The day after finishing the shop, I visited the orphanage and watched over the construction of the atelier. Since it was continuing swimmingly, I asked the boss about the dormitory problem and he said that his son is already working on it, so I should take it easy. Apparently, seeing someone as young as me work like this motivated him more than anything before. Sorry kid, but I'm quite older than you on the inside…
I also checked the Resin slimes working on bottles and picked some that were looking extra nice for Henry and his brother. In the evening, I will have to go for the alcohol I promised… Uh, I wish those ten Fermenting slimes would already evolve… They eat so much grain and potatoes it is weird that they still haven't evolved yet.
"So, Mr. Henry will be going to the capital tomorrow or the day after that, right? When will he tell us about the Southern Alliance, though?" Blanche asked Lena with whom we took a quest in the adventurer guild to collect some herbs.
Surprisingly, some Medicine slimes showed interest in it so I allowed them to eat some herbs we had over the minimum expected delivery. If it makes their medicines more useful, I'm all for it.
"Dad said he will teach us this evening. As his daughter I will have to welcome the visitors once or twice in the future…"
"And why is that?" I asked Lena as I looked out from the slimes at her. She was binding the herbs together, while making a sour expression.
"Oh, I didn't tell you? My uncle, that is, my father's brother, is the king. We are de facto royalty."
"Excuse me?!"
So that means that Henry is going to share my alcohol with the king of this country?! Do I count between the universally hated brown nosers now? I most likely do… aaaah, what a pain, but if my booze does well, I might get easy access to Royal Capital markets…
"Calm down, Arito. He might be a king, but he likes alcohol like a dwarf, so I believe he will think twice before messing with you in any way. Plus, you have both my parents and grandfather on your side, you'll be fine," Lena waved her hand with a completely unbothered look on her face.
"You take this way too easy!"
"I mean, there is nothing to worry about. Not like you will meet him any time soon. Oh… was that a flag?" Lena suddenly looked a little worried.
"Seems like it…"
"What do you mean by a 'flag'? Like the ones above the city?" Blanche asked, pointing her hand towards towers of the city we could see in the distance.
"What Lena means is… well that she set up the event to happen. You remember the time you said 'It's not like the bears would come after us' and then they did come after us? You could say that was a flag too."
"Ooh, I see what you mean now. So, are we meeting royalty? Should I prepare some nice dresses? I think formalwear would look great on you!"
"We're not meeting any royalty!" I snapped a little and the girls giggled. Seeing them, I started laughing too.
Now, back to the herb eating Medicine Slimes. I separated the two slimes who were eating the herbs in the greatest volume, as they started to refuse poisonous plants they were eating previously. As it turned out, one of the slimes prefers White Lily flowers, which were used in healing potions, but the other slime prefers leaves of Pinclovers, which are used as a supplement agent in potions used for lowering consumption of magic power.
Speaking of supplements, the only one I could get my hands on was made from Collagen slimes that raised the strength of muscles and joints when consumed over a long period of time and had no side effects, but there were also magic types of supplements, which lost their power once they were completely digested. There was a supplement that granted you temporary strength boost, then another supplement that made your skin harder and even one that made your magic power restore faster. However, these could be dangerous and were on the thin line between normal supplements and drugs.
On that note, some of the herbs in my Dimension home could be potentially treated as drugs as they affect the mind and sometimes are used in medicine as painkillers. Though, continual use will make you develop a painful rash, and as I already said, the drug works as a painkiller, so you take more, leading to developing more rash until your entire body is covered in it and you become paralyzed. You become a Living Corpse, as officials tend to call it.
This was definitely a line I did not want to cross. Dangerous drugs have no place in this other world. Though, they should not have a place on Earth too, but where do you make the line? If you get down to it, alcohol is a kind of drug too. Tobacco is the same and even the almighty internet could be considered a drug.
I picked some of the herbs for our quest and planted them in pots I made with earth magic before taking them to my Dimension home. Every time I was inside, I tried to pour more mana inside it, so it would get bigger. Now it was about the size of a family house for five. Here, I had an enclosure for my plants, which could be called an impromptu Greenhouse. In the middle of this enclosed field was one of my monsters standing guard called Dryas.
Dryas are plant type monsters the size of a six years old child. Their body looks like a young tree and you could not tell they are actually monsters until you got too close to them. This little one was born from me using Magifertilizer, the Grime slimes' Blue Moon Liquid, on a young tree. As I learned in a book provided to me by gods about monsters, Dryas can use their sap to boost growth of other plants and are related to Dryads. Those, however, are considered Fey type monsters, as they possess an almost human level of intelligence. When I first read about dryads, I thought of them as those beautiful tree spirit women, but as it turned out, the humanoid form is just an illusion produced from mist the Dryad tree releases. Also, it appears that the age of the illusionary humanoid is closely linked to the age of the Dryad tree. Disappointing, yes, but not as much as unicorns.
The Dryas was planted in a big pot and its vines were spread all over the enclosed field. From these vines was flowing the growth boosting sap to other pots in which the herbs were being nurtured. As I was not sure about planting them in an unknown location, I decided to keep them here, as they were really fragile.
"Hey there. I came with new herbs to grow, so I will put them here. Could you give me some sap to take with me?"
Dryas wiggled from side to side as he extended one of its vines towards the new plants.
"Hmm, let me see. It seems the garlic is about ready to be harvested… the pepper plants grow nicely too and tomato plants are about to bloom. Nice work as always. Here, enjoy some fertilizer," I checked on the plants and gave Dryas some more Magifertilizer, which made it a little bulkier. I had to feed it only a spoonful at a time, as when I dumped a bucket over the first Dryas I had, it went on a rampage from the ecstasy and turned into Evil Driados, a not happy memory, as the monster could turn regular trees into Treants, similarly to Elder Treat's ability.
With everything done in my Dimension home I met up with Lena and Blanche, caught some wild slimes and Forest rats before heading back to the city. You might wonder why I captured, not killed the Forest rats and the answer is rather simple. I needed monsters to feed my Owls, Cie and Hogo, and since some of them were wild caught, they fully retained their predatory nature. Well, except for Skopi, that guy forces his kids to bring him the food all the time and gets pecked for it by Persia.
Speaking of him, the wild one, Hogo, the Bearded Naga, was growing exponentially quickly. He was already twice his size compared to the time I got him from the ducal family. His Spike Shot skill leveled up too, so the spikes no longer break after hitting the slimes, but they still aren't hard enough to harm them too severely. It's Shed skin skill leveled up too, because the shed skin became many times harder. He also gained a magic type skill called Puppeteer, which allowed him to use his shed skin as a puppet, leading enemies away from him when he used his Play Dead skill.
"You might be able to use the spikes as poison darts…" this off remark from Lena set me on testing them, but given my Energy shield skill was able to break them, it was still way too long from usable. But it was usable for paralyzing Forest rats, so it wasn't for nothing. At least I could use them in traps for small monsters.
Together we returned to the city and came to the adventurer's guild.
"Oh, Green Leaf, you can come here right away," the receptionist, Aaya, waved us over. Apparently, our name was getting out due to the kobold hunt which we steamrolled and the great amount of herbs we were able to collect every time we headed for gathering missions.
"Here is our haul for today," I handed over the herbs.
"Alright, I will check them really quick… quite nice. All of these are of great quality, I believe we can give you ten Alba bonus for each bind. That means… Ten packs of Pinclovers and six packs of White Lily flowers… that would be a total of one thousand twenty Alba. Is that fine with you?"
"Of course, thank you," I smiled at her and accepted the payment.
"Please wait a second, if you can! Miss Lena and Miss Blanche have finished enough jobs to raise their rank. If you could give me your guild cards, I will change the symbol on your cards," Aaya said with a smile.
"Really?!" Blanche and Lena exclaimed happily and I could understand them completely. Thanks to them becoming the same rank as me, our entire party ranked up to F, so now we could pick jobs one rank higher than we were. Actually, if we had more than 75% of our party F rank, we could take higher rank jobs, but there is no point in thinking about that.
"Let's celebrate today!" Lena raised her guild card into the air happily.
"Yeah, let's do that," I agreed with her.
We made our way to the inn and celebrated with the ducal family and their servants, as they were really happy for Lena and Blanche.
"Right, we promised to tell you about the Southern Alliance, Henry?" Kalving cleared his throat forcefully before gulping down the rest of his wine. I had some too, and I was surprised by the light taste of nuts hiding behind the strong aroma of the wine. Apparently, this wine's brand was called Misty Mountain and was a specialty of Reva dukedom.
"Yes. Listen closely, you three. The Southern Alliance is made of five countries in total apart from the Risha kingdom where we are right now, it is Amoeba Principality, Xesnuaji Republic, Aclelania Kingdom and Draggera Empire. I will explain something about the first two I named after our kingdom, because they are the founding states together with ours. The Alliance was founded about nine hundred years ago when the Aranka Empire of the Soulea continent to the north tried to invade our continent. Back then we came together and fought to earn our right to survive. Once the war ended, we officially became Alliance and ever since, the Summer Festival is held to celebrate it with the Summer auction held in one of the Alliance member capitals after the festival ends."
"So that's the reason why we have two auctions this year."
"Right. The Amoeba Principality is our closest ally, and usually brings a lot of interesting items to our land. The Principality lies on several small islands directly to the north of us. They are a state made mostly of Myconids, Blights and Bugbears. As you see they are Magicfolk races that are close to nature. And before I forget, there is one island where only the people of the Minoi race reside, they are distant relatives of Oxfolk who live here, but their physical power is much greater than that of the Oxfolk and they look more like Minotaur monsters. Outside of this island they can be mostly found only at gladiator competitions. This year, the princess of Amoeba Principality, lady Mushrooza Redcap will be coming for her first auction and stay here for studying in the royal capital afterwards."
The Minotaurs and Minoi race are even written about in the monster encyclopedia the Gods gave me. Apparently, minotaurs are artificial monsters, a type of chimera if you want to call them that. They were apparently made in the Great monster research era, circa five thousand years ago from the blood of Minoi king and an Extra Dimensional monster called Devastating Gorgon by a Mad scientist whose name was lost in annals of time.
"That certainly is a big deal for our kingdom, just the prestige we will gain from it…" Lena muttered.
"You are right Lena, but it is not such a one-sided deal. For keeping the princess here, we will lend the Amoeba principality five warships and ten small Magic canons."
"That is because the waters around principality tend to be swarming with monsters. Amoeba Principality will most likely launch an attack on a volcanic island, where Flame Dragon resides. This dragon is the reason for the increase in monsters in their territory. Apparently, some monsters took control of a city recently and the bigwits of Amoeba Principality want to subdue them as soon as possible."
"Ah, I see, that makes sense."
"Okay, now for the second founding state. That is Xesnuaji Republic. As the name implies, they vote for their new ruler every five years, their parliament and senate are also changing on a regular basis. Their political situation changes greatly in a short amount of time and don't even have me start on their responses to important decisions the Alliance has to make, however, their military and glass production is off the charts compared to other nations. The republic lies on a peninsula to northwest from our borders, and is mostly made out of desert, so the people live by river deltas and by the seashore. The inland is home to many dangerous monsters, but those appear only rarely near settlements."
"If I remember correctly, they have the highest population of Sphynx' and feline beastmen, is that right?"
"You are right Lena, but there is also a great population of Aarakorcas and Rhinofolks," Kalvig added.
Xesnuaji starts to feel like the southern Sahara to me…
"Next in the line of seniority is to the south east Draggera empire. Have you heard about them, Arito?"
"Only that they are a nation formed of Dragonewts and many Dragon worshippers. I also heard that their land has the most Dimensional rifts and dungeons compared to the rest of the southern continent. They say that for every defeated dungeon two more appear."
"It is exactly as you said. No one knows why the Dimensional rifts open as much as they do there, but it is a fact that they are the greatest exporter of Magic armor and weapons. Sometimes they even bring monsters from the dungeons and Dimension Rifts to the auctions, but most of the time you can only find them within the borders, as taking monsters into another nation's land is considered a faux pas."
"That doesn't surprise me, monsters can be dangerous and destroy natural habitats. The last one to join was Aclelania kingdom, then? What took them so long?" Blanche asked what was on my mind too.
"They mostly joined because they had to. From one side they have the Draggera Empire, from the other our kingdom and their last third side is facing an ocean filled with monsters as dangerous as those around Amoeba Principality. That was keeping them safe from the naval raids of the Aranka Empire, but at the time, many nobles called for destroying Aclelania in order to protect our lands."
"I see. If you were weakened by battle with the Aranka Empire, you wouldn't be able to protect yourself from the Aclelania kingdom that didn't join the fight."
"They benefited greatly from the Alliance, because they got roads with arms merchants passing through their territory, bringing a great economical boom to the land. We gained a lot from this too, as the road now leads through our land. Anyway, Aclelania is similar to us in that we both have a great mix of races, but unlike us who have a greater population of Magicfolk and Beastman, they have a greater population of Humans," Henry explained as he stretched his body with a loose smile.
"Their greatest beastmen population is of Wolfmen, who most of the time work as shepherds," Kalvig explained as Edgar poured him his third glass of wine.
Is that wolf in sheep's clothing again? This world really loves this trope.
"Thanks to the great economy built on Alliance-wide trade, they became a center of fashion of the alliance," Kalvig added in the last part and the discussion came to an end. We went to our room and started preparing ourselves for dinner, which basically meant that we were doing whatever we wanted.
"Arito."
"What is it, Blanche?"
"Would you like to see other nations?"
"Wh-why do you ask?"
"Earlier your eyes were shining."
"Is that so? I guess you're right. I would love to see other places. I'm interested in those Dimensional Rifts. I would love to see that volcano in Amoeba principality. Just relaxing on the beach doesn't sound bad either. We might find more new monsters and good food, or tour sights of towns and ruins…"
"Heheh, I guess we will get to travel a lot, then."
"In that case we should raise our funds even more."
"Yes! And ranks in the guild too!"
***
The next morning came quickly. After breakfast I sprinted to the mines with space magic, took two Fermenting slimes that were wobbling around and had them pour the four bottles of liquor. I did a quick taste test and finding it satisfactory, I closed the bottles. If I had wax, I could seal them too, but that is only a wish I can dream of.
Sprinting back to the city, I moved as fast as I could to make it to the river. There, was anchored a big ship named SS Cloud Fairy which was supposed to take Kalvig, Henry and Edgar and Raven the butlers to the capital.
"Haaah—haaaaaaaaaaaaah… I made it…"
"Take it easy, Arito. No harm done by coming a little late," Henry said with a smile.
"
"Thank you, Arito. Alright, with this done, we are to head out. Arito, I'm supposed to tell you from Henretta that she will do her best in school so you don't have to hold back and do your best in adventuring and all the other stuff you decide to do," Henry tried to look even, but his smile betrayed him. So, what he most likely wanted to say is that I can relax and take it easy because she still has a long way to go. She promised to repay me in some kind for saving her life, but can't decide on what to give me. Well, I'm fine with just the thought.
"Understood," I nodded back at him and watched him board the ship. It was a big ship with three masts and equally big square sails. There were even holes for rowers in case of going against a stream without wind. The ship slowly embarked on its journey to the capital, so I decided to break off from the group, pick up the kids in the orphanage and meet up with Lena and Blanche at the bridge leading to the three lakes.
"So, you took the kids in your Dimension home, again?"
"I know it is dangerous, but it is the fastest way of traveling with all the kids. Maybe once I learn the advanced space magic spell Gate, or something similar to it, it will be even easier."
"Yeah. Do your best to learn it!" Blanche seemed really pumped up about it.
"Ah, Before I forget about it, here take this you two," I handed the girls two leather bags to be fastened to their belts.
"What is this?"
"Oh, a magic bag," Blanche guessed correctly.
"Ah, a magic bag— MAGIC WHAT?!!!" Lena almost dropped it due to the surprise.
I have a Deja vu…
"A magic bag. I made it."
"That doesn't explain anything!" Lena practically fumed at me.
"Hmm… okay, so… You know I have Space slime, right? That guy, during the Blue moon spews out a liquid called Warping Paint. If you use it on a bag like this, it will increase in its volume. The more grounded magic crystals you mix in, the greater the subspace will be."
"Do you know what you just did?! Making Magic bags is supposed to be impossible!!!" Lena was holding her temples. Clearly, thanks to her living a noble life she had more common sense than me about these things.
"It's fine Lena, you will get used to it," Blanche patted Lena's back.
Excuse me? Don't treat me like some freak of nature!
With our lively discussion, we made it to the outskirts of the village near the first lake and decided to poke our heads in to say hi to Miss Eeva from the fishermen guild and the kids Haddo, Fina and Ed.
"Hello there," I smiled at the guard and he bobbed his head in turn to me.
We walked through the village, the smell of mud and fish lingered around the place as always, but same as always, it did not bother me at all. It even made me slightly nostalgic.
"Hey! It's the Slime kid!"
"Arito! And Blanche with Lena too!"
"Arito!"
The three kids I was just thinking about greeted us with bright smiles and ran up to us.
"Long time no see, Haddo, Fina and Ed."
"Hello again, you three."
"It's good to see you again."
The three of us gave them our own greetings.
"What did you come here for? Clay for roof tiles again? Or are you after slimes?"
"Little bit of both, I think. Could we borrow a boat?"
"I will go ask mom," Fina ran to the guild and in a second came back to us with approval. And so, Haddo took us once again to the northern beach where I released the kids with Romi and went about collecting mud, forming it into roof tiles and burning it again. This was a little tiring and repeating, but nothing I couldn't do.
I checked on the kids from afar and took out a small boat with a hole in the bottom, where I placed a big resin container. The main reason I borrowed a boat from the village was because I didn't want people to see my small boat, as it was only big for two people. I used water magic to fill the container with water and used paddles to get from sight of anyone who might've seen me. Once I was far away, I took out a fishing net and threw it on the lake. Once it sunk enough, I started pulling the rope and got it out. I managed to catch quite the haul. I got some carp-like fish called Cappa, one that looked like a pike which was called Stike. Many Ellees and some small fish that were my aim today. So far, I fed my Octolocks and clams with pieces of meat I had on hand, but never did I feed them what they were supposed to actually eat; fish. I lowered the net into the container and released the fish inside it. Once that was done, I took out one of the baskets the Kobolds used here previously and filled them with water. Once that was done, I used Pick up to take out the largest ones. The carp-like fish got its own basket, same way as the pike lookalike did. I prepared two baskets for Ellees. Last prepared basket was for the smallest fish, which was according to my Appraisal called Router fish, or just Routers, which was their more common name. I had to use a net on a stick to pick them up before using the big net again.
In the end, I had about four baskets of the Routers and five of Ellee. Surprisingly, I also caught about a half basket worth of palm sized Palm Crabs. Few Lunar slugs and about four more Stikes and ten Cappas.
And I still couldn't catch a single Mud Slime!!!
***
"So… you heard about Ellee from the kids and you want to try some?" I asked the fishermen guild's guild master after being summoned by Miss Eeva. I was in the middle of sifting through the disposal site, where I was picking up shells, fish bones and other wastes that could point me to the evolution of new slimes. The Acid and Poison slimes were taking quite a long time to evolve this time. I guess it can be due to the lack of proper nutrients in their diet, or insufficient amounts. Though, I'm not moving to the fishing village just for that.
"Yeah. To be honest, I didn't believe them, but their faces seemed to not tell any lies, so I was wondering about it. Ellees are the third most common fish here after Routers and Cappas, so if we get a way to make them edible, then I would love to learn how to do it," the guild master spoke in a clear tone. Clearly, he wasn't drinking lately and by the looks of things, this was because of Eeva, the sub-guild master, who was staring daggers at him.
"We want to show your method to people in charge of the fishing, so if you could prepare before the fishing season, it would be for the best."
"We won't ask you to do it for free, of course," Miss Eeva continued while pushing up her glasses, "We will make you Fishing permit allowing you to fish all around the Southern Alliance with any kind of method. Also, 10% of the entire Ellee sales profit the guild gets going forward."
As it was explained to me later, the Fishing guild was in similar position to Adventurers guild, Merchants guild, and the Summoners guild in the sense that they worked on international level, but unlike the three others, they belonged under Natural resources ministry of each country and reported to Ministers of each country. Each year, the Ministers met with Head Guildmasters in charge of entire guilds of the kingdom and met up with their counterparts from other members of the Alliance.
"Isn't that a little too favorable for me? It's just one recipe," I tried to refute.
"Quite the opposite. Ellee makes two tenths of all caught fish in the entire Southern Alliance. In my honest opinion, you should be given more, but I can't decide that on my own," Eeva nodded somberly.
"I am of the same mind as Eeva. As it stands, I am yet to deliver my report for the last half year, so we could still make it before the meeting. The Head Guildmaster is my friend, so I believe he will give us preferential treatment if we have reports to back it up."
This could be a good way to keep a cushion in case I hurt myself during adventuring…
"Your proposal is very tempting, but I need to think this through. I would hate it, if because of a single recipe the lives of my precious friends got in danger."
"Hm. That is quite a careful approach. However, I understand your worry. Please take your time thinking about it," Eeva bowed politely, which I returned in kind.
I made it out and joined up with Blanche and Lena, who were waiting outside.
"What took you so long?" Lena asked me as she patted her Light slime on her lap.
"The guildmaster and sub-guildmaster heard about my Ellee preparation and wanted me to publicize it."
"Really? And what did you tell them?" Blanche latched on my right arm as she asked that.
"I temporarily refused. There is no way I would put you in harm's way for any amount of money."
"Arito…" Blanche's eyes moistened and sparkled.
"You guys… Haaaaah… anyway, if you want the money, but not the publicity, it could be done."
"Is that really?" I got a bit surprised.
"Yep. Grandpa is the minister of Natural resources, after all," Lena said bluntly.
"WHAT?!"
"Aaah, it soothes the heart seeing you worked up like that," Lena smiled mischievously, "Let's talk to mom, she can send a message to grandfather before his meeting starts."
Lena took the lead and we followed closely behind her.
***
It was almost dinner time when we made it back to the Inn. Since we had little time, we decided to eat dinner sooner so we could have more time talking over the day's happenings.
"…and that is what happened today," I finished my explanation to Laina, who was now supporting her head with both hands.
"There is no doubt that this would help and people tried to bury you in gold, especially in Aclelania and Draggera empire, where right now it is hard to find food."
"Huh? Is there a famine going on there?" Lana asked.
"Yes, well, sort of. The last harvest season for those two was really bad. Especially because there was one Dimensional rift from which monsters escaped and ran wild for quite a while. We send them aid, but they still need to restart their food supplies. To be honest, any kind of food is now of the greatest importance. What will you do, Arito? We could omit your name from the other nations, but a nickname would be needed."
"What about Eel Sage?"
"Denied!" I shot down Lena's remark instantly. It makes me sound so slippery…
Let's look at the pros and cons…
Pro number one: Money. A lot of them.
Pro number two: Fishing however I want wherever I want
Con number one: people might go after me to get the knowledge and other kinds of information only I possess.
Con number two: People might target Blanche or me
Yeah, no chance. No. Fat. Chance. Not even in a million years would I choose money over Blanche. I'm not doing it even if they force me to.
"Hrmm… cons are too great to me. Even if I have the money, I don't want it to lead to my companions getting hurt."
"I see. I understand that. Losing your loved ones is simply not worth all the money in the world. Still, could I implore you, Arito? I will do my utmost to protect you and your style of life. With Blanche too, of course."
"Arito?" Blanche looked at me. Yeah, I'm not cold enough to let people starve.
"Aaaaaah, okay," I nodded, "please inform Mr. Kalvig of the possibility of making Ellees edible."
"I will," Laina said with a nod and her ring on the right hand's pointer finger turned into a wand.
So that was her Shtaffe… it's quite nice-looking.
When I was distracted by the wand, Laina took out a small hexagonal stone and tapped it lightly.
"
"It seems that there were other travelers from Earth in the past. In the royal palace are a lot of magic items to prove that," Lana, spotting my surprise, quickly explained in a hushed voice.
"...I understand. And Arito, don't surprise these old bones so much!" Kalvigs voice came through the microphone.
Sorry Kalvig, but I still have some surprises in the back…
"Sorry grandpa, but there is one more thing. Arito can make Magic Bags."
"…"
Heavy silence filled the room.
"Lena darling, can you say that again? I think I heard wrong."
Oh, you certainly didn't.
"Arito can make Magic bags."
"Arito, do you have some more surprises for us?"
"I don't think so?"
"You don't think so?" I could clearly see Kalvigs stern look in the back of my mind
"Yep. Nothing else comes to mind."
"Nothing?"
"Well, two of my medicine slimes might evolve soon."
"I knew it! Arito! Many of your slimes are never before seen species, so you better keep them secret to the outside world. The Summoners guild thinks of slimes as useless so they probably already discarded all information you submitted, but there are exceptions like Justus, Barot and Helmina who don't think of slimes as useless and remember you even showed the later two evolution of one! They are trustworthy, so there is no need to worry about information leak from them, but be careful with others."
"U-understood."
"Haaaa… I will take care of the things here. Laina, you silence anyone who knows in the Aula. Arito, how many people know?"
"I believe only the guildmaster, sub-guildmaster and three kids… oh, and kids from my orphanage," I remembered Alma, who was trying to get me to make her Ellee skewers today as well.
"That should be doable. I will use contract magic."
"Please do. Arito, I will contact you after we fine-tune the details here."
"I understand, thank you," I bowed even though he was not here.
"Um, so what will happen now?" Blanche asked next to me.
"You can leave it to Father. If he tells the other ministers that we are backing you, they will think twice before trying something. In the meantime, we will spread the information in different places, so even if someone wants to try something, they won't know which one is the real deal," Laina smiled like a predator.
Okay, Laina is scary… I hope no one will try anything… for their sake too.