The first thing that he asked the people in front of him was, “First of all, list out the problems that we are currently facing one by one.”

“Understood,” they said in unison.

Erza sat beside him and began writing down the list of problems that his subjects would state. The ones that gave out the problems were Zen Phylon, several guards and other ministers that had various jobs such as transportation, public security, and immigration. Some of the problems they listed were the increase in immigration of citizens from the Mardana Kingdom to their kingdom, an increase in monsters around both the Floria Kingdom and the Mardana Kingdom and the rumours circulating around about the Phoenix Titan’s relation with the Calamity Titan.

Once the list was written down, Erza handed the paper to him, which he looked down very quickly and sighed wearily.

“I see,” he relented finally after a pause. “It seems that I have a lot of things to take care of.” Then he looked at them with seriousness and instructed, “Now, I want you to go and separate the information of Mardana Kingdom’s activities, the people’s immigration, the rumours about me, and anything that had been occurring around the world and bring all of that to me.”

“Yes, sir!” They said and bowed before taking their leave, leaving only him and his wives there.

Lakshman sighed and remarked, “I never expected the problems to be this piled up. How were the two of you managing all of this?”

Erza and Venezuela looked at one another before the Queen of Floria Kingdom responded, “We were… struggling to pace ourselves with how the problems kept appearing with no immediate solution admittedly.”

“We focused more on what needed our immediate attention while shelving those that we couldn’t deal with immediately,” explained Erza from his side. “For instance, the rumours about you could not be squashed without you being here, and we still haven’t figured out why there’s a sudden increase in monster activity around our kingdom and the Mardana Kingdom.”

“That’s understandable,” accepted Lakshman with a nod of his head. “By the way, how is Ashtra Kingdom’s stance in all this?”

“They’ve been rather indecisive about whom to help and support,” grumbled Venezuela irritably. “It’s that Athurus’s fault for acting so ruthlessly towards us while Steve’s been very nice and considerate about the whole situation.”

Steve was the king of Ashtra Kingdom and had always acted as a respectful, cool headed and collected king. Even though Lakshman and Steve had interaction only during the meetings between the kingdoms, he came to like and respect Steve’s attitude which was a far cry compared to Athurus’s attitude towards him.

“Did Steve try to persuade Athurus to lessen his demands?” He asked curiously.

“He did,” replied Venezuela in agreement. “He said that Athurus was demanding too much from us since we too suffered losses, but then Athurus accused Steve of siding with us which was unfair and all.”

“I see,” said Lakshman slowly with a cold look on his face.

“I just don’t understand why Athurus has it in him to be so harsh towards us,” expressed Erza with concern. “I don’t remember even once where we offended him be it purposefully or unintentionally.”

“No. It’s not that,” said Lakshman with a shake of his head. “He’s got a vendetta against me.”

“Against you?” Both of his wives asked, looking surprised. “Are you sure?”

“His behaviour’s been nothing but creating targeted trouble towards us,” he lamented with a sigh. “He’s got a deep hatred towards us and the clan as well probably.”

“But… why? What did we ever do to him?” Erza asked worriedly.

Her husband shook his head and said, “I don’t know, but it’s something we are now aware of and must be careful about.”

They nodded at him in agreement just as the doors opened and the people from before came with piles of folders in their hands. Lakshman was startled to see the magnitude of files there and reacted with awe when the table shuddered upon the impact made by them as the people put them down in front of him. Then they began sporting out the folders to three categories as per his instructions before stepping back.

“This is… a lot…” he murmured in awe.

“That is all the information we have, sir,” declared Zen firmly, making Lakshman look at him wryly.

“Just… what did you collect for it to be this massive?” Lakshman asked, lifting the pile in front of him with amazement.

“We’ve gathered data on all individuals migrating to our kingdom, the monster attacks on transportations and on villages near our kingdoms, the activities of the ministers, the nobles and the king of both our and the Mardana Kingdom as well as the Ashtra Kingdom,” listed Zen much to the Phoenix Titan’s amazement. “There’s more such as—!”

“Okay, okay!” Lakshman said, quickly forestalling him and looking tired just from hearing and looking at the mountain of documents laid before him. Then he sighed and expressed his weariness with, “These sure are a lot of documents for me to go through alone.”

“You’re not alone, Lucky. You have us to help you,” said Venezuela from beside him with a smile.

“We’ll go through these together… despite there being so much to get through,” said Erza, and she eyed the pile of documents nervously.

“We will help as well!” Zen and the other men offered their assistance readily.

Lakshman looked at his wives and then at the men offering their help, which made him feel very happy. Even so, he still shook his head in denial of their support and spoke in discouragement.

“It’s alright. I won’t let any of you move away from your duties to come help me through this. Besides, I never said I can’t go through them. Just alone is difficult. That’s all.”

Everyone in the room stared at him with a dumbfounded looks on their faces. Some even blinked in confusion while others had strange expressions on their faces as they felt their king’s words did not make sense. Lakshman saw this and chuckled lightly and dismissed them to return to their duties. They left albeit reluctantly while his wives remained by his side.

“So, which one should we get started on?” Venezuela asked, reaching out towards the nearest pile.

“Hold up,” said her husband and caught her hand to stop her. “I don’t want the two of you to get involved with this laborious work.”

“Don’t be silly, Lucky. We won’t get through all this if you keep treating us so softly!” Venezuela complained.

“You promised us that you’d let us help you more proactively!” Erza protested.

The two of them were giving him reproachful looks, causing him to raise his hands in surrender and say, “C-Calm down, you two! I will let you help me, but not in this. Don’t worry though because I have an idea on how to get through this. Just close your eyes.”

There was a moment of pause before they asked, “Close our eyes? What for?”

“Because it’s going to get very dazzling to see,” he replied cheekily much to their bemusement.

So, when they closed their eyes, he clapped his hands together and muttered, “Thousand Army.”

There was a sudden flash of light in the room that made the two ladies feel happy that they had been forewarned to close their eyes. Once the light dimmed, they uncovered their eyes and were stunned to see a thousand copies of Lakshman present in the room with the original seated between them.

“I see now. This is your plan,” commented Venezuela in amazement.

“But they’re just copies. Do they relay the information they obtained back to you?” Erza asked questioningly.

“In the past, I could not do it and I found that as a drawback while I was in the Alzard World. So, I trained hard to improve the technique and finally succeeded in having them relay the information they obtained back to me the moment they are dismissed or vanished so to speak,” he explained to his wives proudly.

“Wow. That’s very impressive,” complemented Erza happily.

But Venezuela frowned as she lamented, “But that means we won’t be of any use.”

“You can be useful in your own way,” he told them with a smile. “Get me lots of drinks and snacks to eat because I will be quite exhausted by this.”

They blinked in surprise and looked at one another uncertainly, but he told them, “You don’t want to see your husband dehydrated, worn out and stressed, do you?” and with that he made a mournful look.

This made them become resolute in their decision and said, “No, we won’t!”

“I’ll go arrange the drinks that you like the best!” Venezuela announced while rising to her feet.

“I head over to the kitchen to prepare some delicious snacks for you to have in between!” Erza declared, also rising to her feet.

The two determined women leaned and kissed their husband on his cheeks, then nodded at one another and departed from the room. Lakshman rubbed his cheeks where they kissed with a fond smile on his face.

“You’ve certainly become a trickster,” commented Stuart from where he hovered beside his childhood friend. “You distracted them from the main topic of them helping you directly in this matter. Just where did you learn such a technique?”

Lakshman snickered and simply said, “My past.” Then he looked at his copies and announced, “Let’s get this over with!”

Thus, he and his copies began to go through the categorised documents one by one at a fast pace. Since there were a thousand including the original going through the documents, the work progressed rather quickly. However, it was indeed a hefty load of work because they could not miss a single data and had to progress at a steady pace even if a lot of documents were being covered simultaneously.

In the meantime, Erza and Venezuela would drop by often to check on him and give him snacks and drinks. They tried to offer his copies some food and drinks, but they refused. Lakshman informed his wives that even though they are capable of using his techniques and relay information to him, they are unable to behave completely like him. It would take a great deal of energy and a specific execution of the Thousand Army technique to allow their mannerism to replicate his without disappearing on first contact.

“They can take some amount of damage, but they will vanish once the damage exceeds their limits,” explained the details to his wives, “and this includes digesting something because it’s basically the same as inflicting damage onto them since they are not actually solid matter like the original.”

His wives were amazed by this revelation and stopped offering anything further to the copies while treating their husband with care. This went on till noon before they finally completed going through all the documents. As the copies vanished after successful completion of their task, their caster leaned back on his chair and groaned tiredly while clutching his head.

“Damn. This is a lot of information to take in all at once. I shouldn’t have had them all disappear at the same time,” he complained tiredly.

At that moment, Venezuela sat down next to him and began massaging his head gently to the best of her ability. Though she was inexperienced, her attempt touched him and made him smile with happiness. He let himself lay there on the chair with his wife massaging him while Erza put the documents neatly on his desk.

“So, you were able to grasp everything?” Erza asked, walking over and taking the seat next to his.

“Yeah. I got it down,” he replied with a slight nod of the head. “Things are very problematic but this is only on the surface. Deep down, I can see a cleverly devised plan going on that’s being laid out to cause the Phoenix Clan’s downfall.”

“Well, we gathered that much with how oppressive Athurus’s been with his demands,” said Erza with a sigh, but her husband shook her head.

“That is actually just a distraction to the main problem that’s currently in development,” he said to them, which startled them.

“It was just a distraction?” Venezuela asked, looking surprised while pausing in massaging his head.

He nodded and said, “Yes. There’s something more going on, something very sinister is taking place without our notice and with great secrecy.”

His wives looked at him with worry as those words coming from him were definitely something to be taken with great seriousness. However, his next set of words utterly shocked them.

“Unfortunately, there’s more to it. From the looks of things, Ashtra Kingdom is also not free from guilt.”