After the festival was over, everything went back to normal. Everyone went to receive their salaries and made sure their name was written on the document that dictated who needed to receive salaries and how much.
Ars restarted his training, in all aspects, his objective was to easily pull a ship around the island several times under a few hours, now he was also training to awaken observation haki, and he was hoping that once he did, combined with the huge physical training he was following would be enough to help him learn how to use armament Haki.
The only haki he was completely lost on how to awaken in case he had it, was conqueror haki. He knew he could develop it in extremely stressful battles, but he wasn't going to randomly pick fights everywhere, that would only bring problems and couldn't guarantee he would awaken it.
Rook had finally managed to learn soru and geppo, and Ars decided to give him an injection that would boost his potential, his body potential got raised to 4.0 and his mind to 1.5. At first he complained quite a bit about the pain but the next few days he felt his body was in a much better condition. At least he noticed that his recovery time had been reduced by a few hours, other things weren't as noticeable but he had the feeling he was also getting stronger faster. In short, he was very satisfied with the results he got.
Fierzy surprised everyone, not by learning any martial technique or reaching a high level with her weapon, instead she was so obsessed with being with Lily and being close to her, that she had managed to develop her observation haki.
Ars didn't know how to feel about that, he was training hard, to the point it was almost absurd, and he had been trying to learn observation haki for almost 2 weeks with absolutely no success, but her, she only listen to him describing his training and what he was trying to train and develop, and in just 2 days, she managed to learn it. And her reason behind awakening it so easily, was that she wanted to feel like she was always by Lily's side, and with observation haki she felt that she was just a bit closer to that objective, so she managed to awaken it.
Ars couldn't make any sense of the situation, but since she managed to awaken it he was happy for her, and decided to give her an injection to boost her potential, he decided to give her one that would make her status, the same as Rook.
A few weeks later, Ars decided that it was time to initiate the plans to rescue and find more people willing to come live in this kingdom. They needed to speed up the development of the kingdom, and that meant the kingdom needed an increase in the number of people working in it.
They decided that for localizing people, just one ship would be enough. Ars started thinking that he needed to start developing the military ranks so he could send more ships for the same mission but in different places, so they could cover more area. Because for now the only 2 available people to be captains in a ship were him and Rook.
One day, while training, the broken ex-princess, who wasn't so broken anymore, approached Ars while he was training, she was followed by her female friends that used to be her knights, much to his surprise she just stood there silently.
Ars asked, quite confused by her behaviour.
"Do you need anything?"
She nodded, and very respectfully introduced herself and her intentions.
"First, I would like to apologise for not thanking you sooner, it was rough the first few weeks after that happened to me. For the same reason, I would also like to thank you for saving me and the survivors of my kingdom, especially the children, and from a personal standpoint, I thank you for saving my younger siblings and my mother."
Ars smiled and shook his head and replied.
"You don't need to thank me, in the end I saved you all, so you may work for me. "
Her face was still emotionally dead, no facial expressions could be seen, but from what she said until now you could tell she was slowly recovering her mental condition, and her heart was in the right place.
"No, It doesn't matter the reason, in the end you saved us and I'm thankful for it."
Before the conversation continued, there was a commotion, and when he looked towards it, he got really taken aback by what he saw. Both of his queens were coming and while they trained with him for the first 4 hours in the morning they rarely came in the afternoon and definitely not in dresses, like they were wearing now.
Of course, following them there were the usual maids Dawn and Solana, but today there were 2 others.
The other 2 were Logi and Eliana.
Ars was a bit worried and asked.
"Is everything alright?"
Olivia shook her head.
"First, Elia needs to quickly assemble a strike force to help her, something happened in her previous home to her big sister and big brother."
Ars quickly called one of his men and ordered.
"Group 30 soldiers and prepare to depart as fast as you can."
"Yes, Sir!!"
The soldier quickly went to gather other soldiers to prepare themselves for the trip, then Olivia continued.
"Second, me and Elia both decided that madam Mulberry would be a good royal teacher to teach us how to behave as nobles and what we need to know about noble customs, she also would be a good secretary for us, so we would like your permission on this."
Ars simply nodded and replied calmly.
"You have my permission and you don't need to ask for my permission for things like this. You are both queens, things like that can be decided by both of you, especially since it's your decision who are the people working for you."
Altan, who had been training, seeing every single member of his family here felt that there was something wrong and approached before interrupting.
"I'm sorry to interrupt but since all my sisters are here I have a bad feeling."
Ars nodded and explained.
"While I'm not exactly sure what happened, I already ordered a group of soldiers to prepare themselves to depart as soon as possible. If you want more information it's better if you ask your oldest sister here"
He nodded and looked at Elia, she then elaborated.
"We just received a message by den den mushi, that our lovely mother got caught cooperating with pirates for money and now the island might face an attack soon, they have no way to defend themselves, so big sister called us in hope we can help."
Ars was shocked and complained.
"I didn't know we have a den den mushi…"
Everyone looked at him shocked by the fact he didn't seem to be that surprised about the pirates attack, Elia got sad and asked.
"That's the only thing you got from what I said?"
Ars answered confused.
"Are you really surprised your mother did such a thing? I already ordered the soldiers to prepare themselves, they still need to work on always being ready, but I can't do much more for now."
Elia wanted to refute, she wanted to complain, but the more she thought of it, the more realized he was right.
Was she surprised about their mother, not really, because sadly she knew what kind of scum she was, and he was right, right now there was hardly anything else he could do.
Elia just stayed silent, and Olivia answered Ars' question.
"Logi, brought them with her and gave us one a few days after she arrived, once she discovered we didn't have one. Then Elia sent a ship with a message with the den den mushi number to her sister."
Ars looked at Elia with an annoyed and somewhat angry expression and complained.
"Elia, you should have told me we had a den den mushi, you should have also requested my permission to send a ship with soldiers to deliver a SINGLE message, I would have given you permission, you didn't need to do it behind my back."
She looked down at the ground, very embarrassed and bit sad, she knew she had disappointed him and that he was a bit angry at her, she was just so happy about being able to speak with her big sister and tell her about all the wonderful things that had happened to her, that she only realized her mistake after the ship was gone, and she didn't know how to approach Ars about it. So she said very quietly with tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, I made a mistake and I didn't know how to explain it to you. Every time I tried I got cold feet and… I didn't want you to be disappointed in me"
Ars took a deep breath looking at her in tears and said.
"I know you didn't mean anything bad but don't do it again. Ok?"
She nodded, but stayed quiet, still feeling sad about disappointing Ars and disappointing herself. She wanted to be his perfect follower more than she wanted to be a queen, make no mistake she did love him and wanted to be with him, but she didn't just want that, she wanted to feel useful to Ars, and now she made such a stupid mistake.
Ars realizing she was feeling really down hugged her.
Altan was feeling hesitant, he didn't want to interrupt them but he wanted to ask permission to go along on the mission. He slowly gathered his courage and requested.
"Can I go along on the mission?"
Ars thought about it and nodded, Altan left running to prepare himself, Ars didn't think the pirates would be that dangerous, so he didn't mind letting him go, even though he was still just a trainee.
Ars then looked at Kina and restarted their previous conversation.
"I'm sorry, we got interrupted. We can continue the previous conversation now or you can wait until I come back from the mission."
She asked him.
"Don't you need to prepare yourself?"
He laughed and replied.
"I'm already prepared."
She nodded and then decided.
"In that case let's finish the conversation."
He nodded and said.
"You can keep going from where you previously stopped."
She nodded and continued.
"I should have introduced myself earlier but the circumstances didn't allow it. My name is Mulberry Kina, I am 18 years old. I would like to be allowed to form a strike team that hunts pirates around the surrounding islands."
Ars could see her burning hatred for the pirates, but he shook his head and replied.
"Maybe in the future, currently your mind is not completely stable and I need you to understand that the world is not white and black."
She started screaming at Ars and tried to get closer to him just to be pinned down by her own friends.
"While we understand your anger, please calm down, just the fact you attacked his majesty screams that you're not mentally recovered."
She stopped. When she listened to them, she realized they were right, what she had just attempted would be enough reason for him to kill her. She apologized embarrassed by what she just did.
"I'm sorry… I lost control, I don't like to admit it but like you said… I'm not recovered, and I might never actually recover completely… But please explain what you mean."
He looked at her and explained.
"That's a little bit better. Simply put, not all pirates are horrible people… Yes, the majority of them either is a horrible person from the start or becomes one over time, but that doesn't apply to everyone. Some are just trying to escape horrible situations, like people leaving their lives behind for a new life of piracy because they were oppressed or they couldn't pay the taxes and had no choice. Some might think that everyone that is a pirate is evil from the start, but some just want to be free and others just want to survive."