The next four complaints were very much so like Paul Evans'. Either they had misunderstood something that could only be cleared up by Daz himself, or they were dissatisfied with how things worked in Fort Skip.

Daz had to use a thought seed on two of them, but the other two finally agreed with Daz after he had calmly and patiently convinced them that they were simply wrong, which took a lengthy dialogue for both of them.

The final complainer of the six was soon escorted into the throne room. Glancing over him, Daz recognised the man from the recent group of over 300 new citizens.

He was a young African man who was 17 and had an alignment of Lawful Good if Daz recalled his status correctly. He had short black hair and a handsome face. He was wearing trendy clothing and seemed to be a bit nervous as he fidgeted in place.

"Ahem, Your Majesty," Crosius called as he handed Daz the man's related scroll. "Idris Sy here has a very personal complaint, though he insists it is a request, not a complaint."

One of Daz's eyebrows rose in interest. "A request? Idris, speak."

"Ah, um, yes. Request. Um, how you say? You, not satisfied?" Idris asked in broken English as he looked at Madison.

Daz frowned. "Speak in your native language. I will understand you."

"You speak Setswana?" the man asked still in English.

The reaper shook his head. "No, but I have a translation skill that makes it so that I basically can. Feel free to speak in Setswana."

"Ah, I understand." Idris gathered his thoughts then spoke in a tongue that no one in the room except for Daz, Lyle and himself could understand, leaving Crosius, the servents and Madison in the dark. "I wish to marry Miss McArthur. I fell in love with her the moment I set eyes on her. I think she's my soul mate, so I'd like to ask her if she is satisfied with you, and if she isn't, then maybe she can give me a chance at capturing her heart."

"Well..." Daz was a bit speechless. "This is certainly a unique 'request'..."

Madison cocked her head to the side. "My, name?"

Daz nodded. "Idris here says he's in love with you. He wants to ask if you're satisfied with me, and if not, to give him a chance to go on a date or two with you," he said in a relaxed manner.

'I mean, after all that Maddy and I have been through, and if her unmeasurable loyalty is somehow false, if she still somehow feels like I don't deserve her or that I can't make her happy, then I can only blame myself if she'd want to go out with a complete stranger at the first available chance.' Daz wasn't petty nor untrusting in regards to Madison, hence why he told her the truth and didn't bother skewing Idris' words to be out of the man's favour.

Madison looked a bit upset and her eyes trembled in mild annoyance. She looked at Idris and said, "Never. I, only, Daz's. Daz, only, mine. Forever."

'Oh, wow. Maddy's pissed off. That's pretty rare... I guess she feels insulted having her love for me put into question? I wanna kiss her...,' Daz thought with a loose smile in his mind.

"I... I sorry. I no understand?" Idris said in broken English as he glanced back and forth between Daz and Madison in a bit of a panic.

Sighing lightly, Daz said very clearly and very slowly in English, "Maddy said that she would never date you or consider it. She said that she is only mine and that I am only hers. She intends for this to remain true forever."

Madison's face lit up in a shade of bright crimson upon realising just how mushy the words that she'd coldly declared actually were. "Embarrassed..."

"Ah, uh I... I sorry..." Idris seemed heartbroken.

'Poor guy,' Daz thought about the young man who was only a little bit younger than himself and Madison. "I'm happy that you can see how special Maddy is, but I'm afraid you will have to give up your pursuit of her, okay? No hard feelings?"

Still in shock, Idris smiled weakly and nodded. "Yes. So sorry. No bad feeling. I... I go."

He had clearly forgotten that Daz could understand his mother tongue perfectly. He wanted to shake Daz's hand as a sign of respect, but still a bit lost in his emotions and not wanting to get too close to Madison after his crushing rejection, he bowed his head then left the throne room.

Crosius coughed. "Ahem. I didn't realise that Lady McArthur could be so... intimidating."

Lyle nodded. "She's a woman to be feared, for sure."

Madison wanted to cry from frustration. She kissed Daz as a form of revenge then buried her face in the nape of his neck.

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Laughing and rubbing his girlfriend's back, he whispered into her ear, "I love you too, Maddy."

"Daz, bully...," Madison whispered back.

Looking over at Crosius, Daz asked, "Two more to go, yeah? Suggestions this time? Bring in the first guest for that then, please."

"Of course, Your Majesty," the aged advisor replied in a polite tone.

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Holding his head in his hands as he sat on one of the public benches in the residential area, Idris wiped away his tears once more.

"Who know... rejection was... so hurt." He was still speaking in his broken English, but he hardly cared. He needed to live here, after all, so even if he was upset and bummed out, he still wanted to practice his English instead of speaking the far more comfortable Setswana.

"You got rejected?" a sweet voice asked.

Raising his head, Idris saw a cute western girl with glasses standing in front of him. She was dressed a bit oddly for a girl and she had a gun and a strange-looking book strapped to her hip. "Uh... I sorry. Am... I... bother... you?"

Laughing, the girl shook her head. "I saw you hanging your head and was a bit worried. Want an ice-cream?" she asked as she stuck her arm out.

Only now did he notice that she was holding two ice-cream cones. "Ah, um, thank you very much," he replied and took the treat.

"Don't worry about it," she answered as she sat down next to him. After taking a few licks of her ice-cream, she introduced herself. "I'm Ellie. Who're you?"

"Ah?" A bit confused, he replied, "My name Idris Sy."

"Idris like the actor? That's a cool name," Ellie praised.

"T-Thank you very much," Idris replied with that thick African accent of his.

"So, wanna tell me what's got you feeling so blue? I was pretty depressed myself recently, so maybe I can help you out?" Ellie kindly offered.

Idris didn't reply for a few seconds in hesitation.

Seeing this, Ellie smiled again. "We're all neighbours here now, right? Feel free to tell me what's got you down, but in exchange, I want you to help us move some of the materials down to the city. We need all the strong men and women that we can get now that Crusher's decided to stop giving us a hand to play gang-leader."

"Oh, um, help? Yes. I can help, bu-"

"Perfect! You can tell me all about why you've got such a long face as we work. My break's almost over, to be honest, so let's go now," Ellie said excitedly then grabbed Idris' arm and pulled him up with a surprising amount of strength.

Not wanting to spit on her kindness, Idris followed her.

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The first official suggestion was to build a traditional Japanese bathhouse. The one offering the suggestion was someone Daz recalled from the auction - Sakura Rei.

She claimed that while it was possible to clean yourself via the system very easily and cheaply, all of the money being spent on that service by the large majority of citizens that had no home yet could be flowing into Waterford instead of straight back to the system if Daz set up a cheap bathhouse that charged a few merit points per individual use.

Naturally, she was a bit biased being a Japanese woman herself, but Daz found himself agreeing with her, especially after Lyle had advised that Japanese bathhouses were world-famous attractions, and not only would having one make the citizens happy, but as Rei had said, it would increase city-wide revenue over time.

Daz agreed to the suggestion and made a promise to build a bathhouse either via Sandy and his construction crew or with his own merit points the next time Waterford's city points increased.

"Bring in the final guests!" Crosius ordered the servants.

"'Guests'? Plural?" Daz questioned.

Lyle smiled and answered in the head advisor's place. "The two guests this time are people you're already acquainted with, My King. You, uh, you may wish to hold onto Madison..."

Daz's instincts immediately aligned with his thoughts, so he smiled wryly. The next moment, the blonde twins Cathy and Katy - both of whom were a couple of years younger than Rose - entered the hall as they held hands.

Madison's eyes started to figuratively glow as she tried to leap off of Daz's lap. Thankfully, his strength was a few hundred points higher than hers, so with a bit of effort, he was able to keep his hand tightly wrapped around her waist.

Whispering into her ear, Daz said, "I'll let you go if you promise to be gentle and make sure they don't mind whatever you want to do to them."

Madison's head spun around and she kissed Daz in thanks. "Mmm, promise."

Chuckling faintly, Daz let go of his girlfriend. Like a streak of lightning, Madison appeared behind the young girls and scooped them up into her arms. She sat then on a forearm each and asked them to hold onto her neck.

They were a bit surprised, but they didn't seem to mind all that much, so they did as they were told and hugged Madison, making her practically melt from joy.

Madison returned to Daz and sat down cross-legged just in front of the throne with the twins still wrapped around her neck.

Daz smiled warmly as he listened to the two twins' suggestion.

As it turned out, they wanted to build a temple or some sort of place of worship for Rimmy, which Daz had no issues with doing. He was already planning on buying or constructing a temple to worship Pala and the other gods whose champions he had working for him - excluding the God of Death, of course.

Even after having their request accepted by Daz, Cathy and Katy were persuaded by Madison to stay in the keep for a bit. She offered them a tour and bribed them with a promise of being able to eat some of Head Chef's amazing food, so the girls let themselves be carried around by Madison.

The three looked a bit odd since 8-year-olds weren't exactly small when compared to Madison, but her stats made it a simple task to carry the two, so Madison soldiered on and left the throne room with them.

"She is rather willful, hmm?" Lyle joked.

Daz shrugged. "She just loves cute things. I can't really fault her for that."

"Indeed, quite true, My King. Well, since all court affairs for the day have been dealt with, I shall return to Mave's clinic. Several of the new residents are still not acclimated to the heat, and some have even been suffering from heatstroke due to their carelessness or due to overworking - of their own accord, of course, so I shall go and assist Mave," Lyle said and then bowed humbly towards Daz.

"Sure. Have fun," Daz said passively. He then got out of his throne and stretched. "I need to go have a friendly spar with Crusher anyway. I haven't had a good fight in a while, so I'm sure she won't mind if we have our duel now and not tomorrow morning."

Crosius stroked his beard wisely. "Well then, Your Majesty, I have a lot more trivial tasks to finish before the next cycle begins tomorrow, so I shall resume doing those."

"Sure. By the way, I want to have a handful of people's potential tested tomorrow morning, so please make preparations for that with the other advisors," Daz ordered.

"Of course, Your Majesty. Consider it done," the elderly advisor replied with a grin.

Nodding, Daz followed Lyle out of the keep then made his way to the area that his clone, Gamma, was at.