Straf and Cycelia wait silently for the diplomats to clear out of room, their whole purpose now invalidated. Cycelia continues glaring towards the door, though her harsh expression is slowly softening. Straf sneaks momentary peeks of her every few seconds, standing by her side with his fists on his hips and a tight-lipped grimace on his face. The guard captain appears relieved, though still nervous. She lets out a large sigh once the last diplomat is out of the throne room.

「…And people say the worst that can happen is that she'll say no. Yikes.」

Straf remarks with his furrowed brows lightly raised.

「…Do you think I went a little overboard?」

Cycelia asks after a brief glance at Straf, her face now soft and beautiful as usual.

「Well, had you let me handle it, I would have turned this hard rejection into a full-on diplomatic incident. I think he got off easy. Prick.」

He shrugs his shoulders after a short sigh while staring at the door with her.

「…This isn't the first time he proposed marriage either. When I was showing him the maze, he mentioned that I'm the last of my family, and without an heir… I turned him down too.」

Cycelia explains, turning her apologetic emerald gaze up to him.

「With the same amount of death threats? You won't be a popular host, that's for sure.」

「No… I explained that I just can't. He seemed a little… Well, very disappointed, but ultimately returned to his kingdom without an incident.」

「Huh? When? Why didn't you tell me?」

Straf asks, narrowing his eye with his mouth open slightly in surprise.

「I didn't think it was important or pertinent to you. It was when he suddenly visited as a guest, remember? You caught Stripe around that time.」

「Right… So why didn't you get so murderous with him back then? Why now?」

Turning to Cycelia, Straf spreads his hands, shrugging his shoulders before placing his fists on his hips.

「Well… First time around it was just an innocent suggestion, and it was reasonable of him to assume that this state of things is perilous to the kingdom…」

She shrugs, tilting her chestnut head as she lowers her gaze down to her lap.

「…But now he suggests the same thing disingenuously wrapped in another issue, all under guise of a diplomatic mission and an idea of a real union… And doing so in front of you…」

「…It is pertinent now?」

Straf quickly chimes in with his brows raised in a tight-lipped grimace.

「…I felt deeply insulted that he not only didn't respect my decision, he intentionally disregarded it and put me in an awkward situation like this in front of everyone…」

Cycelia continues, and the longer she explains, the more her harsh face returns.

「…Grrhhhh! How dare he!? I should order the spymaster to poison him!-」

She adds, trying to crush her armrest with her dainty hand.

Pat.

「Now, now, Lia… Now that you said it out loud… It's a bad idea anyway, cut it out.」

Placing his hand on her shoulder and rubbing it softly, Straf calms Cycelia. She lets out a large sigh, and her shoulders slump.

「You're right… You're right. I'm a queen now, I can't overreact to slights. Thank you, Straf.」

She nods her chestnut head and smiles at him before standing up.

「Captain, return my regalia to their place please.」

「Uh- Ah… Yes, your highness…」

Cycelia unclasps her mantle, quickly folds it over her arm, and places it into the nervous young captain's hands.

She plucks the crown off her head then sets it upon the mantle along with the scepter. With a smile and polite nod towards the captain, she walks off the throne's steps with Straf.

「So… No more visits?」

Straf asks as he walks alongside her with his hands in his pockets.

「No, I'm free for now. I was going to head back to my room to study… Unless you had something in mind?」

Cycelia stops outside the throne room and fidgets aimlessly with her hands as she turns to Straf.

「Nope. I have a thing to do… It's not that interesting. You're better off studying.」

Straf stops beside her and casually shrugs his shoulders with a now bored expression on his face.

「I see…」

She nods, and they continue walking alongside each other in silence. They reach a staircase down and descend together, then approach a crossing in the hallways.

「…So… I will be in my room if you need me, Straf. Don't wander around too long, okay?」

She walks away a few steps in another direction as Straf takes a turn, then turns to face him with a smile.

「Right…」

Straf pauses to return a tight-lipped nod.

「Right. See you later.」

She nods back and heads down the hall, while Straf goes the other way. He lets out a long, fatigued sigh.

「…Hey, Holstein cow.」

Straf calls out towards the ceiling while heading towards the stairs down.

《What?》

Athea asks in a voice as if it just cleared a sigh.

「I am not going to wear your BDSM collar. Where do I find another piece of cursed gear that won't make me look like I'm too open about my fetishes?」

He briefly spreads his hands out at the ceiling before returning them to his pockets.

《…Can't you just settle down and be normal?》

「Nope.」

Athea asks, and Straf ripostes with quick nonchalance.

《Why do you insist on being like this? I already said it, I already admitted it's my fault, so why can't you just have a normal life? Isn't this already too much? Why not stop?》

「Oh yes it is, but I'm beyond the point of stopping. I'm now at let's keep going, and see what happens.」

《You could have a happy life full of luxury if you just gave up on trying to punish me for my honest mistake. Nobody could stand in your way. All you'd have to do is just stop.》

「Heh, well… What can I say?…」

Straf stops in his tracks, lowering his head with a grin on his face.

「…I'm a man of principles.」

He turns it upward at the ceiling, then continues walking and takes a turn down the hallway.

《You can't have both. You can't have world-ruining power and a normal life. You have to choose one. Please, just choose a normal life.》

Athea pleads with Straf, but his mouth remains scrunched to the side while he heads towards the stairs.

「I don't care if I don't have a normal life, you kind of took that from me. I just don't want Lia to be afraid of me…」

He shrugs while walking down the steps with his hands in his pockets.

「…Now where is that fucking cursed bit? Don't make me look for it blind. And it better not be some fetish shit either.」

Glaring up at nothing in particular, Straf asks with a greatly displeased look on his face.

《…The closest one to being what you want is in Parnatau Kingdom. It's in old, forgotten ruins near their capital city.》

After a prolonged silence, Athea's reluctant voice returns.

「Convenient. Contrived, almost. Their kingdom sure comes up a lot now. First the money, now I have a personal reason to go visit their shithole?」

Straf scoffs while heading towards the stairs to the ground floor, smirking at the ceiling.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

《What are you implying? That synchronicities can't happen from time to time?》

Athea's echoing voice in Straf's head asks.

「Oh, they can… But this is a little too much. Whatever. Good enough for me.」

Shrugging his shoulders, Straf lets out an amused huff from his nose and shakes his head. He makes his way down the stairs, and out the palace…

…

Less than thirty minutes later, in the Royal Reserve Bank…

Straf casually steps in through the door. He quickly notes the bank is much louder than usual.

「Fifty three!」「Fifty three and half!」

A group of men with a sparse amount of women shout over each other while holding their hands up near the tellers' counter.

「What the fuck is going on here? A robbery?…」

Straf remarks with his fists on his hips while watching the rowdy crowd as he walks up to Nona, and Niklaus's empty desk.

「Fifty five! That's my final!」

A man shouts, pointing at a man facing him. The second man shouting random numbers hesitates, and lowers his hand.

「Five for fifty five!-」

The man points back at him, then quickly scrapes something in his pocket-sized wax tablet.

「Yeah!」

After a victorious fist pump, the other man does the same. They walk up to the ticker machine, one of them places his hand upon its screen, and the machine gives out a faint glow.

The men shake hands, nodding at each other. Straf notes the magic crystal screen above the tellers' counter just updated the price of DCLM to 55, while the teller writes up a document.

「…Alright, it's a consensual robbery. Carry on.」

Straf shrugs, then turns to Nona.

「…How are you doing? I was passing by and I thought I'd pop in.」

He asks, approaching a little closer while she's leaning onto her hammer.

「Hm? I'm fine, why?」

Her brown, capped head tilts a little.

「No… Memory problems?」

Straf's brows rise as he quizzically shakes his head with his fists on his hips.

「Hm?- Ah…」

Embarrassed, her amber eyes turn away while she gives her cheek a few awkward scratches, grinning.

「…You know, that last time we drank… I only remember everything up to the point that I entered your room. Everything else is kind of foggy. Is that bad?」

Nona shrugs and turns her gaze up to him with a nervous smile.

Snap.

「Yeah, you should definitely lay off booze for a while, Nona. You don't want to turn into a drunkard who can't remember a single thing that happens in your day, do you?」

Straf energetically nods along with a snap of his fingers, pointing at her.

「No… I'll be careful, he he…」

She chuckles a little, grinning at him while he walks up to the teller's counter.

「Hey… How many Strafsteelworks bills did you end up selling?」

He leans onto the counter, watching the wild crowd shout over each other right next to him by another teller.

「Let me see…」

The bank woman reaches under her counter and pulls out a sheet of paper. She briefly reads through it, then raises her eyes up back to Straf.

「…We've recorded 480127 bills sold. Most of them were issued on singular bills.」

The teller replies, lowering the accounting sheet.

「Shit, that many? That's not bad for a first run…」

Grinning slightly, Straf rubs his chin.

「…Alright. Keep shilling them whenever someone comes in.」

「Yes sir.」

Straf pushes himself off the counter and turns to the crowd while the woman bows politely.

「Hey! Anyone selling Strafdrakes certificates!?」

He shouts, looking around with his hands in his pockets. Three men quickly swarm him.

「I have five!」「I have one for sale!」「I have ten I'm willing to part with!」

They throw confusing hand signals in his face, shouting and trying to be louder than the crowd. Straf leans back away from their assault of hands.

「Alright, alright… I'll buy 'em all. How much?」

He nods, regaining some of his personal space by holding his hands out in their way.

「Eh? All of them!?」

The man with ten certificates asks, glancing at the other two with his face in strong disbelief.

「Yup. It's going up so I want to make easy money. How much?」

「Five for thirty!」「One for twenty eight!」「Ten for thirty five!」

「Alright, alright, I'll buy 'em… It'll double easily.」

Nodding, Straf gestures all three men to the ticker machine. Their jaws drop and their shoulders slump a little, but then they collectively shrug and approach it with him.

「Alright, do the thing.」

He gestures towards the ticker machine, and the man with ten certificates walks up.

Pat.

「Ooop… Not so quick. You go last.」

He grabs the man's shoulder and pulls him away.

「Eh? But what difference does it make who goes first and who goes last?」

Confused, he blinks at Straf with furrowed brows while the two use the ticker machine to confirm the transaction.

「It makes all the difference, buddy.」

Straf insists, leaning into the man's face. He leans away with a nervous, tight-lipped grimace on his face, nodding along. When the two are done, he approaches the machine as well.

It glows, and when Straf looks at the ticker screen above the counter, it displays Strafdrakes' newest price to be 35 drakes. Straf pulls out a small bundle of drakes from his pocket.

「Here… Here… And here-」

Settling immediately with the men, he hands them the agreed-upon amounts while the teller prepares three sets of documents. Before she can finish, another man approaches Straf.

「Ah! Excuse me sir, would you be interested in selling those certificates!?」

The man asks, nodding repeatedly, never fully raising his head while he looks up at Straf with an expectant gaze.

《Heh. Fucking sucker…》

「…Maaaaaaan, I don't know… I just bought them, and it's going to go up by a lot.」

Straf shrugs, feigning indecision while rubbing the back of his neck, mischievously grinning ear to ear while turned away from the man. Nona tilts her head, blinking at Straf from her chair.

「I'll pay double right now! For all of them! That's a good deal, isn't it!?」

The man approaches closer, spreading his hands with his head still deferentially lowered.

「Yeeeah… It sounds like a good deal, but it might go up a lot higher soon…」

Straf shrugs, facing the man with a nonchalant expression and putting in heavy effort not to burst out into laughter.

「…How high, would you say?」

「Hmmm…」

The man asks, and Straf rubs his chin while looking up at the ceiling.

「…Like 300 next year?」

Straf casually replies, shrugging his shoulders while his gaze returns back to the man. The buyer's jaw drops.

「…I'll pay! I'll pay for all of them! You can have one of my properties as collateral! It's on the main street, it's worth at least that much!」

The man shouts, violently nodding his head.

「…Is it big?」

Straf asks, rubbing his chin with his brows raised.

「Big! Like a warehouse! All furnished too! It's well worth the deal!」

The man continues shaking his head with his eyes wide-open and nearly bulging.

「…Alright, deal. 11 for 300 or else I take your shit.」

Straf shrugs with a nonchalant, almost bored expression on his face. The teller rips up the documents she just wrote with a tight-lipped grimace on her face, then begins a new one with a sigh.

Exchanging no money, Straf and the buyer sign a document in triplicate, placing the man's property in a premium location as collateral for failure to pay by the year's end.

《Man, I should have been a daytrader…》

Satisfied, Straf heads for the exit with a smug grin on his face and his hands in his pockets.

「See you later, Nona. That deadbeat better be working.」

「He is! Bye!」

Leaving, Straf points at Niklaus's empty chair. She nods, waving her hand as he disappears beyond the doorway…