Taking over the Abyss

60- Business is Boomin'

You'd escorted Signora back to her cell personally via dropping her through the floor before informing one of the Lectors that had been present at your little 'the queen went missing; kill everyone' council of the renovations that needed to be made. They had taken it as well as they could have, spending a minute cursing the Harbinger for daring to make demands of you before you quietly corrected them that you had willingly agreed to it and thought it was a nice idea.

The Lector had assured you that the renovations would be made as swiftly as possible, along with her other requests. With that dealt with, you gave your Vishap some extra goodbye pets and left before you could be tempted into spending all day petting all the Vishaps. Roaming around in search of Leiptr, you checked around all the obvious places he'd be.

Seeing something moving in the kitchen, you peeked around the corner to try and catch sight of him when he was minding his own business. An off-guard Leiptr was a rare sight indeed, one you'd been curious about since he was usually doting over you or trying to intimidate people. You were truly curious about what he'd been up to when he was with Aether and Paimon during the start of their journey in Inazuma while you were mucking about with Itto.

Instead of spotting your butler, you instead saw one of the recently transformed Heralds humming quietly to themselves, a cute apron tied around their front as their stirred a pot. Sensing movement behind them, the Herald looked back and let out a frightened shriek at the sight of you, not recognizing you at first due to you clutching the corner of the doorway like some sort of creep.

Upon realizing who you were, a look of 'oh shit' crossed the Herald's face as they raised a hand to their chest and straightened their back to look more formal, "Y- your Majesty! Forgive me, I didn't notice it was you! I- is there anything I can do?"

"... no. Sorry to scare you like that," you felt a weird sense of shame at how easily you were detected. You needed to learn how to be more sneaky, if somebody absorbed in their cooking could still tell you were skulking about. You gave them a nod, "... don't mind me."

You left, sulking quietly about how your attempts to sneak up on Leiptr would likely end in failure. If anything he'd pretend to be surprised just to try and make you happy. Taking a moment, you momentarily squeezed your eyes shut and clenched your hands into fists. You had an important task today! You didn't want to keep Nahida and Aether waiting too long.

Even though you weren't given any other timeframe than 'meet me tomorrow'... you'd woken up pretty early despite sleeping late, so hopefully it was more of a early-mid noon meeting. Oh well. You still needed to go find Leiptr. The study inside the Dainichi Mikoshi didn't seem like a place he'd be in, which is exactly why you chose it as your next place to check.

Amazingly he wasn't there. You weren't too shocked to see Enjou nodding off in the corner with a bunch of papers scattered around the table in front of him. You supposed the couches in here were more comfortable than the old stone chairs down in the library all the way over in the Narrows. Oh, maybe you'd try to get some new chairs...

Shaking your head before you could get lost contemplating the economic status of your blossoming kingdom, you left Enjou to enjoy his morning nap. Wandering down the halls, you decided to get some clues on Leiptr's whereabouts by asking Idunn and Ithunn. Since they worked directly under him, they'd have a good chance of knowing.

Their workshop was in a more niche part of the Dainichi Mikoshi's interior, requiring you to go all the way to deepest section of the labyrinth-like building. You suspected that they chose that location because, like Leiptr, they did not like other people. Luckily for you, you'd lived here long enough to only get lost half the time.

Repaid through the karmic debt of losing too many 50/50s, you'd managed to go through the correct door. As you finally made it to the workshop, you stopped and quickly ducked behind the doorway. Exactly as you'd hoped, you'd managed to catch sight of Leiptr without him noticing you.