The Demon King's Paladin Part 2. All Out War.

Chapter 486. Waiting On A Report

" Your Majesty, Scout Leader Rubin has returned. He's entered the Palace and will be arriving shortly."

" Good. Arrange a soft and freshly made bed for him after he's finished reporting his findings to us."

" As you command."

With the announcement from who I assume is the Head of Staff of the Palace in Darkheim, we all began to wonder what the news would be after waiting in the Throne Room and basically passing the time with any small talk we could think of. Occasionally, King Leonard and Queen Crystal would ask for my opinion about something, it seemed like they thought my answers were somewhat strange, but they kept looking to see what I thought about different formations for teams of Beastmen, Dark Elves and Demons, but it's not like anything I said would be considered " special". I mean, I'm a novice when it comes to commanding. All I did was refer to what I've seen from watching everyone in sparring and what I'd imagine a Dark Elf Mage would be able to do. Besides that...

" Well that's good news... But before we get that news... Would you mind answering why you would think that people would enter your Academy over the previously established ones, Marquess Matthew?"

" Because I'm not going to make them pay insanely high tuition. Along with that, I'm going to be instituting a program for the kids to intern around my town to be able to get hands on work experience that will help them establish connections in their fields along with the shops gaining first pick for what ever pupils they feel would work best in their shops. This way some kids have employment as soon as they graduate and the participating shops gain something as well."

" Yes, but would they really just accept to do that? The shop owners I mean?"

Lady Kate.... Has been picking my brain more than King Leonard and Queen Crystal... It's to the point where I wonder if they asked me questions just so I could get a break from Lady Kate. Also, I noticed that she's stuck with just calling me " Marquess Matthew". Not that I mind, but it was just a bit strange to me. Question after question about my polices and what my intent was behind them began to flow from her mind... In a way, it was nice, since no one in Paradise bothers to ask about why I'm instituting certain things now, Not even Rodrick does ever since the public library development had gotten off the ground. But wow... I was asked my thought process from day 1 when I first arrived in Paradise... This was followed by why I thought farming and hunting was the correct first step instead of relying on the rations that were being given to us... So many questions... I looked at Del but it looked like there was some kind of agreement at play between Lady Kate and him... Regardless, I've only just made it to the beginning of my 2nd stage of Paradise's Development which started with the Academy that's been named Paradise Academy after having the Town's Population vote for it... After removing any reference to my fake first or last names of course. I even had to put my foot down about a statue being erected in the building next to the collection of God Statues in the entrance lobby... Related to that... I guess I should explain about " that" episode of craziness I had to deal with... I looked at Lady Kate and I just began to explain it to her. I could see Charlotte was already remembering that week I had to deal with it.

" Well, the question was so much " if" they would accept my request, it was how many."

" What does that mean?"

" It means that I asked a few carefully selected shops... A baking shop, a blacksmith's forge and a restaurant for some of the students that had started their schooling this year."

" You had 8 year old's begin working?"

" Hm? No, these were students of around 15-17 years of age. Sorry, I should've specified that. Anyways, word got out about the 3 selected shops..."

" And?"

"... The day after... My paperwork... It went from a small stack of paper the day before to mountains of papers. It was all shops... Wanting to be a part of the program... And because they were all shops from Paradise, angry at not being chosen for the program... I had to carefully go through each of the papers and respond why they were not chosen. Then, to appease them, I alluded to the fact that the program would eventually branch out to more shops as this was just a test run... It... Was a lot... Eventually, I had to organize a raffle for picking shops at random."

" Why would you need to do that?"

" It was to ensure that favoritism wasn't a part of the selection... I had to sit through 5 duels between shopkeepers before I figured out a raffle would be the best choice going forward... It was a giant headache. Not only that, but what happened after was also stressful."

" You had to do something else? What is with your people? Aren't they too selfish?"

Lady Kate was shocked by what I was telling her... I suppose it might seem like I was bending to the whims of my town's people... But it was actually a bit different.

" Well, I'd say it's less selfishness and more that they really wanted a chance to give back to me. I'm sure Del has told you about how I'm treated in my town, right, Lady Kate?"

" Yes, he's mentioned it... But..."

" Well, I suppose it might be strange to hear about this kind of relationship between commoners and their Lord, but I assure you, they're not bad people, they're really just excited to try and do something for me. It's just that... They can go to extremes so I need to every now and again stop them from going too far. Did Del tell you about the time I had to stop them from building a statue outside of the public hot springs entrance? For some reason, my people are really determined to build a statue of me for some reason."

" A statue? How many times have they tried to do that?"

I had to think about it for a bit, since it's been a reoccurring theme since I was able to fix the food issue back when I first arrived in Paradise. As I thought about the occasions that the idea of a statue being built... I think it must've been around...

" 9 times, I thin-"

/ Rumble!/

" Your Majesty! Scout Leader Rubin Gada reporting back!"

" At ease, Rubin."

Just as I was finishing my answer to Lady Kate, it looks like the Scout had finally arrived. He looked like a slightly older male Dark Elf, the big difference was his hair, instead of the somewhat normal white hair I've seen, he had shaggy black hair. His yellow eyes were like 2 small topaz jewels in his eyes. After announcing his arrival, King Leonard acknowledged him after saying something to Queen Crystal. He marched forward, I could tell that he was doing his best to hide an exhaustion that was would be easy to see if he were a rookie Scout, but it looks as if the title " Scout Leader", meant that he was somewhat of a veteran. Eventually, he made it to the bottom of the stairs and bowed down on one knee and bowed his head.

" Scout Leader Rubin, what have you seen?"

Queen Crystal asked for Rubin to explain and he quickly raised his head and finally I found out what i needed to know.

" So far, Paradise is completely safe from what I saw, I looked at all 4 sides of the city, the only difference I can see from any other town is that the City Guards have doubled up. Though seeing that Marquess Drake is here, if I may ask, is the fires lit on top of those Guard Towers a good or bad thing?"

Charlotte and I breathed sighs of relief as Rubin told everyone the great news. Sarah and Anna must've followed some of my advice that I gave them about what to do if I'm not there. In the case of someone possibly attacking us, I gave a basic plan of closing everything up and doubling up on the guards. The lights at the top of the guard towers are another good thing. The idea for the watchtowers is that they can act like lighthouses when we're not in a battle. But also, to show that an enemy or dangerous monster is heading towards Paradise, I have a protocol to turn off the fire for a brief moment so the other Watchtowers can see. On top of that, a Scout is supposed to arrive at Paradise to let us know about the threat. From what Rubin said, it looks like things are going well. I happily answered Rubin's question with a slightly relived tone.

" Its a good thing, all of what you told me is a good thing. Thank you Rubin."

" Just following my orders, Marquess Drake."

With that, Rubin gave a few reports about the state of the road. But Charlotte and I didn't really pay much mind as we both felt way more relaxed about everything with Rubin's report.