As a former beastfolk princess, most of Nym Nefuna’s training had gone to staying still, rather than moving her body. The manual trek through the woods was quite draining for her. When her feet got particularly sore, either the group would rest, or one of the Noct would carry her. Sometimes they made a game of it, transforming into easily mounted creatures like moss stags or the extinct Arachne, or flying creatures like harpies.

It was in a very different way than she was used to, but the family members Nefuna had at last discovered were treating her like a princess.

“Alright, we’re getting close,” the fox girl’s great aunt announced. She was currently in the form of a giant with Nefuna riding her shoulder. The shapeshifter set the girl down and transformed back into a black-scaled goblin like the others.

“I’ve been wondering,” the princess started. She was gradually getting used to speaking out of turn. “Why goblins? And why black goblins? You could be any kind of monster you want.”

Nefuna’s grandfather chuckled. She could tell them apart now; they still looked like themselves no matter what they became.

“When our mother goddess taught the dragon god how to transform, he taught her how to grow black dragon scales for defense. Black scales are a sign to people in the know that we’re Noct. And for those out of the know, goblins are relatively disarming and look natural with scales.”

The old man held out one arm, and the black scales faded away, revealing green scales underneath. “It’s also a protective layer that keeps us safe.”

“I see.”

Nym Airi smiled at her daughter and tousled her sleek black hair with a pat on the head. “There will be plenty of time for you to learn our history, and we will teach you all of it. But look ahead now; you can see the city from here.”

Nefuna glanced out past the expanse of enormous pine trees. More and more foliage penetrated the carpet of brown needles the further her eyes wandered, until there was a blob of metallic green far in the distance. The closer they approached, the more the blob took shape, becoming a tall, green wall with pointy, white watch towers.

The foliage was quite dense here, but a path had been stomped out leading up to the gate. Two huge, black tiger statues stood guard there, veins of glittering red metal streaking their bodies.

Aside from the statues, there was nothing else there to even superficially bar their entry. They walked into the city freely. The fox princess did her best to contain her curiosity and only glance around subtly at the strange new sights.

The roads were broad, striped with black and white and made of crystal. Buildings were packed orderly into grids between the roads, with courtyards in the center of each grid. Nefuna glanced into such a courtyard and saw a golem setting down a cart stacked high with furs. It picked up an empty cart and started to walk down a ramp leading underground, and a very civilized-looking Orc stepped out the back door of one of the buildings to gather up the furs.

The roads were lined with decorative metal poles topped with crystals. Just about every building was unique in style and material. In the distance, a tall, white tower stood next to a huge palace made of sea foam green crystals. It was all very aesthetically unique and beautiful.

This city was an immense feat of magical conjuring. Nefuna wondered if her father’s court mages could have built a city like this if they had started from the day she was born. We’re there enough high level earth mages among them? Did they have enough magic power? She couldn’t say, but they never did build anything like this place in practice.

The people here were all monsters, but Nefuna had gotten used to the sight of monsters while traveling with her Noct relatives. They were Orcs, Goblins, and tall goat people, mostly, all just going about their business. The goat people had a slightly vacant look in their eyes that made her just a bit anxious. But you could tell it was a good city from the sheer number of children running around to play without any fear. Granted, those were all orc children—toddlers, really.

There really were a lot of children. The teachings of Ashtante must have taken hold here better than they did back in the beast kingdom. At least Nefuna was now convinced her ancestor goddess was here.

“Hey~ little kitty~ want to buy some milk? It’s just six sealights~”

Nefuna turned her head to look at a street stall. There were a lot of them on this road in particular. An evolved Orc woman was waving and smiling directly at her. The princess stopped walking for a moment to bow, her arms folded politely in her wide sleeves.

“I’m a fox beast person, and I don’t have any ‘sealights’. Sorry.”

“What? A fox?” The Orc tilted her head and seemed to squint at Nefuna’s black, triangular ears, then she folded her arms under her ample breasts and hummed. “Well, the bank is up this road a bit and to the right. You can exchange money there. If you don’t have any money to exchange, you can exchange magic power instead. It’s only worth half as much if you’re a monster, though. Sorry.”

“Why is a monster’s magic power worth less?” Nym Airi asked.

“Well, the magic you donate gets stored in magic stones. If you’re a monster, that magic will return to your own monster core after it gets used up. Descendants replenish their magic from their divine source, so the amount they donate stays bound to the stone. Reusable magic stones are obviously better than ones that need to be taken out and manually recharged.”

“I see. Thank you for the information,” the white-haired fox queen bowed, somehow more perfectly than her daughter.

“No problem! Just make sure to come back and buy something when you have money. I sell meat skewers from the middle of the day on and milk all day~.”

The tanned Orc shopkeeper waved farewell, and the group continued their walk.

“Are we going to the bank?” Nefuna asked.

One of the black goblins replied, shaking his head. “Maybe later. Our first stop is the church. Our mother goddess is waiting to take you two back.”

The princess held her hands modestly in front of her and gently swayed her floofy black tail. She couldn’t help but smile a little, knowing that she hadn’t been abandoned after all.

Compared to many of the other buildings in town, the church seemed to be a modest, white stone structure, yet at the same time, it vaguely felt like it was expanding bit by bit in real-time and it was steeped in divine power. There were a handful of monsters milling about, admiring the divine statue of a woman with countless fluffy tails and cascading red hair.

Nefuna, Airi, and the black goblins all lowered their heads and clasped their hands in prayer.

The princess heard a system announcement and quickly checked her status. The curse was gone. In exchange, she had her old curse back. The source of Ashtante’s blessing was marked as now instead of , but it’s effect was the same.

With some disappointment, Nefuna noted that her status still said she was a monster.

“I wonder why,” she murmured with a downcast expression.

One of the disguised Noct set a gentle, scaled hand on her shoulder.

“All the gods created the monsters together. Even our mother goddess can’t do with them what she pleases. Either way, you are her child.”

The princess nodded, and another black goblin clapped his hands.

“Okay! It’s about time we met the child that the mother goddess favors so dearly.”

“Oh, that’s right.” There had been so much to discuss during their long walk that Nefuna hadn’t gotten around to this yet. “Who is it that convinced Lord Ashta… our mother goddess to come here?”

Nym Airi smiled down at her daughter. “According to my vision, she is the ruler of this city; an Orc named Vyra.”

“An Orc? Not a Noct?”

The queen folded her arms and placed her cheek against one palm. “I wonder. I suppose we’ll know after meeting her.”

***

When the weather was nice and sunny, it was advisable to keep curtains open to avoid bleaching, but first prince Ryle Andorin pulled them all tightly shut before daring to reveal the item in his possession.

Out from the folds of his princely garb, it emerged, gleaming in the candlelight. It was an expertly forged dagger with a shiny white blade.

“Father gave me this,” Ryle said. “I know he gave each of you one as well. Take them out.”

“That intuition of yours is as annoying as always,” second prince Verdi Andorin smiled bitterly. He pulled a dagger with a gleaming black blade from his sleeve.

The both of them looked at their younger brother impatiently. Corinth Andorin fumbled to take a neatly sealed box out of his vest pocket, then unwrapped a few layers of protective fabric before revealing a dull green dagger.

“Father gave me one as well...”

The three daggers were made of Angelite, Adamantine, and Orichalcum, respectively. All three were magic metals that rarely appeared naturally. They could be created by earth element magic, of course, but only by law-level magic casters at a minimum. The supplies of these metals were always limited because of those two factors.

King Andorin had gifted each of his three sons a blade made of these metals. Since when could their country afford to just hand out things this nice, even to its princes?

“I thought so,” Ryle scoffed, leaning back against a desk carved from hard, dark wood. “Something must be happening behind the scenes. If these were heirlooms, father would have bequeathed them with more ceremony.”

The second prince shrugged expressively. “A magic-conducting dagger for you, a sharp and durable dagger for me, and middle-of-the-lane orichalcum for Corinth.” His playful expression hardened a bit as he practically glared at the dark weapon in his hand. “They feel custom-made.”

“I mean,” the third prince raised his voice a bit and pointed at the pommel of his dagger where a small engraving was, “they have the castle blacksmith’s signature on them. At least, mine does.”

“It feels like we’re late to the game on this one,” the first prince said. “I investigated a bit after being given this, and the number of blacksmiths in town has swelled considerably these past days.”

Verdi raised a brow. “Do you think father is trying to reforge rare equipment to hide their origins?”

“That’s possible,” Ryle nodded. “Whether he got his hands on them raw or already worked, he clearly wants to ramp up production. The question is what are they going to forge them into?”

“Weapons right? And armor? Anything else would be a waste of these materials.”

Prince Corinth paled. “We’re not going to war, are we?”

Verdi snorted. “What’s that look for? Even if we did, father wouldn’t send you to the front lines.”

Ryle peeked at the rascal prince. “He’d send you though.”

The second prince placed his hands on his hips. “I’ve been trained for that. I just hope our opponents aren’t people.”

“Is that a personal preference?” The first prince smirked and teased. “Anyway, try to find out what you can and report back.” He coldly locked eyes with his youngest brother, “And don’t get caught. This is obviously supposed to be a secret.”

“He’ll just be reading ledgers like usual,” Verdi shrugged. “What’s to catch?”

The first prince rolled his aquamarine eyes and folded his arms. “You’re dismissed.”

***

Third Prince Corinth Andorin opened a set of doors to a windowless room filled with shelves that were easily two people tall. It smelled faintly of paper and moth balls. He shut himself in such a room and glanced around to be sure he was alone. The passive look on his face changed to a frustrated frown, and he clicked his tongue.

Corinth’s older brothers acted like he was useless. Worse, he couldn’t outright prove them wrong. First Prince Ryle was the unofficial crown prince with the backing of dozens of nobles and the church, and he was engaged to the socially-influential daughter of a duchess. Verdi, on the other hand, had training as a soldier and an army commander. He was third in line to take control of Andorin Kingdom’s military if anything happened to their father and the commander in chief.

As the third prince, Corinth’s most likely future was to be granted a Grand Duke’s title and some land, so he had mostly been trained in management and financing. He had no factions supporting him in any way, so standing out to his brothers would only get him roped in as their underling or knocked down as a threat.

While it was true that Corinth didn’t have Ryle’s charisma or Verdi’s strength, there was a lot he could accomplish just by circulating some documents around. He wasn’t incompetent in the least in the field he was trained in.

But the most psychologically damaging part was that Corinth’s awkwardness, his shyness, wasn’t an act. He felt Ryle’s quiet mockery and Verdi’s silent threats and knew he didn’t measure up to his brothers. He was able to be proud of himself and his abilities—because they weren’t useless… but only when those two weren’t around. He was a coward, freezing and stuttering under their glares like a small animal.

After a moment of calming down, Corinth pulled out a chair at a small desk and sat down. There was a quill there, and although he didn’t have any paper out, he still picked up the quill and twirled it in his fingers out of habit.

Corinth knew his brothers. When investigating these magic metals, Ryle would think something like: The little gossip from earlier was fine, but I can’t risk getting the nobles more involved if there’s a secret war brewing. We could have traitors and turncoats. And if it gets back to father that I’m the one who let the information slip… anyway, most of them wouldn’t know much. Let’s just hire some adventurers to investigate. Meanwhile, Verdi would think: the soldiers aren’t really suited to this sort of investigation, and they’re too visible. Let’s just hire some adventurers.

At least, they should understand that they’re too inexperienced to deal with rangers without getting gouged, so they would go to adventurers instead.

Knowing what his brothers would do was great, because he could follow the same channels to learn exactly what they discovered. They surely wouldn’t reveal everything they learned to him the next time they met, after all.

So, while those two were spending money on legwork, Corinth would follow a different channel. The tax and immigration records of a city could reveal a surprising amount of what was going on there.

The third prince stood up to find those most recent documents from among the thousands of sheets of paper. Clearly, he was navigating a very familiar environment, as it didn’t take him long. Corinth was quickly able to confirm what Ryle said about there being more blacksmiths in town. Nearly a hundred of them had gathered here from all across the country. Any passionate blacksmith would absolutely take more time and care working with magic metal than regular metal, but they could still pass a huge amount of material through just a single forge. Even the approximate calculations Corinth made for how much magic metals a hundred blacksmiths would use in a month (factoring in that there weren’t enough forges, so some would be working at night while others would be assisting) was mind-boggling.

That amount of magic metal couldn’t appear out of thin air, and yet he couldn’t find any purchase records—not even using the trickle-in tactics of many small purchases. If they shipped it in under a different, innocuous name, it was hidden very well, because he couldn’t find any proof.

All that left was unofficial channels, which, well, Corinth didn’t want to get involved with.

He switched his focus to figuring out what the arms were going to be used for. Hm… Lately there were strange Orc sightings in the East. The rainfall had also been generous these nights, so the Dragon Tail River to the North may have flooded again.

Our historic enemies are good candidates, the third prince thought. A possible Orc Lord to our East, and a possible peace treaty infringement to our North. Let’s investigate more into these two for now.

There was a sudden knock at the door, bringing the prince out of his thoughts.

“Come in.”

A palace maid opened the door and curtsied. “Your highness, lunch is ready to be served in the dining hall.”

Corinth instinctively glanced around for a window to check the position of the sun, but there was none, since bright light would damage the old documents. He simply accepted that that much time had passed already while he was in here and replied with a smile.

“Thank you, I’ll be right out.”

The maid nodded and waited just outside the archives in order to guide the third prince, while he quickly sorted the documents he was browsing back into their proper places.

It might’ve been obvious from his mildly plump physique, but Corinth liked food. Was there anybody who didn’t enjoy a good meal? The culinary works made by the Royal chefs were always worth putting a hold on whatever else he was doing.

Corinth rejoined the maid, who had absolutely no expression on her face, and smiled brightly. “Lead the way, please.”

He hoped his brothers were gloomily eating in their offices again, and that his father would come to the dining hall today. The only thing that could further improve the royal chefs’ cooking anymore was good company, after all.