Chapter 80 - 14

The polished mahogany doors of the central study swung open without a single knock.

Nisha, the fox-kin director of global logistics, strutted into the sunlit room with an air of careless, absolute confidence. A thick leather binder containing the quarterly shipping ledgers was tucked casually under her arm, while her plush, flame-orange tail swished back and forth in a lively rhythm. Unlike the other executives who maintained strict professional decorum around Arthur, Nisha possessed the bold, unfiltered energy of a spoiled predator. She was a wild, gorgeous woman with sharp amber eyes, soft golden fur tipping her fox ears, and a lush, incredibly curvy silhouette that her tailored crimson vest did little to hide.

She didn’t wait for an invitation. Nisha walked straight past the grand desk, bypassed the visitor chairs entirely, and casually hoisted herself up to sit right on the edge of Arthur’s desk, swinging her long legs freely.

"Quarterly distribution results are in, Master!" Nisha chirped, flashing a sharp, fanged grin. She dumped the heavy ledger onto his lap, leaning forward so close that her soft, warm front brushed against his shoulder, bringing with it the sweet scent of wild berries and spice. "The sky-drake trade routes cleared forty thousand shipments this month alone! The northern provinces are completely dependent on our air-freight network. Basically, I’m a genius, and you should reward me!"

Arthur closed the ledger with a soft sigh, looking up at her with a mix of dry amusement and exasperation. "Nisha, you’re sitting on my active trade blueprints."

"So look at me instead of the papers!" Nisha laughed boldly, entirely unbothered. She reached out, playfully tugging on the lapel of his black silk coat, her amber eyes shining with childlike excitement and unshielded affection. "Besides, I’m thinking about our next business trip. You need to come to my home village in the Great Beast-Wilds! My mother wrote me three letters this week demanding to know when I’m bringing my master home to marry me!"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Marry you?"

"Of course!" Nisha declared proudly, puffing out her chest without a trace of embarrassment. "In my tribe, a female who secures a powerful, brilliant male must present him to the elder matriarchs! My village only has three males in the entire settlement—three! They’re all pampered, soft, and lazy, sleeping all day while the women hunt! If I bring back a true sovereign like you, the elders will declare a three-day festival! You can marry me, sign the tribal pact, and give me a bunch of strong, sharp-witted fox-kin babies to run the northern trade branches!"

Before Arthur could process her chaotic proposal, the double doors creaked open again. Baroness Ignis, the towering, deeply voluptuous dragonkin war-matron, stepped into the room. She wore her crimson steel pauldrons over a dark leather tunic that barely contained her massive, sweeping chest. Her long, dark dragon tail flicked with amusement as she overheard Nisha’s loud declaration.

"Ha! A fox-cub trying to drag the king into a muddy forest village?" Ignis boomed, her deep, melodious voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. She marched forward, her heavy iron boots thudding against the marble floor, and leaned her hands on the back of Arthur’s chair, towering over him with an affectionate, fiery grin. "If Arthur is going anywhere for a marriage ritual, it will be to the Volcanic Spire of the Dragon Clans! Our rituals involve slaying a magma-drake together, drinking its blood, and battling in the sacred caverns for three nights straight! A true king needs a dragon’s fire, not a fox’s tail!"

"Hey! My tail is glorious, you giant lizard!" Nisha snapped playfully, hugging her plush orange tail to her chest while glaring up at Ignis. "And Arthur loves my logistics! He doesn’t want to wrestle in a volcano!"

"He wants a woman who can match his strength!" Ignis countered heartily, reaching down to casually sling a massive arm over Arthur’s shoulder, her fiery golden eyes gleaming with shameless affection.

While the two beast-women bickered boisterously over tribal marriage traditions, a third figure walked into the study with quiet, dignified steps.

Celeste, the Chief Archmage and Director of the Central Aegis Academy, stepped forward, carrying a glowing, crystal-bound ledger. She was a woman of delicate, icy perfection—wearing dark blue silk robes that hugged her slender, elegant waist and full bust, her silver-framed spectacles resting on the bridge of her nose. Seeing Nisha sitting on the desk and Ignis hanging over Arthur’s chair, Celeste’s cheeks flushed a bright, flustered pink, but she quickly cleared her throat to maintain her intellectual pride.

"Ahem... Executive Council members, please restrain yourselves," Celeste murmured, adjusting her spectacles with a trembling, nervous finger. She stepped up to the desk, laying down her glowing report. "Director Arthur... I have brought the annual performance and demographic audit for the Central Aegis Academy."

Arthur smoothly used the distraction to slide out from beneath Ignis’s heavy arm, giving Celeste his full attention. "Give me the summary, Celeste."

"The academy’s infrastructure is fully operational," Celeste reported, her voice regaining its professional tone as she tapped the crystal parchment. "We currently house over twenty thousand students across magic engineering, combat tactics, high-tier alchemy, and political economy. However... the social dynamic is severely lopsided."

Arthur glanced down at the glowing statistical charts.

"Because the gender ratio across the realm remains broken, ninety-eight percent of the student body consists of ambitious young women, noble heiresses, and high-tier female adventurers," Celeste explained, her eyes darting toward Arthur with a quiet, anxious light. "The remaining two percent are low-born or aristocrat males. Because males are so rare and coddled, the public male students are treated like delicate museum pieces—spoiled, arrogant, and completely useless in actual combat or research. Meanwhile, the female students are fiercely competitive, desperate to prove themselves or secure a high-status partner before graduation."

She flipped to the administrative organizational chart.

"The lowest tier of our operation—the public classroom instructors, entry-level researchers, and common students—have zero knowledge of who actually runs the Central Bank or the Academy," Celeste added. "To the public eye, ’Secretary Arthur’ is just a myth or a high-level corporate shadow. They only see the public matriarchs and professors."

Arthur stared at the glowing academy charts, his sharp, analytical mind processing the data.

For months, he had been sitting in his grand palace, signing off on macro-economic policies, managing global trade monopolies, and being pampered by twelve deeply devoted, incredibly powerful women. The macro-world was entirely conquered. The economy was locked in a vise grip. There were no more wars to fight, no more markets to crash, and no more laws to draft.

A sudden, sharp spark ignited deep within his chest—a feeling he hadn’t felt since his reincarnation in the slum shack.

A brilliant, utterly reckless idea flared in his mind, shattering his heavy boredom in a single second.

The macro-level is finished, Arthur thought, a cold, victorious smirk slowly spreading across his handsome face. But I built an entire civilization’s educational system without ever seeing how it operates from the ground floor. I know how the boardrooms work... but how does my empire look from the eyes of a common student?

Nisha stopped swinging her legs, staring at his sudden smirk. "Uh... Master? Why are you looking at the academy report like you just found a new gold mine?"

Ignis narrowed her fiery eyes, leaning in closer. "That’s his war-face. What are you planning, Arthur?"

Celeste blinked behind her spectacles, sudden panic rising in her chest. "Director... you aren’t thinking of—"

"Celeste," Arthur interrupted smoothly, closing the crystal ledger with a sharp snap. He stood up from his leather chair, adjusting his cuffs with immaculate, sovereign grace. "Prepare a quiet, non-traceable enrollment profile in the Aegis Academy’s freshman class for next semester."

The entire room went dead silent.

"E-Enrollment?!" Celeste gasped, her face going completely pale, her spectacles almost slipping off her nose. "You... you want to join the academy as a student?!"

"Arthur, you’re the literal monarch of the continent!" Nisha shrieked in shock, nearly falling off the desk. "You built the place! You write the textbooks!"

"Which is precisely why no one will ever suspect the founder is sitting in the back row of a introductory mana-mechanics lecture," Arthur replied, his eyes flashing with absolute, dark excitement. "I will enter as a common, unregistered male student from the outer provinces. No guards, no executive privileges, no public titles. I want to see how my new world teaches its youth... and I want to see how this skewed society handles an ’ordinary’ boy who understands magic better than the archmages."

Ignis stared at him for three seconds before bursting into a deep, booming laugh that shook the glass windows. "A king playing a common student in a school filled with thousands of aggressive, man-hungry female warlords and noble heiresses?! Ha! Arthur, this is going to be an absolute bloodbath!"

Arthur looked out the tall glass window toward the distant, towering spires of the Central Aegis Academy, a confident, dangerous smile breaking across his face.

The boring reign of the silent sovereign was taking a sabbatical. The academy arc was about to begin.