I floated over the throne room, displaying my majesty to the people below. Mostly humans with some half or quarter-elves, and a few with an eighth or so of some species, mostly Kin. Not enough to have any animal features, but just some rougher features, like a pronounced chin, an aquiline nose, broad shoulders, and so on.

"You!" The King growled through clenched teeth.

"I warned you, you fool of a King. Now reap your just desserts," I replied.

I could sense where Mirina and Julia were, at the back of the throne room, invisible. A quick check showed that only the weakest of the servants and nobles present perished due to my dual sapping auras. I collected the bodies and bound the souls so I could bring them back if needed. The others were quietly cowing, unable to move or, in some cases, think.

I wish I could solve things in Lonid without resorting to extreme measures but I wished to believe I'd reached a comfortable compromise. The Royal family and the nobles were alive.

"What are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

"I guess you deserve to know. But knowledge has a price, Your Majesty. Are you willing to pay it?"

"Kill me if you must, but spare my family!" He stretched his arms and covered his cowing wives and children.

I landed before him and withdrew my tails and wings. "That's one redeeming feature you have. But don't worry, your lives were already bought by someone else's sacrifice. Unless you attack me, Julia, or Mirina, you are safe. Mirina, come here."

They canceled their invisibility and walked around the dais next to me. I saw some of the siblings, especially the haughty older brothers glaring at her.

"You little shits will show your sister due respect," I warned them. "She sacrificed herself to me to spare your lives. She is the only reason you are breathing right now."

"Are you the dragon?" He asked.

"It's one of the shapes I can assume. Throughout history, I've appeared in the guise of many characters. And excuse me, this now belongs to me."

I whipped one tail and hit the crown on his head, sticking to it using {Absolute Clinging} and bringing it back to me.

"One more for my collection," I grinned.

"Where are we?" One of the Queens, Mirina's mother if I remember right, asked.

"This place is called the Ethereal world. It is a parallel dimension mostly uninhabited and empty but perfectly able to sustain life. Magical energies in the material world are solid here. It also leads to other places like the home dimension of the demons."

"What do you want from us?" She continued. "If you spared our lives, you must have something you want."

I took one piece of clothing from my storage and donned it using {Summon Arms & Armor}.

"The Tabard," His Majesty fell on his knees, all thoughts of resisting or fighting back gone now that he understood everything.

"I want you to leave my country alone, greedy warmongers, "I replied to the Queen. "Without their nobility and Royalty, Lonid will be too busy fighting over the scraps of power to invade Windemere. You," I pointed at the King, "Want to know what happened to King Bernard? He and his archmagister got too greedy and wanted to control my power. That's why his crown is in my collection."

I raised a finger and said bloodstained crown appeared on it. I spun it around. Then I extended my arms wide open, "This is your punishment. As you imprisoned me for two weeks, this palace will be your prison for twenty years. Don't worry about the water, it is just a reflection of the real world. You can't drown in this dimension. You'll have food and supplies to last this long. The cold of winter or the heat of summer can't reach you here."

I could enchant items with a limited version of my item box now, to make the storage timeless.

"What about Mirina?" The worried mother asked.

"My fiance will come with me. Tomorrow we'll be at the Academy, having traveled for a week. We will finish our studies at the academy and she will be here to welcome you back to the real world when the time comes. News of your imprisonment won't escape, though. The world will think you're dead. This is also part of your punishment. Once you come out of this prison, you'll have to restart your lives."

Mirina looped her arms around my elbow and leaned her head over my shoulder. Surprised, I turned around to find her kneeling on the step below. "Haru, would you allow me to visit my family?"

"Sure. You can bring them supplies twice per year, on the equinoxes. I trust you to keep their survival a secret."

"Lonid will be shredded by wolves," the King mumbled. "You…"

"I saved the people by removing only you. Rosebush is where I grew up, twice over. It's mine, and so is the rest of Windemere. Should your army march before the walls, I would be forced to kill your soldiers and leave thousands of families without their fathers, brothers, and cousins. I told you when I dueled. This is the civilized way to do things. What the people will do without Royalty and nobility is not my concern. Windemere survived twenty years without a King. Is Lonid weaker than that?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Now, [Queen]. Take your children to a safe place, surround yourselves with trustworthy and loyal guards. I don't think these nobles will be any happier once I turn off my auras."

"Haru, let me help them. Some of my siblings can't move. Would you keep everyone here contained?" Mirina requested.

I nodded. "Take your time. My aura is covering the whole palace right now. And you, don't even think of hurting my fiance, even with harsh words. I'll know if you do and you don't want to see me angry."

The former Lonid Royal family left the throne room in defeat.

I cleaned up the palace and the guests of all treasure. I left the jewelry on the bodies of the Royal family and their bedrooms but everything else was fair game. Using the intelligence I gathered from Duke and Fiancée, I culled the nobility. There was no other word for that. I killed most of the nobles and about half of the castle staff. Those were involved in all sorts of nefarious deals, from black-market slavery to torture to sedition and everything in between.

I left Mirina's mother with a bunch of timeless soul-bound rings full of food and supplies, enough to last a few years. Two rings had a lot of soil and some seeds if they wanted to try their luck with agriculture. If she died, they would be inaccessible and I made sure the King knew that.

With everything set on their Ethereal prison, I took Mirina and Julia back to Windemere, a mile before the gate. We boarded the carriage pulled by Shadow horses and a silk golem coachman.

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"Say, Haru," Mirina sat next to me after we boarded the carriage, "you're now my betrothed, are you ready to take responsibility?"

I glanced upward at her eyes but something round and covered in lace was obstructing my sight. Mirina was too close.

"I didn't know I would end up trapping your family in the Ethereal. At the time it seemed like a good idea to keep your father from finding someone else to peddle you to."

She took a lock of my hair to play with, "I wonder if that offer to become the [Queen] of Windemere is still valid," she teased.

"Sure, that would take a huge burden from my shoulders."

"No, we can't have that!" She puckered her lips. "I want you to be my [King]."

"There are several problems with that, the first one of them with me being female, the second is me not wanting to burden myself with the trouble of ruling a nation. Seriously, if I went that route, I'd need but a week to take control of the country and rally everyone under my rule."

"Your confidence is tantalizing," she leaned over me, threatening to smother me. "But you can turn into a male, can't you?"

I chuckled, "No. Sorry. I was cross-dressing when I posed as Locksley. My build was lean and thin, nothing like that manly buff statue in the main square. Here in Yznarian, I'm cursed to always be born as a female."

Offended, she exclaimed, "Why is being female a curse?"

I gently pushed her away from me, "I'm not complaining, just stating the facts. Ask the System. I am only the victim here. I have no issues with my body. Or bodies. I've been through a lot."

"But you've been a male at some point, right?"

"Yes. In the old world before I came here. I don't want to talk about it. I won't be a male again for quite a long time."

I had a dozen curses to break before I could even think of wasting time with {Feminization}. I was fine being female and my female body offered more ways to have fun on my own than a male's.

She stayed apart from me and put on her business face, "Okay. Why don't we push this subject aside? I have a request, would you listen to it?"

"Sure, what is it?"

Mirina was strangely okay with her family being imprisoned for twenty years but from her point of view, they'd just dodged a bullet… nuke? Vorpal claws? She understood why I couldn't let them remain ruling Lonid and house arrest in a separate dimension was actually a good compromise if compared to what I did in other countries.

"People will notice I'm the last 'survivor' of the Royal family. They will try to rope me into taking control of Lonid, one way or another. Actually, they may find that claiming the throne by marrying me is enough incentive to come here with an army just to take me away. I'm that valuable now."

Shit. I didn't like where that was going.

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Windemere should annex Lonid. Our people share similar values and a longstanding friendship. With me as a rallying point, I think we could achieve that with little bloodshed."

"But without a ruler, Windemere can't take any executive decisions like that."

She giggled but didn't take her eyes away from mine. "Well, it's not like we don't have the tools to find a ruler that matches Windemere's criteria. You have the Tabard."

I nodded. "Mirina, Julia, would you listen to a sort of lecture? We have two days before reaching the capital. I want to explain to you several systems of government that existed in my old world. One of them would be perfect to transition Windemere from an absolute monarchy."

"What about Lonid? I'll listen to you if you agree to do something for them," the concerned [Princess] negotiated.

"Is a protectorate okay? We can round up the local lords or their heirs and scare away any would-be invaders. I think the political situation in other countries will be quite volatile, they won't have time to think about gobbling up their neighbors. And I can always give them something to play with and give up on leaving home."

"Good," she calmed down. "What is this system of government?"

"It's called a Constitutional Elective Monarchy. It works this way. First, we create a wide pool of individuals that are approved by the Tabard as aligned with Windemere's interests. With the speed the Tabard is making copies, we have no trouble eventually giving every citizen their own. Among this pool of vetted individuals, the people would vote to elect several representatives, forming a parliament. A parliament is a body that can create policies and laws by a majority vote. There are several types of majorities, we can talk about them in detail later. The parliament would elect one of them to be the King or Queen, with a lifelong mandate. The King does not hold absolute power, they are just the head of the parliament. All of the King's decisions can be overruled by the parliament, except in times of war when a strict line of command must exist. There's more to this but that's the gist of it."

Mirina gasped, "You want the people... To let the commoners choose who rules them?"

I nodded. "Yes. I'll tell you why monarchies like we have here all fail. There are a few truths they are ignoring."

She was genuinely curious, not offended the least, "What is it?"

"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses [1]. The Kings can oppress the people because the System makes them strong, but what happens when they try that with someone stronger? You just saw one of the most peaceful examples. Trust me, it can get far worse."

I gave her time to let my words sink in. Mirina and Julia were as schooled in Yznarian's political science as anyone could be. We used these two days to bounce ideas off of one another, and the seed of a plan for Windemere's future was planted.

That's if the rest of the world let us have our way.

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[1]: MC likes Monty Python and PoE very much, what can I do?