Sophia and Maya went to the castle to meet Ellie, but they also had some other things on their agenda. They chatted with Kira and found out that she was already dealing with the issue by threatening most people in the castle with a bad time if they ever made the girls uncomfortable. The king was a different topic, though. Having heard that his little girl had become an adult, Menzor had taken quite some damage from it and had shut himself into his office like a pouting child would do.

Sophia, highly motivated to kick his butt, ran into one of Ari's mothers, Daria, on the way, and the blonde had learned a lot from her regarding the blessing magic as she was pretty interested in that. She also discovered that the world is even more perverted than she had thought as the two ended up talking about some highly elaborate toys. She was pretty interested in them, though. She, too, is a resident of this perverted world, after all.

“Alright!” After she had ended her chat with Ari’s mother, Sophia flung open the door to Menzor’s office and loudly announced her arrival.

“Daria! I told you to let no- Ah, Sophia…” He noticed who had entered his office and knew he couldn't blame the maid for not stopping her.

“Hey~!” She waved at him with a big smile after she closed the door. "Still throwing a petty tantrum?" After the great chat with the jaguar maid, she was in a spending mood.

“HEY!” Menzor wasn’t. “I’m still the king of this nation! Show me some respect.” His mood was awful.

“We both know that our relationship doesn’t work like that. You have no power over me. I love this place, so our interests align, but you still have to earn my respect. Usually, I do, but right now, you have a lot of work to do for that, though.” Her voice turned a lot more serious as she sat down on the free sofa opposite of him.

“…” He stared at her for a few moments. “What do you want…?”

“For you to stop acting like a child.”

“I am not.”

“Your wife says otherwise, though. She even authorized me to kick you out of the castle if you continue to do so. Just so you know, said kick will be literally.” She pointed at the window behind him.

“W-Why do you look so serious?!”

"Because I am?" The blonde only tilted her head. "Kira even said it’s fine because I have her permission.”

“Can you… can you really blame me…? The entire castle heard my baby… when she… when she…”

“Had sex with the person she loves?”

"I-I didn't even know that she and Ari were…"

"You should resign as the king…” Sophia let out a sigh. "If you hadn't even noticed that, I can’t even fathom how you could possibly know about anything that is going on in the kingdom. I recently met a girl that lives in a village over a hundred kilometers away from here and saw the two twice when she visited the capital. She didn’t believe me when I told her the two weren't a couple at that point. It's that obvious. Everyone besides you knew about the two. Most were rooting for them, too. Her parents and your wife included.”

“I mean… I mean… I knew that there was something going on, but not that!”

“Okay.” Sophia scratched her cheek. “That is an argument.” Few probably had seen their speed run coming. “I get that it was awkward… but is hiding in your office and being mopey really the right thing to do…? If you are feeling like this, imagine how those two had felt when they discovered that everyone had heard them. They ran away from home and even asked me to bring them to the other end of the continent."

“T-That’s!”

“Don’t worry, I have no plans to do so.”

“Thank you…”

“I won’t let them come home until everything here returns to normal, though. You’re the biggest obstacle for that right now.”

“T-The whole castle staff is acting awkward!”

“Not for much longer." The blonde shook her head. "Kira is working hard on that. She had already threatened many people, and when we were in the entrance hall earlier, she also announced that she'll kick everyone out, which could make them feel uncomfortable when the two returned. I even recognized some of the tiger ministers that ran away afterward.”

“S-She can’t do that! We need those people!" He got flustered.

“More than your daughter?”

"…" Menzor instantly turned silent.

“Anyone who gets flustered over something like that for a prolonged time and can’t separate work from such highly private matters isn’t worth their money. Get rid of them and replace them with someone competent. There are many people out there that can handle such a job, but you only have one daughter that goes by the name of Anna. Yes, you are the king and have to be responsible for a whole country, but you’re also a father.”

“…” The king was just listening.

“Are you planning to fail at both? Keep people who are seemingly incompetent about everything except the work itself and scare away your daughter for good? Sure, there will be a stupid comment every now and then, those two really messed up after all, but if the general mood stays like that, you failed on many levels. On top of you already having failed personally because you're still throwing a tantrum two days after it happened. There is still time, though. Everything will turn out alright if you get over it before Kira's birthday. The two plan to come back for that, but that won't be happening if you aren't back to normal by then."

“…”

“Imagine how happy Kira will be if you don't, and they won't be able to come to her birthday because of you. Me kicking you out of this window using that foot will most likely be preferable." Sophia first pointed at her foot before gesturing at the window behind him again.

“Why are female tigers so much more aggressive than the male ones…?”

“Because the males are useless.”

“H-Hey!”

“I’m kidding.” She started smiling again. “You are not a good example right now, though.”

“…” He went silent once more. “Can I try to keep you here again…? I want you in a high position so that you can give everyone a figurative kick in the butt when something goes awry.”

“Sorry, figurative kicks are rare for me. I usually only do literal ones.”

“Just as good!”

“You know that that’s not going to happen.”

“Yes…”

“Good. Just bury yours and the nose of every minister and high figure into work to keep them busy. Make everyone so busy that they have no time to do anything else. Everyone that still gets awkward over the Anna and Ari topic can go because they obviously aren’t giving it their all. Give their names to Kira, and it'll be dealt with before anyone even notices.”

“I can try that, yes.”

“Just make sure that I won’t be adding your name to that list.”

“Y-Yes.”

“I’m sure you have one or two big problems that everyone can wreck their heads over, right? Throw everyone at your disposal at it to solve it.”

“Well, there’s still that gigantic lake that appeared out of nowhere where we planned to build a new outpost city. No one has an idea what is going on there.”

"Do you think being angry at something would distract your attention from the awkward situation?"

"Maybe? That depends on how angry I get." Menzor tilted his head. "Why?"

“Hmm…” Sophia suddenly stood up and walked closer to the door. “Fen and I created that lake. We played around with magic, and it went completely out of control. One gigantic explosion later, we turned the hole into a lake to hide the massive crater.”

“WHAT?!” Menzor got loud.

“…” There was no one to reply anymore as the blonde had already left his office before closing the door behind her.

“SOPHIA!” He got even louder.

----------------

“What did you do?!” On the other side of the door, Maya was already waiting for her tiger.

“Maya?!” She hadn’t expected her.

“So?”

“I gave him something else to distract over to forget about the loud idiots.”

“Oh?” The cat-girl got interested. “What could possibly be distracting enough for that?”

“I told him about the lake Fennyfenny and I created.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yup.”

“Well, that definitely will distract him… Are you sure about that, though? I am sure he’ll be super annoying about it in the long run.”

“Well, that’s how much I love Anna and Ari~.”

“Aww.”

“And that’s why I’ll use them as a buffer once everything returns to normal in the castle again.”

“That’s the girl I know and love.”

“Ehehe~.” She had to chuckle at that. “By the way, where’s Daria?”

“Daria?”

“The jaguar-maid that was guarding the door.”

“Ahh. I was on my way to Anna’s room to get some clothes for her after I got Ari’s and walked past here. She told me that she has something to do, and there’s currently no need to be on standby with you inside with the king. I decided to wait here instead as I was in no hurry.”

“I see.”

“She gave me this letter with an address I never heard about it before, though.” She presented a small envelope. "For some reason, she was also smiling broadly while she was handing it over. Do you have any idea what is going on?"

“Yup.” She nodded a few times and also started smiling. “I can’t wait~. By the way, that was Ari’s mother. Well, one of them.”

“Really? Did you chat about anything interesting with her before visiting the king?"

“Oh, you have no idea~.” Her smile got even broader. “Hmm…” Afterward, she tilted her head and took a small break because she had no idea where to start and what to tell Maya first.

 

 

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