Ignoring the 300 year old man sleeping in front of his gate, Will flew back.
"Will, what did the Great Sage want?" Sandra ran up to Will, worried.
"He wanted me to get rid of the harsh weather."
"Harsh weather? What?" Sandra had no idea what he was talking about… then she realized.
"Wait, did you do something to the kingdom?"
Sandra hadn't gone to the kingdom for the past week and thus hasn't heard of the horrible rain raining down on the entire Reyes kingdom.
"Just a little bit of rain."
"Little bit? If it was a little I don't think the Great Sage would come here himself to ask you to get rid of it."
Sandra knew about Will being able to manipulate the weather. How exactly he is able to manipulate the weather is still a mystery to her.
"It was payback for Victoria destroying the kingdom and killing all those villagers, and nearly killing Adaline. And since I have no idea where Victoria is, this is the best I can do to ease my anger."
Sandra pinched the upper part of her nose while she was in her thoughts.
"Well… you did say you wanted to go to war with the Reyes kingdom, so I don't know why I'm surprised. Still the Great Sage is too powerful, and as long as he's still here you won't be able to do much. By the way, where is the Great Sage?"
"Sleeping. He fell asleep."
Sandra took a few seconds to process what he said.
"Sorry I thought you said he was asleep. Wha-what did you say again?"
"He's asleep. Literally."
"Oh so I heard right the first time."
"And before I forget, here." Will took her hand and placed a ring on her palm.
"Will?" Sandra was taken aback, and that move of his made her face red.
"What? This is a spatial ring to store items. I think you need one considering you don't have any magical items" Will was totally clueless on what he just did. He already had too many storage items, it seemed right to give one to Sandra.
"Oh…" and just like that, Sandra went from abnormally happy to sad.
"Why are you… ohhhhhhhh." Will realized what she was thinking. Sometimes people can be clueless at times and not realize that their actions might have a double meaning, even if it was unintentional.
"I'm sorry, I didn't, you know…"
"It's fine. I was just caught off guard. And I've been thinking about it lately and when you gave me that ring it was…"
"Wait, you were thinking about it?" Will asked.
"Uh… yeah, I have. The villagers have been calling me 'queen' lately so I guess that's the reason why I've been thinking about it. But we are both so busy and it doesn't seem like the right time. So… yeah."
Will didn't know what to say or think. Marriage? He hasn't thought about that.
"Is it okay if we talk about this another time?" Will asked. The mood felt bad to continue this conversation.
"Yeah, sounds good." Sandra felt too awkward to talk about it as well.
Sandra went back to help out the villagers.
Will sat on top of his majestic building, overseeing his entire kingdom from where he sat.
'Marriage, huh? At times like this I would ask someone for advice, but I don't have anyone for that. I miss my parents, my annoying little brother, and Alex.'
Will thought now it wasn't the right time to think about marriage yet. So he worked on other things to distract himself.
A few hours later…
As he was thinking on what to build next, Will got bored and did something he hadn't done, mingled with the villagers.
Will flew down in his usual dragon scale armor. He naturally got attention from a lot of people. After a while they dispersed and went back to do their own thing.
Before the villagers would have surrounded Will for hours trying to get close to him as much as possible for as long as possible.
But after what Victoria did they appeared to be more hesitant. They did not fear Will, on the contrary they adored him more than ever. But now that they are living inside his kingdom, with a roof over their heads, food, safety, and without having to pay any tax, they are seeing him as an actual hero rather than a famous idol.
Now that they got to experience a better life in this week alone, they were careful not to accidentally hurt or insult the heroes in fear of being kicked out of the Sun Kingdom.
For many of these villagers, it would be the first time they have felt safe from harm.
Many were already accustomed to living in the Sun kingdom. Everyone contributed to something. Some made one of the largest stone buildings in the kingdom into a free food business, these people made simple foods like bread, various soups, common vegetable servings (aka potatoes and tomatoes), fruits, chicken, and meat.
Now that Will has an abundance of food that he can grow quickly and easily, he didn't feel right to make others pay for the food especially since everyone was poor and especially since money was useless to him. So he made the food free of charge, Sandra made sure to tell everyone that.
The hardest part was finding 2 animals to breed since animals were scarce. People sometimes wouldn't sell their animals, and yes he had somehow managed to buy two chickens for a high price in the empire. A high price for anybody else, but it was barely anything to Will.
Some people also made useful items from anything they could find such as clothes, kitchen utensils, plates, weapons, pillow cases, and more.
Sandra provides these people with materials to make those items, it helps them keep themselves busy and some people have indeed made some rather nice stuff from the materials they have.
In short, everyone is trying to make themselves useful. Except for some children who like to play all day.
Some still felt bad as they had lost family and friends, but they blamed it on Victoria and the Reyes kingdom, the fact that the majority of the people already hated the Reyes kingdom helped them pin the blame on them rather on Will.
Every house was made of stone, and there were enough rooms and buildings to accommodate hundreds of villagers in his kingdom. Will personally thinks that wooden houses look nicer than stone buildings, but after experimenting a bit he concluded that stone buildings were more efficient.
'Maybe I should make steel houses. I really don't like how the stone houses look.' Will thought but since it wasn't a priority he didn't put too much importance on it.
Will talked and observed every villager he could. It made him feel important when they stopped what they were doing to greet him, and he honestly did not dislike it one bit.
After an entire day had gone by, Will sat on his bed, smiling from ear to hear thinking it was a nice day.
"What to do now." Will looked at the cool stick on his hand.
While he was talking to some villagers, a little boy came up to Will and gave him his favorite stick as a way of saying 'thank you for everything' . It is indeed a cool stick that he had been carrying around for weeks.
Will didn't know what to do so he took the stick with him. Nobody could see it at the time but Will was smiling ear to ear.
'Oh? Ow! My back!' The Great Sage woke up after sleeping in an uncomfortable situation. He stretched his limbs and could hear his entire body making cracking noises. 'How long have thy… have I been asleep for?'
The sun was already setting in by the time the Great Sage woke up.
The Great Sage looked around and noticed he wasn't in his room. 'Huh, what was I doing here again? Doesn't matter, I'll think about it after another nap. My back hurts like hell.'
The weather was just perfect and he couldn't resist sleeping on the spot. He loved his dark and quiet room, but something about this weather made him feel at peace.
After yawning, he teleported back to his room, forgetting the only reason he came to see Will.
Meanwhile…
The Empress, Valerie, is looking at a report on her hand. She was in her room resting, something she hasn't done in a long time. After working nonstop almost every day for years, her men kept asking her to take a day off. After much convincing she gave in to their demands and was lying on her bed, wearing nothing but her long, loose, pink, nightgown with her hair tied up in a ponytail.
The report on her hand contained details about Will, the Reyes kingdom, as well as her own kingdom as well.
The spy she sent to keep an eye on Will was alive and well.
"Seems Will is doing okay so far, that's good to hear. Wouldn't be surprising if he were to go to war with the Reyes kingdom, but his kingdom doesn't have any soldiers. He does however have very good weapons. Hmm…"
Valerie placed the report away and was wondering what to do next. She felt so empty and bored by not doing any kind of work.
To keep her mind busy, she grabbed the book that was sitting on top of her night stand: the art of war.
No more than 5 seconds later the communication stone beside her night stand glowed brightly.
{Valerie, I know I said I wouldn't bother you for anything unless it was necessary because it's your day off, but I think you should know that the hero Josh Jones is in front of the empire, along with two other women.}
Veronica, Valerie's best friend contacted her when people told her that another hero that wasn't Will was looking for her. She was also one of the people to convince Valerie to take the day off.
'Josh Jones…'
Valerie took a look at the report of Josh. She had a report of every hero, from their abilities, personalities, dislikes, appearance, faults, everything. The one hero she doesn't have a fully detailed report on is Will.
Josh did catch her eye due to his destructive ability. But his personality was horrible, to the point where her spies suspected he might be delusional or something else.
{What does he want?} Valerie responded using a feather and ink to write on the communication stone. Her handwriting was also very neat.
{I asked him that and said his specific words were 'is she really as fat as they say she is?'.}
{What?} Valerie squinted her eyes, was he for real?
The kingdom calls her fat along with other names so people from the kingdom would hesitate to immigrate to the Empire. In reality she was normal in weight as she always kept a healthy diet and exercised daily along with her men during routines.
What many don't know is that when people call her 'fat' it sets her off like a pet peeve.
{He also asked me how you really look and asked for a picture. And now he asked me if I wanted to be a part of his harem. I've only seen him for 10 seconds and I already hate him.}
Veronica was also an attractive woman. Veronica was slender compared to Valerie as she doesn't exercise as much as Valerie because she doesn't fight, she would rather stay back and handle other stuff that doesn't involve killing monsters.
Her hair was long and black but always liked wearing it in a high ponytail position. She was also slightly shorter than Valerie, and was only a year older but many would think that Veronica looked younger.
{Chase him away.}
{I'm sorry but are you sure?} Veronica asked but was a bit happy. A hero was in front of the Empire, wouldn't it make sense to befriend him and possibly bring him over to their side?
{He might be a hero, and a powerful one at that, his ability is a double-edged sword and I can't risk having that in my Empire. And from what I can already tell he's more trouble than he's worth.}
Before Valerie would have put up with Josh and convinced him by any means to join her empire. However a few things had happened that made her change her plans entirely.
And now she believes she doesn't need Josh.
On the back of her mind she does wish she could have him join her empire, after all he's a hero with a powerful offensive ability. But when Will gave her those guns with the infinite enchantment and experimented with those guns, she got some fun and chaotic ideas.
{As you wish.}
Valerie put the stone away and continued reading her book.
Josh was sitting on the ground, he was tired after endlessly traveling an entire week to reach the empire.
He was worried that someone might have found out that he had awoken that giant dragon, or that he had Peter killed even if he didn't mean to.
Josh knew he could never go back to the Reyes kingdom. He'll be branded a criminal if they find out what he had done, and they will find out once the Great Sage reads his mind.
"Hero, I know I sound like a broken record by now but are you okay?" Naveah asked.
Both girls were also tired. They barely had energy to keep going, and were running out of funds, food, water, clothes, and have not slept with a roof over their heads for a past week or even had a bath.
Josh, for some reason unknown to them, has been purposely avoiding villages as if he were a known criminal running from the law.
Naveah, who is a 5-striped sorceress who has been with Josh this whole time, but starting to doubt if she made a hasty decision in following him.
The beginning with him seemed fine, he had gotten a lot of money from a man who wanted dragon bodies (Will) and also had received gifts and loans from other nobles but he failed to properly manage his funds and now they're nearly broke.
The delusion of him owning an elven slave, or the idea that he is this magnificent hero who hasn't done anything worth mentioning aside from killing dragons, or him believing that a little dragon loli would somehow fall in love with him, after enslaving her, for no reason other than to fullfil whatever fantasy was going on in his head, it made her see him as less of a hero and more of a creep.
Regardless she held onto the slight hope that perhaps something good might happen.
"I'm fine. Really everything is fine. But did you see that pretty lady up there? 10/10." Josh said, referring to Isabella.
Naveah has noticed something wrong with his behavior this past week, but never talks about it or changes the topic. What did he do? And did it have to do with the other hero accompanying them suddenly 'decided to go back to the kingdom.'
Felicia was different. She was a bit more gullible and had no doubts of Josh whatsoever.
"Oi, hero!" Veronica called out to him.
"Finally, they're letting us in after taking their sweet time." Josh got up expecting to receive the best treatment a hero like him 'deserves.'
"Get out of here. There's no place for you here." Veronica did not have anything else to say to Josh, so she left.
Josh was taken aback, and he thought he misheard her.
Naveah facepalmed herself. Somehow she knew this wasn't a surprise in the slightest.
"Did you guys hear what she said?"
"I did." Felicia was also shocked that they denied a hero entry.
Josh felt a bit angry. He walked all this way to the gate in front of him. He is desperately in need of money, weapons, food, and they wouldn't even open the door for him?
This reminded him of the time his parents wouldn't get him that figurine of a sexy female anime bunny figurine.
Josh knows some 'MC's' get treated harshly, but now he really needed help and he didn't feel like taking no for an answer.
"Not one step closer." One of the guards guarding the gate drew out his pistol and pointed it at Josh's feet.
"Tell your fat Empress that I want to see her now."
"She doesn't want to see you. Doesn't get any clearer than that."
Both guards were a little angry when he referred to their Empress as 'fat' as a form of disrespect, when nearly everyone in the empire respected and loved her.
"Does she not know I'm a hero? A hero dammit! H-E-R-O!"
"She knows, she clearly doesn't care."
After bickering with the guards for a while, Josh took a few steps back as he was trying to pull his hair out, his eyes bloodshot red from anger, and sweaty.
Felicia tried to comfort Josh but to no avail.
Naveah was sitting on the ground, pondering.
Josh calmed down. He then explained his plan to his two loyal followers.
"It's okay. I've seen situations where this happens. We just need to wait here until they feel guilty and let us inside. It'll show them that we are patient, and willing to suffer to get inside the empire."
"Hero, that's genius! You're a genius!" Felicia said.
"Obviously. Of course this could take all day, or perhaps longer. Point is we need to make a stand, together, as a team. Also, Naveah, since you can fly, can you get us some food? We could be here for a while." Josh said as he sat down.
"Nope! That's it! I'm out!" Naveah stood up angrily.
Josh looked at her weirdly. What was she on about?
"Hero, I can't do this anymore. The long travels, the smell, the strong delusions you have. It's too much."
"What are you saying?" Josh asked.
"I don't see this going anywhere is what I'm saying! I can't handle being here anymore. I just want to go back home with my family, and take a hot shower or something."
"Well then why did you want to join me in the first place?"
"Because I wanted to bear your children and have a good life? Happy? That's the ONLY reason I wanted to be with you."
"Ohhhh. Well I'm up for some baby-making but you'll have to wait till the end of my adventure."
"No, I don't want to bear your… wait, when exactly is the end of your adventure?" Naveah has never heard of this.
She was just hoping this hero would be horny and they would conceive a child soon, where she would take care of the baby, and the kingdom would also take care of them and they would be well off financially. After not immediately conceiving a child she decided to be patient to see if it pays off… it didn't.
"Well, Naruto took years to have a child till he got married. Same as Goku… and One Piece is still ongoing… honestly, I have no idea." Josh shrugged his shoulders.
"I… I can't even…" left with no words, Naveah flew away for good.
"Heh, don't worry, she'll be back." Josh reassured himself. He was certain she wouldn't be able to live without him.
Felicia looked at Naveah's figure getting smaller as she continued to fly away. She not only felt sad but also felt lonely.
Felicia sat down beside Josh. No one uttered a word for a while.