Ryoma checked the various reports that he received from the Central Island Union once more. It looked as if their plans did indeed work out, just as Tora had expected them to. They had no direct influence in his far away island group and simply had to rely on second or even third hand information, making it a lot harder to actually act in a predictable way.

Nonetheless, Ryoma as a former merchant's son still had quite a few contacts, and with some money as incentive, it was easy enough to get a few message crystals to the right people, without alerting the Grey Order, at least not before the plan was already in place.

Now everything seemed ready for the upcoming auction. They had various quality materials or items to sell, they had an amazing auction building to gather all the visitors as well as enough people to manage the auction itself.

His life had also changed quite drastically from a nobody trying to just survive somehow, to an important figure in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

It was not easy to replace the mind-set that was ruled by rank and status with something totally different, but when Ryoma started working for Yui, he had soon realized that there was simply no place for such thoughts.

Not only were skills, loyalty and effort valued a lot more than social status or fame in the pavilion, but everyone would get a chance to show what they could do. There was no discrimination between social rank and gender and getting used to this new way of living had quite a lot of benefits, though there were also new challenges to be found.

With people being expected to contribute in whatever way they could, with often no one giving a clear idea of what they would have to provide they would have to take the initiative to come up with new ideas or constructive ways to improve their situations.

For some people this was a chance to improve their standing, their skills and show what they could do. Other people had a hard time adapting, feeling as if there was no clear direction and not enough guidelines of what they should, or should not do.

Selecting the right people for the right tasks was what he was mostly doing lately. Giving those people who would need it some direction and a clear cut task, while he let others just grow up along with the Earthly Treasures Pavilion and find their own roles and positions, where their strengths could be used in a good way.

Watching Yui bringing up new and interesting ideas about trade and economy made him feel rather stupid. If he would have used his mind a bit more and use his energy to improve his situation instead of falling into despair and convincing himself that there was nothing he could change, he might not have fallen so deep, before Yui had quite literally picked him up from the street.

It was about time he would use his skills, his creativity and knowledge as a merchant to get things done and he was confident that with the support of Yui and Tora and the whole Earthly Treasures Pavilion, he would be able to achieve it.

"What did you find out about those markets in the surrounding kingdoms?" he asked the gathered group of people they had been sending out quite a while ago.

"Tanawa is mostly reliant on crops and metals as their area is covered with various forests. We will not see a big profit from herbs and none at all from our beast hunting locations. They already have more beasts in their own lands than they are really able to deal with."

"Yuzena on the other hand is a lot more developed. They will be more interested to have easy

access to hunting areas. Their region is well known for their crops and farms. We will see more interest in metals, herbs that can only be found in forest or jungle areas and various rare types of wood."

Not hearing anything unexpected, Ryoma looked at the details of what they could expect of the various taxes and laws regarding imports and exports from these kingdoms and made notes on what to bring up during the visit of the various powers at the auction.

'Kamiecu will be a lot harder. They are rather reluctant to trade and to let others into their kingdom. Building a transportation gateway will be tough.' Ryoma thought.

"Are there any big merchant guilds in Kamiecu that we can rely on to distribute access talismans?" Ryoma asked the group of people.

"If we cannot open a portal in their place, we can still bring them the talismans and have the interested people come to us that way. Once enough people use our services there will obviously be more support to have an outpost in their lands as well."

"Master Ryoma, there are three large trading groups in this kingdom. While they are rather reluctant to work with outsiders, they are also rather competitive."

"You mean, we can get them interested if we use the other groups as incentive?" he still remembered Tora’s trick to get the Grey Order to ‘help’ them advertise in the Central Island Union.

An evil glint could be seen in his eyes. "Invite all three of the groups to the auction. I’m sure we can use this to our advantage."

It was about time to show the world how big of an impact the Earthly Treasures Pavilion could really make.

-

Yui woke up early in the morning and was just getting ready to make some breakfast, when she found the usually empty breakfast table filled with various types of food for two people as well as some decoration that was definitely not anything normal.

Ryoma and Rinomi were both out this morning, dealing with various merchant things that had come up and as Tora was not eating breakfast like they did, it was obvious who the food was for.

Pastries and fresh spirit fruit juice, her favorite cheese and some butter on a cold enchanted little plate. Some thinly sliced pieces of bacon and some scrambled eggs kept warm in a small pan. A nice bouquet of flowers and a tiny stuffed plush tiger on the second plate completed it all. There was even a little heart symbol made with honey on her plate, making Yui giggle in delight.

Ryoma had prepared breakfast for Miyuki and herself. Yui was not really experienced with relationships and some might argue that her depression and loneliness made her view rather skewed and unreasonable when talking about Ryoma, but Yui didn't really care.

In the beginning Yui got together with Ryoma mostly because of Miyuki as well as her curiosity what it would be like to have a boyfriend. It was hard to deny the emotions and feelings when being confronted with the other gender growing up after all.

Beyond that however, over the last couple of days once things calmed down more, she realized that she actually liked Ryoma quite a bit. He was mostly calm, wasn't as outgoing or impressive as Tora and if one didn't look for him, one might miss him completely.

Nonetheless Yui never really wanted a knight in shining armor to save her. Tora would always be way stronger and more of a protective figure than Ryoma could ever hope to be, but it was the little things that made her realize that she completely enjoyed their relationship.

Having him make breakfast, rub her shoulders after a long day in the shop and his eye for all the little details that came up because she missed something that he fixed for her. It was not simply gratitude because she saved Miyuki and him from a bad situation, she could feel his love and attention in all kinds of things he did for them.

Ryoma was handling most of the administrative work with their workers and craftsmen these days and other than teaching them new ways to make things, all their various problems ended up on his table. It was more than enough work to justify all that he had received.

Their relationship was much more than that, however. Yui liked the fact, that he didn't pressure her, like she expected other boyfriends in her own world might have. She could feel his interest in her, but he still held himself back, even when she was cuddling up to him and gave her the time, she needed to get comfortable with their situation first.

What did a couple do in her world? What would a couple do in this world?

Yui really had no idea how she was supposed to act around Ryoma and if it would even make sense to act in a special way.

'Should I just be myself? Am I missing something and making him sad?'

Her thoughts were soon forgotten as a little storm cloud was coming into the kitchen happy about all the food on their breakfast table. With Miyuki in the room, all of Yui's musings were disrupted.

"Mommy! Let's eat breakfast!"

"Yes, let's eat breakfast. Daddy prepared some really yummi things we can eat today."

"Mhm. Daddy is the best."

-

While people in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion were eating breakfast, King Yura Tetsu was sitting at his own little breakfast table together with some of his children, discussing the recent happenings in their kingdom.

His two sons were usually bringing up topics of some importance, both of them already grown up and each holding an important position in their kingdom.

Harue, his youngest daughter would usually just stuff herself full of whatever food she liked before running off causing more uproar somewhere in their lands.

Nonetheless both of her brothers as well as King Yura himself spoiled her without end.

"What is that strange round looking thing you're eating there sis?" one of the princes asked when he noticed a new type of food he had never seen before.

"It's a cake. It's really sweet and tastes great."

Harue had already eaten more than half of the cake she made together with Yui yesterday, but now that she had time to make more room in her stomach, she decided to not even wait for lunch or dinner and just eat some more of it during breakfast.

"Oh, it tastes sweet? Where did you get it from?"

"I made it myself."

"You … made it? You mean, you told our chef what to put into it and how you …"

"Nooo I made it myself. I made the dough and kneaded it and then we put it into the cooling box and waited until it was ready and then we added jam and chocolate and … and … well it's complicated."

Everyone at the table stared at Harue who was avoiding their looks and just stubbornly focused on eating her cake.

"Couldn't you just tell the chef to make it for you?" King Yura asked his daughter.

He was all too used to her acting like a wild child and not caring about her reputation but making her own food was a rather new situation that they were never confronted with before.

"No, Empress Tai taught me how to make it our chef wouldn't know how to. It was really fun. She is really nice too and scary strong."

Using Yui's title that some among their court still somewhat questioned if it would really apply, always worked for Harue in the past.

"You were cooking together with the Empress of this Earthly Treasures Pavilion?"

Did he just hear his daughter's words correctly? This troublesome place even his elders dreaded to go to, this pavilion that was more of a festering wound to his court where no one wanted visit? All their usual approaches for diplomacy and to get some share of their power did go wrong in this place, yet this was where his daughter was yesterday … to learn some cooking. With the Empress herself no less!

"Yes. Yui is really nice. She's about my age and she's not like all the people here with a stick up thei… uhh … well it's easy to talk to her and I don't have to worry about reputation and titles."

"I guess if you get along well with the people in this place, you will handle all the diplomatic relations with this Empire from now on."

Harue and the two princes looked up from their plates and stared at the king.

"Me? You want me to handle … diplomatic relations dad?"

"Why not? The usual approach doesn't seem to work. Obviously, you will have a much easier time than any of our … what did you call them? People with a stick in their ass?"

The two princes couldn't hold back a coughing laugh. Calling the high ranked nobles of their court by such a name was something Harue might say to them in private but having their king spell it out in such a blunt way, that was new.

"It's about time you grow up a little and help your siblings out. So far, they have shouldered all the work, while you did not much besides causing trouble for them."

"Fine dad, I'll do it. Oh, by the way. She wants to build a school. I told her I'd talk to you about it. They also sell us some good bows for a really decent price and a nice skill to go along with it. Might be useful for our archers."

"A school? Bows? I'm happy that you took the initiative to think about our kingdom for once and didn't just play around. What's this school about and what exactly did you want to do with these bows?"

This time, their breakfast conversation was for the first time no longer dominated by just the two princes, but instead the young princess of the kingdom.