“Excellent!” Varre clapped his hands together, “since it’s just a matter of time before we find Fedlow, I think I’m ready to retire back to my quarters. Anything else?”

  The advisors exchanged nervous glances. “Your majesty,” Marna finally spoke up, “I’m afraid there are still many things we need to discuss. You haven’t even received any reports from your advisors yet.”

  “Oh,” the king deflated a bit, “well go on then. Who’s first?”

  Treasurer Johan Gruber cleared his throat. “I would like to begin,” he started reading from the parchment laid out in front of him, “the financial situation of the kingdom is adequate. Mikkel III was still repaying some debts from the last war, however we have a healthy treasury on our hands. We have 70 000 thalars available in our vault.”

  “Gold Thalars?” Varre asked.

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  The few months that the former student had already spent in the city gave him an idea of how much money that was. The kingdom’s currency was the thalar. Most people referred to them by their material, for simplicity’s sake. A single gold thalar was worth a hundred silvers. A poor laborer earned about five silver thalars a day. This was the coin most people used for their daily lives. Technically, there were also copper thalars used for change, but a member of the royal family barely interacted with them.

  “On top of that, harvest time is approaching,” the treasurer continued, “we are expecting additional profits from our Crownlands within a couple of months.”

  “Great news!” Varre outstretched his arms, “I propose a feast to celebrate!”

  “Before that, your majesty,” Gruber lifted another piece of parchment, “I need to bring your attention to something else. As you know, the majority of the royal family met their unfortunate end recently. And most of their direct descendants who could inherit their wealth perished too… that means, the closest heir is now you, your majesty. We need to decide what to do with all of your inheritance.”

  The king cocked his eyebrow. “How much wealth are we talking about here?”

  Treasurer Johan started counting on his fingers. “Well, during that tragic birthday dinner, the kingdom lost the lives of two dukes, two duchesses, two countesses, and yet another count. All of their lands, their properties, not too mention their personal treasuries… I haven’t even began to calculate how much that could be worth!”

  “Great! Why are you making it sound like a problem?”

  Gruber, unsure of how to continue, looked to Marna for support. The steward decided to assist. “Your majesty, as the treasurer already mentioned, we need to decide what to do with all this wealth now.”

  “Keep it of course,” Varre chuckled, “I mean do we really have to spend it right now? I may be planning some nice parties in the future, sure, but they won’t be that expensive. I don’t want us to go broke overnight.”

  “That is not what we meant,” Marna answered, “we need to determine who will manage this land. As Johan mentioned, it was previously controlled by members of the royal family. Just the duchies and counties alone were split between seven separate royal family members. Who is going to receive them now?”

  Benjamin leaned closer to his liege. “Don’t forget your own personal wealth. You’ve inherited it from your father, but now you are in charge of the crownlands too. We need to figure out who it should belong to. Normally, a monarch would pick members of his own family,” he paused, “in your case, I recommend people you can trust instead.”

  “Just because it was split between a lot of people before, doesn’t mean it has to be again,” the king replied.

  Treasurer Johan lifted his arms defensively. “Your majesty. I understand your concerns, but please understand the benefits in turn. By distributing your lands to other nobles, they swear fealty to you. In exchange for these lands, they promise to fight by your side, whenever you need them.”

  Varre remained unconvinced. “Seems expensive. And inefficient in the long run. Why can’t I use this money to hire more of my own soldiers? Why do I need to rely on some silly oaths?”

  Marna nodded intensively. “I agree with Johan. We need people’s support if we want to avoid chaos. And nothing builds support faster than giving out land.”

  “Besides,” Gruber added, “your majesty will have far more important tasks on your plate than managing simple properties. Better to leave it to others.”

  “To be honest, managing lands has never occupied much of time. I just had my chamberlain take care of it before,” the king looked up at Benjamin, “and it’s not like you needed to travel very often for that. You had some administrators on site, taking care of our lands, right?”

  “Well,” the chamberlain spoke carefully, “I suppose that is true. But these were people handpicked by me! I’ve worked with them for years and trust all of them to work in my stead.”

  “And,” Varre continued, “someone else still needs to take care of the Crownlands right? Who was in charge of that before?”

  “Me, your majesty,” the treasurer replied.

  “I imagine you trust your administrators as well.”

  “Of course. I also handpicked many of them myself.”

  “Then keeping these lands isn’t going to waste any of my time,” the king shrugged, “I’ll just have Benjamin keep doing what he’s been doing before.”

  The chamberlain coughed. “To be honest,” he spoke softly, “I haven’t had the time to deal with that work since you moved into the castle. Taking care of the monarch’s needs is more taxing than I thought.”

  Varre pointed to the treasurer, “Johan then. You can add my personal lands to the Crownlands, and keep all of Benjamin’s administrators. I bet the chamberlains of all of my relatives must have had the same system. You can just make use of the same administrators again.”

  “I suppose that’s… reasonable,” Gruber said and glanced from one councilor to the next, as if expecting them to jump in.

  “I don’t want to alarm you your Majesty,” Benjamin spoke carefully, “but some of the other chamberlains might not be willing to cooperate. Many are fiercely loyal to their lords,” he sounded proud of himself, “and might think that you are responsible for their deaths.”

  The king scratched his chin. “Well, how about you cooperate with the treasurer, figure out who can stay, and who should be replaced. Promote the best people as needed and have them bring in their own deputies. It’s not rocket science,” he paused realizing what he had just said, “I mean it’s not exactly very complicated.”

  Marna was about to add something more, but Varre raised his hand to stop her. “And if it turns out that the people will be protesting this or whatever, then we can begin distributing lands to others. No reason to waste valuable stuff now.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  The steward grimaced, but ultimately nodded. “I can accept that.”

  “Then it’s settled,” the king stretched out on his chair, “and while you’re at it Gruber, find out how much wealth we’ve gained from my relatives’ treasuries. Plus of their properties. I bet everyone had a mansion in the capital or something.”

  Gruber started putting some notes on his parchment.

  Marna looked at Tobias. “I suppose that’s it for the treasurer’s report. Court mage?”

  “Nothing new,” the black haired wizard answered, “I’ll find out what that poison is.”

  The steward chuckled awkwardly. “A little short. But no news is good news. Chancellor?”

  Anastasia Clearwater put on a charming smile. “I won’t bore his majesty any more today. We’ve dispatched messages to our neighbors, informing them of the coronation. We expect congratulatory messages in the near future. I have nothing more to add.”

  “Great,” Marna checked through her notes one more time, “I suppose that’s it for the first council meeting. Do you have any questions your majesty?”

  Varre straightened up again. “Wait, aren’t we forgetting something? What about the military? Don’t I have some sort of army? How big is it?”

  “Army, your majesty?” Hakon leaned forward, “are you planning on going to war soon?”

  “No, no,” the king waved his hands, “but we need to be ready right? Mikkel must have left some soldiers behind. Or did they all eat the poisoned soup too?”

  The captain needed a second to respond. “If you’re asking about the Royal Guard they were not allowed to eat any of the food from the tragic dinner. We don’t have any more soldiers.”

  “Seriously?” Varre was surprised, “and what happens if we get attacked?”

  “Well, that is when you call on your loyal vassals to join you in battle,” Hakon answered carefully, “we do not have any standing army, besides the Royal Guards. They take care of your security, as well as the entire capital.”

  “By themselves?”

  “Yes. There are some more city guards that can assist, but most work is done by your personal troops. And do not worry. Your knights spend most of their time training hard and will be ready to defend their kingdom if the time comes.”

  “They use their own resources,” Marna explained, “drawing from the lands that you distribute to them.”

  “I see. Well, alright then. Now that we’ve got some more cash coming in, we can think of getting some proper soldiers,” the king leaned back in the chair again, “look into it Hakon.”

  “Very well, your majesty,” The captain replied.

  With that the meeting was over. Varre stood up and started walking out of the room. The chamberlain followed right after him.

  “Benjamin,” the king asked, “go and get Lester. Now that that’s over with, I’d like to enjoy the rest of the day with my old friend.”

  “I could do that your majesty,” the chamberlain said, “but I’m afraid there is still more work to be done. You are meant to meet with your combat trainers for the first time today, remember? Shall I cancel that?”

  “Oh for the love of… Fine. Take me to them.”

  Benjamin led him to a hidden courtyard behind one of the castle walls. It surprised Varre. Even though he’s been living here for a few days now, he still hadn’t had the time to properly explore his new house. He didn’t even know the castle had a hidden area like this.

  The training area was built as an extension of the castle. It was outside of the defensive walls, so a smaller wall was built around it to obscure vision from the rest of the city. It was relatively simple, just a rectangle covered in grass, or dirt in places where people moved around too much. There were some targets set up by one of the walls.

  Varre froze when he noticed two people sparring in the training area.

  The first was a Royal Guard. Instead of a familiar halberd, the heavily armored knight used a wooden staff. His opponent was a middle aged man, wielding a practice sword. Instead of plate, he simply wore some leather armor.

  Varre was no expert in combat. He’s only seen a few boxing matches back on Earth. But he was pretty sure that no normal human could fight like these two. They moved around the battlefield with incredible speed. He could barely keep up with them.

  The knight swiped the staff sideways, as if aiming to split his opponent in two, but the man simply jumped back. The swordsman countered with a sideways strike of his own, but the guard blocked it with the staff.

  The middle aged man wasn’t done though. He started dragging the blade along the staff, pushing it upwards. The sword was heading right for one of the knight’s armored gloves. The wooden edge probably wouldn’t have hurt him, but this was a mock battle after all. The guard released his grip before the blade could cut off his fingers and responded by quickly swiping the bottom of the staff at his opponent’s thigh.

  He was too slow.

  The swordsman kicked, hitting the knight in the stomach. Even though he was wearing plate armor, the force was enough to make him double over in pain.

  The middle aged man didn’t hesitate. He immediately followed up by bringing his sword down and thrusting forward. The tip stopped right before hitting the knight in the shoulder. At this angle, with the guard doubled over, it would have cut straight through the shoulder, neck, and embedded itself deep into the torso.

  Even an amateur like Varre knew this would have been a deadly blow. He started clapping in honor of the victor.

  Both of the warriors immediately turned towards the unexpected sound.

  “Greetings, your majesty,” the man bowed deeply, “forgive me, I lost track of time. I am Kerryn, your combat trainer.”

  “Varre,” the king extended his hand, then grimaced awkwardly, “but I suppose you knew that already. Impressive show! No need to apologize.”

  The warrior stared at the outstretched arm for a second, surprised by the gesture. Eventually he recovered and shook his monarch’s hand.

  “Thank you. It is an honor to meet you. I’ve been teaching your uncle for the last five years. Before that, I was an adventurer. For close to two decades, I travelled the continent, fighting various monsters and other threats. Now I try to teach others some of the lessons I learned out there.”

  “Monsters? You know, I’ve been hearing about them here and there, but are they really such a big problem in our kingdom?” Varre asked while taking a seat on a nearby chair, set up in the shade.

  Kerryn remained standing. “That is one of the main goals of a guild like ours. We keep their numbers in check. Here, close to the capital, threats like that are very rare. The population is dense, so monsters are spotted early. And thanks to the royal adventurer’s guild in the city, we can respond quickly.”

  “And away from the capital?”

  “It’s worse,” the warrior admitted, “as soon as some peasants spot a threat, they report it to the local nobility. Usually, they’re strong enough to take care of the problem themselves. If not, it can take days or weeks for help to arrive. Sometimes months, if the threat it particularly dangerous. Unless it’s the North, of course.”

  “I heard that the North is a little wilder than the rest of the country. Is it really that bad?”

  “Oh yes,” Kerryn nodded, “though it also depends on where you go. The roads are passable. And the towns are safe enough. But there is a reason a lot of adventurers go out there to make their living. There simply aren’t enough people to drive monsters away. And not enough resources. But at least we can make a lot of elixir up there.”

  “Elixir?”

  “You know. The training elixirs?” the warrior cocked his eyebrow in confusion.

  “Mr. Kerryn, as I explained before,” Benjamin cut in, “his majesty lost his memories. And he’s never undergone any combat training. I’m afraid you’ll have to start at the very beginning.”

  The warrior hesitated for a second. Then reached into a small chest that stood on top of the table. He pulled out a small vial, filled with a green liquid. He shook it and passed it to Varre.

  “This is what I’m talking about. We call this, ‘the elixir’.”

  The king opened the vial and sniffed. The elixir had a sickly sweet smell to it. “What makes it so important?”

  Kerryn sighed. “I suppose you do not know the difference between your true and enhanced attributes either?”

  “Uhhh… no?”

  The warrior scratched his head. “Figures. Alright, do you have your stats memorized? Otherwise we’ll need to call in a mage to perform a talent check.”

  Varre looked to Benjamin and luckily the servant came prepared. He pulled out an envelope out of a pocket hidden in his vest. Inside was a folded piece of paper.

  “Mistress Elvira gave it to me back when she checked your talents all those months ago,” the chamberlain explained, “I figured that bringing it with me today would be a good idea.”

  Kerryn stared at Benjamin as he laid out the parchment on the table. “Since mages are the only people who can check someone’s talents, most people have theirs memorized. Or at least written down. Checks aren’t free, so most people only do them once they feel their stats rose high enough. Though I suppose price won’t be an issue for you.”

  Everyone leaned in to read the list once it was flattened out.

  - - - - -

  Status:

  Varre of Logres

  Energy: 10/10

  - - - - -

  Attributes:

  Strength: 12 | 12

  Dexterity: 10 | 10

  Speed: 9 | 9

  Toughness: 11 | 11

  Power: 6 | 6

  Aura: 8 | 8

  Luck: 25 | 25

  - - - - -

  Abilities:

  Strange Mind

  - - - - -

  Kerryn scratched his chin. “Alright, now where do I begin.”

  Do you think that was the right choice?

  Perhaps you were wondering why there are two of each number? Last chance to guess and share your theories!

  Of course, following and favorite'ing the book helps a lot too!