Chapter 41: The Mad Magus Prepares for a Royal Entrance

Chapter 41. The Mad Magus Prepares for a Royal Entrance

The next six days disappeared.

Not in the romantic, time flies when you’re having fun sort of way.

More like someone had taken my schedule, stuffed it into a magical grinder, and poured the remains directly into my bloodstream.

I was busy.

My wives were busy.

Even the servants were busy.

Apparently, running an estate, opening a mine, preparing for a royal banquet, and quietly dismantling several surveillance networks required more effort than I’d anticipated.

Who knew?

The mana crystal mine came first.

Finding a deposit was one thing. Turning it into a functioning operation was another.

The surrounding forest had monsters, the access road barely deserved to be called a road, and there wasn’t a single suitable building for workers within walking distance.

Naturally, I handled the construction.

Earth Manipulation made excavation considerably easier. Yes, I used my normal mana for this job. The last thing I wanted was to contaminate the raw mana crystals with Forbidden Energy.

I raised stone foundations, reinforced the mine entrance, carved drainage channels, and built sturdy accommodations for the miners. Liora supervised the extraction plans while Nia negotiated wages, equipment deliveries, and supply contracts.

We also had to clear the monsters.

That part was rather therapeutic.

A few unfortunate creatures discovered that attacking a man who needed their cores was a terrible career decision.

By the third day, we had a guarded entrance, temporary housing, and enough cleared ground to begin proper operations.

Not bad.

Especially considering I was doing all this while conducting research.

My study became a disaster.

A beautiful disaster.

Parchments covered the tables. Mana crystals filled containment trays. Finished potions lined the shelves.

I spent every spare hour converting my remaining skills into Forbidden Energy variants.

[Arcane Eye] became [Abyssal Eye].

[Mana Reinforcement] became [Abyssal Reinforcement].

And the rest followed.

I tested each alteration carefully, checking its energy consumption, stability, and compatibility with my current body.

Normal mana was still dangerous.

Forbidden Energy, however?

That was becoming a remarkably cooperative little bastard.

I also improved several potions.

Restoration.

Mana recovery.

Emergency treatment.

And a few experimental mixtures I had absolutely no intention of letting Lily taste.

She’d already asked twice.

I told her they tasted terrible.

That worked.

Of course, research wasn’t my only evening activity.

I also did some cleaning.

Not the household kind.

The someone has been watching my wives through the windows kind.

Remember those spies I’d noticed in town?

I’d remembered their faces.

Every single one.

Seris and I spent several nights tracking them down.

She handled the intelligence.

I handled the conversations.

And by conversations, I meant my Mind Corruption Formation.

A rather useful little formation.

Instead of killing the spies and alerting their employers, I altered their loyalties and sent them back to work.

Same faces.

Same routines.

Different master.

Me.

They continued reporting to whoever had hired them.

Only now, the information was whatever I wanted their employers to believe.

Rey was deteriorating.

His curse was worsening.

His household was struggling.

He barely had the strength to manage his own estate.

Wonderful.

Keep believing that.

I was genuinely surprised by how many people had invested in spying on me.

All four of my former comrades, naturally.

Elia.

Darius.

Raven.

Garr.

Each had their own little network.

Apparently, defeating the Dark Lord together hadn’t inspired much trust.

Then there were the nobles.

Duke Harven, for example.

Ah, yes.

That bastard.

Still holding a grudge.

How touching.

And the list didn’t end with human nobles.

There were agents connected to other tribes, too.

Some apparently resented my marriage to their princesses.

Others seemed offended that a commoner had married five princesses at all.

Five influential bloodlines.

One former commoner.

Congratulations to me!

I’d somehow become an international diplomatic insult simply by getting married.

An impressive achievement.

Seris found the situation considerably less amusing.

She started compiling names.

Affiliations.

My beautiful phoenix princess was building a list.

A very thorough list.

I loved a woman with organizational skills.

Especially when those skills could ruin somebody’s entire week.

Then there was the king’s birthday gift.

That required actual thought.

I couldn’t simply hand him a shiny crystal and call it a day.

Well, I could.

But I wanted something that would make him remember who’d created it.

Something that couldn’t be dismissed as a commoner’s desperate attempt to gain favor.

After several failed prototypes, a considerable amount of mana, and one unfortunate explosion that destroyed a perfectly innocent chair, I finally succeeded.

A suitable gift.

And, naturally, I made more accessories for my wives.

Because why wouldn’t I?

They were princesses.

They already owned jewelry.

Probably enough jewelry to bankrupt a modest noble household.

But mine was different.

I’d made it myself.

And when I’d given them their first enchanted pieces, I’d seen their expressions.

The way Ariel touched her pendant.

The way Lily kept admiring hers.

Seris pretending she wasn’t pleased while wearing hers constantly.

Nia practically vibrating with excitement.

Liora examining every detail before quietly smiling.

So I made more.

Simple logic.

Unfortunately, Nia noticed.

And immediately turned my affection into a business model.

It began with a tray.

A very large tray.

Filled with high-quality accessories.

Rings.

Bracelets.

Earrings.

Necklaces.

Tiaras.

I stared at it.

Nia smiled.

I knew that smile.

That was the smile of a woman who’d already calculated the profit.

She’d purchased the basic pieces from skilled craftsmen.

Liora selected suitable crystals, cut them, and attached them to the settings.

Then they delivered everything to me.

My task?

Alter the enchantments.

Infuse the pieces with elemental power.

Make them work.

Preferably without accidentally turning somebody’s wedding necklace into a portable siege weapon.

We established two collections.

The first was elegant.

Fine necklaces, delicate tiaras, and ornate pieces designed for noble gatherings.

The second was practical.

Combat rings.

Defensive bracelets.

Earrings that improved elemental affinity or resistance.

I used A-grade crystals for the more demanding designs and lower-grade materials where appropriate.

The S-grade crystals stayed safely in my study.

Absolutely not.

Those beauties were mine.

Nia could have the A-grade stock, the gold and the decorative gemstones.

But if she touched my S-grade crystals without permission, I might actually start hissing like a mad cat.

Together, we developed a surprisingly efficient process.

Nia sourced the materials.

Liora prepared the crystals.

I completed the enchantments.

Then Nia sold the finished pieces.

Directly.

To collectors.

To nobles.

To people with entirely too much money and an urgent need to prove it.

There was, admittedly, one small complication.

Forbidden Energy.

Some of the accessories retained traces of it.

Which meant certain buyers became suspicious.

Nia handled that beautifully.

According to her sales pitch, Rey Valen had recovered rare enchanted treasures from hidden passages and the strongholds of the Dark Lord’s generals during the war. Sometimes, she even claimed they’d come straight from the Dark Lord’s own vault.

The items had subsequently been purified and stabilized for at least a year, making them safe to wear.

A wonderfully convenient story.

Not entirely true.

Not entirely false.

And apparently irresistible to collectors.

At first, the buyers hesitated.

Then Nia demonstrated the effects.

A defensive bracelet blocked a controlled magical strike.

An affinity ring strengthened a spell.

A necklace maintained a protective enchantment without requiring constant mana input.

The hesitation disappeared.

So did the inventory.

At prices that made me stare at Liora’s accounting records twice.

Then a third time.

Holy shit.

I’d spent years in my previous life begging research committees for equipment funding.

Apparently, all I’d needed to do was marry a fox princess and let her sell enchanted jewelry to rich people.

I felt betrayed by my entire academic career.

The money changed things quickly.

Lily was delighted.

More funds meant expanding her garden, purchasing rare seeds, and increasing the kitchen’s supplies.

She immediately produced a list.

A long list.

An alarmingly detailed list.

I approved it.

Mostly because she kept feeding me.

Seris had different priorities.

More guards.

Better equipment.

Additional defensive formations.

Eventually, she wanted our own properly trained soldiers.

Not merely household guards.

A force loyal to this estate.

To us.

Considering the number of people who apparently wanted me dead, I found that proposal extremely reasonable.

Ariel focused on the mansion itself.

She reorganized the servants’ duties, replaced damaged furniture, and repaired rooms that had suffered during Rey’s worst episodes.

Some broken pieces had been left untouched for months.

Quiet reminders of what the curse had done to him.

Ariel didn’t make a spectacle of replacing them.

She simply made the house comfortable again.

Little by little.

And somehow, that affected me more than the money.

The estate was beginning to feel less like a monument to a ruined hero.

More like a home.

Our home.

I wanted more time to enjoy it.

More evenings with my wives.

More stolen kisses.

More opportunities to pull one of them close without immediately remembering that somebody had hired an assassin to murder me.

Unfortunately, romance kept getting interrupted by administrative murder prevention.

A tragic condition.

I hoped to recover soon.

Then the day arrived.

The king’s birthday banquet.

Our preparations were complete.

The gift was ready.

The mine was operating under supervision.

Our new guards had their assignments.

And the spies were enthusiastically reporting my supposed decline.

Excellent.

Now, transportation.

Seris, Lily, and I would fly.

A phoenix princess.

A fairy princess.

And one magus with Voidwind Manipulation.

Simple.

Ariel, Nia, and Liora, however, traveled in Liora’s crystal carriage.

Except I had made a few modifications.

The carriage was already magnificent, its polished crystal panels catching the morning sunlight.

I’d reinforced its frame with Voidwind magic and installed a stable air-pressure formation around the passenger compartment.

Then came the animals.

Seris had arranged several Cloudcrest Rocs, large bird monsters traditionally raised by the Phoenix tribes to transport supplies across mountainous territory.

Powerful wings.

Excellent endurance.

Remarkably obedient once properly trained.

Usually, they hauled cargo.

Today?

They were pulling a royal carriage.

Through the sky.

I stood in the courtyard, admiring the completed arrangement.

The Cloudcrest Rocs spread their enormous wings.

The crystal carriage gleamed behind them.

Liora examined the reinforcement formations.

Nia inspected the harnesses.

Ariel stepped inside and tested the seats.

Seris watched the birds with obvious approval.

Lily circled the carriage excitedly.

And I smiled.

The first sky carriage.

The first one I’d seen in this era.

A flying carriage pulled by giant birds, carrying three princesses toward the royal capital.

Subtle? Absolutely not.

But after everything we’d endured, I had no intention of arriving at the king’s banquet looking like a disgraced hero begging for an invitation.

Let them wonder how a supposedly dying magus had managed to arrive with five magnificent wives and a carriage that could fly.

I looked toward the distant capital.

The banquet was waiting.

So were my former comrades.

And somewhere inside the royal palace, the king would soon receive a birthday gift from the man everyone had been so eager to write off.

I couldn’t wait to see their faces.