Once we had returned home, I went ahead and prepared dinner for the girls.
Since Claire was going to join us, I tried my best to impress her.
Although I'm not that confident in my skills in the kitchen, they seemed to make Licia happy, and I wanted to provide the same for Claire.
A nice place to sleep and good food to eat.
As long as I provided those, I felt she wouldn't have much to complain about.
And hopefully, if I did really well with the things I can offer her, she'll choose to stay.
I believe that would be good for us both.
Once I had finally finished, I waited in anticipation for them to start eating.
I was curious as to how Claire would react but... she seemed to enjoy my food as much as Licia.
Her surprise and enjoyment were a compliment in themselves, but she also made sure to thank me after she had finished.
Although seeing the both of them happily eating was already quite rewarding. It made me so proud that I wanted to learn more about cooking just to have more of those reactions in the future as well.
I also thought it would be nice to take to a restaurant one day as well. They would surely appreciate the dishes of a chef way more.
After dinner, I decided to go ahead and do the daily gacha rolls with the tickets available for me to claim.
Since Claire was our companion now, I felt no need to invest in the [Companions Banner] for a while.
We also had gotten another sword from the Goblin Lord on the first floor, and our weapons were enough to handle the monsters on the second floor, so there was no need for a roll in the [Weapons Banner] as well.
A super-powered weapon could be nice, but it wouldn't really do much more than what we already can do. And getting dependent on weapons is never good, so...
The last option was the [Skills Banner].
Somehow, I always end up going back to this one, but...
Its value gets increased with more companions, and with each skill that I've already acquired, as another "copy" increases its level.
And I know the importance of skills on the job we are doing. They are often the difference between a victory and a defeat.
Since [Gacha Kingdom Building] is so broad, it's hard to consider it a combat-oriented Gift, but this banner makes up for it quite well.
And so, I used the four tickets I had in this banner, which resulted in the following:
[Faster Tree Climbing
As the user already has this skill, its level has been raised to 3, allowing for even faster tree climbing. Please note that this is a passive skill, and as such it's always active unless the user decides to deactivate it, which can be done at any time.]
[Swordsmanship
As the user already has this skill, its level has been raised to 2, which further improves the user's technique when holding a sword or a bladed weapon to a lesser effect. Please note that this is a passive skill and is always active.]
[Mana Shield
An aura of mana envelops the user, allowing for better defense. This aura may be expanded, forming a shield big enough to protect allies. This is an active skill, and as such, drains the user's mana, the amount of mana to be used varies in relation to the size of the aura, and the minimum area costs 1 mana point per 5 seconds.]
[Greater Might
A simple increase in the user's strength. Allows for physical feats that the user was unable to do before. This is a passive skill, as such, it's always active. However, the user may decide to deactivate it at any time he so desires.]
The results this time were not so bad, aside from the faster tree climbing of course. I may share some of these skills with Licia, especially the [Greater Might] since it would complement her very well.
Licia: "So, what are you going to do now?"
Miwen: "Well, there's still the Kingdom points for me to claim... but there's something new in that menu that I want to check out too."
When Claire registered herself as a [Citizen] I noticed something new in the [Kingdom] menu, a tab called [Events].
With Claire and Licia both at level 3 and me at level 4, I got to claim 10 Kingdom Points today.
But since the [Events] were also present in the [Kingdom] menu, I decided to save them thinking that maybe they could be used for something there, as was the case with the [Share] function of my Gift.
Once I opened the new tab, I was greeted with a lot of information.
[Your kingdom has reached 3 [Ctitizens], thus, the [Events] function has been unlocked.
At the current Kingdom level, you will see two event options, so choose carefully which event you want to start.
Once an event has started the user may not choose a different event until the current one has ended.
Events may end due to time running out or when specific conditions are met.
To progress through events the user has to take specific actions and decisions, which may lead to different endings.
Note that events may impose restrictions on the user, so careful consideration is essential before choosing an event.
It's possible to fail at events, which will have many different negative effects on the user and the kingdom.
While some events can end when the time runs out, some may need the time to run out for completion.
If an event is successfully completed, appropriate rewards will be given to the user based on the path and actions taken.
The results of events may also enable new buildings and features for the Kingdom.
The user may check the currently available selection of events through the [Available Events] menu.
The user may check the currently ongoing event through the [Current Event] menu."
It was almost a whole new system.
I felt like it didn't explain properly what the events entailed, but since they could restrict me and were also possible to fail, they felt a little risky to partake in.
But the idea of improving the Kingdom, as well as other rewards was a nice bait...
So for starters, I decided to simply check what were the available events for selection.
"Disaster! A Star Falls From The Sky
A comet from another universe has fallen, bringing with it resources that never existed in this dimension. This anomaly from another reality brings with it the power to change the environment, creating a forest labyrinth filled with monsters for self-protection. As the king of a new realm, it's in your best interest to claim these resources for yourself.
Restrictions: All gacha banners are restricted except for [Weapons Banner] and [Armor Banner]. The use of Kingdom Points is blocked during the event, but points can still be claimed."
After the description of the restrictions, there's a bar with a slide that shows the difficulty of the event, this first one was on the red edge of said bar, which probably meant that it was extremely difficult.
The other available event was the following:
"War! The Fall of the Snow White Wolves Tribe of the Maide Island
The kingdom of Hamperlon has been fighting against the residents of Maide Island for 10 years, their army is much bigger, but individually the beastmen of the Snow White Wolves species are much stronger, and so, their naval invasions have ended in failure every single time. As the kingdom of Hamperlon just finished another war, they can now commit all their resources against the Snow White Wolves Tribe and the final acts of this war are about to begin. As the king of a new realm, it's in your best interest to ally yourself with one of the forces fighting in this war, as an alliance can bring you protection in the future.
Time Limit: Two Years.
Restrictions: All gacha banners are restricted except for [Weapons Banner], [Spellbooks Banner], [Armor Banner], [Items Banner], and [Supplies Banner]."
Once again, a slider shows the difficulty of this event.
This time, the slider is located in the center, meaning that this event was easier than the last one.
Although the descriptions weren't too clear, it wasn't that hard to get an idea of what was necessary to complete the events.
For example, the first one seemed to be all about collecting resources from the comet while escaping or fighting back the monsters.
As for the other one, it seemed to indicate that the first step was to ally with one of the two nations that were at war.
Alas, there were no precise instructions, so I thought it was safe to assume that I'd be free to do whatever as long as it doesn't result in failure, be it the time running out, or one of the specific conditions.
Under such vague circumstances, it was possible that even doing nothing would result in an ending, albeit I doubt it would be a good one.
Alongside these two events, at the bottom of this menu, I could see another line of text:
"Time until the next selection of events: 5 days."
It seemed like they were going to cycle through if I didn't select any of them.
Meaning I'd probably not see them again...
This was a little tough.
I was definitely going to want to participate due to the possible rewards, but I'd like to get as strong as possible before deciding on which one...
And for that...
Miwen: "I'm gonna need your help."
Licia: "I was already planning on doing just that."
Claire: "It sounds interesting so why not?"
I was reading things out loud for them again.
Both were quite curious after all.
And so, we were basically all in agreement to try and get stronger for the upcoming event.
As for my move right now... one of the events was going to block the use of Kingdom Points, while the other didn't seem to have any restrictions regarding them.
Whatever the case, the important part was that I didn't have to use them immediately, so I decided to spend the ones I had.
Miwen: "Claire, did you do what I asked you to?"
Claire: "Yes, so, can you please take a look?"
I used employed the same system that I had used with Licia before to allow Claire to select her clothes.
While a little wasteful, this was also one of the incentives I could use to convince Claire and future [Citizens] to stay.
Thus, the two girls now had two changes each. It was too few for my liking, but I promised I'd work on it down the line, and since I was the one washing their clothes every day, it was going to be fine like this for a while.
This leaves me with 5 Kingdom Points, which I decided to use for sharing skills.
[Enhanced Drop Chance] is stackable and its effects are universally useful, so it was an obvious choice to give it to Claire. It wouldn't directly enhance our power, but it was valuable to have.
I also decided to share [Swordsmanship] that had reached level 2 with both of them.
Not only would this make both of them stronger, but it would also save them points as they wouldn't have to enhance them.
It's a skill that is easy to enhance through training, but a headstart was always going to be nice.
I also decided to focus tomorrow's Kingdom points on myself. I wanted to get Licia's [Ice Magic] and Claire's [Fire Sword Arts].
And before going to sleep, since I didn't use much mana today, I decided to do a roll in the [Mana Banners] hoping to get a weapon from it, but... truth be told it was done more so that I could keep naturally increasing my mana pool.
I wasn't going to suffer from mana depletion from a single roll anymore, and I could somewhat trust Claire now too since she didn't do anything yesterday, and even in the morning, she chose to be honest and actually gave me a warning seeking to protect me and Licia with it.
Once again though, this banner only gave me a single ring. It still wasn't useful, but it made clear that the odds of this banner were quite bad.
I had probably gotten quite lucky to get a dagger on it the first time.
Still, this was the last thing I had to do... well, aside from doing my best to not move in a weird way or touch the girls somewhere inappropriate while we shared the bed.