The money was rolling in. Not much money, admittedly, but some. Seven kids were going through Floor two with Janie and Felicia. They were taking their time, as Felicia was instructing them in the fine art of monster disassembly. Respawning the monsters there was taking up almost all of my dungeons’s mana regeneration, but their presence was giving me an additional 4.8 mana an hour.

I was getting a little less from the first Floor. Issey and five kids were down there doing the weapon training thing. One brat from yesterday had actually bought a weapon skill and had agreed to show the others— the bully and three new kids— the ropes. It meant that the bully was getting his comeuppance, which I was fine with, as long as they kept to Phantasmal Weapons. Between them all, I was getting a little less than one full mana, but that took my total extra mana regeneration over five per hour.

I spent a little of that on some copper coins for killing monsters on Floor Two. Nothing too generous. While I didn’t want the kids to stay here, or starve on the streets, I also didn’t want them flashing around a suspicious amount of money. For the same reason, I wouldn’t be letting them keep any of the skins or cores that Felicia was showing them how to collect.

Those cores were the real treasure, apparently included in the cost of a monster. I got a small mana bonus when I let Rhis absorb them, but it wasn’t anything near the worth of them when they were extracted. I should have been putting the extra mana toward respawning the lizards faster, so I could collect more of them, but I couldn’t rely on a reliable harvester like Felicia all the time.

The kids were nothing like reliable harvesters. I couldn’t blame them, really, since they weren’t keeping the proceeds. Some of them were thinking of registering as Adventurers and were considering buying the skill, but most of them found it as unpleasant as I did. We just wanted to make sure that they unlocked the skill, so they had it available.

Instead of cores, I was putting most of the extra mana into gold. There wasn’t any real reason for it, I just liked materialising a coin out of thin air and placing it down on the stack. It made for a nice distraction when I took a break from my work.

That work was making teaching materials. I had books for [Scribe] and [Teach] already, but I had a lot of skills that could be passed on through books. [Calculate], [Bargain] and [Sense Mana] were obvious priorities. They were required for a lot of good, well-paying classes. I could have added [Craft(Smith)] in that category, but I might still be under some sort of obligation to not teach it to non-guild members.

Then there were the magic skills— [Illusion Magic], [Enchanting], [Water Magic] and [Theurgy]. They were more dangerous to teach… both in terms of what someone could do with them, and in terms of who might come after me. [Theurgy] was supposed to be illegal to teach in this country unless you were in the guild for it. I’d leave them for now… I didn’t think I could get three books done before the attack.

It took hours to make a book. Complaining about it was a little rich, I suppose, given how long it normally took, but I was a little miffed that I couldn’t seem to speed the process up with my dungeon connection. Once I’d made a particular book, I could have the dungeon make Phantasmal copies, somehow holding the entire contents in my mind and shaping the illusion. I didn’t get any experience for the copies, but my skill was telling me that they would work just as well as the real thing. We’d test it out for the first time once the brats were done with their delve.

Why aren’t other people doing this? I wondered. True, some of what I was doing was only possible because I had taken over a dungeon. That didn’t seem like a well-tread path. But taking a class through a dungeon, getting them to level three, was so easy that it beggared belief that it wasn’t standard practice. All it was costing was mana, a renewable resource.

Admittedly, it was less efficient than having them do it themselves. And it took someone like Janie, with an attack that could take out a crowd of lesser monsters, to do it safely.

Opportunity cost was a thing. Perhaps there were other things we could be doing that would be more profitable— I could already think of some. But really, what could be more worthwhile than securing a future for children? I was starting to regret that this experiment was going to be temporary. Dorsey needed something like this, but I wasn’t in a position to provide it long-term. I’d started building something in Talnier and I needed to see it through.

I could— perhaps— build the Tower again in Talnier, but there weren’t a lot of children there. That might change though, along with everything else I had planned.

“I swear, this woman can’t go anywhere without a procession,” I muttered to myself.

I had actually missed the procession, choosing to work instead. Cutter had attended, enthusiastically, and had informed us of the highlights when we had met up back at our apartment. About the only significant difference from last time was that her troupe were all mounted on griffins— including her. She’d found an adult griffin to ride, and she and the rest of her people had done so right through the main street. It couldn’t have been that an unusual sight. The King maintained a unit of griffins in the city somewhere, you saw them flying about all the time. I guess marching them down the street was a little bit unusual, though. And there was the Champion.

Cutter had told us there were crowds, banners and thrown flowers. Now Isidre had staged a smaller version of the march in the King’s throne room. Unlike my first audience, she wasn’t forced to stand under the oppressive inspection of every member and guest of the court while we waited for the King to show up.

Instead, she marched down the centre of the room where the King was waiting to receive her. That was the difference, I supposed, between a jumped-up commoner like myself, and an acknowledged Champion.

At least I was up in the stands this time. Not down there getting stared at, or held backstage for a dramatic reveal. A dramatic reveal was still possible, if His Majesty so decreed. He could call me down from the stands just as easily. But I did think that he’d have me closer if he was planning to pull me out of his pocket, as it were.

The other procession-like aspect to this show was Isidre’s followers. Dressed up in shiny plate— no weapons visible, of course— or plain white robes with deep hoods. They followed in her wake, just as they must have followed her up the streets.

“Quite the sight isn’t it?” Manuela nudged me as she spoke. She was back to being a giggly socialite. I wasn’t sure what to make of her now that I’d seen her Envoy persona, but it wasn’t like I could bring it up.

“I’m surprised you aren’t all over her,” I murmured. There wasn’t anyone near us, so I cast [Privacy]. I was pretty sure no one was listening in, but enhanced senses were a thing.

“Oh, I got the report from Tom saying that she wasn’t interested in any patronage deals and such. She has her church to back her, after all.”

She glanced at me slyly. “And he sent word that she was into men, so there was no point in trying to seduce her.”

“Didn’t he tell you that I was into men?” I asked acerbically.

“Well yes, but I discounted it on account of his bias,” she replied smugly. I sighed.

“Even if she was into girls, she’s much more straight-laced than I am, I think,” I said. “She seems pretty strongly Catholic, and their teachings tend to be against any sex outside of marriage.”

“Catholic… that’s one of the fake religions from your world? What religion did you believe?”

“Church of Mammon,” I quipped. “But actually, I was nominally raised Anglican, which is close enough to Catholicism that I don’t feel like explaining the difference.”

“Is that why you’ve been so chaste?”

“No,” I said flatly. “Even if I’d been a true believer before, I don’t think it has much meaning here. I’m not sure how she’s taken to suddenly having a new god.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“There are few subjects more touchy than religion, back home,” I told her. “I didn’t bring it up, and I don’t plan to.”

“Oh, has it started? Let me hear.”

I dropped the spell, as requested, and let the hubbub of the court wash over us again. They seemed to have finished the ceremonial greeting part and were moving on to announcements.

“…and tell the Court of the expansions to the Kingdom that you have made for us.”

Isidre started listing out the names of towns and describing stretches of land. It didn’t mean anything to me, and the court didn’t seem shocked or anything. I reminded myself that these spectacles were all planned out in advance. Every question and answer had been scripted.

I found my eyes drawn to the robed figures. Had Isidre had followers that dressed like that before? The robes didn’t seem to be covering armour, but they concealed faces pretty well.

“And were these lands acquired through battle, Champion Isidre?” the King asked, “Are there tales to tell of gallant bravery and stout hearts?”

He was hiding it well, but I didn’t think the King was greatly pleased. Not angry, just… displeased. I wondered if it had something to do with the ceremony, or if he was upset by something else. Like the upcoming attack— had Voight informed him?

“No, your Majesty,” Isidre replied. She also seemed… somewhat resigned. But again, this was all scripted, so perhaps she was just bored.

“Your new lands were gained through treaty,” she continued. “A treaty that awaits your ratification, that was negotiated between myself… and another Champion in these lands.”

That got a reaction. Not a huge one, I think most people were aware that there was another Champion running around with the Tribes. But clearly, some people had not been let in on all the details of this script.

One of the white-robes stepped forward, and I suddenly tensed. Was this the moment that the White Robes were revealed to be super-death killing machines that had infiltrated the treaty signing to murder everyone and bring chaos to the lands?

No. The White Robe, brought down their hood to reveal a face that was familiar. She was noticeably more pretty than before, but it wasn’t hard to recognise Kaito. She bowed to the King, as Isidre continued speaking.

“That Champion has returned with us and stands before you today, ready to answer any questions or concerns about the treaty that you have. Your Majesty, may I present, Kaito Washiyama, Champion of Naldyna.”

Now that got a reaction. The court erupted with noise, as just about everyone started talking or calling down questions. The actual content of those questions was lost in the noise, but I don’t think they had any intention of answering them anyway.

I turned my attention to the rest of the White Robes, who were also lowering their hoods. Sure enough, it was the rest of Kaito’s crew, a seemingly random assortment of pretty beast-kin girls.

The chatter was silenced, as the guards all brought the haft of their spears down on the floor in unison. The crashing sound cut through the chatter, and everyone remembered where they were.

“You are welcome in this Court, Champion Washiyama,” the King stated. “We shall meet at a later date.”

He nodded, and they all bowed and made their way out of the room. The crowd managed to hold it in until the King also left, and then the chatter erupted again.

“Kandis, Kandis,” Manuela said, grasping my sleeve. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I doubt it,” I said warily. “What are you thinking?”

“Three words,” Manuela said, smirking. “Girls. Night. Out.”