The awkward but necessary conversation in the throne room was a poor way to start my day, and once I recovered, I gathered up my stuff and headed back towards my office, only stopping to make sure a few things were in order and that I was not needed elsewhere. Shortly after, I had fallen asleep, and woke up groggy mid-day. I called for some tea and sat down to start tinkering on some other projects, letting my hands work while my mind wandered.
A number of things had changed drastically once I had become king. While I was in a position to do great good for the Kingdom and this entire corner of the world, certain aspects of my own life had been forever altered. Carefree adventure looked unlikely—perhaps, when things had calmed down, with a double in place, I could use illusions to take a small trip, but that was still a ways off—and that meant my progression was going to stall.
I was already more or less out of skillfruit, having consumed basically my entire stock and front-loading my year in order to advance Enchantment and Literacy, and with Rena headed to the capital the trees back in Freehold likely would not produce the next year, as she was the only one I trusted with that particular secret. Planting more trees on the local farm-in-progress would eventually cover that loss, though Rena would not arrive in the capital until well after the spring so there may be a year gap, and I also had limited red dungeon core crystal remaining and could not just run out and acquire another.
Yet it was not the growth of my strength that I was worrying about slowing down, but rather, my personal growth. My time in Freehold allowed me to find a comfortable place in this world, making friends and enjoying my second life instead of treating it as a challenge to overcome through training. I had even started to think about marriage and family, especially after my time in Checkpoint, before the tournament and subsequent usurping of the throne had interrupted that train of thought and my days had been filled with doing as much good for others as I possibly could. It had come at a cost, though, and that was my own happiness.
Am I happy? I asked myself. I was glad to be making positive changes, and there were many aspects of being the leader of the Kingdom that were exciting, and I was surrounded by people—many of whom were people I deeply cared about and was happy to be able to spend so much time with—but on the whole, my current actions were not necessarily taking me towards increased personal happiness. In a way, they were creating barriers to it.
I knew the type of person I was. It was the same issue I had on Earth. My isolationism and passivity were easy to slip into. I was more than capable of taking risks when it came to personal safety, but I was quite bad at taking risks towards one of the most important aspects of life.
Clearing my workspace off, I pulled out some materials, and began working on something else.
* * *
“I still have trouble believing that you made all this,” Seranedra said, looking at the receptacle full of magic meters. She placed her hand on the prototype adventurer ranking artifact and a screen lit up, displaying her rank as Bronze, the rank D equivalent. I had needed to translate the ranks from English to a Horuthian equivalent measure, as I had for the Tamers Guild, in order for it to make sense. Rank E was still Iron, and below that was Stone for rank F and Wood for rank G. Seranedra pouted slightly after reading the parchment that listed the tiers next to the measuring device. “I thought I would rank higher.”
I smiled at her cute pouty face. “I’m sure you’re close to ranking up. Four years, tops.”
“Four years isn’t that quick,” she grumbled, then turned on me. “What rank are you?”
I stepped up next to her and placed my hand on the artifact, and it displayed the rank B equivalent, which was Gold. Her face displayed surprise as she looked up at me.
“Not Master?” Master was the rank beyond A, which was Expert. It was a bit of a departure from the material-based names before, but gold was already more or less the most valuable material in this world, so switching to knowledge superiority at the highest ranks made some sense to me.
This world already acknowledged “Masters,” in title, but also through my metasystem, with skills. Technically, someone could hold a master skill by Level 45 if they only ever had a single skill and every skill point went into it, but assuming someone had to split their skills, half going towards mastery and half going into everything else, then Level 65 for the master rank as an adventurer worked quite well.
Shrugging, I gave her my best attempt at a nonchalant grin. “Not a Master yet, at least. Maybe by the time I’m an old man.”
The beautiful priestess nodded absently, but was already being distracted by some of the other prototype artifacts, like the dungeon rank measurement tool. I watched her face as she examined the items, her joy and curiosity written clearly across it. Seranedra had a deep love for magic, and enchanted items were no exception.
I had learned from Seranedra that the Church owned a number of artifacts from generations past, healing enchantments that could be used in an emergency to attempt to save a life that was in critical condition. Since enchantments could not overdraw magic and cause injury to the caster, it was one of the only methods to safely try and save a powerful person from devastating injury.
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Healing artifacts had fallen into secrecy after they had been used to win the war in the south, and as healing magic became fully restricted to the Church, it had become hard, over time, to train up engravers and enchanters with enough skill with healing to create more, and the methods were lost. I figured I could probably create some new healing artifacts as well, to further help democratize healing for the people, but the personal magic meters were already a good start with a wider value proposition, so I decided to hold off until I had taken the updated measure of the changing Kingdom.
“Why don’t these other creations have your mark on them?” she asked, breaking me from my reverie.
“Hmm? My mark?”
Seranedra pointed to her wrist, where delicate gold chains draped from the clasped enchanted accessory, the simplified image of the gas giant decorating the face of the magic meter.
“Oh. Uh, well, it’s not really a signature of mine or anything. I wanted an image that would represent magic.”
She looked down at her wrist, then back up to me, a quizzical expression appearing. “How does this represent magic?”
Pausing, I debated the harm in sharing my theories about the origins of magic. I would have to explain a bit more about the crystals, which if shared publicly could result in a run on beast crystal and deepwater pearls. That said, I was in a position of power now where I could commission trawling ships to dredge blueclams from the ocean floor, or even just encourage sea-side tamers to engage in freediving with beasts to bring more into the Kingdom. I also was increasingly in a position where I needed to discuss dungeons more openly, as that was an aspect of why I wanted to make the Adventurers Guild in the first place.
I led Seranedra over to the window of my office, where the gas giant could be seen sitting on the horizon, and motioned to it. “So, I have this idea about where magic comes from…” I began explaining.
Hours later, I found myself finally growing weary, having been drilled for details by the overly enthusiastic priestess. Question followed question, with countless threads of follow-ups that each had to be explored, and I had needed to summon someone for more tea three times through the discussion.
Seranedra’s passion and awe was abundant, and it was a big part of what attracted me to her.
“It all remains guesswork,” I said as the conversation wound down. “We can’t really know unless we, I don’t know, go up there.”
“Go… up there?” Seranedra asked, leaning forward. “Into the sky?”
Perhaps I’ll leave the concept of space travel for another day, I thought, shaking my head. “Right, that’s silly, I must be getting tired.”
A ponderous expression crossed her face for a moment, but the thought was quickly dismissed as Seranedra decided my words meant it was time for her to leave. She stood, smiling, and I summoned up the willpower to get to my feet after her.
While fatigued from the discussion, I still felt a warmth of contentment in my chest. Spending time with Seranedra always made me happy, and as usual, I did not wish for her to depart.
After the confrontation in the throne room, I had spent a lot of time thinking about things, and realized that my passivity was going to take me nowhere. Thinking back to my time in Checkpoint, I never would have made the first move, and had Lamora not shown up at my door, nothing would have ever happened.
Being the king meant that I was in a position where no one could really approach me like that. Even some of the people closest to me could only bicker amongst themselves about the idea of a relationship, rather than actually making an attempt with me.
If I wanted anything to happen, I would have to be the one to take the first step.
“I’ve actually got one more thing to show you,” I blurted out before Seranedra left. She perked up and stepped back towards me, and I reached into a pocket to pull something out.
I held up a delicate, polished ring of gold, alloyed with silver and copper to increase the fine band’s toughness and durability. It was made of about six parts pure gold to one part of silver and one part of copper, approximately equivalent to eighteen karat yellow gold that jewelry was often made of on Earth. Set on the band was a large, multifaceted gemstone I had created, a calcium-aluminum neosilicate I had finally perfected after much experimentation. The green garnet was clear and gleamed from its cut and polish, and the color of the gem perfectly matched the priestess’s eyes.
Seranedra let out a small gasp of delight at seeing the stunning ring, and she stepped closer, looking at it closely. “It’s absolutely stunning,” she breathed, studying the ring.
My chest was constricted and my breathing was faltering as I looked at the woman that I had made the ring to match, hair more golden and lovely than the precious metal, green eyes holding more beauty than any gemstone could possibly compare.
Then, perfectly misunderstanding the situation, she tore her eyes from the ring and looked up at me with curiosity in her eyes. “What magic does it do?”
Blinking a few times as I parsed the question, the tightness in my chest began to unclench as nerves were replaced by mirth. Having set a precedent for pulling out magical artifacts had created expectations, and I shook my head as I prepared to explain.
“Sadly, this ring does nothing magical,” I said with a teasing smile. “I’m afraid its value is entirely mundane.”
“Oh,” Seranedra said in a small voice, blushing a bit as her eyes flicked between my face and the ring.
“But it does have a function, I suppose, as any gifted jewelry might. A symbol of intent, in this case, a… request, of… courtship,” I said, and felt my own face warm to match hers. “Should the recipient be willing.”
Furiously blushing, Seranedra looked up at me with hope in her eyes. “I thought with the bracelet–but then, it was an enchantment–I hoped, but, um… is this… who is it for?” she asked in a small, hesitant voice.
Reaching forward, I tentatively took her hand, and when she smiled, I lifted it up, bringing the ring close to her finger.
“It’s for you, if you’ll have me.”
Squeezing her lips together in a tight smile, she nodded, eyes watering up as I slid the ring on. She gazed down at it as happy tears spilled from her eyes, and I reached up to wipe them away.
I probably should have studied up royal courtship, as I had no idea what was or was not appropriate, but given her obvious elation, I tilted her chin up towards me and started leaning towards her. Her eyes closed as she leaned into me and our lips met, the beginning of our future together marked by our first kiss.