Within the Heavenlight royal families castle war room. A group of lights flashed and Richard, Marybell Heavenlight, the second princess, a young mage with white robes and a tall man dressed like a knight with a spear on his back appeared.

“Finally home! I need to take a bath to get this filth off of me, MAIDS! Honey please wait for me.” Marybell said and waved to Richard.

“I’ll be in my room.” He said proudly.

The other two looked at each other and sighed. The party had been much larger but those from the heroes that had followed him couldn’t stand him and split off and he found this young mage who was a light magic mage and this knight who was a merc but decided to join and started forming a personal party.

They both sighed and shake their heads at the princess.

“Haha! Now that we are E rank we can take on D rank missions and slowly build a powerful party!” Richard spoke to no one out loud.

“Sir, where do we stay? I understand the royal family gave the heroes personal rooms but we aren’t heroes.” The knight said.

“You’re part of a Hero’s party so don’t worry, also Mary can easily secure some rooms for you since lots of guest rooms exist in the castle. Let's go eat something better than that gruel we have been eating.” Richard said making the mage frown.

“Is my cooking that bad?” the mage asked whispering to the knight.

“No, he is just picky.” The knight replied in the same low voice.

They followed Richard to the dining hall where breakfast had been placed.

Arriving they found Nickelous’s party, which consisted of him, the priestess girl, a wind mage, a beast tamer, a hero archer and a hero knight.

“Good morning Richard!” the priestess said with a smile as they arrived.

Richard frowned as he saw her, he had wanted her to be in his party since she was a healer but she had gone to Nickelous.

“Hmpf. You all seem… well.” Richard replied and walked to the other end.

“Don’t bother with the prick Julie.” Nickelous said after eating a chicken.

Richard stopped in his tracks and looked back.

“Who is a prick! I’ll have you know i got E rank adventurer guild rank after one run of missions!” He shouted.

Nickelous didn’t even look up but the beast tamer did. On his arm was a monkey who was holding a peeled banana.

“We gained D rank already, we got lucky that one of the missions we did was difficulty in the lower C rank so we got D.” he said.

“What! How did you start a C rank mission!” Richard shouted.

“We didn’t, the mission rank was wrong from the start. Hunting down a pack of Devil spawn from a dungeon got worse when we reached their nest and found a boss class.” The knight said.

Richard clenched his fist and looked at the seat that Ace had sat in during the first day.

“If you're wondering about Ace Cross, i heard he got C rank and didn’t get B only because his strength wouldn’t allow it because his mission had an even more extreme boss monster who he tamed and made his minion along with the boss's own minions.” The archer hero in Nickelous’s party said.

Richard turned bright red and turned on his heel and went to the end of the table and viciously at quickly.

The two men in his party just looked at each other and kept eating before following after him and asking where he went.

***

“What did you say!?”

In Marybell’s room she was taking a bath while her personal maid filled her in on her sisters movement and her success and she couldn’t help scream hearing she had gained C rank status but hadn’t chosen to do more missions until their strength fit their rank. They had told her mother they were going to train in the elven nation to strengthen their magic and skills.

“This is bad, my sister is advancing very quickly with that bastard since he can gather the monsters for her to hunt in peace.” Marybell said in the hot water tub.

“Crowned princess is currently on the way to the elf nation by stagecoach. As the queen cannot send our shadows over without endangering relations since their shadows are better, so they must locate the teleportation stones on their own. It should be about a week before they reach the nearest town within the elf nation.” The maid said.

“That is if they are moving with regular horses which i doubt is the case. That massive puppet the bastard had can easily pull them along and deter monsters by his presence so it could easily be less time. Send someone to the elf nation to keep me informed. I need to get Richard to high fame while they are away and spread rumors about the dungeon maker and that samurai girl. The girl is easy but the dungeon maker not so much.” Marybell said.

“His majesty does not see Sir Cross in a good light, maybe he may assist you in your endeavor.” the maid suggested.

“That's it! Daddy can help me out!” Marybell said and got up revealing her very large mounds and alluring curves.

She held her arms out and her maids began to dry her. Just like all spoiled nobles she had never done things on her own. She took pleasure in commanding other people from a high place. She is far different when compared to Charlotte which is the main reason Charlotte is the crowned princess. There is even a chance that if Charlotte died Mirian would become crowned princess before Marybell.

The princess put on the now cleaned red silk robes and wizard clothes and quickly walked off in search of her father.

After some searching she found him in her mother study reviewing several strange parchments.

“Daddy! I want you to suppress that stupid dungeon idiot and the samurai hussy! I heard they surpassed Richard’s achievements! How am i going to marry an a hero with no influential power!” She shouts coming in the room.

“Sweetie…” He says solemnly.

“What?” she replies.

“As much as i would love to help you this time the boy had planned ahead and moved quicker than this old man.” He said.

“What did he do? Did he run away? Is he trying to do something that will take my chances to be queen?!” Marybell asked.

“He got a large amount of support from your mother. He traded farming techniques from his world, both him and Misaki Shinigumi drew out the original diagram in front of me and after spending nearly 3 days to get their payment they went through the geographical files of our nation and even helped your mother decide which regions should experiment with which crops.” The king said and hung his head.

I walk over and start to read all the files and things that make up their plans.

“This is absurd! He wants to completely destroy how farmers work!” Marybell shouts as if what was being done was the correct.

“No, he is putting us in place, both me and your mother entered what he called his ‘Farm Dungeon’. He showed us exactly what we are missing, the fields in this method make gathering easier, he showed us how to make the bull-drawn plows to set up the farmers prepare the fields. Fertilizer to help get rid of a tremendous amount of the waste produces we have, in the capital and all the noble houses, make then use that on the fields as an offering to the earth goddess for her to bless the earth over the fields. It was simple, back breaking but it was work that would produce maybe five or six times more food then we make in one harvest and as the technique is perfected in our own ways it will only grow with time.” The king said.

“You saw his own field! Where did he get land?!” Marybell asked.

“He transformed his dungeon, he is like a walking plantation and as he gets more materials to build this dungeon he will only produce more and more. All extremely high quality crops, he even left a large amount with us since he did not need it and could obtain the same amount in about 3 days with his puppets using nature magic to rapidly increase the growth and quality.” The king replied.

“Father!... We need to stop him! I want you to send someone after them spread rumors about him being someone of the demon lord's side or a spy or maybe a demon in disguise!” Marybell was frantic.

“I can’t, your mother has ordered all shadow to ignore all your orders and any orders from me that you wish accomplished, if you haven’t noticed already, there are some in this room watching. Don’t think of doing anything to them.” The king stood and said sternly towards his daughter. “It will only end badly if we try anything…” He got in close and whispered in her ear, “for now.”

She nods understanding and frowned.

“Where are they now?” She asked.

“I had heard they wished to go to the Elven nation to polish their magic and skills. I believe you must have heard that from your maids. They will most likely attempt to gain access to the elves extensive rune archive.” He said and chuckled.

“What is so funny?” Marybell asked.

“It’s the elves, you have never met one before so you have no idea how eccentric one can be. Not only that but to learn a rune in the elf nation it takes adventure guild contribution points. To make it worse, foreigners races must pay at least 5 times the amount of contribution points as compared to the elves. They will truly face a predicament if they believe the elves are an easy race to deal with. It is a shame i am not there to watch but i can more or less guess how things will go.” He said grinning.

“I think we should follow them!” Marybell said.

“No, as much as i want to support Richard, he is a lustful fool who is easy to manipulate but in the elven nation he will be eaten by them as soon as he reaches the smallest of villages let alone the capital. If you want to go somewhere, i shall ask your mother to see for a dwarf Sky ship to take you to the dwarf nation but not the elven one. Not until Richard hardens up and forms a stronger will.” The king said.

“So just sit on our asses letting them grow stronger?” Marybell said furious.

“No, there are things we can do like giving you missions through the adventurers guild that will benefit in his growth. He needs to go through life and death situations to make his foolish nature mature more and for him to realize this isn’t some playground. You also need to gain levels, you sister has already reached level 18 in this short time. With the C rank adventurers rank they will need to be cautious but not overly as they grow but they can’t grow higher due to their levels and strength being too low so just build up a strong force and slowly manipulate the hero as we like.” He said in a low voice.

Marybell nods and walks out in silence. The king lets out a sigh and looks at the parchments in front of him and shakes his head.

“Good job, to think you could actually contain our daughter. You have always been a weakling to her advances.” The queen said coming out from a hidden door behind a rotating bookcase.

“Why must i keep her away from Ace Cross?” The king asked.

“First off, if she chooses to abandon the hero then she will be thrown aside by Ace. Ace isn’t a stupid man like Richard. Richard is a good man to have as a figurehead, the perfect prince-like figure but he is far from being a hero. Nickelous and Ace are the smartest of the heroes, Misaki possess immense skill, several others are very talented with magic and if i sent them to learn from Ace after he returns from the elf nation they will not only cause our nation's magical prowess to boom but will also allow our nation to start developing magical artifacts like never before. The only ones we get from dungeons are too mysterious. Research is too slow and we have only been able to make the lowest trash level artifacts due to the engraving skill and we still lack the runes to improve them. You know Ace found out his puppets could make low grade artifacts from equipment which now equip his puppets.” The queen said.

“I had witnessed that yes, i saw the mages and warrior puppets with the metal armor yet it looked to have veins. He must have used some skill the puppets had but we already know we can’t rely on that or else we will rely on him and the artifacts were low grade. That said, if he found out how to make true artifacts then we can only bow our heads and ask him to teach us.” The king said.

“I see you understand our current position. I doubt we can contain Ace within the borders of the four frontline nations.” The queen said.

“If he leaves that is one thing off my shoulders but i hate that his personality makes him the kind to not care about our situation.” The king said.

“He simply is low key, when the time comes he will help.” The queen said and looked at the bookshelf. In the inside was a simple room with a single pedestal. On top of it it was a short sword that was as dull white with some runes on its body but all of it looked to have lost life a long time ago and had nicks and a rust over it.

“Whether it’s for his or for our own good, this sword will eventually reach his hands but when that day will come only the gods know and what comes from that… maybe even they don’t know.” The queen said and closed the rotating bookcase hiding the sword and walked out.