As I went back to the mansion the first thing that I saw was my pretty maids smiling wryly as they welcomed me back with a graceful bow.
"Ummm… What happened? Could it be..."
"Yes, Prince Walter, Tiffania ordered us to say some words to you but I think it might be a bit rude, so I would like to suggest for you to go her yourself ehehe"
The one who responded to me was the head maid Martha, who was the head maid and was the most matured-looking of them, with her long black shiny hair tied to a ponytail and the mole under her right eye, and just like the rest of the maids, she has just the right proportions.
"Umm… just in case, can you tell me?"
"If you insist… I'll do it with all my power - Walter, are you looking down on me? Why did you push this grunt work to me - ehehe"
The way Martha told me was in a bit of a cute fashion trying to imitate my ex's tone, maybe it was just a lowkey threat? I ran upstairs to check on her and the moment I opened the doors, I saw an angry Tiffania blowing in anger.
Wait... Martha! This isn't what you showed! She's obviously about to explode from anger!
"Walter… are you looking down on me? WHY DO YOU KEEP PUSHING THIS GODDAMN GRUNT WORK TO ME HUH? DARN!"
She yelled to me, as she hit the desk with her fists, and immediately regretted it as she groaned in pain and held her fists and looked at me teary-eyed, I'm glad she has a frail body on this world, otherwise, that poor desk would have been split into two.
Well, this is the natural reaction, I did leave her with tons of paperwork for three days since the meeting location was far away via horse. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my ex when she's really pissed off and in her angry mode.
"HUH???!! Why the hell are you smiling at me? TELL ME!"
"Did you want me to take you instead of Gavin?"
"YEAH!!! YOU KNOW I HATE GETTING STUCK WITH PAPERWORK! AND I HAVE TO WRITE ALL OF THIS IN HAND!"
She's raising her voice sharply just at the end of her phrases, as she glared at me with intensity, as she blew air from her nostrils. When she's angry, she is just so cute and pretty even like this.
I thought that she already mellowed down in this second life, but I guess I was wrong.
A man with a weak heart would never be able to handle this side of her.
"I'm the prince you know, and you said that you will help me right?"
"Ahhhhhh… so now you are abusing my kindness and your authority at the same time, HUH!?"
She stood up from her seat as she glared at me and stormed out of the room. Gracefully opening the door with her two hands forcefully, that the door made a sound that it was almost going to break, I immediately followed after her calmly.
"Look… I'm sorry, but Gavin had to attend with me because he is my retainer… and"
"AND!?"
"... because I don't want to show you to them… "
With this, she stopped and paused for a few seconds.
"SO?! W-w-w-w-why? Why don't you want to show me to th-th-them?"
She turned around as she crossed her arms waiting for my answer, but I can already imagine her face.
"Because you are angry as hell and you would scare them off?"
"Waaallllterrr… are you mocking me?! YOU...!"
She turned around to try to raise her voice against me, but I already know the trick that would make her shut up. As she turned around I held her head and kissed her forehead.
Shocked she wasn't able to move and was just there looking at me with her tantalizing eyes with her mouth open in agape.
"Because I don't want to put you in danger... that's all"
I told her sincerely, of course, I wouldn't be taking her at such a place crawling with dangers from Zack and Heinrich, who knows what they will think when they see her with me, she may be even become their target in the future if they decided to take me down.
"W-W-What are you doing? A-Are you crazy?! K-K-Kising me always like nothing..."
She crossed her arms and tried to walk away, but I pulled her towards me to try to get her more flustered.
"Cool it down, you're blushing my lady"
I knelt with on my knee and kissed her hand, and brought her back to the room, in princess carry so she could continue doing the paperwork, and later on, I suffered a bit of back injury from surprising my back in carrying a heavy lady.
…
Leaving me for three days as I handled all his paperwork and I get treated like this? And what's more, is that idiot just kissed me again without my permission, even princess carried me back to this room!
Maybe I should report this to the King as a sexual assault? Oh I forgot Heinrich is the new king already, and technically in this small territory he is the King.
But he'll pay for this for sure! That Walter has become so unshameful, we've already broken up! How the hell can he be making moves smoothly like this? But...
"Ahhh I hate myself as a woman for being kissed and carried this easy!"
I now, again, face the mountain of paperwork he wanted me to check, most of these are tax documents from merchants entering the territory through the pierless beach and through land and the reports made by the knights assigned to each of their new duties.
The five knights we have hired have now become officials under the leader Walter Wiedenfeld, in the neutral state of Luxenberg, which the domain of my duke father is also annexed to it, after explaining a lot to my father and defended the idea on why he should ally with Walter, he reluctantly agreed, so our resources and our famous pasturelands are being shared with Luxenberg.
The five knights are namely, Peirce, Eliot, Owain, Missa, and Wymer was grateful for having their families returned to them, through our ploy against Zack's knights, they easily accepted their assigned duties and were glad that they didn't have to go to war, according to them they have already prepared for the worst in case Walter allied with someone, which was why they became much grateful.
Peirce is in charge of gathering volunteer guards for the borders, by hiring civilians part-time.
Eliot is in charge of checking on with the townsfolk for their needs.
Owain is being sent by Walter on the war in order for him to gather information on the status while taking the people who want to transfer to Luxenberg with him.
Missa oddly becomes an errand girl for Walter.
Wymer reported the progress of creating the spy network with the rats in the town who will be our ears and eyes in this neutral domain.
Tired of going through all the permission type paperwork, I scanned through the reports of the knights which seems more interesting.
"They seem to be doing their work good, and they are well written, each and every detail"
I enjoyed reading their reports as if I'm reading a story of their daily adventures, their troubles, how they solved it, how they got the townsfolk to join them, as expected adventures are awesome and exciting!
To be honest, if I hadn't found out that Walter was Kazu I would have run out and become an adventurer already if I was forced to marry the wimpy Walter, according to the stories I found in the novels that I read in my old world, what makes it amazing is to travel with party members, do different variations of exciting jobs together, and go on monster-slaying quests.
But in reality, I'm reincarnated at the body of a daughter of a duke, who happened to be engaged to the prince who turns our to be my ex reincarnated from being hit by a truck, plus monsters here doesn't look cute - according to my memories they look terrifying, I also expected adventurers to look good, knowing that magic exists but in reality they are treated badly and paid poorly, most of them became adventurers from being street rats, it's not an ideal profession, it's not that adventurous at all, it's just plain poverty that these adventurers have to endure and fight their way to live a decent life someday in the cities, risking their body to fight monsters and do some odd jobs, some even accept assassination jobs especially when nobles have skirmishes with each other.
"Speaking of street rats, what is the progress of making them a spy network?"
Street rats are not literally "rats" but are the people who live in the slums, who resort to theft, and other petty crimes in order to live another day, they are the so-called darkness within this city. But Walter has changed that by using the money he received from the kingdom, what will happen now that Walter has separated from the kingdom? He has to find a solution for this quickly or else these people will go back to the darkness again and resort to petty crimes to feed themselves.
While I thought lots as I was skimming through the paper I finally found the reports made by Wymer, written his reports are his daily interaction with the so-called street rats, as they were already well-fed, they were just waiting for orders from their "savior" they were all quite happy to accept Wymer's proposal.
According to the report, two times each day a different rat would give him information, sometimes it would be a man, sometimes a child, sometimes an old man, reports were mostly about Zack's men who have sneaked in the territory, and where to find them, as well as some notable information from the townspeople.
Of course, those who were found out to be Zack's men were thoroughly questioned and then banished away from the city.
"Amazing… in just a few weeks that Wymer has already set this up… well it was partly thanks to Walter using his own money from his pocket, and unfortunately, it's my job to find a way to provide him the money to maintain this"
Other reports tells about the other knights were also successful in their tasks;
Peirce was successful in getting volunteer guards and was able to successfully place blockades in all paths. With the war fast approaching, a few residents have shown up with the request to seek refuge, what's great is that there were merchants among them which could improve the economy.
Owain comes back and forth on horseback to report the war situation, as such, we are able to hear the news about the war, from time to time he also brings refugees with him.
One of my goals is to increase the territory's population, anyone who isn't dangerous is welcome.
Eliot is working hard to get the sentiments of the people in the towns and the city to see if they have needs or dissatisfaction with Walter's policies, he's also there to keep in check of possible problems that will arise due to the war.
With Eliot to represent Walter at the towns and in the main city, even if I and Walter gets busy in planning out things, the sentiments of the people will be taken care of
"But for Missa… strangely he's working for Walter exclusively, what does she do for him? Strange… "
As I questioned myself, on what Missa is doing for him, my imagination went wild, that I imagined Walter abusing his authority asking Missa perverted favors. I felt my gloomy and decided to question the man himself.
"WALTER!"
In my anger, due to my imagination, I, unfortunately, hit the desk again.
"Ouch Ouch Ouch… fuuuu... fuuuu... fuuuu... "
Ahhh… I want to cry…
And with a bang, from the door appeared the lady knight Missa.
"What is the matter Lady Tiffania?!"
"M-Missa?! N-Nothing!"
I told the lady knight who has a stunning beauty wearing armor, as I turned around and hid my face that was about to cry… damn, that desk is hard.
"Why are you here?! Were you on the other side of the door all this time?!"
"Y-Y-Yes, lady Tiffania, Prince Walter ordered me directly to keep tabs on you while being hid-oops I wasn't supposed to say that"
And there Missa was forced out to give out her reports to Walter, there she records all of my activities, even the embarrassing ones, as a woman she also put some comments on what I felt.
"Okay, let's burn it"
"Noooo Lady Tiffania, Prince Walter's gonna hate me"
Well, even how much she tried, of course.
I'll still burn them.
Using a woman to figure out the heart of a woman, what a sly move Walter.
"Hey Missa, do you think Martha has some laxatives?"
Just like that, even in the middle of the civil war, our daily lives continued, in a way it's our method to keep ourselves sane as we save people from the whole civil war, and just as we were developing the territory little did we know that not only humans were having anxiety over the large presence of the forces of both sides.
Just like birds trying to migrate, monsters on a large scale were slowly approaching Luxenberg, and there was a whole army of them, vicious-looking demi-human species would be the first to intrude our neutral land. How can the playboy self-conscious and show off Prince Walter fend off this force, without a proper army, or even a small unit of mages?
Will five knights be enough?