“Alright, if that is what you want.”

  Emperor Amn says “I was trying to help, not cause a problem.”

  “You didn’t. We aren’t fighting, I am just making sure she has thought it through. Mainly I am making sure I don’t have to explain to Bella that she lost her helper because I brought her with me.”

  Lin says “She wouldn’t blame you, she knows how I am about new books. All you would have to tell her is that I found a library and she would instantly understand.”

  Empress Atesh says “Is it only magical knowledge? Or is it any new books?”

  Lin says “Any books. Anything that I haven’t read before.”

  Empress Atesh says “We can’t make the mages grant you full access, but there is another library we can grant you full access to.”

  “You are just making things worse, you know that right?”

  Lin says “What library?”

  Emperor Amn says “I believe my wife is thinking of the royal library.”

  Empress Atesh says “Right. It is a collection of books that the royal family has deemed too dangerous for circulation, but didn’t want to destroy. Normally, only members of the royal family can access it, but we can make an exception for you. The reason I bring it up is because it records the history that has been buried.”

  “Are you referring to the war between the empires and the arrival of the demons?”

  Empress Atesh says “Exactly. I haven’t read about it myself, I never can find the time, but I have been told that it is in there.”

  Lin says “Great! I would love to read the royal library as well!”

  Empress Atesh says “Then it is settled.”

  “In that case, I am guessing that you won’t be leaving with me after dinner?”

  Lin says “No, I won’t, but you won’t be leaving until the morning.”

  That makes Amn and Atesh laugh, but I notice that Shiro’s reaction is to blush. I hope that she didn’t volunteer to be the ambassador just to be closer to me, that would be awkward. Luckily, even if she is in the trade city, we probably won’t see each other all that often.

  If she does have a thing for me, it should fade with enough time, at least I hope so. The trade city should provide a massive amount of distractions, hopefully that will help. If not, then I will just leave it to Lin and Myria to find a way to discourage her.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I have learned that me trying to do anything will only make the situation worse. My best bet is to ignore her as much as possible and leave it to others if that doesn’t work. So, throughout dinner I make sure most of my attention is on either Lin or Shiro’s parents.

  I don’t go as far as being rude to her, but I limit myself to polite interactions only. Lin notices and gives me a smile, but no one else seems to notice as far as I can tell. Of course, since they are professional politicians, they have probably noticed but hid their reactions.

  Honestly, I would rather see their reactions since Shiro is their daughter and they know her better. That might let me know if my guesses are correct or if Shiro is simply that innocent. Although, as a daughter of royalty, I doubt that she could really be that innocent.

  She should have been exposed to the plots and machinations of the nobles her entire life. There is no real way for someone to stay innocent when exposed to court life, not in a human court anyway. Maybe in the court of a race that is more honest about things, like the elves as portrayed in stories.

  Once the dinner is over, Lin and I are escorted to a guest suite for royal visitors. It is a beautiful set of rooms, but Lin and I don’t pay attention to much of it other than the bed. We have some fun for a while and then we have a late night snack together before sleeping for a few hours.

  Or at least, I only sleep for a few hours, Lin is still sound asleep when I wake up. I already told her that I would be leaving before she wakes up, but she wakes up as I am getting out of bed. She gives me a long kiss goodbye and then instantly falls back asleep.

  Once I am sure she is asleep, I open a gate back to the castle and walk through it. Jarvis welcomes me and informs me that all the kids are here and are currently training. At first I think he means they are in the elemental areas, but actually they are in the training room.

  It seems that they have all made progress and are using the training room to make sure they adapt properly. It isn’t a big deal, but it is a really smart move and it makes me proud of them. I head down to my workshop and tell Jarvis to let me know when the kids are done training.

  I start making more tattoo guns for Bella, wanting to keep my promise before I get distracted. Luckily, I wrote down the recipe for the ink so I don’t have to try to figure it out again. I may not remember the recipe, but I do remember how to make and enchant the guns themselves.

  As to why I forgot the ink recipe, that is probably because of how many combinations I tried. It isn’t too surprising to not remember one specific mixture out of over a hundred. However, I do run into a problem, to make as many guns as I had planned I am going to need more materials.

  For now, I am just going to make as many as I have the materials for and see how I do. I will worry about getting my hands on more materials later, I will probably just buy them. If I go to the markets in the capital of the southern empire I will hopefully be able to find what I need.

  Luckily, I still have plenty of gold so I don’t need to go ask Pol to give me some money. Honestly, that would feel rather weird and is one of the reasons I just let him do what he wants. The money he has earned for me will be the starting funds for the new government.

  Thinking of that, I also need to make a treasury and a nice secure vault to store the money. Thanks to Pol, and Annya, we won’t be starting in debt, in fact we have a surplus of funds. I don’t know exactly how much, but it should be enough to keep the government running for years.

  It should easily be enough to keep things running until I figure out taxes and all of that crap. Luckily, I don’t have to figure out all of that myself, I can leave it to others and just approve it. I am not too worried since I plan to make Annya the minister of finance and Pol the minister of trade.

  I am confident that between the two of them they will be able to get everything set up perfectly. However, I plan to let them make this first trip to Demon Hunter City before I do that. Let them have some fun before I make them do the boring government stuff.