258 Visitors from the Earth Elemental Plane (1/2)
[Child.]
[On the day you were born, the entire dragon valley reverberated with the whispers of the name that the Beast Gods bestowed upon you—Beifeng Herault.]
[My child, I proudly watched you grow up into the messenger of love. You should always remember that our family has used only justice and love to rule this country. You, too, should carefully use your powerful ability, your divine power that stems from true love.]
[But, you must remember that true victory never comes from power…]
[My child, personal strength is limited. What you need to do is encourage your citizens and increase their morale; they should always stand by your side. I’m telling you all this because when my life ends…]
[You shall be king!]
The dawn was accompanied by a tall, heroic figure, while, in the background, my shameless System refreshed my knowledge of its lack of limits. It was giving that silhouette its own background music and fake introduction scene.
This man, who had his own background music and introduction announcement, had his back to the sun; he seemed to be glowing valiantly. His crown-shaped horns blinded me even further and gave him the appearance of a pay-to-win player.
”I have returned!”
[System Notification: As the current King of All Gentlemen, how can you allow yourself to be surpassed by a junior? Isn’t it just some background music and an introduction? Come, from now on, every time Princess Peach arrives, I’ll give her a Swan Lake ballet dance introduction! From today onwards, I shall address you as the man who has his own accompanying dancers and ballet shoes!]
”That’s enough out of you! System, get the hell out in front of me! I promise I won’t kill you on the first blow!”
If the System was capable of materializing a physical form, I definitely wouldn’t kill her on the first blow. No, definitely not. How could I possibly vent if I really did kill her with my first blow? I had suffered all this time; I would definitely abuse her for at least one month!
”Your Highness, I have returned.”
Didn’t he notice that I was talking to my System? Have a clue! I glared at him, filled with dissatisfaction.
”Yeah, got it. What, is something the matter?”
The honest and dull-seeming dracon’s face was covered with dust and dirt, resembling an old farmer who had just finished planting trees in the desert. He seemed fatigued and hesitant as he looked towards me.
”Oh, right, where were you? Why did you skip out on work for no reason for so long? Hah, forget it! I’m in a good mood today so I don’t care.”
When I saw my subordinates work so hard, as a good and magnanimous boss I had to of course be considerate and console them. However, my causal question caused Beifeng’s expression to change, and he now looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He sweated profusely as his large, draconic eyes opened to the maximum. He stared at me.
”Your Highness, didn’t you request me to stay in the Earth Elemental Plane and be the vanguard for our development? You said that at the slowest, someone would come to take my place in three days. Yet I waited for so long and still didn’t see anyone arrive to take my place as you said. It couldn’t be that you forgot all about me!?”
Alright, it was now my turn to begin sweating profusely. I recalled that I really did promise him such a thing. Originally, I had intended to send a team over to talk to Beifeng about taking over his job, and I was even going to have Karo City assist them.
However, I had so many things keeping me busy here, and since I was having such a fun time on my birthday, I really did forget about him. No, my memory was always excellent—perhaps I should say that I unconsciously ignored him; I did not want him to make trouble for me when I was having so much fun.
”No wonder; when Yawen had made her report to me yesterday, she said the pressures of work were much less than expected by more than a half. The Town Security even began handing out many vacations… Could it be that this bastard can create more than half of all the chaos in the city by himself? I had unintentionally done such a great deed for everyone’s sakes.”
I thought about how those Town Security girls would take days off and even have fun shopping; they were no different to human girls when they toured the night markets and would truly take pleasure in shopping. I suddenly felt like forgetting about Beifeng’s downsides.
To be honest, Beifeng by himself wasn’t ridiculous to the extent where he would be the cause of half of all chaos within the city. However, he was the vice-commander of the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance and was missing in action. The fact that the Beyar Brothers, Pier, and other higher-ups had been forced into helping out with the Mizar and other physical labor led the Gentle Alliance to halt the organization of any activities. And it wasn’t limited to that; the dark elves now had many new, novice Town Security members, which had disrupted the balance between them and had given the Town Security the most relaxing time of their lives.
Alright, I also recalled that it was I who had drummed up their morale. Some things were better left unsaid. After all, I did feel slightly guilty about it.
”Yep, thanks for your hard work. Because of some special reasons, we temporarily placed our emphasis on preparing for the military parade and weapons auction, so we slowed down the work on developing a base in the Earth Elemental Plane. You’ve worked hard, and you’ve completed your task quite well. I’ll remember this. As for now, go back and take a good rest, take a shower, and go to sleep. You must be tired. When you’re feeling refreshed tomorrow, I’ll discuss more serious matters with you.”
The strange thing was that even after saying all this, Beifeng still didn’t leave. He actually had quite a good temper and would almost never get angry. However, he was currently looking at me with an awkward expression on his face.
”Hmm? Do you need something else?
”Um, actually, some of my companions came back here together with me. They’ve decided to join the large family of our Gentlemen Alliance. But, it seems that in order to become a member of our mercenary group, as stated in the mercenary guild’s rules, they must first obtain humanality[NG1] .”
There was indeed such a rule about nationality, but who was I? I was the ancestor of the leaders of this country. Giving them nationalities would be too easy. All I had to do was tell Kelly and the others.
”That’s simple. It’s such a small matter; isn’t it just nationality? You just have to take them later to our new Department of Civil Affairs, and I’ll—wait a moment, did you say humanality, not nationality?”
A sudden ominous premonition led me to discover that something was wrong.
”Awesome! You agreed?”
The sly Beifeng caught my verbal misstep and celebrated by shouting out loudly.
”Number Four, Number Five, Number Six, Number Seven—everyone, come in!”
Alright then. A sandstorm arose outside the castle gate, as if an entire army was passing by. But when the visitors approached and I could make them out through the sandstorm, I discovered that they were, in fact, several huge individuals.
”A desert magical scorpion king?”
It was a massive magical scorpion, whose weight definitely exceeded a hundred tons. Despite the fact that it was only of the height of about three humans, its tremendous weight would cause the ground to crack wherever it passed by. As it gradually approached me, the cracks continuously appeared in the ground but were mended by magic again.
”Number Four, be careful. Don’t break the castle door! We can’t afford to pay for it.”
How could such a mega magical beast, which would be hailed as a respected veteran in the Earth Elemental Plane, be fooled by Beifeng into coming here?!
And there were two figures seated atop the scorpion’s back. The taller one was a tan-skinned high elf, and a strange, charming light could be seen in the elf’s eyes. Crystals and stones were embedded into its skin.
”A high-level sand dragon that can transform into a humanoid?”
In this current generation, high elves could be said to be basically extinct, and only the ancient dragons would still use their forms.
”Number Five, I’ve said it so many times already. Before you’re able to perfectly transform into a human, you should cover yourself with a cape.”