"Oh my~, aren't you the handsome stud!" A beautiful girl seductively went closer to Duke.
"O-Oh! Why thank you" Duke stuttered in response from the rare nigh impossible occurrence.
"No! Don't listen to her whispers, Duke! Don't you like me more~?" Another girl who suddenly appeared next to Duke tightened her breasts to make the cleavage more pronounced.
"Y-Yes, I do like those a lot more…" Duke blushed at the second girl's seductions.
But then, as Duke was almost lost in the girls' seductions, he suddenly remembered where his heart truly lay.
"Duke~!" A tearful Vivian came running towards him.
"Vivian! I'm here my love!" Duke said as he pushed away from the two other girls and ran towards Vivian's embrace.
Vivian: "Duke! I have finally seen your true handsomeness! Please be with me forever!"
"Ho-Ho! I knew you'd finally come around!" Duke confidently replied as he continued:
"My Vivian isn't like the other girls you know, she wouldn't simply judge me for my looks! I might have an ugly mug but-"
"Ugly?" Vivian interrupted as she added: "You're the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on!"
"O-Oh yes, my heart is indeed pure!" Duke blushed from the sudden misplaced compliment.
"No, I meant, look at this…" Vivian pulled a mirror out of nowhere as she held a mirror up towards Duke's face.
As Duke stared into a mirror he was met with a fierce, yet handsome looking man with perfectly chiseled features as if sculpted by Vera the Goddess of Beauty herself.
Strict yet firm, steel black eyes that seemed to stare into one's soul. Pitch black and silk-like wavy hair that was although messy suited his jaw-dropping face, and finally a prominent nose that perfectly aligned with the perfect face that was shown in the mirror.
Seeing this foreign face, the first thought Duke had was:
[Wait… This isn't me!] (Obviously NOT!... Or is it?)
"This… isn't me" Duke distressed as he touched his face over and over again.
"Of course it isn't" The girl from his left spoke.
"That's why he's so handsome" The girl from his right added.
"And that's why I love him" Vivian suddenly said as her voice began to change into something scary.
"And not you" Vivian delivered the final blow that finally woke Duke up from his horrible dream.
*HAAA!* Duke inhaled loudly as he woke up, his body covered in sweat.
"Nightmare?" Vivian who was standing next to Duke's bed worried.
"Y-Yeah I guess… But you don't need to worry! Real men are not fazed by such things!" Duke replied, trying his best to look courageous.
"Awe~ The poor baby had a nightmare, didn't he?" Vivian pinched his cheeks as she taunted him.
"Stop, stop that! It might give me false hopes over our feelings!" Duke clenched his teeth as he sorrowfully mourned (Overreacted).
Vivian: "I-I'm sorry… my mother used to do that for me whenever I had nightmares…"
Duke: "Sarcastically taunt you?"
"No! She normally says it genuinely. But it's kind of awkward doing that to you... gently... you know" Vivian blushed.
"Thanks, I guess?... At least you tried your best!" Duke thanked Vivian for waking him up as he stopped the conversation right there, not noticing Vivian's slightly blushing expression.
After waking Duke up, she cooked him some breakfast as the two ate together that morning.
Immediately after eating, Duke ran outside whilst Vivian put the dishes back in the sink and went up to the Study to continue her work and planning for the house's expenses.
After entering the Study, Vivian quickly opened different records and books lying about the Study's library.
Even now she still couldn't believe the number of rare and amazing books in front of her.
"Uncensored versions of the diaries of prominent Merchants, Generals, and even Emperors of the past. Trade deals and connections inside and outside the Empire. And guides or advice from the different known scholars in history…" Vivian murmured as she rummaged through the study's library.
Vivian still couldn't believe the goldmine she was seeing as she thought to herself: [I need to ask Duke for a safe place to hide these books!]
Vivian was quite an intelligent person. No, intelligent, would be an understatement as Vivian quickly saw through the true value behind these books in front of her contained.
"The Countess of Maine, huh…" Vivian remembered Duke's mother and realized just how frightening of an existence she truly was if these books were simply lying around.
[How did a small family of Counts acquire these books?] Vivian deeply wondered.
Vivian asked these questions as she was too young to remember the past glory of the Pendragons, and so she couldn't really connect the fat plump Count in front of her to the legendary grand war-hero that everybody knew as Gwaine.
Nevertheless, Vivian immediately put to work the different connections Duke's mother once had as she read through the important papers the study contained.
"Getting rich might not just be a pipedream after all" Vivian realized after checking through the information held within the study.
Although outdated, many of the connections there could still be salvageable if Vivian played her cards right. And so she decided to send one or two a few letters…
Duke ran towards the town of Maine as he jogged around it again and again, as was his daily routine. The people there all clicked their tongues every time Duke passed by.
"What a disappointment…" An old man sighed.
"Fatass!" A young teenager mocked.
Maine was once a bustling Great City before the reign of Duke's father, Wael. So it was no surprise that the townsfolk's misdirected disappointment fell on Duke instead after his father died.
"What is that boy doing now?! Why's he runnin' around again like an idiot?! It's the fifth day now, if only Gwaine was still here... When he was young: o' his firm hard abs... Oh Gwaine, take me now~!" An old woman couldn't hold it down any longer as she cried in disappointment remembering Gwaine's past golden era.
"Eww~! Mom, grandma's having fantasies over the fat old Count again!" A young girl nauseated.
"Watch your tongue missy! If you'd seen Gwaine during his youth, like I did, you'd be wetter than a sea fairy in the middle of an ocean!" The grandmother retorted.
"Stop being weird, grandma!" The young girl frantically tried to remove the image her grandmother's words seared into her mind.
While the people were starting to fuss over what Duke was doing, Duke, on the other hand, was too focused to notice other people jeering or surprisingly cheering at him.
["And that's why I love him… And not you!"] The words of the Vivian in his dreams kept on spiraling in his mind.
"Gotta get thin! Gotta get thin! Gotta get THIN!" Duke chanted as he ran at full speed... for 3 minutes.
[No! I'm already tired before even starting?! No way I'm this weak!] Duke slapped his cheeks as he forced himself once more.
"Get thin! Get the girl! Get thin! Get the girl!" Duke's muscles felt like they had died, but Duke still continued with a firm goal in mind.
"Watch out, you bloody idiot!" A lumberjack passing through stopped a group of logs with his bare body.
"Be careful!" The lumberjack shouted at Duke who:
"Get thin! Get the girl! Get thin! Get the girl!" sadly was too motivated to even notice him.
Another worker smiled as he chuckled: "The boy's running! The fat boy's actually running! Ha, never thought I'd get to see 5 miracles in one lifetime!" the worker referred to seeing Duke jogging for the 5th consecutive day in a row.
People over town started to realize that Duke wasn't running mindlessly, but he was actually... jogging.
As in 'exercising'…
The Fat Count was actually exercising!
As Duke jogged around every day, the people's disappointed view of him slowly loosened.
"Well, he might be no Gwaine, but at least he's tryin'!" The old woman earlier sighed.
In truth, the servants and townsfolk didn't really hate the Pendragons. The Pendragons had been benevolent lords since the founding of the Great City, to its inevitable degradation into a meager town.
They were just incredibly and sincerely disappointed at Wael's ineptitude, and Duke's obvious lacking display of motivation.
'I mean why else would he be fat if he wasn't lazy?' This was the townfolk's line of thinking.
Other than Duke and Wael, the people of Maine and the surrounding villages had been unwaveringly loyal towards the Pendragons.
How else could Gwaine command such influence in the past if not for the fact that the people of the South truly did love him with all their sincerity?
Gwaine could've easily broken apart from the Empire at any time and the people would've still accepted his rule as King of the South. That was just how beloved and respected Gwaine was as a hero.
After a while of running, the tired Duke decided it would be a good idea to take a nice long rest.
While resting near a tavern, Duke heard a group of men complaining:
"Ahh~, there goes our furs…" One hunter complained.
"All that huntin' for nothin'…" And another man added.
"I don't think I can stay here for long... Even though I truly love this place, the place I grew up in. I... I already lost a daughter on the way here. This place is simply too dangerous nowadays, this might be my last stop…" A traveling merchant lamented.
The man in the middle clenched his teeth with rage and sadness in his eyes, indicating he had experienced something much like what the merchant had said.
"The bandits, they just keep getting stronger and stronger!" The man finally shouted.
"And the lords, they keep getting weaker and weaker... First, it was The Bum, and now it's The Fat?! Maine has no future... Maybe the bandits might even take over soon" One man sighed with a visibly distressed expression.
"Gwaine's dead, and with him... the glory of Maine!" The final man cried.
Hearing the townsfolk's lamentation and his grandfather's name, Duke couldn't help but feel shame. Due to his past laziness, the very town his grandfather toiled and bled for was now being threatened by mere bandits.
Duke remembered those times when he was told to train. Maybe if he'd listen these men wouldn't be talking of sad stories right now.
And with that Duke ran towards the Knight's barracks.
For the first time in Duke's life, he actually initiated talking to the soldiers of Maine.
Before, Duke thought that the guards were all lazy and might've even been corrupt bullies who extorted from the town. (This was due to a stupid misunderstanding Duke had)
But now that Duke saw the state of the barracks he finally realized the true feelings of Maine's knights.
The men there were mostly old men. Some were dead drunk while others sat lazily on the couch.
They kind of resembled his old grandfather whenever Duke wasn't looking at him. He looked all happy and cheerful whenever he faced Duke, but Duke knew that whenever his grandfather was alone, he'd always have this sad beaten-up expression whilst drinking himself to death.
The old Knights there were the same.
They resembled an old beat-up lion remembering the time when they were on top of the world, but now they were too old to even look up at the sky let alone attempt to climb up once more.
"W-Where is Byran?!" Duke tried to act dignified like his grandfather once did. But all he resembled was an awkward chicken trying to excrete an egg from its bum.
Duke saw the Captain of the Knight's Guard in the corner of the barracks' pub drinking his worries away.
Duke went closer to Byran as he told him with conviction:
"Let's go subjugate the bandits!"
Duke went home, tired from his jogging, it was already late in the afternoon as he went inside the empty house and was greeted by his officially wedded wife-but in actuality only friends, Vivian.
She smiled at him with a tired look, and he smiled back also tired from his jogging.
"Let's have dinner…" Vivian tiredly invited.
[This is why I love you…] Duke thought, but couldn't say as he knew he would only make Vivian feel uncomfortable.
As they were eating Vivian spoke: "Duke... I might've just found a way to get our gold coffers up and running again"
Duke looked up at Vivian who had red eyes from the extreme stress she experienced from working too hard that day.
"Then-" But before Duke could continue Vivian added:
"But we would need a loan…"
"Where? Who'd be stupid enough to loan ME money? That'd be like giving a cow 10 apples so that it'd produce 5!" Duke tried to describe his situation with the mathematical examples Vivian gave him whenever they studied Accounting.
Duke was quite well-known within the noble's circles and he knew no one would be willing enough to actually loan him anything.
"What? How would a cow produce 'apples'? No, that's not important right now…" Vivian paused as she made a deep breath.
Vivian stared at Duke with hard conviction as she said:
"The Imperial Bank"
Vivian finally revealed the possible suckers that might just lend Duke something, anything! At this point, they'd be grateful for just about anything!