40 Beginning of a Kingdom

"The General? What is General Jaros doing here?" – "Did he say she's a princess?"

There were whispers coming from the crowd and the Baron's face looked as if he had just bitten into a lemon.

"I … I will do as your highness commands." he quickly gave a bow to the woman he tried to threaten just a moment ago.

'At least she did only cause me some inconvenience and did not start something more drastic. If that youngster and child are related to her, then I might very well have just escaped a much harsher punishment.'

Even the Baron was not dumb enough to risk causing Myra's ire now that he knew of her identity.

"Good, you can leave." Myra turned around and focused on Rae again. She felt really strange commanding those nobles and if she did not think it was necessary to prevent them from doing something silly and in turn prevent Aaron from killing them, she wouldn't have made use of her questionable status.

Now that his identity was revealed, General Jaros joined their little family group. Just hiding again in some street did not seem very feasible and he still had some of his pride left.

"Princess Myra …" he hesitated a little bit before finding a way to address Aaron. "Master Aaron. I am sorry for the disturbance. Not all of our nobles are well acquainted with you and they can be slightly temperamental when it comes to driving through the streets."

"Who might the little miss be?" Jaros did not need to guess that the child was not Myra's, as the girl was already four years old. He did not know however, who the little girl might be and was rather curious where she came from and how she was related to the princess.

Dressed in pretty clothes with the clean freshly combed hair, Rae looked nothing like the waif that Myra had picked up when they first met.

Myra looked at the girl still happily sitting on Aaron's shoulder and remembered their earlier conversation. Seeing her 'mother', as Aaron had indirectly told her, look at her full of love, the little child quickly raised her arms and Myra reached out to help her down from Aaron's shoulders.

The girl ended up in Myra's arms quickly and if not for the age difference being too small, no one would have guessed that Rae was not her biological child, cuddling in her mother's arms.

"She's our daughter." Myra answered the question with a slight delay, not sure how Rae would react to it. The child did not deny her words or showed any dislike and just stayed where she was getting her daily share of hugs.

It was obvious that General Jaros was rather surprised about the answer though. He did not show any strong reaction, as if her answer was just part of some formality or small talk. The General had already learned that this young woman was fiercely protective of this child.

"Shall we go home?" she asked Aaron and Rae and then headed off in the direction of Celestial Armaments. General Jaros just followed them and it did not take them long to see the towering building of their new shop.

They looked inside and Myra was really impressed with the new furniture.

"Please come in." She told Jaros, who waited patiently in front of the door, not sure what to do next. For an old and experienced general, he seemed to be rather helpless when it came to dealing with Myra.

"I'm sorry that we cannot offer you any refreshments, but as you see, we have just recently finished adding furniture. Except for a few basics, there is really not much here yet."

Jaros just nodded. "Please don't worry about it. I did not intend to disturb you with my presence, it is already nice to see this amazing new building."

Myra put Rae back on her own two feet, patted her head and gave her a bright smile. "Rae why don't you take a look at your new room and see if you like the furniture that we picked for you? I also added some new toys and books for you, maybe you like them."

Rae quickly rushed out of the main hall and up the stairs, going to look at her new room. This was not just another room to her, this was home.

"Books?" Aaron looked a little bit confused. "Yes I made some picture books for her. I couldn't find any at the market, they are very common in my homeland though. They have no or not a lot of text and are filled with pictures that show a story."

"Did you also come up with the stories?" Aaron asked in a strange way and Myra nodded happily.

"Yes, as Rae likes them so much I made several different books for her. I hope she likes them."

"Oh, I'm sure whatever she gets from her mommy will be treasured by her."

With Rae busy with her new room and toys, Myra looked at Jaros.

"So what brings you here exactly? I guess it is not just to say hello, or take a look at our new home and shop?"

Jaros looked quite distressed by being asked in such a direct way.

"Well, you see his Majesty wanted me to figure out what you planned with all of these … things you're starting recently. It caused him quite a headache and many in the court argue whether you will try to make a move to take control of the empire or are just some maniac throwing away money."

"Most are still not sure about your exact identity, but they are smart enough to realize that you have a lot of backing and power from somewhere."

Myra was quite surprised by this information. "Taking over the empire? Why would I even want to do something so bothersome?"

"I already expected this, but the question still remains. What are you up to? The nobles could not find out more about your plans, it all seems rather random. You buy some random properties, hire workers including smiths and herbalists and farmers. Anyone looking at it would expect you to prepare for a war and want to train soldiers in these holdings of yours, have smiths to forge weapons and herbalists and healers who can treat any wounded."

"Oh." Now this did make quite a lot of sense, if explained to her from this perspective.

"No need to worry, I just want to open a big shop and get rich."

"Rich? Don't you already own a lot and have a lot of funds? I heard that you got a small fortune from the Heliphos family. There are even rumors that you are planning to overthrow the emperor with their backing and that they are just using you to revolt."

Myra nodded. "This makes sense, but I'd rather have even more money. I need a lot of resources to build up my own power base. It is rather unrelated to Luminos for now though."

She took out some maps and magical equipment to show a bit of her plans to him.

"You see, all these holdings have rare natural resources. I need them to make items for my shop. I need guards for my holdings, because rare materials will soon attract bandits and thieves and I don't want my people to suffer because they lack protection."

She pointed out the various places and the supposed materials that they would find there.

"I hired smiths because I want to train a few of them. I cannot always make the items myself. The same goes for alchemists, rune masters and jewellers. It will be a shop for magic items and I simply don't have the ability to endlessly provide magic items just by myself if I still want to live a normal life as well."

Jaros carefully looked through the documents provided to him. They were carefully prepared, not for him, but they were part of a big well thought out project and Myra obviously trusted him enough to show them to him as well.

"I think I understand now. This is on a scale that I would never have believed if you didn't show me all of this. Will you share some of this knowledge and the techniques used?" Jaros already considered all the possibilities for more advanced crafting methods that might be available.

Myra smiled at the General. "It really depends on what you want and what you can offer."

Jaros nodded. It did not surprise him that Myra, who just started a business to, as she said herself, get rich, wanted to get some compensation for all of this knowledge.

"What would you be interested in?" Now this was the real question. Why did she want to get rich? What were her goals?

Myra pointed on the map on a single hill close to the border to the Frozen Tundra. "I want this place?"

Jaros looked at the map and wondered what would be so special about this hill. He wasn't aware of any natural treasures to be found there and while it was a nice strategic place looking just at the hill alone, there really wasn't anything but ant like beasts in the tundra to the west.

They wouldn't need to defend against an attack from this side, because the insects would take care of any intruder quickly and efficiently.

"Why do you want this place?" he asked her directly.

"It's the perfect place to summon a ley line and build a magic tower." Myra explained with this simple sentence.

'A ley line? She can actually make a ley line run through this place?' The last magic tower was built thousands of years ago and the knowledge how to build one had been long forgotten.

All he knew about these structures was that they were magic amplifiers that could channel magic power, but he didn't know about the details.

"I understand that places to build such an ancient structure like a mage tower would be quite rare, but why would you need one there?"

"I want to build a kingdom in the Frozen Tundra."

It really was as simple as that. For a long time Jaros just stared at Myra expecting her to just make a joke. When he finally realized, that this little girl was totally serious, he understood something.

'This girl is completely mad!'

Not that they had many options. They could refuse to sell the property and refuse to let her build anything like a mage tower, but would it really prevent her from doing so anyways if she really wanted to?

"Then you want to use the income from your magic shop as funds for this kingdom's foundation? Isn't the tundra really unsuitable for a kingdom?"

"It won't be unsuitable for very long. I have my means to make this place a really nice place and I'm sure Luminos will profit as well from a neighbour like our kingdom."

Myra had just told him most of their plans straight away. There were no lies and no bartering for information. Dealing with Myra caused Jaros a headache because of her wild ideas and concepts, but it was a totally different thing from dealing with nobles. If he had a choice, as much of a headache she always caused him, he still prefered working with Myra.

"I will have to discuss this with his Majesty, this requires his permission to discuss in further detail."

"Sure I understand. You can also tell him that my friends live here and I have no intention of harming anyone as long as they don't try to harm my friends, family or myself either."

Jaros gave her a bow before heading to the door.

"Oh right, I nearly forgot about that!" Myra suddenly remembered something.

"I think it would be a great idea to have some sort of ambassador to interact in an official way. I quite like the young Lady of the Heliphos family."

"She is easy to talk to and has a good concept about business. If you have any requests I'd appreciate it if you could send her instead of some random noble with a stick up their ass."

Jaros smiled and had to agree in his mind. 'That girl from the Heliphos family indeed has quite a brazen way to talk, it's no surprise that someone like this princess Myra would like her.'