I need enough of them to supply whoever goes with Mercy and to resupply Lizzy. Luckily, I have already made so many of them that it doesn’t take much concentration to make them now. I don’t even need Divided Mind to be able to craft and enchant them simultaneously.

  By the time the sun comes up I have completed several hundred obelisks and used up all the stone I have. Hopefully it will be enough that I don’t need to make more for a bit, I have gotten bored of doing so. When I head upstairs to check, no one has woken up yet, so I use the network to find Lizzy.

  I can’t find her current location so instead I locate the last obelisk that she placed. I create a gate, step through, and then start scanning around the area, but I can’t find her. In the end, I have to contact her, which wakes her up so she isn’t too happy with me.

  She gives me her location, which is several miles away, and I fly over to meet her. When I get there I get a pleasant surprise, she has found herself a natural hot spring. It is no wonder that she wasn’t in a rush to have me deliver more obelisks.

  Lizzy sighs and says “I guess this means it is time for me to get back to work.”

  “Not necessarily. You move fast and have already placed a ton of obelisks. If you want to stay and relax a few more days, I am not going to say anything about it.”

  Lizzy says “No, if there is work to do I would rather do it. It’s not like there is much else for me to do. Besides, I might find another cave of snacks.”

  “Cave of snacks?”

  Lizzy says “Yeah. I found a cave with a bunch of sleeping demonic beasts inside. Killing them wasn’t any challenge, but they were at least tasty.”

  “It sounds like the demons are ahead of us. Those beasts were probably meant to be woken up once we had moved past and attack us from behind.”

  Lizzy says “So there are probably more?”

  “It’s very likely. How many beasts were in the cave?”

  Lizzy says “I didn’t really stop to count them, but probably around a thousand.”

  “Alright, new plan. I want you to keep placing obelisks, but your main goal now is to find more of those caves and clear them out.”

  Lizzy says “Sure, I can do that! I still get to eat them, right?”

  “Of course. They are your kills, do what you want with them. Just be careful, eating too many demonic cores could affect you.”

  Lizzy says “I will be careful.”

  “Oh, I have a present for you. It is a new collar. It will do everything your old one does plus give you access to the network. The kids and my wives are on there plus the people we have recruited into the government. It will give you people to chat with even when you are out here on your own.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lizzy says “That sounds nice, thank you!”

  “It has one other ability that I am not sure if you will like or not. It will allow you to shapeshift into a human form.”

  Lizzy says “Why would I want to turn into a human?”

  “I thought you might like to be able to go into towns and cities.”

  Lizzy says “The connection to the network I will use, but I have no interest in being a soft, squishy human.”

  “Alright, fair enough. Now, come on out of that pool.”

  Lizzy says “What? Why?”

  “Because it has been a long time, so I am going to groom you.”

  Lizzy is out of the pool and standing in front of me in a flash, with a laugh I get to work. The first thing I do is go through, find any damaged scales, and remove them. It only takes a few minutes for new scales to grow in to replace them and then I start grooming her.

  I take my time to do a thorough job of it, about two hours, and Lizzy enjoys every second of it. Once I am finished, I give her about three quarters of the obelisks I made and then send her off. She lets out a happy trill and takes off like a bolt of lightning, she is out of sight in seconds.

  Once she is gone, I gate back to the castle where I find Mercy, Mulan, and Bella awake. They are sitting at the table, drinking tea and chatting quietly when I walk in. I hug Mulan, kiss Mercy, and then sit down at the table with them.

  Mercy says “Where did you run off to?”

  “I went to go give a bunch of obelisks to Lizzy.”

  Mercy says “Oh, good. I was worried that you left to see the dragon already.”

  “Nope, not yet. Speaking of, when do you plan to leave?”

  Mercy says “I was going to leave today. I have been gone for a while. I’m sure there is a lot of work waiting for me.”

  “Can you put it off until tomorrow?”

  Mercy says “Sure. Why?”

  “I still plan to send one of the kids with you, but I want to spend the day with all of them.”

  Mercy says “No problem.”

  Mulan says “Why will one of us be going with her?”

  “To place obelisks and to see her kingdom.”

  Mercy says “It is your kingdom now.”

  “No, it is part of my empire now, but calling it your kingdom just makes it easier to know what we are talking about.”

  Mulan says “I volunteer to be the one to go with her.”

  “Okay, if that’s what you want. Any specific reason?”

  Mulan says “Because I like Mercy and I want a chance to get to know her better. I also want to meet Mericel and hear her stories from when she was trapped in your head. She is technically our aunt now, so I want to get to know her as well.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Mericel is my sister-in-law now. That’s going to take some getting used to.”

  Mercy says “She really wanted to come to the wedding. I had to promise all sorts of things to get her to stay behind and run things for me.”

  “In that case, once I am done with the dragon I think I will move the castle to your capital for a while. Let her meet everyone.”

  Mercy says “I’m sure that she would love that!”

  “I’m hoping that showing myself will also make the transfer of power a little smoother. It will also be good to let the others get to know the area and people. Knowing more will make ruling easier.”

  Mercy says “For someone who hates ruling, you are pretty good at this stuff.”

  “I am good at making plans and coming up with ideas, but when it comes to dealing with people I am horrible. Anytime I have to deal with nobles all I want to do is kill them.”

  Mercy says “That is a sentiment that I can completely understand. Luckily, most of our bad nobles died with the king, or when you went through and cleaned them out. I don’t think the transfer of power will be as bad as you fear. You are still a hero to most of my people.”