27

Arriving home I don't find Kia and assume she is with Alice guarding her since Kaguli is busy as sheriff now.

"I am going to change then we can go find her." Athena heads to her room and I also go change and we meet back up to head to look for Kia. as we walk down the road to the princess retail I hold her hand. we don't teleport in case someone else is in the store, wouldn't want someone to see us teleport in if we can avoid being spotted easily enough.

"Hey Athena what kind of dagger do you want." she tilts her head and thinks about it for a bit as we walk in a comfortable silence.

"It doesn't matter all that much if I am honest it's more about the meaning of the dagger than the dagger itself." I will craft a cool ceremonial-looking dagger when we are freed up since it's not for combat.

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Walking into the princess retail store I spot Alice and she is behind the counter reading a book. I sneak over and lift the book to see the title and as expected it's called ' how to twist a man around your finger ', this chick is corrupted to the bone. Athena beside me also reads the title before snatching it from Alice's hands.

"What the heck are you reading Alice!? why can't you just read normal books if you're going to read at all?"

"Athena! your back, I thought you would be gone for longer." she jumps over the counter latching onto Athena's neck. Athena supports her and hugs her back with a smile.

"Welcome back Nova." turning around I see Kia walking up, she must have heard the noise and came from the second floor.

"Hey Kia, we came back for a quick break we are about to head back and then go to town Leia to finish up some things." She nods and I pull out one of the leftover devil fruits. she is surprised as I grab her hand and put it in her grip. they grow quick enough so I am not worried about giving her one, For the next batch, I have a plan to sell a few to get some funds. the price one was sold at in the original was six hundred and fifty million in the original. if I brought out ten of them it wouldn't be so much but if I bring out two or three in each empire I probably can make that much a piece. for that to work my meeting with Catherine needs to work and also need to find someone in the bloody empire to work with.

"Nova? is this what I think it is?" Alice drops from Athena and walks over to get a look and her eyes bulge out. before she can start yelling I put my hand over her mouth.

"Yes it is a devil fruit, you will be fine eating it the poison of it won't affect you so go ahead and eat it while we are here to watch out for Alice." she nods and walks into the side room and we follow, Alice licks the palm of my hand and then bites it to get me to let go.

"huhu-HEY! I couldn't breathe what's the big deal I just wanted to ask if that was a devil fruit." after she catches her breath she crosses her arms and looks indignant.

"I just didn't want you to yell loud enough to attract attention from outside." she still looks bothered so I hand her a yo-yo I made. "this is a yo-yo you put your finger through the hole on the string and then let the wood part go and it spins down and then back up and you catch it and repeat."

"Like this?" she drops it and it spins back up and she caught it.

"Perfect, it's simple to make so if you want to have some made and decorate them to sell that would be a good idea." Chen Rui had given her puzzles of some kind and that had helped her out a lot early on so this is my way of helping her. in the future I plan to have her sell a few things through the store for me and open it as a chain all over the empire so the more popular it is the better.

"That's a good idea we can even get them painted and have special editions that only have so many of a kind sold." I will leave it to her, they're easy to make and by extension easy to counterfeit and there are no patents in the demon world, at least not yet so there will be knockoffs.

"Yea just play with it in public and when people ask say you sell them have some cheap options and then some luxury ones so rich people feel special buying the ones that aren't for ' commoner's ' " She nods and continues playing with it while Kia has already eaten the fruit and is adjusting to it. Looking at Athena she looks normal but I know she hid a certain book in her storage bracelet and is just playing it off.

"Hey Athena, you going to look into that book later when we're not busy?" she continues to watch Alice play with the yo-yo and shows no reaction other than her cheeks going red.

"I have no clue what you're talking about Nova, is there something you would like to recommend me to read?" laughing a bit I then pull out some paper from my inventory and a pen I made.

I begin to draw designs to help fortify the mine and even some bunkers along the west trade route. with a mix of my basic elemental magic, I can cut out some trenches and elevate some ground, and then with dragon script, I can add illusions and barriers. pulling out the map we got from the miners of the area I plan out where would be best to fortify and where would be best to set some traps. Athena gets interested and also points out some stuff with the basic knowledge of what I can do with dragon script. an hour later Kia is done and I make a copy of my plans to give to Shea so she can make plans to send people to work in the fortification I am building. in the end, I plan to build a small town at the mine to have the miners stay there full time and have some civilians, and then the guards won't feel like they're stationed in hell. add some entertainment and boom making money off them working out there and also it can act as a hub for trade and a buffer for invasion from the west.

"How do you feel Kia?" Kia made it from low demon king to middle demon king on her own after being free from the restrictive cuff and now she's at peak demon king. it's not a huge growth but other than me and Shea and Athena she is the strongest in dark moon to my knowledge.

"I feel good, thanks Nova for helping me it means a lot." She hugs me and then walks over to Alice. "I held you up long enough, don't worry about Alice I have her, she will be fine."

"Alright just watch out for Joseph he gives me a bad feeling when he's around Alice. he is going through a rough time with fighting his brother and Alan so he might get desperate and do something stupid." Alice scrunches her nose and then snorts.

"Let him try Kia will burn off his man bits if he tries." we all get a laugh out of that and me and Athena head out to the palace so I can drop off the plans I drew. I didn't know I would have time to get them all roughed in on paper so I wasn't expecting to go back but we teleport to her study anyway.

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Arriving in Shea's study we see she's back at her desk and Gauss is handing over some papers.

"Hey I wanted to give this to you, it's my plans for fortifying the mine and also building some bunkers to station the guards of the trade route in instead of having them in the open or patrolling aimlessly." handing her the sheets she looks at them briefly and also hands me a paper she got from Gauss. I look at it and it's a report of town Yankou and it's on the up and up, the new mayor has it up and running and has the workers treated leagues better. he says they will have a huge stockpile of jade ice crystal and are just waiting on the pirate to come so they can contact Shea. when they do I will head over and take over the pirate city and reincarnate their leader as a devil slave and claim his fleet as mine.

"That's good that he's got it up and running, when I get some free time I will teleport over and reinforce the area with some dragon script so the few guards leftover there don't get wiped out by some random wildlife." setting the paper down I walk back over to Athena and she grabs onto me as we teleport back to the mine.

-- old gauss pov --

"These plans are incredible, nothing too advanced in the build of it but the functionality and the defensibility is top notch for what they're going to be for. if the magic defense he wrote about does what they say then people will have a hard time breaking through the illusions and defenses." I look over the plans and am even more impressed with Nova's means and methods, with this if we can get the guards up to snuff we will have the west locked in and it would take a truly big force to dig us out.

"Yes they are good plan's we still need to recruit more people for the guard, Kaguli is doing all she can but we need more men."

"How about we offer to completely feed those who enlist and those who are stationed out of the city at one of the two mines will get a pay increase." Shea thinks it over and agrees.

"Once we announce the mine's recapture then the forces that don't know we have done so will be made aware. with Joseph and Alan fighting they all are either enjoying themselves watching or are actively trying to make gains. we have a few more days if we are lucky before it becomes known, in the meantime, we will do a mass recruiting. we can have a few palace guards help with training, I want people ready for this as soon as possible."

"Good, I will get the word out and have a few of the palace guards picked to help in recruiting then give them a set amount to train. with food as a sign-on bonus I expect a lot of show-ups." there is another matter but as soon as I am about to bring it up Shea seems to sense it coming and losses her previous good mood. she looks at me with her emotionless eye's and waits for me to speak. "Shea it's not a bad idea with how things are currently going and it will only help your claim over Obsidian as the rightful ruler if you had an heir. Obsidian doesn't even have an heir and the throne will be thrown into chaos if he were to die, but if you had an heir and then made your play for the throne you would get more support for actually having a successor that people will want to try to get there heir's married to." Shea just stares at me then closes her eyes and sighs.

"I understand that gauss, but if it's not for one reason it's another you keep trying to hitch me to Nova so much if I didn't know better I would think he's bought you off." I sweat a little at that, it's not all the liquor tastings he lets me do, no way it's for the good of Shea's rule to have a husband.

"I already have been thinking about it Gauss just give me some time, a lot is going on and I don't want to make a mistake and make things worse." huh? she is thinking about it? before she threatened to beat me out of the throne room when I brought it up. not sure what Nova did to specifically trigger this reaction but keep it up!