The rest of the day was being relatively uneventful with scouts having nothing to report and her not having any information spells.. She wished she had learnt some spells she could use to view the distance but being limited to 300 spells she had to focus on the spells that were required as she leveled up. As the day continued she started to be bored of sitting on her throne in case someone had something to report so she slowly got off of her throne and walked towards the walls intending to patrol the fortification both to see the changes this transportation brought as well as to kill time.
As she walked around the fortress each person who saw her gave her a salute which she responded with what she hoped was a proper soldier salute through she wasn't even sure whether a leader was supposed to salute the soldiers who saluted her. That happened in the movies but movies were unreliable at best when it came to facts regarding the military. As she was walking while trying to remember something she knew about military she saw Toshiko who was currently directing the creation of ice walls. Despite her design being slightly on the childish side mainly because she was trying to create for the lack of a better word a loli while designing her, she seemed to handle her leadership role pretty well.
As she was staring at her creation Toshiko turned at her and immediately gave a small salute before starting to approach her. She wasn't sure why all of her NPC's were so militaristic. She had given them backstories that would push them to improve themselves as fighters but that didn't explain why they were so militaristic. Maybe the fact that all of the NPC's except the ones she had designed had been created as guards which influenced them causing them to think this was an actual military headquarters rather than a place built for the sole purpose of grinding ores. At the very least they weren't warmongering. She couldn't see a future in which she could prevent a group of bloodthirsty warriors from attacking everything in sight.
Upon coming in front of her Toshiko gave her another salute and said:"Ma'am everything is progressing nicely. We should be able to defend against anyone without cold resistance." which she responded with a nod before smiling a bit. Despite everything going poorly or perhaps because everything was going poorly, she found a girl with Toshiko's build playing the role of a commander rather adorable. Quickly wiping the smile off of her face she said:"Well I am glad everything is progressing well. Make sure to keep me or Celestine updated. Now get back to work." which Toshiko responded by giving her a nod and returning to rest of the group she was in charge of in order to direct the improvement of fortifications.
Walking further through the walls she saw Toshiko sitting in front of the gates seemingly focused on something with several caster yuki-onna standing next to her . She then saw one of them use a spell after Hitomi said something. She couldn't tell from afar but it was probably message sent to the scouts, Approaching Hitomi slowly as to learn if there were any updates she said:"Are there any news..." through before she could finish her sentence Hitomi jumped to her feet. Hitomi immediately turned around she said:"Ma'am!" looking as if she was caught doing something bad with her ears twitching and her tail mopping the floor.
Would it be too far to ask to pet her ears?As she was thinking this Hitomi said:"I am sorry for ruining the mission ma'am. Punish me however you see fit." before lowering her head. At that moment she thought whether it would be possible to declare her punishment rubbing her ears before deciding against it. If anime's had taught her anything it was that for any beastwoman ears were extremely sensitive and rubbing them bordered on sexual harassment. Plus she didn't think Hitomi had done something that required punishment and she thought she had said that but clearly Hitomi was feeling guilty so she said:"I will decide on your punishment at a later date. Even if your punishment isn't given now I expect your work to continue being exemplary." which Hitomi responded with a nod and sat on her seat looking reinvigorated.
After spending another half an hour patrolling the fortress she decided to head back to the throne room and wait for a report to arrive through before she could sit down Hitomi dived into the room and said:"Ma'am after a scouting party reached to the edge of the mountain formation a city was spotted in the distance. " while seeming rather excited. Nodding to Hitomi she said:"Alright. Have the scouts use message to deliver an image of the map they drew and have the map written down. Also, have Celeste prepare a mount for me. Try to get this done as soon as possible" Maybe she was hurrying things a bit too much but to be honest if she had to continue to pretend to be a ruler for another hour she was going to go crazy.
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As Hitomi went on to relay her orders she started to plan out the trip in her mind. To start she had to assume they didn't use identification cards or something similar. Otherwise this whole idea would get destroyed faster than she could blink. Would they accept the gold from the game world or would she need to carry trade goods?Through trade goods she could get from the castle would probably draw a lot of attention. Perhaps she could sell a few items from her inventory pretending to be a magic item salesman.
Was her inventory even working?That was going to require testing. She was going to be really upset if she ended up losing all of the rare equipment she worked hard to acquire. Noticing Hitomi's stare she cleared her throat and said:"Tell scouts to keep scouting the area. That is all." which made Hitomi give a nod before leaving the throne room. Now that she was alone she reached to the air and thoughts about her staff before making a pulling motion and there it was. Her staff. She had worked several nights designing it to the tiniest detail. There were four snake-like white dragons coiling on one another and at the top, they split in four directions with each having an orb in its mouth along with a large orb at the top of the staff.
Activating the staffs' special ability was really tempting however it would probably be really messy so she decided to postpone it for now. After sitting on her throne for a few minutes in order to give everyone some time to prepare she ended up being bored so she got off of her throne and started playing around with her staff throwing it up and down. After what felt like hours but were probably 10 minutes Celestine came into the throne room and said:"Ma'am your mount is prepared and a map was drawn to lead you there. Would you like me to accompany you?" She considered the offer for a second before imagining Celestine freezing someone while calling them trash which caused her to immediately shake her head and say:"No need. I can take care of myself."
Using the staff as a walking stick she exited the throne room heading to the gates. As she walked along with the staff almost every soldier stared at the staff. Perhaps they were remembering how it was used in defenses through the staff wasn't actually something that should be adored. It had a pretty neat ability that had a huge area of effect however just activating it once consumed all of the users' mana and halved their mana regeneration for the duration of the effect which was basically a death sentence in any duels or small-scale combats.
As she reached the gates she saw the Frost Horse waiting for her. Hopefully her disguise magic also worked on horses. Otherwise, she was going to have to walk on foot for a few kilometers which was going to be really tiring. Attempting to mount the horse she realized the fact that she had no clue regarding how to ride an actual horse. Looking at Celestine she tried to make a really tough decision. Was she going to accept that she was a fool and ask Celestine to come along so that she could help with the horse or just improvise with the horse and hope she didn't crash until she was out of sight?
In the end she was forced to choose the latter as she had never been good at balance games. She said:"I reconsidered. Celestine you and I can share a horse however you are not allowed to use any force on anyone we encounter or do anything that will start a fight without my specific order. As a final note. You are to treat me as your friend rather than your superior until I say otherwise." which Celestine responded by saying:"Yes ma'...Alright" and mounting the horse before offering her hand. Taking her hand she climbed behind the horse and with a touch she turned the horse into a brown horse with several dots on him through disguise magic. She then proceeded to apply the same spell on herself turning her hair black and turning her clothes to what she believed to be basic townspeople clothes with a brown top and black pants before proceeding to do the same to Celestine. With both of them having similar disguises she couldn't help but imagine someone thinking they were sisters which gave her a small smile as well as a distraction to not to think of what they were going to do once they actually reached town.