Steps echoed across the hallway between the private rooms. Tap Tap Tap. They moved to one end, then turned around and moved back to the other end again.

"I have the people gathering materials scheduled for early morning and then the craftsmen shortly before noon. Tora will take a look at the alchemists, enchanters and other spirit inclined people later today."

Ryoma had been running around in the hallway for the past half hour scribbling information down on his notebook. As one of many children of a merchant, who didn't inherit any parts of the business, he was not uninformed about any of these tasks, but knowing about something and actually doing them was quite different.

His official title was currently Chamberlain of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, but none of the positions or titles in this place conformed to anything that he heard about outside. It was mostly given to him, because neither Yui nor Tora wanted him to get ignored when he had to deal with people outside the Pavilion.

Whatever his actual title might be though, it could not be denied that the twin sisters relied a lot on his help. He did not expect the Tai siblings to hand over so much responsibility to him but considering their personalities it was not really unexpected.

Yui had a hard time dealing with strangers. While she had a decent understanding of economics and always surprised him with her strange and innovative ideas how to handle the shops business, she was shy and reluctant to manage their servants and workers. She did well acting as a ruler from time to time, but it was stressful for her to play such a role. It would not be wise to permanently force her into a situation she wasn't comfortable with.

Tora on the other hand, simply wasn't interested in involving herself with any of the administrative tasks that had to do with people. She was the person who managed most of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion's mystic abilities, whatever that might include and Yui had already made hints to him that she was not her real sister, but the details were still unknown to him.

"We still have to make sure to check their backgrounds though. If the are not freemen and bound to some lord, we will have to settle on an agreement to have them work for us instead. Yui has no idea how any of this works, I guess I have to handle this myself. I wonder where she comes from and how their own commoners are arranged."

Yura as well as many of the surrounding regions had a semi-feudalistic government with many intricacies involved in the rank and status of its people.

While noble born and cultivators were obviously free to go where they wanted as long as they were not bound to defend a place in some way by their own lords, regular peasants and workers had a rather different status.

Where they lived and worked, who they were allowed to marry, and many other aspects of their lives were often controlled by whatever lord ruled the area they lived in. Craftsmen and merchants often had a lot more freedom, but also had to rely on their own skills to make a living.

The common folk had a hard, but unless the country suffered hardships or their lord was corrupt, a steady live, where food and lodging was guaranteed and provided for them as long as they were employed by someone.

Small landowners were situated somewhere in between. They had more freedom to act on their own than regular workers, while also being responsible to take care of the mostly rented land they were given.

"Oh and I guess I also have to introduce that Rina woman to Yui." His face turned into a frown.

He could hardly argue with Tora about it, but the idea of suddenly pushing a lady-in-waiting on Yui without even telling her about it beforehand … he already worried about her reaction and the outcome.

"I just hope it doesn't ruin our relationship somehow." sighing he got ready to introduce the new people to their new tasks and show them around.

-

The early morning, some time before the shop officially opened, was not as quiet as usual and filled with conversation in the shop room.

Taking care of the various people who were hired to gather materials and acquire resources directly from their own dimensional locations, Ryoma took a look at their identities and quickly settled possible debts or responsibilities they might still have.

Already used to showing people around and explaining the shop locations to them, they were soon equipped with the necessary gear and were taught the basics of what was required of them.

Unlike the craftsmen and people who would hold administrative tasks, these workers were not real retainers. They acted independently and were hired in a similar way to what Yui would call freelancers. Gathering resources for the pavilion while being paid with a small share of the gained resources.

They had no fixed quotas or worktime but were paid purely on a performance basis. If they fell below a certain amount of gathered materials over a longer time though, chances were high that someone else would be hired instead.

Some might prefer money instead of goods and their share would be bought by the Pavilion with coin instead.

Craftsmen on the other hand would have a longer lasting contract. They were given various tasks and were paid a fixed amount of money, as well as possible bonuses depending on their performance.

The woman who introduced herself as Rina was currently the only real hired administrative assistant, if one wanted to call her that.

"Yui, this is Rina, she will be living with us from now on. Rina this is Tai Yui, the owner of our Pavilion."

Ryoma stood in front of Yui with a young woman in her early twenties right behind him.

"Oh, right, you already mentioned that someone would live with us soon. Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion Rina."

Yui smiled at the woman, who was a bit taller than herself, but not exceptionally tall, with brown hair and green eyes. The dress she was wearing was of decent quality, but not overly elaborate while her hair was bound carefully, giving her a youthful, but composed and elegant look.

"It's a pleasure to be able to work here lady Tai." Rinomi curtseyed and did her best not to wince in pain. It was not the first time that she worked in a noble household and she was well trained in etiquette, but not letting anyone get suspicious about her wound and condition was harder than she expected.

"Ah, yes, well Yui, you see, Tora said you needed an assistant and miss Rina is going to be your lady-in-waiting. She comes with various skills that you would benefit a lot from and has experience in working on various households of important nobles.

"What?"

Yui looked at Ryoma in shock and confusion, then started glancing at Rinomi, who just looked confused too and then her stare returned to Ryoma before turning slightly angry.

"I don't need a lady-in-waiting, I'm quite fine all on my own."

"But Yui, Tora said you need someone to help you, as …"

"I said I don't need a lady-in-waiting." Suddenly aware that they were having a discussion about their new employee's necessity, Yui felt slightly guilty and awkward.

"Uh, what does a lady-in-waiting even do?" she quietly asked Rinomi, not quite pouting at Ryoma, but also far from happy with him springing such a situation on her.

"Lady Tai, among other things, my duties would entail proficiency in etiquette, languages and various arts like dancing, painting, music, helping the lady with her wardrobe, as well as various miscellaneous tasks like keeping track of activities at court or relaying messages."

Yui just grumbled even more, the only thing holding her back from shouting in anger was Rinomi, who seemed rather innocent in her eyes.

"I see, so Tora wants to tell me that I am socially inept, and I better have someone with common sense around me in order to avoid causing some war with some other nation."

"Hey hey sis, you could of course look at it this way, but you really do need an assistant who helps you with the local customs and the habits of nobility. If you don't like a lady-in-waiting you could always hire her as your spy master or as a bodyguard."

"If she knows how to use half of the small arsenal of weapons she carries with her, it would be more than adequate in that regard."

Tora shouted from downstairs, not further involving herself in the conversation.

Yui and Ryoma looked slightly confused, while Rinomi froze like a statue at the unexpected words. The young woman who was invited as a lady-in-waiting took a moment to consider her situation.

'She knows I am armed without even meeting me face to face. How strong is this woman? Should I go on with the job, or does she know about this as well? Would I even have a chance? She does not seem to be worried about her sister at all even though someone is standing in front of her with hidden weapons.'

Rinomi thought about fleeing, but with her wound it would not be able for her to get away fast enough. It would be hard to escape a normal fit person, let alone someone who she thought of as powerful like Tora.

'I guess I have no chance but to hope that they don't know about my job and act like it is normal.'

By now the stares of both Yui and Ryoma were rather curious.

"Uhm, well I also do know how to defend myself, not that I expected for anyone to find out about it. If there is a need to protect the lady, I would obviously use my abilities to defend her."

Yui on the other hand thought that it would be much better to have a spy master rather than a lady in waiting and seriously considered the role of this woman now.

What modern high school girl would want a lady-in-waiting? Looking over her shoulder all the time, nagging at her choice of clothes, giving her lectures about etiquette. She'd rather hire a demon lord than a lady-in-waiting!

"Do you have any close ties with the Yura kingdom, or any of its lords? I can't argue that it wouldn't be beneficial to learn some more about society's norms here, but I don't want to have someone around with split loyalties."

Yui's words changed, her intonation and gestures changed. Her whole attitude that was a moment ago still that of a shy young shopkeeper girl, now reflected a very different person. It was as if the girl had put on the mantle of a ruler, surprising Rinomi quite a bit.

"Lady Tai, you don't have to worry, I have no ties to any powers of a kingdom. I have been travelling for a while due to various personal reasons, but plan to settle down here."

"It would make sense for an empress to have a bodyguard and it can't hurt for the Earthly Treasures Pavilion to set up some information network in the long run."

Ryoma seemed to agree with Tora as well, especially as the idea of Yui getting a typical lady in waiting was obviously discarded. Maybe they could get her someone as a companion at least, even if it was under the disguise of a bodyguard.

"E..empress?"

What was business as usual between Ryoma, Tora and Yui was absolutely baffling to Rinomi. A royal person was someone you didn't want to mess with, let along a sovereign like a king.

With this world's strict classification of nation ranks, an Empress, in other words the ruler of an Empire would be even more of an untouchable personage.

To be able to use the title of kingdom, they would require at least a Core stage cultivator as a permanent retainer or an army that would be of equal power.

An empire on the other hand required an Origin stage cultivator as a retainer or enough Core stage cultivators to be able to defend against one.

There were no empires on their island region and in all the world that was known to Rinomi, even in her birthplace, there were only a few nations that would have the power to use that title.

'I messed up, I messed up big time. I knew I should have informed myself better about this place. There were even some rumors about a powerful cultivator in this shop, but if what they said is true, that would be on a whole different level from what I've expected!'

Rinomi was a low stage Core cultivator herself and even though she was wounded, she still held quite a lot of strength if she ignored her situation and risked her wound becoming worse.

Never would she have expected that in such a small kingdom, other than her enemies who might still be chasing her, as well as a handful of major powerholders, there would be others who could be a true threat.

"I don't like that title very much." Yui snorted. "Just call me Yui when we are alone or with friends. Miss Yui when we are in the shop with customers should be fine too. The formal stuff is when we have to do formal things or meet stupid people."

Her voice had already returned to that of a shy girl.

It became increasingly harder for Rinomi to accurately judge the situation. Which one was her real personality, and which one was a mask?

"If I may be so bold, I would have a question lad.. miss Yui."

"Sure, what would you like to know?"

"I have ... a certain task that is still left incomplete, by a certain client of mine. I would rather not work with them anymore, as their morals are quite questionable, but I rely on their help. As you mentioned, while this would not exactly tie me to them there might still be a conflict of interest."

"Oh? Go on?" Yui seemed interested what this young woman's motive might be. Obviously, there was a bigger story than just randomly arriving here on her travels.

"I would need a high-grade antidote. I'd prefer not to get it directly on the open market, like the auction houses or the big medicinal halls as I'm worried that some old acquaintances that have bad intentions might track me down that way."

Rinomi was worried that bringing up her past might be the reason they would not accept her, but she would rather risk this, than taking the risk offending this Tai family.

Neither did she have any real idea if she would even succeed, nor did her expectation of Yui being a spoiled brat come true, making her feel even more guilty about the situation. It seemed in her own best interest, both for her guilty conscience as well as from a logical point of view to side with this Earthly Treasures Pavilion instead.

"Don't worry Rina, we won't let any of our people get harmed. I'm sure we can find such a high-grade antidote. Do you have any family member who needs it?"

"It's Rinomi. My name that is … I usually go with Rina if I need to hide my identity. You can also call me Rin if you like miss Yui. I would rather keep this to myself if thats alright."

While Rinomi hoped for the best, mentioning her own weakness seemed like a really foolish idea at the moment.

"Rin. I see." As Rinomi did not want to tell her more about why she needed such an antidote, she didn't mention it anymore. "Well let me welcome you to our little family again Rin. As you probably already know, this is Ryoma. He's currently acting as our Chamberlain if anyone asks."

She really wanted to call him 'boyfriend', but as they didn't even have a date yet, it seemed like an odd title and situation.

"His daughter Miyuki also lives with us. She's an adorable little girl who is three years old but likes to pretend she is a grown up and loves to go on adventures like climbing trees. You could see her as a little princess when it comes to such matters, but I'd rather not let her hear that. She should grow up in a normal way without any of this royalty business in the way of her happy childhood."

"I think you've met my sister Tora yesterday. She is somewhere down in the living quarters probably taking a nap. Don't ask me what her official title is, but I guess it might be princess or something as my sister."

"Her tasks usually range from taking care of the pavilion itself and maintaining the various dimensional locations to teaching and helping out with anything our craftsmen won't be able to do."

"This land and half of Sume city is property of our Earthly Treasures Pavilion and not part of Yura kingdom, but as it's quite a mess we don't bring that up unless someone causes trouble.

"We don't tax people, we don't have real borders that we defend, and we don't really have a standing army, if you want to exclude Tora, who could probably raze a city or two on her own without much effort."

Yui talked about many of the things that were going on inside of the pavilion. There were not really all that many secrets, except for Tora's true identity that Yui didn't mention, but even though there did not seem any real secrets, Rinomi was still having a hard time believing what she just heard.

Just when Ryoma was getting ready to invite the craftsmen, Tora came up the stairs, holding Miyuki in one arm, while she was handing two small bottles to Rinomi with the other.

"Here. Drink the antidote to get rid of the poison, then apply the other potion on the outside of your wound."

Surprised, Rinomi took both flasks. "Thank you miss. How did you know about the wound?"

"Kid, you still need some more experience to fool me with something this basic in our own territory. Don't worry about people you cannot deal with. As long as you can help her with getting a grip on at least some everyday tasks of a ruler and make sure the small fries don't annoy her too much, it’s a good investment for all of us."

"Wound? Poison? Are you hurt Rin?"

Before Rinomi could even wonder why someone who looked younger than herself would call her kid, Yui already turned her 'worry mode' on and inspected her once more to see if she was hurt.

"With miss Tora's help I should be fine, thank you."

"Today will be really busy, go get some rest for now, we can figure out what I'm supposed to learn and what you're supposed to do in more detail later, after the shop closes." Yui suggested, before leading Rinomi downstairs to a new room.

"If you need anything let me know, no one can enter here without our permission, so don't worry and get some rest."

"I didn't expect my job application to turn out this way but thank you a lot miss Yui."

"I'm no miss." Yui laughed. "Good to have you around Rin."