Reivan was vomited out by his lengthiest friend in front of his wife and child. Not the best way to return from war. But at least he wasn't in a body bag.

  "Hey," he greeted, pushing off the ground into a sitting position. "Daddy's back."

  Helen nodded, holding a slumbering Arthur in her arms. "Welcome back."

  "Welcome back, Rein.” Mimi, who was standing right next to her, wiggled her fingers in greeting. Her baby was noticeably absent, though he supposed babies and their mothers weren’t just glued together for every hour of the day. “Not to sound as if I’m not gd to see you, but can you please give me back my husband now? And don't try to prank me that he's dead or something. I'll tell Mom."

  "I wasn't going to do that..." Reivan frowned, though he decided not to say that he did think about it.

  He had enough sense not to go through with it now, of course. She wasn't wrong in warning him. And he supposed that growing up, he had pranked her a considerable number of times.

  ‘Eh. I had it coming.’

  Reivan accepted his fate and turned toward Zouros, giving its snout a light pat. "Would you do the honors, buddy?"

  Zee's tongue flicked out of its mouth for a moment before it opened its vast maw. A moment ter, an armored man crawled out.

  Hector looked around, visibly confused. "What? We're home? I thought we were going to do another one...?"

  "I decided against it." Reivan shook his head and stood up. "Felt like it was unnecessarily risky."

  "Oh... I was saving my mana for nothing then. Shouldn't have been so stingy." Hector sighed before shrugging. "But I think you made the right choice in the end. I, for one, am gd I'm alive to compin about it."

  "I'm also gd you're alive." Mimi crossed her arms. “And so is your daughter.”

  “Wh-why do you sound so snippy… I just got here.” Hector muttered before his eyes wandered. “Where’s my baby girl, anyway?”

  “Asleep.”

  “Ah. Unfortunate. But understandable.”

  Watching them with a smirk, Reivan then noticed his own wife drawing closer. And upon closer inspection, it seemed Arthur had awoken at some point. “I was gone for quite a while, huh?”

  Helen grunted softly. “A bit more than a month, yes. I think Arthur was looking for you, at some point. He kept rubbing my chin, as if he was looking for your nasty stubble.”

  Reivan unconsciously ran a hand across his lower face, grimacing when he did indeed find some hairs sticking out. Seriously, why was it that he couldn’t grow a proper beard, but his stubble grew so incessantly?

  “Go on, say hello to your father,” Helen whispered gently as she handed their son over to him.

  “Papa’s back, Arthur~” Reivan cooed, deftly taking his precious boy into his arms and pecking him with kisses—which caused his dear son to try pushing him away because of his aforementioned stubble.

  Helen took the opportunity to hug him tightly from behind, her longing for him felt in the warmth of her embrace.

  ‘Huh. This feels… strange, somehow.’

  Gncing over at Hector, who was also enjoying a heartfelt embrace from a cat-eared princess, it seemed the incongruity was shared.

  All things considered, however, it all made sense.

  In Reivan and Hector’s perspectives, they had only been gone for not even a whole day. But to Helen, Mimi, and the rest of the world, the Samsaran assault force was gone for slightly more than a month. Reivan was no stranger to time anomalies because years within a fragment of eternity could be mere seconds in reality.

  But in those cases, only he could feel the passage of time and everyone else was ignorant. In this case, he and the others were ignorant while the rest of the world felt time pass normally.

  From Reivan’s perspective, the warm and heartfelt welcome was like going out to buy milk and having a welcome party thrown when they got back home an hour ter.

  Even though he understood everything, there was an emotional disconnect. Because in his mind, he’d literally just said goodbye to Helen barely a day ago.

  But it wasn’t a day ago. It had been a month in reality.

  ‘I think I prefer being the one to feel time pass faster…’

  Whenever he spent a long time within a fragment of eternity, he was the only one who had to adjust. Not that he would ever have a choice, of course.

  “C’mon,” Mimi broke away from her husband’s embrace, though her hands were still joined with his. With a wide smile and a gentle tug, she pulled him with her. “Let’s get you two some food.”

  “Man, do I like the sound of that!” Hector ughed, letting himself be directed. “I’m starving over here.”

  Reivan wholeheartedly agreed, so he turned to Zouros. “Can you unload the others in the same underground chamber as st time? And be gentle with them, alright?”

  Zee nodded before diving downward, phasing through the floor.

  ‘Once you’re done, come back up and eat with us,’ he added through their mental connection.

  With his very rge friend gone, Reivan finally noticed a lone figure waiting on the sidelines. “Dame Gwendolyn? You were here?”

  The blonde knight dipped her head slightly. “I didn’t want to ruin the family reunion.”

  “I see. We’ll talk ter, alright?”

  “Of course. We can even postpone it to tomorrow.”

  “No, it’s better to get it out of the way as fast as possible. I’ll meet you in my office after I gorge myself on the finest cuisine the pace has to offer. Which is hopefully quite fine and plentiful.”

  Gwen nodded in understanding. “Then I will go down and properly dismiss the knights you came with.”

  “Oh yeah. Thank you for taking the trouble.”

  Reivan smiled and watched her leave before walking off with Helen and his boy.

  Reivan and most knights didn’t need to eat as much as regur humans anymore, but it wasn’t as if they particurly enjoyed not eating either.

  During the back-to-back-to-back assaults, neither Reivan nor the other knights had time to eat much. At most, they managed to push a few bits of jerky into their pie holes directly after an attack. Or maybe sneak in some food that the imperials were about to eat before they met their unfortunate ends.

  So now that they were back in a safe pce, Reivan and Hector happily filled their stomachs back up. Mimi escorted a very bloated Hector into their chambers in the pace, while Helen took off with Arthur because it was time for the baby to nap.

  Reivan, of course, headed off to his office, where he assumed Gwen was waiting for him.

  Probably Jiji as well, since she’d been suspiciously missing earlier. Checking his pocket watch, he realized that it was only three in the afternoon. So there was a very high likelihood that she was busy with her duties.

  Drawing near his office door was all it took to prove him wrong.

  There were two familiar scents wafting out from the gaps, and only one of them belonged to a human. A moment ter, he opened it and finally confirmed that the two scents were truly Gwen and his sister, who very much wanted to stop being his sister.

  “I’m gd to see that you’re back, Yani.” Jiji rose from her perch on the settee and came over to give him a tight hug. “I know it probably doesn’t feel that long for you, though. What with time being stopped in Sir Zee's belly and all that.”

  Reivan chuckled, returning the embrace with his own. “You would’ve missed me even if I was only gone for a day.”

  “True enough.”

  Her somewhat heated gaze lingered on his own, and a mischievous grin crossed her face.

  For a moment, Reivan truly thought she would just hop up and steal his lips or something equally arming. But fortunately, Gwen was still present. And it seemed even Jiji was not brash enough to do something so scandalous in front of such a straight-ced knight.

  “Well then,” she chirped as she broke away, acting as if nothing had happened. “Who’s first?”

  Since he didn’t feel as if he had much to share, Reivan recounted what happened on his side of the world.

  He told them how he and the others had dressed as Argonians to further incite infighting between the various imperial factions. About how victory had come easily. About how it gradually became less easy. And then about how unexpectedly taxing the strategy was because they didn’t actually have time to rest in between assaults.

  “Ah.” Gwen’s eyes widened in shock as she covered her mouth. “My apologies, I failed to consider that…”

  Reivan shrugged. “It's not your fault. It was an oversight on my part as well. I suppose we were all focused on how to use it, what we were going to do with the ability, and what comes after the strategies we formuted have been pyed. We failed to consider these minor details as a result, unfortunately.”

  Jiji shook her head. “These weren’t minor details, no? After the first assault, you were all facing enemies who had more rest than you. It’s dangerous to fall into these situations, no? Even if you're confident in your abilities, it is unwise to intentionally fall into a disadvantageous position.”

  “I completely agree…” Reivan scratched his head meekly. “Next time, I’ll have to get Zee to find pces for us to rest. Once every few assaults should be enough. Or after a particurly tough one, if there is one.”

  Gwen looked particurly frustrated at her oversight, but she schooled her expression. “I’ll be sure to be more careful next time, Your Excellency. This will not happen again.”

  “It’s fine to be vexed about our oversights,” Jiji crossed her legs, grooming her white tail atop her p. “But need I remind you, nobody in this room is in their thirties yet. We’re young. Inexperienced. We will miss some things. We should still learn from this, but there’s no need to be too hard on ourselves.”

  Reivan hummed in agreement. Inwardly, he reckoned his father wouldn’t have missed what he and the other two did. Since Gwen and Jiji were quite sharp for their age, it wasn’t a question of competence. But rather, experience.

  ‘Wait a minute, where is that guy anyway…?’

  “Father is…?” he asked, letting the question hang in the air.

  “Out.” Jiji zily waved toward the window. “Took a few guards and inspected the other cities. Said he knew a thing or two about agriculture and whatnot.”

  ‘Oh, I bet it’s more than a thing or two, considering how much that sector improved during his regime.’

  “Let's not mind him, then.” Reivan snapped his fingers. “Did anything else happen here? Demons rising from the chamberpots or giant bats terrorizing the sky, that kinda thing.”

  “Nothing of note,” Dame Gwendolyn answered. “Everything is going as pnned or even better than expected, Your Excellency.”

  “That’s good to hear. Eborate, please.”

  Gwen bowed a little before continuing. “The fields are thriving because of the Sormon Priests. Fishing vilges we have pced along the coasts have had decent yields. Automatas are being refined, and you will be presented with a working prototype soon. Wine-making is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. And it is looking as if Samsara can start being self-sustaining earlier than we thought. Food-wise, that is. They will still need to rely on Aizen for plenty of things.”

  “But this is still great progress.” Reivan smiled. "I know I was gone for a month, but damn."

  “Indeed, Your Excellency. I believe we can also attribute most of our success to the Sormon Faith’s heavy investment in helping restore the nds. They have sent plenty of additional ymen. Even though a lot of them ck experience, they are still a huge boon for the nation.”

  Jiji giggled lightly. “They probably want their young blood to get that experience here.”

  Reivan agreed. He didn’t see anything bad about it at all. There was never going to be enough priests, in his opinion. Sadly, there was never a long line in Aizen for that particur profession. Even though priests were admired by plenty, it wasn’t the type of admiration that compelled someone to be what they admire.

  ‘Hm…? Is that perhaps why they’re so invested in helping around here?’

  From history and his own personal experience, the Sormon Faith—or at least, the Saintess Sect—weren’t very aggressive or hungry for new members. As previously mentioned, there was never a long line of people wishing to join the clergy, but recruits came quite regurly.

  Just about everyone got sick. And everyone who got sick in Aizen had to see a priest for healing. With that in mind, it wasn’t strange for someone who benefited from divine power to dream of wielding it in order to help the innocent as well.

  That was its main and only source of new members, however. They didn’t make any special effort to proselytize.

  But perhaps part of the reason they didn’t do so in Aizen was because they were aware that the kingdom’s people already had a “pseudo god” in the form of the king. And so most people were going to be reluctant.

  Samsara, however, was a treasure trove.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a lie to say that the church’s prestige here rivals or even surpasses mine after all they've done for everyone.’

  Thinking about it a little more, there was nothing bad about this unless the priest was some sort of pedophile and they were targeting a young child. But that was more of an Earth thing. Priests in this world, as far as he knew, never had a scandal of that caliber.

  In any case, if the clergy wanted to recruit a whole bunch of Arkhanians, then more power to them. He’d cheer on their success.

  “I’ve also heard whispers,” Jiji slowly said. “Of the church wanting to restore the wastends surrounding Lageton.”

  Reivan slightly tilted his head. “What for?”

  “Uh. What do you mean, what for...? Maybe so we don’t get depression every time we look out the window?”

  “C’mon, it’s not that bad these days. The snow covers up everything. All the ugly bits of nd that look like nothing will ever grow on them are hidden under a pretty yer of virgin white snow.”

  Jiji wordlessly pointed outside, prompting Reivan to look. There was a window there, and it revealed just how very little snow there was.

  In hindsight, he had been away for more than a month so he’d missed Snowday. Meaning there was not a lot of snow and people were going back to wearing clothing for warmer weather.

  Since he was inside the pace, where there were plenty of temperature manipution effects in pce, he couldn’t feel just how much hotter it was outside. But that, ironically, showed him that the weather had recovered even more simply because the heat didn’t somehow penetrate the pace’s enchantments.

  The temperature aside, the scenery outside truly was depressing, in a way. Of course, the sprawling walled city of Lageton looked nice. But there was nothing but a barren wastend as far as the eye could see past the wall.

  “I can tell why they would want to, yeah…” Reivan cleared his throat. “But wouldn’t it be useless to do so? It’s going to regurly snow over, so any forests they raise will just die from the cold.”

  Jiji rolled her eyes. “Would you rather see a bunch of wilting trees outside or a whole bunch of nothing?”

  “...Wilting trees, I suppose.”

  “Thought so. Also, there are cold-resistant trees that thrive even in snow. The church even somehow manages to make some trees cold-proof. There’s an experiment in the other two cities where all the families get to manage a pair of fruit-bearing trees on their lot, and it’s going very well.”

  “Hoh. Is it really…?” Reivan rubbed his chin with a smile. If that was the case, then it wouldn’t be bad to improve the general scenery outside. More trees never hurt anybody. They made oxygen and shit.

  “I also received a report from your former pet…” Jiji grinned, showing off a sheaf of papers. “Mira was her name, I believe.”

  “Oh.” Reivan snorted, trying not to look affected. “She’s not my pet. Anyway, it seems she has been earnestly reporting on what the mages are doing, hm?”

  Jiji clicked her tongue after failing to get a reaction out of him before finally returning to the topic. “No funny business so far. The general sentiment is that Samsara’s doing well as the people’s protector. As long as that remains to be the case, then the tower and its mages would likely stay obedient.”

  “That’s good… This country would be all kinds of fucked if the mages rise up in rebellion or something.”

  If an all-out battle was unavoidable, there weren’t quite enough knights present to handle the sheer number of mages. And besides, sorcerers were vital to the nation’s overall security. Yes, the knights were front and center tely. But there weren't enough of them to guard such a rge area.

  It wasn’t the case yet, but Samsara was poised to exceed the occupied nd that Aizen possessed. Before Reivan went off on his mission, a few more million people were liberated from imperial svery via the deal with Axion, and they could popute a few more cities. Not just the two new cities established near Lageton.

  Reivan licked his lip as he contempted something. “What about the gun problem?”

  “Do we have a gun problem?” Jiji raised a brow.

  “We do.”

  “Well, then it’s either still there or it has become a much bigger problem.”

  “Useless…” Reivan muttered before turning to his ever-dependable secretary. “Dame Gwendolyn. Please tell me about how our gun problem is being handled.”

  Gwen looked troubled for a very brief moment. “It has yet to be solved. People still want to have one on them whenever they go out.”

  “Even farmers?”

  “Yes. It is easy to spot them with a rifle on their back or a pistol hidden in their coats. I have increased patrols to impress upon the popuce that they are safe, but I do not believe it has been effective.”

  Reivan clicked his tongue quietly. Not at Gwen, but at his troubling constituents. “Nobody has shot anyone yet, I hope.”

  Gwendolyn nodded. “Thankfully not. Though there have been cases of firearms accidentally going off. Some of which resulted in harm to their wielder. A man sat on their pistol and it accidentally went off, blowing a decent portion of their buttocks.”

  “That’s…”

  ‘That should not be funny. Reivan, that should not be funny. Don’t ugh...’

  Fighting on for dear life, Reivan maintained a stony expression as he continued. “He survived, I hope?”

  “He did.”

  ‘Alright. That makes me feel a little better about ughing.’

  It was a rough lesson to learn, but it would stick. With any hope, the man would be more careful next time.

  “That man wasn’t the only case,” Gwen added. “A boy under ten who was accompanying his father also injured himself greatly.”

  Reivan’s brows creased. This. This wasn’t funny at all. “A child…? They gave him a gun!? What in the fuck are they thinking? Or wait, maybe nobody was thinking of the boy? Was he an orphan or something?”

  Gwen shook her head. “Referencing the records you personally made, the boy’s only remaining family is his father and older sister.”

  It wasn’t explicitly said, but Reivan understood that one of the boy’s parents was likely killed during the day of the camity. Perhaps a sibling or two as well. Maybe an uncle or a grandparent, too?

  Nonetheless, the boy still had a father. A father who would have lost his son if the accident had been just a bit more severe.

  ‘This… This is a problem. Do I have to force a ban on firearms or what?’

  Such weapons would hardly work on the type of foes that he would face, such as espers, homunculi, and imperial vanguards. Not to mention those annoying bats and the giant whale types.

  Instead, firearms were just a way to harm themselves or those around them.

  “Gwen, I want guns banned right now.” Reivan finally decided. “Kindly draft the necessary documents."

  “This will cause massive backsh among the mundane popuce, Your Excellency,” Gwen warned.

  “At this point, I don’t really care anymore. If they can compin, then their ass is probably intact. Unlike that one guy who blew his ass off.”

  “Then I’ll have the document in your office first thing in the morning.“ Dame Gwendolyn paused for a moment before offering a suggestion. "To ease the backsh from this, may I suggest holding gun safety seminars? And those who do particurly well can apply for a licence to carry one in certain conditions."

  Jiji also chimed in with a small proposal of her own. "Banning guns in general also seems excessive. Allowing them to keep it at home and for emergency use during home defense should be fine, no? I believe the people's main issue is that they're wary of each other, rather than Argonia or us."

  Reivan groaned in thought, finding both suggestions very sensible. “Alright. We'll go with that. Thank you for your counsel.”

  Gwen dipped her head. "I am merely doing my job as best as I can, Your Excellency."

  Jiji, comparatively, was less humble. "Oh, Yani. What would you do without me?"

  "Probably the same things. Just worse. And less happily." Reivan grinned, before remembering something once again. “By the way, how is the fort I’ve asked to be built? Zee probably passed over it along the way, but I wasn't... y'know, conscious."

  Aizen’s beliefs concerning national defense involved a whole lot of attacking. But imitating that would only bring Samsara so far, considering it cked the deep foundation that Aizen id out over thousands of years. There was a dire need to improve the budding nation’s defensive capabilities. Every time Reivan took hundreds of knights outside the country, he was basically gambling with Samsara’s safety on the line.

  Of course, there was always a certain level of military presence stationed here. But if the empire gathered a whole bunch of those giant monsters again, it wouldn’t be impossible to force their way through and wreak havoc on the city’s infrastructure.

  To combat this, military forts were to be established around the nation’s perimeter. These instaltions would spot and potentially take out the monsters before they got anywhere near civilization. Even if they couldn’t completely eradicate the attacking force, they could at least thin the enemy’s numbers and provide Lageton or the other cities enough time to prepare.

  They were to be constructed quite far, in strategic locations, and with teleportation gates built underground to make travel between the forts and the cities instant. Naturally, the gates would be equipped with self-destruct capabilities because the st thing anybody wanted was for Argonians to gain access to them.

  Not that they would be able to replicate the technology behind the gates, of course. The resources that powered them came from the portal to the Outnds. So nobody but Aizen could ever make one or even utilize them wantonly.

  “The construction has begun and should be completed quickly as long as there are no interruptions,” Gwen answered in an even tone. “But the measures to ward off espers and other defensive enchantments will still take some time. Their construction has been discovered by enemies, however.”

  Before he could respond, Jiji cut in. “Not to worry. They were just some imperial scouts, we believe. They backed off as soon as they saw.”

  Reivan snorted. “They were made intentionally close to known imperial settlements. So that makes sense. I suppose our next course of action would be to clear them out so our forts can have some space.”

  Neither agreeing nor disagreeing, Gwen offered additional information. “Sir Xander has confirmed that none of the nearby settlements belong to Prince Axion. Though we cannot confirm if they’re his allies either.”

  ‘What a shame. Would’ve been great if he were right next door so I could just capture him and be done with it.’

  The foreign prince obviously had quite a number of secrets and Reivan wanted to take his time prying them all out. Specifically, in a very dark room somewhere within Grimharbor Penitentiary.

  “It doesn’t really matter if they’re his allies or not,” Reivan shrugged. “We had a deal going. But there was no agreement to y off his friends. Besides, we can just hold them captive for leverage instead. Ironically, the princes are more useful to us alive than dead.”

  A swarm of rats was a daunting foe to face. But one? Or two?

  Then they were vermin.

  And wasn’t that what the imperial scions were at the moment? They were incredibly fearsome if they pooled their resources together and united under a common goal. But nope. Every single one had their own agendas, their own visions of coronation behind their eyes.

  That meant they were essentially just a collection of squabbling rats that Reivan could eliminate one by one. He had to be careful not to arm them, of course. Else, they would band together out of fear.

  Sadly, it was highly unlikely that they would stay quiet as the forts and walls were completed. But that was fine. Reivan and his staff already thought of the possibilities and were preparing countermeasures.

  “There is no need for Your Excellency to personally take the stage here,” Gwen offered. “If it’s a simple abduction, then our knights will be more than enough.”

  “It’ll be even easier if I help out, no? Together with Zee.”

  “While that is the case, you have been away from the pace for too long. Your departure wasn’t announced, but since you were gone for a month, it was obvious that you had left at some point. Which is why White Day is te.”

  “That… is a good point.” Reivan defted, having no rebuttal to that.

  “Also,” Seeing him troubled, Jiji snickered. “You have to address your steadily rising number of concubines.”

  Reivan groaned.

  His merciless sister did not stop there. “They were slowly coming over one by one, so you could focus on spending time with them in small groups. But then you went off to war so suddenly. Now there's so many of them.”

  “What the hell was I supposed to do? It was the prime opportunity! You even thought it was a good idea and made us wear looted imperial garments so the Argonians bmed each other.”

  Jiji shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a bad idea. I simply said that you went off to war instead of fulfilling your… duties.”

  Cutting into the argument, Gwen cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Your Excellency. But before it is forgotten, I must inform you that Prince Axion’s side has actually sent a bounty target for us.”

  Reivan immediately lost interest in bickering with Jiji, his mind turning to this new tidbit of information. “Did he now…”

  “Twenty million Arkhanians were delivered already as an advanced payment.”

  “Hah? Really?”

  “Yes… But they delivered it to Aizen instead of here.”

  Reivan was fbbergasted when he was informed that Prince Axion sent over more than twenty million Arkhanians to Aizen itself. They were delivered through an eborate use of secret messages and giant homunculi.

  He wasn’t the only one causing trouble for Argonia. There was a force north of Aizen that was terrorizing the empire. It was to this force that Axion delivered the sves.

  The night prior to battle, he’d sent a message saying that there were sves inside the homunculi and that the giant monsters would merely spit them all out before retreating peacefully. A battle for show was required to avoid suspicion, however, and if Aizen’s side did not comply, then the sves within would be obliterated.

  Fortunately, the Aizenian force’s commander complied, staging a mock battle that would “force” the homunculi to flee. And for “efficiency”, the homunculi let go of any additional weight that may have made their escape harder.

  And so, there were more than twenty million liberated sves north of the Wolf’s Jaw.

  Ten million for a bounty agreement. The rest was for a list of supplies that had already been delivered to Axion’s side through another staged engagement that involved knights “carelessly” leaving a supply cache unguarded for too long.

  “Is that legal?” Reivan asked quizzically.

  Gwen nodded with a sigh. “For the purpose of being safe, when the contract was drafted, we named Samsara and Aizen as an alliance. And so, technically, they could deliver the sves to Aizen instead of us directly.”

  ‘Fucking bastards…’

  Now, the credit for saving the Arkhanian sves would go to the Aizen Kingdom. Which wasn’t a horrible outcome. But Rond and Reivan—rulers of Aizen and Samsara, respectively—both wanted the tter to get the credit for the purpose of solidifying their hold on the nation.

  Hell, the momentum brought upon by his upward spike of reputation may have been enough to force through the banning of firearms. And quite possibly, it might have gone unprotested because there would be sufficient proof that Reivan’s regime could protect them.

  There were benefits, of course, to increasing the general opinion of Aizen. So it wasn’t that bad. But it was a bit annoying to have one’s pns ruined in such a… petty way. The liberated Arkhanians would still be shipped off to Samsara. That was a given. And the food that Reivan would have traded for them came from Aizen anyway.

  But it really irritated him to his core how uncooperative Argonia could be.

  ‘Is that bastard doing this intentionally? Fucking prick…’

  “I believe that Lady Jiji is correct,” Gwen hesitantly spoke up. “You have done a lot, Your Excellency. Now it is time to address domestic affairs. Otherwise, you will be overwhelmed by the number of concubines you will have to attend to. Would you like me to draft a timetable for you?”

  Reivan hastily shook his head, his ears burning. “No, no. Thank you for the offer. But I think I’ll tackle this one on my own…”

  Drafting a proper timetable would probably involve referencing how long he spent with a woman. He had no trouble sting long, of course. But his problem was the complete opposite.

  He tended to spend a lot of time fucking. And he didn’t want Gwen thinking he was a pervert who did it so much.

  ‘It’s probably too te for that… but a man’s gotta hold on to every bit of pride that he can!’

  In any case, it didn’t seem like there were any pressing concerns for him to handle at the moment, except for the matter of the bounty. Axion had evidently sent over a full profile of the target—who happened to be a princess—and a generous estimation of the enemy faction’s forces.

  There was a portrait too, one that showed a face Reivan didn’t recognize. Which meant the target hadn’t been part of the military settlements he’d attacked together with Hector and the other knights.

  He felt complicated about that.

  On one hand, if the target had been one of the people whose military he’d just gutted, then he could have just abducted the princess and saved himself some time.

  On the other hand, since he didn’t know who this was and had never faced her before, he had to keep in mind that the enemy could have some nasty tricks up her sleeve. The sky was the limit for these imperial bastards. He’d even encountered a prince who ran away from battle using some kind of single-person teleportation artifact.

  For all he knew, this bitch could have an artifact with the power to blow up a country.

  “Since Axion has already paid,” Jiji gestured zily at the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Then there’s no need to capture this one first, no? No need to use her to threaten Axion to pay. Just have Sir Xander assassinate her and set the matter to rest.”

  Reivan licked his lip contemptively. “That’s an option.”

  “It’s the best one, Yani. Stop trying to think of ways to get away from your responsibilities.”

  “Oh shut up, you little brat…” Reivan threw a pillow at her through [Formless Will], which she was not ready for. Satisfied by the surprised yelp and the soft plomp the pillow made when it collided with her face, Reivan turned to the only serious person in the room. “She has a point, though. Dame Gwendolyn, please let Sir Xander know.”

  Gwen slowly stood up and saluted. “Should I set a time limit for the mission?”

  “There’s no need, there’s no need. Sir Xander will try to complete it promptly even without one. Just give him whatever he may need and more. And tell him to be careful.”

  Xander, who was supposed to be his repcement guardian knight, was away from Lageton doing scoutwork. It was a much better use of the man’s talent, and he was like a fish that had returned to water. Truly, Reivan would have been squandering his knight’s talent if he’d insisted on having a shadow follow him wherever he went.

  Unfortunately, that also meant that communication was difficult and convoluted, so Reivan couldn’t wish him luck personally.

  “Is that all?” Reivan asked when he couldn’t think of anything else to ask about.

  Gwen nodded. “While I’m sure you’re very tired, everyone would appreciate it if you could conduct a White Day before you retire.”

  “Ah.” Reivan once again looked out the window. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that with Dom. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you. There are no other matters after that, so please enjoy your rest.”

  Reivan stood up with a smile, arching his back and grunting in pleasure at the satisfying cracks produced.

  ‘No rest for the wicked, eh?’

  AnnouncementChapter Word Count: 5693Last Edited: May 21, 2025