Half a day away from Algatolla, Kavanagh orders one of the guards to ride ahead to inform every one of our return.

Coming back into town, Evie, my other two maids and some of the guards are thusly already waiting for us at the edge of town. Evie seems ready to scold me for my recklessness when she notices the giant Arboreans beside me and halts in fright. The others are likewise scared stiff.

Geez, I wonder how bad their reaction would have been had they not been informed beforehand.

“Good morning Evie, I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly,” I say nonchalantly with a smile, all she can manage is to stare at me in disbelief, remaining silent even after several seconds, I take the opportunity to continue.

“These are Arboreans I freed from the mines, some of them know how to read and write while others have very useful skills we could use, so I hired them.” I gesture towards Casteddu and for his part, he nods towards me and bows elegantly towards Evie, the others pick up his cue and follow suit. “We will be working for her majesty from now on. My name is Casteddu, this is Sossu, and this is Bastia. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Evie remains frozen - I do hope I didn't overwhelm her brain so much that she has gone into shock - She is still staring at Casteddu, petrified. Should I tell her that I'm planning to have them stay in the spare rooms of the palace until we build more houses? That might just give her a heart attack.

I should give them their own time to get used to things, I suppose? I turn to Kavanagh and Miles.

“Let us please go back to the palace as soon as possible, for now, the Arboreans are our esteemed guests and I expect them to be treated with nothing less than the utmost respect.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Kavanagh and Miles both reply, followed shortly after by the maids and the guards, all of whom also bow towards me, startling me slightly. I thought they would take longer to take it all in than this. Did my last sentence sound like a threat? Maybe I chose my words wrong.

I notice all of them are still bowing – Shit, in this kind of situation they are trained to not rise until I allow them to – Uh, hm, how do I do this again?

“Uh, you may rise, uh, please?” They finally stop bowing and I breathe a little easier, this whole monarch stuff is way too fucking hard. Nobody treated me like this before, it’s kind of upsetting I have this much power over them.

I can kinda understand why people get obsessed with power once they have a little taste, though, bending others to your will is probably pretty intoxicating to certain personality types.

After those awkward moments, Kavanagh thankfully takes charge and start walking around the wooden houses of Algatolla towards the palace further inland, there aren't many people up at this hour, beyond fishermen preparing their fishing boats staring at us, clearly as terrified of the Arboreans as my maids are.

It will be pretty challenging to turn the minds of these people around. Bastia also notices the people and as soon as he turns his head to look at them, all the people cower and immediately go back to their duties.

“Don't worry, as my guest, they won't dare do anything to you” I reassure him.

“Ha, I can fend for myself, I'd be more scared for their safety if they try anything funny if I were you, your majesty” he sneers while keeping his gaze at the houses.

“Please,” I smile softly “You are the only people on this fucking island that have referred to me normally, don't start with the ‘your majesty’ shit now.”

Bastia laughs, “As you wish, Eriu.”

-x-

As I open the front door of the door hall, I immediately call out to the minister, “Lugh! I have hired a new employee for the administration, please come here.”

“New employees? Your majesty, given the size of your land, I am enou-” he freezes upon seeing the Arborean, but unlike the others actually manages to stammer a few more words, “W-what is a Snakemen doing here, your majesty?! Where are the guards!”

“No need to call the guards, Kavanagh is right here, anyway, this is your new coworker.” I step aside to let them enter the room, although they have to slightly bend and shuffle to enter, we will have to expand the doors, clearly. “This is Casteddu, he will be your coworker from now on.”

“...” Lugh just stares blankly at me “Your majesty, this is inconceivable, I understand if you personally dislike the idea of slaves, but how is this Snakeman going to help the town hall?”

“They can read and write, and by my own assessment, Casteddu at least has had a far better education than you,” I say with a neutral expression, trying to reveal no intent to see how Lugh reacts.

“I-I can not work like this, your majesty, this is completely out of parameters”

“So, are you resigning?”

“Your majesty, I’m sorry, I do not understand, why would I resign?”

“I’m hiring him, you said you cannot work with them, hence you are resigning. Have I misunderstood?”

“Your majesty, are you going to choose this thing over me?!” he yells, changing his tone from one surprise to anger.

I shrug my shoulders, “You are the one saying that you can’t accept this, I’ve already made up my mind on hiring him. As I said, Casteddu has a better education than you, I believe he could take over as head minister immediately if you no longer want the post. If you wish, you can of course resign and go seek employment elsewhere, the next merchant ship will come along soon, with your credentials you could easily find a job in the mainland.”

“But your majesty, this… this Snakemen doesn’t know the intricacies of your domain yet, it will need time to look over the documents, it will not be proficient as I am, and it might not be as lenient of you as I am...” He has reached the bargaining phase, it seems.

“I already started taking more of an interest in governing a few days ago, I have no intention of taking a backseat once again. So are you resigning or not? I will not punish you if you do, if you are uncomfortable working with Arboreans, it might be for the best.”

He takes a moment, looking at me, then at the Asani, he sighs and finally says, “Very well. If you allow me, your highness, I would like to be relieved of my post. I will be going to the mainland with the next ship to seek employment elsewhere.”

This was all the confirmation I needed, he wouldn’t have ceded his post so easily otherwise.

“Alright, that makes things easier then, Kavanagh.” I motion to the guard standing guard outside, “Yes, your highness!”, he shouts in return. “For now, arrest Lugh, then go and search his house, his savings should be well beyond his salary,” Kavanagh shouts in agreement and moves towards Lugh.

“W-what! Your Majesty, you had just said you will not punish me, what is this?” Lugh protests but I simply walk over to one of the stands in the town hall and pull out a few papers.

As soon as he sees them, his expression immediately changes. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it without saying anything.

“Since I cared so little about managing the realm, you got really sloppy with your corruption after father died. I noticed the discrepancies between our income and treasury. If you had double-checked everything I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

He looks down, not offering any further resistance, he knows the game is up. Kavanagh takes him to the guard house. After they leave, I turn to Casteddu, who seems pretty calm, even though I didn’t tell him about my plan beforehand.

“Is it really alright to imprison your minister so suddenly after you got back?” Casteddu inquires.

“I wanted to get rid of him as soon as I figured out he was siphoning money away from the treasury.” I cough a couple times to clear my throat, “I had planned to investigate it more but bringing you here was a good opportunity to confront him, the way he reacted made it obvious he was doing something wrong.”

“So you used me to catch him.” Casteddu nods “Should have stuck to just being a loyal accountant, if he was gonna get sloppy with his grift. Only a matter of time until someone found out.”

I guess it could be seen as using them, I thought it would be a good way to make the other servants more accepting of the Arboreans, if Lugh is corrupt there’s no one who can take over his job except Casteddu. So we have no recourse but to accept them.

At least he doesn’t seem to be mad about it.

“Well, now that that’s done, let me show you around the town hall, I’d like you to start working as soon as possible if that’s alright”

“Sure. Holding a quill again will be much nicer than swinging a pick all day long.”