Mid Afternoon - Late Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

“Haah..” I looked over at Ilios who was laying on his back next to me. -Since we got back from that expedition.. its felt like time sped up.-

After I came back to the shelter after leaving the library, I set the metal book I recreated on the pedestal in the vault and spent the next while just brainstorming about its contents.

After several days passed, I started getting worried about Father but he finally arrived safely. He said that the dragons were going to cleanse the tower and that we just needed to wait for that to be confirmed before we headed home.

Over the span of the next week, Kaelallan successfully captured The Kingdom of Zan and its neighbor, The Kingdom of Byria. Byria was a fairly large trade hub for this half of the continent, so capturing it without any cost was like finding a kilogram of gold when you expected a gram.

To Kaelallans surprise and benefit, neither of the nations put up much of a fight.

Neither of them had any way to handle Lawton and because Kaelallan gained the favor of the people with some favorable conditions like lower taxes for citizens and merchants and increased influence for the nobles, the local knights and military actually sided with Kaelallan since they won over the citizens.

With the conditions winning favor of the citizens, merchants, nobles, and knights, the royal families didn’t have a choice but to step down.

The King of the kingdom of Zan was executed for foul judgement and his family was imprisoned, but the royal family of Byria became high nobles for Kaelallan and were even expected to win the popular vote to become the 'district lords' for the area.

District lords were basically city lords, except instead of just looking over a city, they looked over a group of cities. They were something akin to a small royal family of an area.

Becoming district lords would give local nobles the chance to expand their influence and power and since it was decided by public vote, it was seen as 'fair judgement' with only a select few nobles objecting to it.

Kaelallan, after absorbing the two nations, had successfully tripled their current population and since they managed to take both nations without fighting and made a clean shift in management, there was no fall back or backlash from it yet.

With several new laws in place in the relay cities (secondary Capital cities) requiring clean streets and sanitary conditions by law, there was some commotion, but the noise quickly calmed down once people actually figured out what the laws meant.

Kaelallan was yet to force its laws against discrimination yet, Oliver said they were going to ease it into the nations since if they made that change too fast itd cause too many problems.

In the midst of the chaos of finding new management for the territories, the Librarian finally showed up to the palace and had a meeting with Oliver and Helen as well. He almost immediately became Kaelallan's Intelligence head since, with the absorption of two other nations, fast and accurate information became more vital and valuable than ever.

Although he was a spy for the tower, Oliver and Helen managed to overlook it since I gave a word of recommendation and since his information channels were far better than even the best of information brokers.

Before he left for Zan, I managed to talk with him some to figure out how I would get general news. His new office was going to be in the Kingdom of Zan's old royal palace, so I figured it would be easier to simply fly there whenever I wanted news.

Not long after that, a little over two weeks had passed and Ilios and I were laying on our backs relaxing in the shelter.

Feeling someone's aura, I looked over and saw Father coming out of the lift.

"You seem like you're ready to go home."

"Of course I am.. I want to see Mother.." Truth be told, I was getting pretty homesick and bored.

"Well I have some good news for you."

"Hm?"

He walked up and held up a paper with a bunch of writing on it.

"Pfft, haha!" Once I read it I immediately understood what he meant. It was news about The Kingdom of Deacia and the tower.

According to the announcement paper Father was holding, the royal family and several nobles were found dead all on the same night, and the tower was even worse off.

All of the higher ups except for 1 in the tower were either found dead or missing and several high nobles connected to them in various nations were all missing on the same night.

-Man the dragons on Bahamut made quick work of them..-

"The total number of missing 'executives, nobles and high rank adventurers' (mostly halfies) according to Oliver.. was somewhere around 850."

My eyes went wide. "WHAT?! There were that many halfies connected to the tower?!"

"Haha yeah, I didn't expect so many to be involved with them either, but I also think the number is inflated a little."

"So will we get a full story from Bahamut?" As funny as the newsletter was to read because of people's cluelessness, I also wanted to hear what really happened behind the scenes from Bahamut.

"When we go there, you can ask your grandmother. She is one of the elders so she should be able to tell you the specifics."

Something about the way he talked about the elders sounded off but I decided not to question it. "So now that the tower is gone, are we going home?"

"Unless Oliver has something for us to do before we go, yes."

"Woohooo!" -It should still be the afternoon so..- "Are we going to wait till tonight though?"

"Yeah, I'd like to have dinner with them tonight before we go."

"Alright, that's fine. What should I do with that halfie in the plaza?"

"You can do whatever you want with her. You could even make her a slave for.. nevermind."

I sat there shocked for a moment. -He doesn't mean what I think he does right?- "Im 10 father."

"Haah.. I know but you're maturing so fast I feel like I should.. have a certain talk with you.."

"I dont think Im going to step into that territory any time soon so.. I'll pass on that.."

"Haah.." Father facepalmed hearing my incredibly uncomfortable response. "Alright.. well just do what you want with her. I trust your judgement."

"Okay.. I'll go ahead and go do that now then.." I quickly rolled over and hopped up, changing to my humanoid form in the process. -Ive gotten pretty quick at that..- "Do you plan to stay down here for anything?"

"No, I'll head up with you."

Taking the lift up with father, we split up once we got to the palace room.

"Well, be safe!" Father wore a smile unbefitting his age as he waved at me down the throne room.

After giving a light wave back, I headed straight for the plaza.

Once I got there, I was quickly stopped by a knight that looked like he hadn't slept in 5 years.

"Sir, civilians cant pa-"

I held up my ID and nonchalantly walked by.

Luckily just seeing the material it was made of and the royal crest was more than enough for the knight to understand it was real. "My apologies sir. If you need anything please let me know."

As I walked into the plaza, I looked over towards the middle and looked at Maria.

-Hmm.. what to do with you..-