stare yesterday, they took me to a room inside the pace and what greeted me was a very rge table, with about 15 other people, both man and woman, all chilling and talking to each other, though everyone went silent the moment they saw me enter.

  “So you’re Marisa? She looks less impo-“

  “Ahem... welcome everyone”

  It seems Arthur interrupted before I beheaded this rude town lord, saved by bell my guy, I say that but.

  “Thanks your majesty!”

  Everyone kneeled when Arthur entered, he was right behind me as well, I knew it, but I didn’t bother to acknowledge him, I ain’t kneeling though.

  “Insolent! You’re in the presence of his majesty!”

  “Eh? Oh right, ‘Sup Arthur, it’s a nice pce you got here~”

  I said, as if not realizing he was behind me, it’s funny to make him angry for some reason, smug smile is smug.

  “You!-“

  “It’s fine, everyone please get up, let’s not fight between us for now”

  “Your majesty how can you let her talk to you like that!”

  “Rex Zeke, we have no reason to make her our enemy, in fact I wish everyone could treat me as casually if possible”

  It’s obvious Arthur is trying to de-escate the conflict between me and this Zeke guy, personally I don’t care about him, or anyone here for that matter.

  “For now, everyone take a seat, I’ll introduce her properly”

  As everyone seated down, me included because why not, Arthur was gonna grab my shoulders but I pretended not to notice and just sat down.

  “Sigh... anyways, everyone, this is Marisa, the new town lord of Welst, as well as the daughter of the Demon lord Maldi”

  “What!?”

  “Your majesty!”

  “Have you lost your mind!”

  Uff, what a warm welcome, and everyone called me insolent a minute ago, anyways, people got up and ready to attack me, some unsheathed the sword they were carrying, others just looked ready to pounce at any moment.

  The hostility is real, I was about to get up and unalive someone, preferably the one called Zeke, but as I put my hands on the table a shocking voice caught everyone’s attention.

  “That’s enough! Everyone unhand your weapon and sit down!”

  I sometimes forget Arthur it’s not a pushover, even though I felt my skin on edge. I'm still the strongest in this room, but Arthur is definitely second pce.

  “Joykill”

  “Excuse me demon!?”

  Some of these people are rather on edge, and angry at my words.

  “If you all attacked me, I’d have a reason to take over your territories with ease, besides killing you here it’s easier than going over to your town~”

  “Marisa please... would it kill you to be nice just today?”

  “They started it”

  “Your majesty, what is she even doing here! How-“

  “Zeke! Enough with this, the situation it’s like this and there’s no changing it, so we’ll not discuss it any further”

  “You say that like I’m a bad thing”

  “You’re not?”

  “Hey, you guys woke me from my slumber or something like that, thanks for that by the way!”

  “Who would’ve been foolish enough to do something like that!”

  Everyone went silent for a second, then every single one, in perfect unison just said at the same time with a tired expression.

  “““““““““““““““Gwendal...”””””””””””””””

  “Pff!”

  I couldn’t help but ugh, they all looked at me, it seems everyone here also doesn't hold him in high regards.

  “Hey, I don’t like the piggy either, it’s just funny that everyone knew he was a liability!”

  “Sigh... I think we get the gist of it”

  Funny that mentioning the piggy and everyone just kinda understands the whole plot, I guess it saves time in expining things.

  “Anyways, I gather everyone here for a couple of reasons, so let’s start with the elephant in the room, the Empire”

  “yeah! What happened? They just retreated all of their troops, we then received a fsh message from the capital to not engage anymore!”

  “Yeah, a certain new town lord personally threatened the emperor”

  Everyone looked at me again.

  “What?”

  “Yeah... this is why it’s so important to have you here Marisa, what did you do exactly?”

  “Oh, I thought you already knew Arthur? Is it that your information network is failing you perhaps?”

  He~, I can see the pained face of Arthur. I have been trying to cut as many loose ends as I could, mostly for the empire spies, they started leaving the town fearing for their life, but a couple of Arthur’s people also ended up leaving, I did threaten that if I found anyone who might be a spy, I’ll end them on the spot, this includes our fellow capital people it seems.

  “Finding people to keep a lookout for you it’s getting harder and harder...”

  “Thanks~”

  “It’s not a compliment...”

  “Well I’ll keep my tactics to myself, but basically the army took a neighboring city, and then I personally had a chat with the emperor, destroyed the upper half of his pace, leveled a mountain, and then force him to sign a peace treaty”

  I expected to be interrogated about this so I brought a copy of said treaty, not the signed one, but an empty one. I keep the original in my backpack.

  “Huh, it’s not that different to what I heard, but it’s still a bit unbelievable, the information matches however”

  “But a peace treaty... were you aware of this beforehand your majesty?”

  “Not at all, I was as surprised as everyone”

  “Wait! you didn’t sign it?”

  “No, but I really should have, I didn’t knew of its existence until a couple of days ago”

  “Then that peace treaty is useless!”

  “You guys said the same thing as the emperor”

  I said, nonchantly, but for being ‘useless’ the empire sure decided to abide by it.

  “Without the king’s signature on it, it’s not an official document for the kingdom!”

  “So what? ‘I’ signed it, that’s all that matters”

  “And what makes you think the emperor will respect you enough to consider your signature official?”

  “Oh, I feel bad for what will happen to that goril emperor if he dares betray my goodwill~”

  “After the little number with their army, I’m not surprised, wasn’t that a bit too much?”

  “Yeah, but funnily enough it wasn’t really me, I could’ve done it if they pushed me hard enough though”

  “How disrespectful can you be?...”

  “I like making people mad~ more so if they think they’re above me”

  Which it’s also a reason why Arthur exasperates me so much, he’s supposed to be the king and yet he never once looked over his shoulder towards me, or anything of the sorts, I can’t bother you properly like this!

  “If you’re such a menace why didn’t you kill the emperor? You had the perfect opportunity!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous Zeke, use your brain for one!”

  “If the emperor died who’s gonna rule over the empire? Do we have the resources to absorb such a massive piece of nd? Will the people just peacefully accept our rule? That’s not even considering revolutions and uprisings!”

  “Plus, other countries wouldn’t exactly sit by and watch us grow such a massive nd and be a potential threat, I’m sure Marisa thought about all of this, which it’s the reason why she didn’t kill the emperor to begin with”

  “Oh! Ah, yes, I totally did... although I was this close of saying ‘fuck it’ and just end his life anyways, that guy is a serious pain to be around”

  “That he is, but well, I appreciate your composure however, we have to use this time to prepare, if the empire attacks again it’s because they have something to topple over Marisa, and that’ll be a real menace”

  “As if they could muster something like that”

  “Even so, better safe than sorry”

  “Still, if the empire attacks any of you guys do tell me I’ll make him regret his life choices~”

  I said, having them be in debt towards me it’s a good approach. Being the town lord makes me realize that the amount of paperwork it’s outstanding, I don’t have the manpower for such a rge territory, yet.

  “Un! I for one I’m grateful to Marisa! We couldn’t sustain the anticipation of war any longer, the empire never attacked us, but having them at our doorstep was never fun either!”

  “It’s nothing really, they were a pain to me as well”

  “Ok, so to continue the meeting, I want everyone to give me your usual report on what you’re doing tely, and if you have any ideas now that we’re at a somewhat peaceful time, please speak your mind”

  Ugh... this is so boring, everyone’s like, we’re gonna fortify our troops or, we’re gonna try to increase the crop yield.

  “Marisa, what about you? I know you’ve been in position for the less amount of time, but what’s your pn going forward?”

  “Me? For now I’m taking down the military budget”

  “Eh!?”

  Why is everyone retorting or giving me shocked expressions?

  “Yeah, we’re at peace, plus if there’s a menace I’ll personally get rid of it, and in the off chance it’s something I can’t deal with, then a million soldiers wouldn’t either”

  “And what do you pn on doing with that money?”

  “For now, improve social programs probably”

  “Social programs? A monster like you!?”

  I’ll ignore the rude comment, do everyone just think I'm a senseless warmonger or something?

  “So it’s true what I’ve heard Marisa? Rumor has it you’ve been going to orphanages around your town and taking them under your wing”

  “Yeah, I’m also giving them the support the piggy took from them, so I guess that’s a good spot to begin with, ah! I’m also gonna get rid of all the rats going around my pce~”

  I said, looking at Arthur, it’s honestly scary how he knows what I’m usually doing, plus the orphanages it’s just my end of the bargain, so I have to do it regardless, I always keep my word.

  “Sigh... if you do that please don’t keep us all in complete dark, understand people already distrust you as is”

  “Yeah yeah, whatever~”

  “Why would a monster like you want the orphanages of the city?”

  “I pn on sacrificing the kids during a full moon to summon Cthulhu~”

  “Katulu?”

  Right, people don’t know what that is.

  “Your sense of humor it’s as tasteless as your personality!”

  “Zeke, right? I would watch out while I slept if I were you, one of this days you’re gonna wind up dead”

  “You little!”

  “Enough! I’ll kick you two out of this meeting if you continue arguing”

  “Please do! It’s boring as hell! Had I known it was gonna be just this, I wouldn’t have bothered to come over!”

  “Sigh... fine, let’s keep it short so you can leave then, as for the final point of this meeting, it’s about my succession to the crown”

  “Oh! Much better! Are you giving up already and giving me the crown?”

  “Rex Marisa, I don’t pn on quitting just yet, that being said, as you all know, ever since my wife died things have been rocky regarding control over the country, more so given our current situation, so even though it’s a bit early, I would like to introduce you guys to my family, Adan, Sarel, please come in”

  At Arthur’s word, two people came in, a kid, well I say ‘kid’ we probably look about the same age, a teenager boy around his 15 or 16 maybe? and a dy, she looks young too, but it’s definitely older than the boy, although he doesn’t matter, the girl it’s quite attractive, she’s blonde and surprisingly tall, needless to say my first gut response was ‘I want to put my dick in that’, maybe I’m just really feeling withdrawal, or I’m just that excited for going over with Rushka, either way, it’s gonna reveal my intentions so I’m controlling myself as much as I can.

  “As you know, Adan and Sarel are my beloved children, and albeit Sarel’s societal debut is next year, I’m just gonna come out and say it, I want one of you guys to take over the crown once I’m gone, and that involves marrying my son or daughter in the process”

  “Your majesty! What are you thinking!?”

  “Dad! You never said anything about this!”

  The boy retorted, but it looks like the girl already knew more or less since she’s not that impressed.

  “Obviously I don’t intend to just hand my kids away! However, I want you guys to meet them, maybe have a chat with them, in the end I won’t allow them to marry someone who I deem unworthy of my children’s love!”

  And the crown too? I’m personally interested, but also, competing like this for someone it’s a bit of a dick move, although I see now why he got both his son and daughter involved, I’m not the only town ‘dy’, other lords are woman, so it’s to bance it out I guess, I’m even more screwed since I don’t care about Adan at all, if I get to pick I’ll rather take Sarel, but I doubt the king would want his bloodline to end with me.

  “Nepotism!”

  I yelled, everyone looked at me, it’s doubly distasteful given the whole fiasco with Rushka.

  “Putting your kids up like this is a rather crude move! Are we done here?”

  “Sigh... yes Marisa, we’re done”

  “Thanks, I’ll take my leave then, and you two! Don’t feel forced to marry any of these losers, if you need refuge feel free to come to my nd, I’ll just kick your dad out~”

  “Marisa!”

  And with that, I left, not before I looked at the siblings.

  Sarel’s facial expression didn’t change at all, but Adan...

  Don’t look at me with those eyes! It was supposed to impress Sarel! Poor kid, he’s clearly taken aback by the whole situation.

  I’m not gonna compete for them but, there’s only 16 town lords, me included, so if I take over all their jobs, I would be the only candidate, clever me! I just have to find a way so Celestial lets me move more freely and I’m golden.

  For now I left, teleporting back home, it is time to go with Rushka, hoping she’s waiting for me with as much anticipation as I have~

  —————————————————————————————————————————

  ***still on the town lord meeting***

  “Are you sure about her, your majesty!”

  “Sigh... I understand everyone’s concern, but what other option do we have? Gwendal summoned her and now she’s our trouble”

  “If she can threaten the empire by herself, I don’t think it’s a good idea to associate with her”

  “Then what do you guys propose? We can’t fight her, the only thing keeping her in check from wrecking and pilging as she pleases it’s Celestial”

  “So the divine dragon intervened too! The rumors of it’s sightings weren’t lies”

  “Yeah, albeit I don’t know the full story, I know that they did fight each other once”

  “Are we gonna be ok?”

  “She’s a bit insolent, but her heart it’s in the right pce, in the time of her rule, she almost completely abolished the people trafficking happening at the border, as well as arrested a bunch of the responsible people, even now her focus isn’t fighting but making people’s lives better”

  “You say that but didn’t she started the attack on the empire”

  “From my understanding, the princess of the dwarf country plead for her help, the only reason she attacked was to defend them, I don’t know what the dwarves promised her, but it seems she didn’t do it out of violent impulses”

  “Even still!”

  “I understand the reputation Maldi had as a legend, but don’t forget she’s also daughter of Hestia, if the folklore has any accuracy that is”

  “You’re basing the future of the kingdom on a legend!”

  “Rumor has it the elven royal family has always take their kingdoms to an age of prosperity, so far she hasn’t misstep once”

  “Maldi didn’t either, I can only shudder at the thought of what their offspring could do”

  “For now, it’s better to be on her good side, I ask everyone to please understand the situation, don’t get on her bad side, and if she initiate any hostility please notify me immediately, I’ll see what I can do”

  “““““““““““““““Will do your majesty!”””””””””””””””

  Joanne_carper