Introducing Seranedra to my parents went well, and my young siblings absolutely adored her, as she did them. I enjoyed spending time with Mari and little Varus as well, sitting down with them alone and learning about their likes and dislikes as well as their hopes and dreams.
Unsurprisingly, Varus wanted to take after our father, growing big and strong so that he could defend the walls from the outside world. He had even already picked up the one-armed skill, which means that Horg was already teaching the young boy the basics of swordsmanship. Varus’s eyes were huge as I showed him some of my blades.
“Tell you what,” I said to the boy. “When you turn ten, I’ll make sure you get the best sword possible.”
“Ten!” the child exclaimed piteously. “That’s… forever years away!”
“It’s six years away,” Mari said to her brother. “Not forever.”
“SIX,” he cried out, as if he were dying. “That’s SO MANY.”
“It’s only six,” Mari said with a sniff.
While Sharma had largely been a homemaker through Mari’s life, the young girl still took after our mother in that she was clever, academic, and had an interest in magic.
“Hmm. Well. Since six years is so many, I’ll make sure to get you some really nice wooden practice swords for your fifth birthday, as long as you promise not to hit people with them. How many years until your fifth birthday?”
Varus paused, thinking it through. “One?”
“That’s right. And Mari, when do you turn ten?” I asked, looking at my little sister.
“I turn eight in the fall, so in a little more than two years,” she said, a smug expression on her face.
“Oh, my birthday is in fall as well.”
“How old are you turning?” she asked, studying me.
“I’ll be twenty-one!”
“That’s so old,” Varus commented.
“It’s not that old. It’ll happen to you before you know it. Mari, what would you like for your tenth birthday? Is there something you want to apprentice in?”
“I’m going to be a mage like mama,” she said, arms crossed.
“Hmm. Well, I’ll make sure you have really nice magic circles to work with then. In the meantime…”
I got up to go to my desk, rummaging around a drawer to mask that I was pulling items out of my inventory. I withdrew two small pieces of cheap metal, each with a 5-point magic enchantment on them. Years ago, in Roko, I had commissioned these light enchantment engravings to learn the enchantment skill, ordering multiple to practice the skill. My success rate had been high, and I ended up with more than I ever needed, and these two had just sat uselessly in my inventory ever since.
“Here, one for you and one for you,” I said, handing them out to my siblings. “If you just push in a little magic…”
Mari did, and hers lit up. “Wow!”
Varus, watching, turned to his own, and scrunched up his face as he concentrated. I knew he had the requisite MP to make it work, so he just had to figure out the trick. Pushing MP through an enchantment should help both the kids grow their magic pool as they leveled up, which would give them a lot more potential in their apprenticeships and through adulthood.
My little brother finally got it to work, and celebrated with a funny dance. I laughed and congratulated him, and told them that they should practice it every day if they could, and that the more they used it the stronger they would be at magic when they grow up.
“But I want to be a swordsman,” Varus said after I explained it.
“Well, I’m a swordsman too, but I can also use magic. Learning to channel your magic like this will also help you tame beasts, and don’t you like Rika?”
“Yeah…”
“Right. It’s good to train and exercise your magic and mind as much as your body. Even papa knows some magic. That’s how he met mama.”
“Oh! All right then,” Varus said, convinced, then looked down at his light artifact more closely.
Without access to his own skill menu and without the use of skillfruit, there actually was a benefit to pure specialization, but I believed the benefits of having access to some magic power far outweighed the extra level or two worth of SP in one martial skill, particularly once he was breaking through the high teens of his levels.
Looking back at Mari, I wanted to give her a 4-point magic circle immediately and start training her right away. There was a ton of value in starting young, and compared to Varus who was already getting martial training from Horg, Sharma’s conservative choice to not let Mari do proper magic until she was apprentice age was a bit unfair. I’ll have to talk to her about it, I thought. The magic meters change the game when it comes to training.
“Guess I should just give you one of those now,” I murmured, continuing my thought aloud. I had piles of them enchanted already, so I quickly turned away from the kids to create some gold chain as a strap and assembled one to give to Mari, and then made a second for Sharma. Horg and Varus would benefit from them as well, technically, but practically had little actual use for them.
“How come Mari gets two presents?” Varus asked, a little sullen after I put the magic meter bracelet on her wrist and showed her how to use it, explaining the basics of percentages. She did not seem to grasp that immediately, so I promised I would sit down with her later and teach her more math and how it worked.
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“Well, that’s just her fifth birthday present, a bit late. You’ll get your wooden practice swords when you turn five instead. Is that all right?”
“Oh. Yah.”
“Good. All right, you two, let’s get back to mama and pop so I can get back to work.”
* * *
Standing in the street with Horg and Rena, I examined the properties before us. Morgun, one of Nodel’s top advisors, had led us to this location, and the run down buildings at the capital’s eastern gate were not much to look at.
“It’s perfect,” I said, glancing at Horg and Rena. “I mean, they’re complete tear-downs, but we’ll get something built to replace them quickly.”
“I’d rather something closer to the center of the capital, because being so far east is going to make it a trek for people in the western neighborhoods,” Horg mused. “Though I do understand that it makes sense to place the building close to the gates, and the southern gate is already the busiest one in the capital. That hasn’t changed in the last two decades.”
“Well, it works for us,” Rena said. “Unless you wanted to carve out a new gate in the north, but it would be in the shadow of the palace, which would be a bit overwhelming for some of the people coming from poorer homes.”
“Yeah, this is slightly farther from the capital farm, but it’s the simplest option for the Tamers Guild branch without doing something drastic. The Adventurers Guild doesn’t need to be at the same location, though. If you think the south gate would be better, Horg, we can make that happen.”
“No, the benefits of keeping them nearby outweigh the downsides of being in the east of the city.”
Scouting the location for the new Guild buildings had become a priority for me, even with the wedding so close and occupying so much of my thoughts, especially once Horg had spoken with Sharma and they agreed to stay in the capital so that he could help launch and run the Adventurers Guild. Horg had needed to select his replacement for his job as captain of the guard in Mirut before leaving anyway, given the length of time he would be away just to visit the capital, and I sent a messenger on to inform them that the change would be permanent.
Sharma had also arranged with the messenger transport back for some of their belongings which had remained in Mirut for the trip, but the family had modest possessions and much of it was easily replaced in the capital anyway. Due to the risk of theft, even in a safe town like Mirut, much of the family’s most valuable belongings had come with them on the ship, including Horg’s remaining chest of gold from his soldier career. They would not be selling the cottage, though, as one day they planned to retire back in Mirut and enjoy their senior years away from the hustle and bustle of the capital.
“Well, you’ll also be living here, so it’s an important decision.” Horg and Sharma had agreed that they would not feel comfortable living in the palace forever, and did not want to raise Mari and Varus around that much pomp, wealth, and privilege. Given that leading the Adventurers Guild promised to be a full time gig that would keep Horg somewhat on-call, they decided they would live near the Guild, similar to how they had elected to live close to the wall in Mirut while Horg was guard captain.
“The neighborhood is a bit rough,” Horg nodded. “But with the presence of the Guilds, that’ll change in the coming years.”
The Tamers Guild would have a large attached stables, as tarand lodging for wealthier merchants and people would bring in decent income, and also allowed the Guild to stock tarands on site for sale, as well as having room to kennel other beasts and store feed. Beyond that, the Tamers Guild did not require much in terms of space, just a stock room for the few goods they traded in like healing draughts, the trees for which had already been planted on the farm, prioritized over my skillfruit trees for the first season. I needed to sit down and produce bulk membership badges. Note to self, find a source for tawing salt in the capital so I can extract more aluminum.
On the other hand, the Adventurers Guild was planned to be a much larger building. In addition to the reception desks for the Guild clerks to register adventurers, approve and accept completion of quests, and generally handle the front-end of the operation, the core Guild only really needed a good way to display the quests and some storage and offices, like Horg’s future office. However, in the same way that I wanted an inn near the Tamers Guild in Freehold, it was even more important to have an inn working with the Adventurers Guild, as long-term there would no doubt be adventurers traveling between cities. I could let the free market handle that, but I wanted the Guild to have avenues of direct profit as well, so we were folding in an inn directly to the Guild, as well as a tavern and restaurant.
This would require more staff, and more space for kitchens and laundry and so on, so the building was going to be quite large. Of course, the kitchens needed food to serve, and since part of the promise of the Guild was to bring in meat and streamline freelance beast hunting, there would also be a butchery attached to accept beasts. Though there would likely end up being direct sales from the butcher, the plan was to sell in bulk from the Guild out to other butchers in the city for the citizenry.
There were a lot of moving parts, and we were planning on building something that had the potential to be rather impressive which would no doubt improve the local neighborhood as the coin started to flow in and out from the two Guilds. The crown was going to be ordering quests from the Guild for meat to help with the food supply until the local market took over, and the Tamers Guild had plenty of wealth to start buying in beasts locally for breeding and sale to tamers and locals who would want pets, which would no doubt be on the rise in the coming years as it had been in Freehold and Gurt.
“All right, then,” I confirmed, turning to Morgun. “Make the purchase, then get a crew to tear this down and provide transport for the stone from the quarry at the farm. Buy in the lumber from the foresters and carpenters as needed. We’ll begin construction immediately.”
* * *
As the day of the royal wedding approached, I found myself getting nervous. Not because I had cold feet. The sheer scope of the event was simply overwhelming. The entire capital was being decorated to celebrate the matrimonial day, which really put into perspective how important the Kingdom’s monarchy was, at least within the capital city.
Being from Earth, the wedding of some guy who happens to be king just did not feel like it should matter to most average people. I mostly just saw myself and my position as a form of government. Perhaps it was because I was not born into the role, it barely felt like it fit. I was doing my best to improve the Kingdom, and I hoped the people would eventually celebrate that, but it was too soon for most of them to see any results from my changes, and having gone through two kings in two years, their excitement for my wedding seemed artificial at best.
“Whatever,” I muttered, shaking off the thoughts. “They probably just like having something to celebrate, an excuse to have a party. Maybe the Kingdom needs more holidays.”
“What are you grumbling about?” Seranedra asked, approaching me from behind and placing a delicate peck on my cheek.
I turned to her, a genuine smile breaking across my face from the small kiss. My nerves about the actual event itself had nothing to do with my feelings for the priestess, and I was truly excited to marry her. I had never married on Earth, and had only really started to think about it on this world in the past year of my second life, but despite only knowing Seranedra for under a year, it felt exceedingly right.
The green garnet on her ring sparkled as it caught the light, and her magic meter jingled slightly as she pulled back from me.
“Just thinking about the people of the capital,” I answered. “And that they need more reasons to celebrate if they’re getting so worked up about our wedding.”
“Well, of course they’re getting worked up. You’re the king, Pilus. It’s important.”
I made a so-so gesture with my hand. “I’m just some guy.”
She stepped up to me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You’re not just some guy. You’re my guy,” she said. The timid shyness from our first meetings had long since started to fade, and she had become rather bolder since our courting officially began.
Leaning in, I kissed her, but kept it relatively short before pulling away. As was necessary as king, our courtship was relatively chaste and pure, and it was an effort of will to keep it that way sometimes.
“Just a few more days,” I murmured with a sly smile.
“I can’t wait.”