How I Accidentally Built a Kingdom

I woke up at midday.

The next day!

Do you know how bad that is?

I mean I had slept through an entire day, and then through the night as well.

I had slept through my entire first shift in our bar!

That was terrible.

"That fucking Tiger," I whispered, quite irritated with it. "It made me miss my first day at work."

Now you might think that I’m not a person that really cares about my work, or even that I’m not usually a very punctual person.

And you would be completely, and absolutely... wrong.

As you should know by now, I’m amazing.

So how could I possibly have such a massive shortcoming?

Anyway, so I woke up, cursed the hell out of that damn Tiger, felt like a truck had run me over.

Or maybe like I had a massive hangover?

Which only pissed me off more, because it reminded me that I hadn’t worked my shift in the bar.

Which made me curse the beast again.

And just like that I had spent a couple of minutes, just doing some really deep introspection.

Which I’m definitely not going to bore you with, just know that some time had passed like this, and it was certainly not wasted time at all.

"I see you woke up."

I was finally stirred from my deep contemplative state by Julia’s voice from the doorway behind me.

Now obviously, like always she was extremely beautiful, but as I’m a very adaptable man, it wasn’t like I would stop and stare at her every time I saw her anymore.

"Yeah, though I would have preferred to wake up last night so I could go to work."

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips when I said that.

She stepped closer to me, and gave me my good-morning kiss, which had become a very important part of our morning ritual, one that I insisted on, being the absolute romantic I am of course.

Now like I said, I’m an adaptable person, but this still kind of had an effect on me each morning.

"Come on," she said as she straightened up again. "You should get something to eat, it’ll help with the headache."

"What’s with this massive headache by the way? I feel like I drank an entire bar by myself last night."

Julia giggled at my analogy, I should probably point out, because I don’t think I’ve ever done so, if you think she’s beautiful now, you haven’t heard her laugh or giggle yet.

"You drained your entire magic power capacity in the battle, that’s just the consequences of that."

"Well those consequences are a bitch... but at least I now have an idea of where my limits lie." I said.

And for some reason this broadened the smile on Julia’s face even more, I didn’t know why at the time, but I had a feeling that she was hiding something from me. I just couldn’t really put my finger on it.

"That might have changed since yesterday, now let’s get moving." she said.

I didn’t want to simply gloss over that first part of her words, and I was determined to figure out what she meant by it, but before I could say anything ,she was already out the door.

I had to rush into my clothes, which I definitely didn’t take off myself, so that was kind of embarrassing in its own way.

The moment I raised my arms to pull my shirt over my head, I noticed something terrible.

Something that made even my limitless confidence waver a bit.

I really needed a bath.

I mean I reeked.

Being a man from modern Earth, who was about as hygienic as you could be, the last couple of days of spot cleaning with a wet cloth was hell.

But at that moment there wasn’t anything I could do about that, but I did make a silent promise to myself that I would change that, and very quickly.

I stumbled out of the room after Julia, gracefully of course, still pulling up my trousers as I went.

"Hey! Honey, wait up!" I yelled after the quickly descending back of my wife.

She however completely ignored me, for only a moment I might have thought she was angry with me, but then I remembered that a person as amazing as me would never do anything to make a beauty such as her angry with me, so I struck that thought from my mind immediately.

She must’ve just not heard me.

I had finally caught up with her when she reached the bottom of the stairs, which is when I was a bit taken aback with the sight in front of me.

There stood almost the entire village, and I mean this literally.

The elves were jammed into the space like a bunch of sardines.

Elbows were rubbing against each other.

People were stepping on each other’s toes.

It was pure chaos.

But of course all I could see was a room full of dollar signs. If all of these people were there to support our bar, then I was going to start making a hell of a lot of money pretty soon.

"What’s going on?" I whispered to Julia.

"These people are here to thank you." She answered, not even bothering to whisper it, quite uncouth if you asked me.

"Thank me?"

The smile that had already been on her beautiful lips broadened slightly.

"That tiger you killed, has been plaguing this village for years. And you got rid of it, on your own."

Now obviously, a small thing like that would never bother me at all.

I mean a man that has the absolute confidence I have, would never be bothered by an entire village thanking him for something.

That was just another day in the life of Daniel after all.

"It’s been bothering them for years?" I asked, looking around at all of the faces standing in front of us. "Why didn’t they just kill it?"

It was at that time that the elderly elf standing at the front of the group finally spoke to answer my whispered question.

"We’ve tried to kill that beast for just as long as it has been troubling us, we’ve even lost some good people to the quest, but none of us were capable enough to slay the beast."

That answer took me aback, not because none of them were able to kill the beast, but because he was actually able to hear my whispered words to Julia. Sure the room was deathly quiet, but he still shouldn’t have been able to hear those words.

Apparently the long ears of the elves weren’t just for show.

The fact that none of them could kill the beast didn’t surprise me at all, I am a very powerful magic user after all. I had known that the entire time.

"I am the chieftain of Lofie Village, Worick." The elderly elf said, as he reached out to shake my hand. "It is a pleasure to meet the saviour of our village."

I shook Worick’s hand, and I have to say, the man might have looked elderly, but he had a strong grip.

"If you ever need anything from us, just come and talk to me, we would be honored to help you in whatever way we can." Worick said.

And of course the moment I heard this, I had a brilliant idea that I just had to talk to him about.

"Actually... I have something that I would like to talk to you about Worick." I said.

***

And that’s it for this session.

You’ve heard about my absolute heroism, and how fantastic I am.

You’ve heard this both from me, and from Julia, so obviously you have to believe it.

What do you mean that I’ve made you angry countless times?

Really?

Oh.

Okay Julia says that I need to correct something I told you in the story, apparently I’m not as amazing as I thought, and that I’ve angered her many times.

Which if I’m honest with you kind of hurts my pride.

I mean that my own wife would say that I’m not that amazing... sniff sniff.

It might actually push me to tears.

Of course I’m not trying to make you feel bad, you really hurt my feelings.

I’m glad you admitted it!

Julia just said that I’m actually more amazing than I constantly tell you I am— and that’s how you do it boys, you should take that lesson to heart.

Now in the next se...

I didn’t whisper anything to them.

I would never play you!

Ouch!

There’s no need to get violent with me honey!

Okay! Okay! I won’t do it again, please stop slapping my head!

What do you mean I’ll do it again?

I would never break my promises to you!

Anyway, in the next session I’ll tell you all about the most important discussion I’ve ever had with any leader.

Of course it was important!