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Mark stayed asleep for a few minutes longer, eyes closed, everything soft and warm in his big bed. The air was cold and the comforter was plush, and the room was comfortably normal-sized, and the bed had curtains that made everything sound that much softer. It was not the big bed in the main room, but that was by choice. Derek was currently sleeping in that main room, over yonder, but he was also downstairs and outside and doing a bunch of other stuff, and he was mostly calm.

Whatever assassination thing was coming would have come for the bed he was supposed to sleep in, and not this random other-bed… Maybe. Whatever the case, Derek liked that big bed, and that was good. Mark yawned, thoughts waking him fully, and he opened his eyes to thin green sheets draped over a four-poster bed. Light from the early morning sun shone through the green curtains, and Mark's vector shone through the entire house, touching upon everyone, making sure they were okay.

Isoko was eating breakfast with Sally, Andria, Shawn, and Lenny in the kitchen, their vectors bouncing off of each other in normal conversation, while they were also focused on the food and the joy of it, as they ate. The two butlers, Arvin and Uther, were making breakfast, though only Arvin was in the kitchen. Uther was coming back from one of the studies, having dropped off food for the people therein.

Tartu and his father were those people, and they were eating something as they bounced ideas off of each other, or something similar to that. Tulo Khava was sleeping in his bed, down the hall, while Rylan Drakemore and Lola were discussing something far down the hall. Tulo was deep in slumber. He must have just gotten back from whatever his Auntie Mabi and Uncle Ropapo had done with him, with the People delegation.

Rylan and Lola were talking about something serious, but they were by themselves, so Mark didn't pry into that at all. Mark mostly lay in the soft covers, thinking about yesterday, about the anti-goblin ritual, and about how he had basically given up 1, 200 kilos of adamantium without question… and a small part of him did not like that. Sure, he had probably done a lot of good with it, but his 'donation' had happened because it was the right thing to do, and yet, what about the Understanding Party?

Sure, Mark had gained a good experience in working such a grand ritual, and that would translate well when he had… what? His own kingdom, doing his own big rituals? Sure, that ritual today would translate well to the future. But that was the future. What about now? Eliot was going to get a familiar like Quark eventually (Mark was waiting for Eliot to invite him a United Sapients meeting) and when that happened Eliot would be doing grand rituals all by himself. So that goblin ritual yesterday was good for him, too.

But Mark had wanted to learn about Water People, the magical language based around fate manipulation and house work… hmm. There was something there. Anyway. Mark got to thinking about Walaria, as a person. She was his 'master' in Mage Society, and she was giving Mark a whole lot of opportunity everywhere, but she wanted Mark to accept some sort of magical compulsion/neutering, releasing him from his soldier contract while also making him unable to harm the Royal Family of Aluatha…" Quark?"

Mark asked, "What was Walaria's wording, exactly, when she offered to release me from my settlement contract and the rest?" Quark beeped, and then played Walaria's voice, " 'In return (for accepting a geas), we release you from your previous settlement contract, declare you a diplomat and with all the assorted powers thereof, and we bring you into the Grand Working of Aluatha, which means the weight of the Empire is magically supporting you.'

"" Yeah… no," Mark said, "Not doing that."" Is there an offer she could make you that would make you change your mind?"" Not to my knowledge… And now that I'm thinking about it more, if they want me to be an Inheritor, and eventually a rival emperor, if they make me unable to harm or think about harming Aluatha then haven't they just gained themselves a puppet state?" Mark frowned." And I'm kinda mad that I didn't get to learn Water People."" You could still do it on your own, sir."

Mark kinda liked that idea, and from the angle of light in the window it seemed early enough that he could close his eyes and do some house work for a while longer… But everyone else was already awake… He should just do it later, or maybe even move on to the next language. That 'Understanding Party' for Water People was probably good enough.

If he wanted to do more then he'd speak to the delegation from The People, anyway. Auntie Mabi had offered a real Understanding Party at some other time and place. So no self-experimentation— Mark's eyes twitched almost violently, pinching onto his eyes. Mark blinked and sat up and he had to put a finger onto his eye to stop it from twitching, but it had already stopped." What the fuck was that?" Mark quietly asked, looking at his fingers, sitting up in bed, eyesight clearing slowly." What was what, sir?"

Quark asked." My eye twitched… I haven't had any involuntary movements in a while…" Mark recalled Lola's words from a long time ago.

"Lola once told me that if I'm sneezing then I'm under attack… So what the fuck does an eye-twitch mean?" Probably didn't mean anything, actually— No. Follow this thread, Mark, Mark told himself. … Ehhh. Mark got up, got dressed, and asked Quark, "So what's today look like?" Quark responded with a spreadsheet hologram of Mark's email, which had a big, bold, '78 NEW' on it. Mark cringed, and then he started reading titles.

Over half of the emails had the subject of 'Virgin Social', followed by the topic they had discussed at the Social. Usually Quark filtered Mark's emails a lot better than this, which meant that Mark truly did need to look at seventy -fucking- eight emails." Please highlight the really important ones?" Mark tried. Quark said, "There are emails from the Witches On The Wall, being Pearl, Amy, and Uva, outlining their expectations and desires for life in the settlement."

Xander Forester, of the Main Outpost of Xerkona formerly in Okuana, has sent his full history of kaiju battles, though he laments that there are some issues he is having with Okuana turning over his bank accounts to him, and that he is here as an outcast from Okuana. Cross referencing this with a query to Okuana about this person has returned a strong stonewall response from the central AIs of Okuana's territories, and that might be a problem."

Usually the AI record-keeping community is open, across borders, but when matching this new development with the information networks and regarding Walaria's mention of war with Okuana 19 days now, means that the war might be true. I do not know enough to say, for sure, that we're headed to war, but there is worry online about such a thing." To that end, here are Aurora's emails and the settlement emails that are requesting you cut this Winter Ball trip short."

But Walaria has sent you an email requesting that you stay, because she has gone over last night's goblin report. Ten thousand different goblin reports passed through the Empire's databases last night." Quark brought up a graph with numbers that Mark didn't really care to look at too deeply, but it was basically a tracking system for goblin kills over the years, broken down by month.

Generally, the line was straight across, veering up in the summer months (Mark assumed because that's when all monsters gave birth to more of themselves) and then dropping down in fall, before rising again in the winter (because goblins moved very close to humans in winter, in those lean months), before falling off again in the spring, which was always full of dangerous new monsters which always had a way of killing goblins before the goblins overcame those new monsters.

But yesterday, here at the end of winter, the goblin clearance reports hit a major spike, the years of previously understandable crests and troughs suddenly dwarfed by the massive uptick in goblin kills, like a seismograph had registered a kaiju stomping around nearby. Mark went, "Huh… It really did work."" It did, sir," Quark said, "Most of the kills took place in the green roads between cities, but there are four separate goblin incursions of actual note happening across Aluatha right now.

Three of the issues have been rapidly resolved due to the ritual, but one remains: Goblinhome goblins at Calmhaven robbing portions of every ship's cargo that passed through those ports. The Empire is sending troops to kill that issue, and it should be resolved by this afternoon. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel."

Walaria requests a secondary goblin cleaning ritual at the site of the first one to bolster the adamantium that you put there, which is about half gone at the moment. Her email about that is marked as highest priority, but that is only because you have never dealt with the Russian Nations before and their deep adamantium deficit, and other assorted issues that are all high-priority in their own right.

Helping any of these issues is directly in-line with your goals of 'Death To All Monsters', so where would you like to begin?" Mark was at a crossroads, and he wanted to go every single direction at once. And then Mark started making decisions." What problems can we solve with money?" Mark asked. And then he added, "I'll talk to Andria about all of that, but I want your analysis." The calendar for the Winter Ball moved to the side.

Another list populated the air, where Quark organized the emails into three categories: monetary requests, partial money requests/other stuff, and direct intervention requests. Surprisingly… or maybe not that surprisingly at all, only 2 people straight-up wanted money. The second, mixed category was by far the largest one. The third category asking for direct help was almost empty, for almost no one was requesting direct help. Only the delegation from The People was asking for direct help.

Mark glanced over some email titles and said, "I bet the mixed requests can be managed into money requests as soon as Andria gets a look at them. Let's look at those two money requests, first. Money is easy to handle." Quark brought up emails for some Aluatha Army 'General Tohwicky' which Mark had never heard of, but who had a verified email and a real request for army support.

The guy hadn't been at the Virgin Social because he was some 75-year-old veteran dude, but apparently the army always raised money through the Winter Ball, and it was considered 'A Noble's Obligation' to make sure the army was supported. The general's request was therefore a perfunctory email that Mark was expected to fulfill without question, or at least that was Quark's analysis. But something felt off about it." I'm the one that the money would be supporting… right? I'm technically a soldier in the army.

Why are they asking me for donations?"" And you're not a noble of Aluatha, either," Quark added." And that, too!" Mark exclaimed.

"Put it in the 'ask Addavein' pile." The next direct request for money was an older email, about a week old, that Mark had already looked at once but which had apparently come in again last night, in duplicate." Orange City Rebuild Fund," Mark rumbled, discontent. They still published hate-pieces about him in Orange City.

The OCRF weren't the haters, but they didn't defend Mark at all, and they had actually taken Mark's name off of a few buildings when the Reset Quest backlash had started after Nobody Important came to town. And now the OCRF wanted money? Again? Mark decided, "Request an audit of their finances from Orange City to make sure the money is being used well and then send them another 45 million.""

Orange City reports that the OCRF remains an organization in good standing with the Basic Income programs, and they thank you for your donation. Your current balance is 6. 54 trillion gold leaf."" That much, huh…" Mark hummed. 6. 5 trillion goldleaf was still a lot of money for Mark, but it was a fraction compared to how much adamantium had been dumped out of the Dreadnought when they were escaping from Dominant.

Mark had stockpiled a lot back then, before he got baptized by the prismatic mana of the elves, just in case he lost the ability to make more adamantium. Dominant had gotten an estimated 75, 000, 000 kilos of adamantium, and that was some quadrillions-amount of goldleaf. Mark said, "Send OCRF 1. 5 billion, and tell them to prepare for big events." Quark asked, "Are you sure?"" Yes," Mark said, validating the order he had just given." It is done, sir."" And you know what?" Mark said, "Send the Aluathan army 1.

5 billion, too. Do a cost-benefit analysis for all of the other requests and see how much I can solve with money in order to guard Aluatha from Okuanan aggression. Get with Abs and Zuu back in the office and figure it out— How much is adamantium worth per kilo these days?"" The current price of adamantium is 28 million per kilo. Market analysts suggest that Okuana's vanished desire for adamantium has lowered the cost of adamantium to a deep degree." Mark nodded, thinking.

And then Quark 'stepped away', becoming a weight on Mark's astral body, like a hole in his flesh, as he drank deep of Mark's mana, his presence moving far away for a little while. Mark did a Union of Good and Bad, breathing in the world, strengthening himself, and then Quark came back with a new list. Abs and Zuu, the True AIs that Andria worked with all the time at Blackleaf's offices, had gone over everything.

They discarded several requests from those at the Virgin Social as 'disguised attempts to get close for personal gain' while others got labeled as 'too modest, and they should be begging on their hands and knees for help'. Mark focused fast on those 'true requests'.

He came away from the experience with stories about failed city walls and keystone deaths in roadcrew teams and, in one case, massive water pollution issues from some strange new monster that was both slug and water, and which integrated with anyone who swallowed one and then multiplied in the bloodstream. The slug-infected people sort of melted into water, into more slugs, and all at once if the infection wasn't caught in time.

Incubation time varied based on the Power Level of the infected person, but with the average PL of a person on Daihoon being in the 20s, the slugs usually took a person out in a matter of days. The slug-afflicted city asked for 2, 500, 000 goldleaf for a water treatment plant for a city of 500, 000 people." Water treatment plants cannot be that cheap," Mark said, "Not for a city that size! 500, 000 people drink a lot of water." Quark said, "You are correct, sir.

The costs for a full plant for a city of that size is roughly 50 million goldleaf. They are asking for refurbishing costs." Mark said, "Send them 100 million for a new plant. State of the art. Tell them to use some of the money on infrastructure too, if they wa— 200 million. Spend the extra on infrastructure and I want to visit in 3 months." Mark added, "I do not want to visit, but I gotta at least pretend that the money needs to be used correctly ' or else'.""

Very good, sir," Quark said, "The money is sent, along with an appropriate warning." Mark grinned. This actually felt… really, really good. Mark giggled a bit.

"Let's give away more money! Who's next?!" As Mark gave away gold he kinda wondered, absently, what Andria would say. Maybe he should have consulted her first, but… It's not like he was going to run out of money anytime soon. - - Andria's phone dinged where she had sat it upside down on the table. She let it be as she cut into her strawberry breakfastcake and listened to the conversation around her. Isoko was talking about something important; about witchery and weirdness.

But then Andria's phone dinged again, and then again and again. Sally and Isoko looked at the phone. Andria winced, and then she picked up the phone, saying, "Sorry. One second…" She had been about to say something about something, but as she started reading what the alerts were saying all the previous trains of thoughts in her mind derailed.

Someone was emptying the funds of Blackleaf, or rather, someone was putting in a lot of money and then emptying it and— Andria's brain finally started working as she read one alert in particular, the words on the screen flowing into her brain and out of her mouth like metaphysical vomit, "1-point-5 billion to OCRF?!" Andria launched out of her chair and raced to the bedrooms, exclaiming, "MARK!" Isoko was rapidly there, skin looking reflective as she asked, "What's happening?"" MARK IS SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY!"

Isoko stopped rushing, face scrunching, saying, "That's all?" Andria screamed, running toward Mark.