The palace staff harvested two seasons' worth of crops during the four months we spent underground. Coupled with the peapura eggs and the sIlk cattle's milk, they didn't feel the sting of winter at all. Some soldiers even branched out into production Paths as they discovered a passion for farming. Swords to Plowshares [1], hah!

The enchanted dome above the palace didn't let winter through. Snow became rain as the cold was removed from the equation. Magic already defied the laws of thermodynamics by interacting with a dimension not entirely baryonic.

I didn't bake anything for the party as I was the guest of honor twice (for returning and for marrying) but after two weeks of preparations, the seventy-something people in the Palace started to celebrate the triumphant return of Percival. As we feasted, I pondered about the training wheels coming off. Imperial society was lining up outside this palace and they wanted some cake.

At the height of the party, I was called to issue a speech. I climbed on the table and banged two wine bottles together.

"Listen well, listen all. If you don't know me, I'm [Prince] Percival!" I declaimed, then bowed. "Thank you, that's all."

"Hear! Hear!" The men chanted.

"Can I go home?" Some joker shouted.

"Stay where you are, I was lying," I said after a pause. "I see before me people I hold dear in my heart. Every single one of you is dear to me and I am thankful for your service through all these years. As you know, I'm not your ordinary Imperial scion. I'm much more than that. Look around you! This palace managed to sustain all of us on its own, with the fruits of our hard labor. The Empire knocked at our doors but they couldn't get them to open. All this, unfortunately, is coming to an end."

"Why?" Some guard shouted.

"Because Imperial society wants a piece of this lean Prince meat, that's why!" I jested and everyone laughed.

> > Charisma test passed.

"I want some too!" Some maid shouted from the back of the dining hall.

We had talked, Madge and I. Mona was there too, but the talk was mostly between me and my wife. A monogamous Prince in the Empire just didn't exist. I would need to bed dozens of women, between maids, noble ladies, and sexy assassins with less than a square foot of cloth covering their skin sent to kill me in the dead of the night. I had a Perk that stopped me from conceiving and was immune to disease, so it was safe to assume I would have no bastard children. I was required to have intercourse with as many women as I could, and no better place to start than my own Palace.

I chugged the bottle of wine in my hand and pretended to be drunk, "Then come and get some!" I shouted back.

Laughs and giggles erupted in the hall. Mona rolled her eyes behind my back but I had omnidirectional vision. Some maids swooned. Rhiannon smiled politely but I could sense her approval. A man among men, indeed.

"I'm sorry, guys. I don't do guys," I told the male staff and guards.

"More for me!" Another jester shouted from among the guards.

The sense of camaraderie and morale was at an all-time high in this Palace. Working together, eating together did that to the people.

"But we are going to have to open the Palace to visitors soon!" I said and frowned. "And that means vacation is over! We'll need to restore the gardens, move our livestock to a secure place. And more importantly, never talk about what happened here. I'll have to place you under a special oath from one of my Royal Perks. You won't talk about what happened here in any circumstances."

"We will follow you to our deaths!" The guard captain shouted.

"Hear! Hear!" The men chanted.

"But fear not. You'll be all under my protection. Loyalty to me will be generously rewarded! Each of you will be paid an extra twenty gold coins at the end of the week."

"Hear! Hear!" They chanted.

"I returned from the Labyrinth ridiculously powerful!" I bragged. "And now I'll show you a fraction of my power. Just a tiny bit. Brace yourselves."

A show of force was necessary. Imperial culture favored strength, be it physical, mystical, or mental. If one of them got trapped and had to choose between me and someone else luring them, they would most often side with the strongest faction. Sparing the VIPs sitting on my table, I triggered my auras at a reasonable level, used {Cosmos Within} to captivate their attention, and forced a Charisma check to reassure their loyalty.

It hit them like a truck. Most people fell from their chairs, gasping for air that never came. I turned everything off after a few seconds. The effect was palpable. Not even the [Emperor] exerted such pressure.

"Now you understand. Stay with me and you'll reap the rewards of loyalty!"

"Hear! Hear!" They chanted.

"Let's eat! Drink the wine cellar dry! And a [Prince] shall play the lute for your enjoyment. What an honor!"

The main dish was roasted Peapura with silk sour cream and silk cheese sauce. Every dairy product from the silk cattle had silk slapped in front of it, I decided.

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"Enter!" I shouted when the woman knocked on the bedroom door.

Like a lewd Adonis, I was on the bed, naked, the family jewels standing impressively and in the light for the visual delight of those who liked such things. I decided I would shapeshift myself for every woman differently. Long, short, thick, or average, I narrowed it down to four types. It was too dangerous to use my magically altered equipment and I wanted to conduct a social experiment. The maids would bring conflicting information to the gossip mill and I wanted to know what they would make out of it.

The first girl was one of the youngest in the staff, seventeen years old [2]. She was from a county two fiefs removed from the capital and came here to work and support her family. Two-thirds of her wages went via Royal Courier to her hometown, with routine inspections to make sure the money got to whom it was supposed to. The way to make things work in the Empire was to have so many people involved in the process that you would need to bribe all of them to steal the money, making corruption too expensive. It also made the government bloated and inefficient.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But I made sure of her family's wellbeing. They would be one of the first I would entice to move to Raswaria.

> Level 34 female human [Maid].

Ena, the lucky maid who won the lottery, closed the door respectfully as I remotely activated the privacy wards. She couldn't restrain her squeal when she turned around and saw me.

I had decided not to keep a rose (or any flower) between my teeth. That would be too much.

Palpitating and stuttering, she approached and bowed. Her eyes floated to the top of her head, unwilling to take the promised land out of her sight. "Your Highness! I'm Ena, and I'm here to service you. What is your desire?"

"First, we need to correct an injustice," I said with a disinterested tone. "A commoner shouldn't wear better clothes than Royalty, don't you agree?"

If the King wears his "new clothes", the courtiers better become nudists.

Brimming with excitement, she discarded her maid outfit on the ground, revealing she'd ditched her undergarments elsewhere.

"Aren't you cold, Your Highness? I may warm you if you want," she misdirected her true goal.

"Come, climb in bed with me. We might want to enter underneath the duvet if it is that cold."

"Excuse me, Your Highness. I am here to serve you."

We ducked under the duvet and she latched to me as she laid by my side. "Is this good?" Ena asked, her voice betraying her excitement and fear.

"Put your hand on my chest, Ena. Tell me, if you could wish for anything, what would you wish for?"

She wheezed and blushed as her lips parted slowly, "I would ask a kiss from Your Highness," she whispered-squealed in a high pitch.

"A kiss?" I asked in disbelief pretending to be annoyed. "So shall it be. I'll give my best kiss to you, then send you on your way. I think I'm warm enough."

She hiccuped, then gasped. "No! Please! I misspoke."

I touched a finger to her lips, "Shhh. I was jesting. Why are you here Ena?"

"To service Your Highness!" She gave me the boilerplate answer.

I narrowed my eyes in disappointment. "Ena, forget my title for a moment. Be honest. I won't hurt or scold you, no matter what you do. Be honest and tell me from the beginning. Tell me your story and what brought you here to this bedroom? Did anyone force you to be here? The truth, Ena. Speak freely."

Her family was small-time local merchants who moved goods between their (previously prosperous) fief's many settlements. A few years earlier, the local lords raised the number of toll collecting posts, making their family's lives hell since they worked with low margins and spent little time in the settlements. They (along with most other merchants in the same business) went bankrupt and the father used his last favors to get Ena admitted to our palace. Reports I collected later told me the fief was also almost bankrupt. Without these small merchants to move goods around, the villages suffered as they counted on trade to supply them with goods from their neighbors, allowing them to focus on the local specialties.

Of course, the local robber baron increase taxes to meet revenue, causing a massive exodus. Ena's family lived off of her wages as money from the Imperial family's servants couldn't be taxed locally.

"Ena, let's make a mental exercise. If you had to choose between spending the night here with me or having me ride out to get your family and friends out of that fief and bring them to safety, which would you pick? I'm not rejecting you, it's just a thought experiment."

She was on the brink of a breakdown. I gave her time to collect her thoughts.

"Your Highness, being with you is a dream made true. My family is fine and once I become your woman, I know you won't kick me out. And I want this. I won't have another opportunity in life to be with another Prince."

She, like the other women who participated in the lottery, wasn't interested in me, or Percival, or in romance. They wanted my body, my title, and stability.

"I'm going to get your family here anyway. I can't let them stay there and be used as leverage against me."

"I understand," she said with a knot on her throat and no small amount of disappointment.

"You are still spending the night here with me. Ena, what I said at the party wasn't a lie. Everyone in this palace right now is important to me. I might be powerful but I can't do everything by myself."

She melted and let her body relax next to mine. Her hand sought her prize. "Then allow me. I'll service you, Your Highness."

Another tidbit Madge revealed to me was that the maids shared tales, experiences, techniques, and trained for this day. It was that important to them. I became Ena's first partner but she was far from unskilled.

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Ena was lightly snoring as I laid in bed next to her. {Pleasing Physique} coupled with ridiculously high Attribute values, my reaction modifiers, and a little sensory magic made her burn through all her stamina and a bit of her HP pool as she tested the limits of my sound-blocking wards. She would sleep in and miss lunch tomorrow but would return to the servant wing, descending upon them like Prometheus bringing fire and light to end their benighted drought, rekindling their hopes and wishes, and ending any and all dryness.

As I reviewed the System messages regarding our many social interactions, I felt a bit like trash. A bit was a euphemism. The final verdict was that Ena would be loyal to me for the rest of her life. I also had no idea who between the two of us was whoring themselves out, if any. Imperial society wouldn't censure her for what she did. Madge didn't like it but she understood it was necessary. It would save lives once I started culling the Empire.

I touched Ena's forehead and checked her vitals. She had muscle fatigue and her body was full of endorphins and other feel-good chemicals she naturally created. Without disturbing her, I phased through the bed as I left the room and summoned some clothes on me. I entered Madge's new bedroom in the private wing, three doors from the entrance to my apartment. She was awake, reading a book on her bed.

"Husband," she greeted as she lowered the book on the bed with the covers up. "Did you finish your duties?"

Duties. That's what it was. "I did. Ena is sleeping and won't wake up anytime soon."

"Come here, my love. I won't ask about what happened but if you want to share anything, I'm listening. Always."

Mona's aloof and spoiled demeanor forced Madge to develop the other way. She was rational, collected, tolerant, and empathetic. I suspected she was very good at hiding her resentment and later letting go as I couldn't sense any accumulated distress in her. She could also be bossy and stubborn but these traits only manifested when she felt in charge.

"You know about Ena's family and the situation in her fief, right?"

"Of course. I interviewed every woman who wanted in the lottery."

"That fief will be the first one to fall before me. It is ripe for the picking, and its people will be very grateful to be free of that stupid baron."

"I agree. It's near Theria too. You can call on the werewolves for support."

"I'll keep them in reserve as a trump card."

Silverstreak's forest homeland was one of the many vassal Kingdoms in the Empire. Home to fairies and werewolves, it was a safe haven for non-humans and displayed a population as racially diverse as Windemere. I would call upon their help but much later on.

As I climbed on the bed, I scooped the book and conjured a long and thin leaf to mark the page before closing it and putting it in my item box.

"It's for the best," she mumbled to herself, trying to quell a spike of doubt that might have crossed her mind.

I rested my head against her chest and focused on the sound of her heartbeat and breathing as Madge caressed my hair.

Killing the [Emperor] now not only would be hard, expose my family to harm, and potentially jeopardize my Quest to rebuild Raswaria. Not only that but would also throw almost half of the biggest continent in this world into a bloody war. Oppressed Kingdoms would seek independence. Noble Houses would attack their neighbors heedless of retaliation. My brothers would start fighting among themselves to see who would become the next [Emperor]. Millions upon millions would perish. But if I eroded the Empire and cemented Percival's position in society, I could stage a coup and seize power without triggering this Apocalyptic scenario.

And a good portion of the effort would happen on a bed, with the naked bodies of people, practically strangers to one another, pleasing each other. Ena was just the first of many, and that was even before I was introduced to society.

Such was the Empire's ethos. I, with my modern Earth sensibilities, was the odd one out.

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[1] A famous Magic: the Gathering 1-white mana card that converts a target creature's attack into health for their controller as it is removed from play. I think kids these days call that mechanic "exile", but I'm old school. I was about to quit MTG when Ice Age came around.

[2] 17 Yznarian years = around 23 Earth years.