How I Accidentally Built a Kingdom

Julia and Daniel quietly walked hand-in-hand behind me as we walked through the inn.

When we reached the ground floor of the inn, we found Daniel’s men in the diner, helping the innkeeper clean up the mess that had been made the previous night.

Somewhere along the line someone had even brought a new door to replace the one Daniel had shattered.

Or maybe I should say the man Daniel had sent flying had shattered.

Erick was the first of them to notice us coming down the stairs.

"Good morning," He said, turning from his work for a moment.

"Morning," Daniel and Julia replied at the same time, while I simply nodded at the man.

He had quietly impressed me the previous night.

The way he had found me in the darkness was impressive enough, but the fact that he had not demanded anything from me, but simply asked me not to kill the adventurers, had impressed me the most.

Off in the corner of the inn, the innkeeper was helping some of his staff move in the new tables and chairs he had to buy.

"I just need to go and talk to the innkeeper for a bit," Daniel said, letting go of Julia’s hand for once, as he walked away.

My eyes followed him as he walked over to the innkeeper, until he started speaking to the man, a bright smile on his face.

After a while, a smile even replaced the previously gloomy expression of the innkeeper.

"He’s pretty good with people isn’t he?" I asked as I turned my gaze to Julia.

"Only when he’s talking business with them, in social settings he’s pretty awkward." Julia answered, a knowing smile appearing on her lips.

"Why is he so focused on business?" I asked.

Julia’s gaze finally left Daniel, to meet my eyes.

"He claims it’s so he can retire early, and live his life freely with me." She said.

This confused me quite a bit.

"Why would he need businesses to do that, and why would he need to retire?"

"He wants to be able to travel the world with me, and that would mean he’d need money." Julia answered, her smile spreading even more.

"That still doesn’t explain why he’s so laser focused on making money quickly, it’s not like he’s an old man." I said.

"From what I can gather, the people in his world only live to about eighty years old. So he thinks he needs to get as much money as quickly as possible so we could have as much time as possible to just enjoy life." Julia answered.

I almost wanted to slap Julia’s head at that moment, just like she had slapped mine earlier.

I was still a bit taken aback by that.

"You haven’t told him anything about faith, have you?" I asked.

"I did tell him that more faith gives him more magic power," Julia answered, her smile turning sheepish.

I couldn’t help but sigh at that.

At that moment it seemed that the job of explaining this world’s mechanisms to the man would fall to me.

"Okay, I’m ready." I heard Daniel say from behind me.

He walked over and took Julia’s hand again.

Seriously the two seemed almost constantly attached at that point.

We started moving through the diner again, but came to a stop next to Erick.

"Erick, gather everyone." Julia said. "You’re going to join us for our training."

Without saying anything the man simply followed her orders.

Which honestly, impressed me even more.

It had taken me a very long time before I could get the men following me to simply comply with orders that easily.

A few moments later everyone was gathered, and we were on the move again.

We moved through the streets of Stellor in silence, even though it was still early, the streets were already busy.

Just like they were every day.

Eventually we arrived at the doors of the adventurers guild.

The gory scene of the previous night was already cleaned up.

The men we left behind no longer there. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The only evidence that there had ever been anything there was a spot on the ground that looked a bit burnt.

"What are we doing here?" Daniel asked.

"This is the only place with a dedicated training area," I answered.

"Okayy, but won’t I need to register to use it?" Daniel asked, the man seemed completely against the idea of registering.

That baffled me even more, all the stories of other-worlders always said that they would start their adventures in this world as adventurers, eventually becoming the top adventurers.

As far as I knew, the guild was even created by an other-worlder.

And here stood one that seemed to despise the idea of becoming an adventurer.

"You wouldn’t need to register, but if you’re not a registered adventurer you’ll need to pay a fee to use the training grounds." I answered.

"And what would that fee be?" Daniel asked.

"Two silver an hour," I answered.

I could see the moment the words landed.

The man almost physically recoiled from the door.

"Would that be per person?" He asked again, a pained expression on his face.

"No, that would be for the entire party of the person paying the fee, up to ten people that is." I answered, which seemed to calm him down slightly.

"And how long do you plan for our training to last?" He asked again.

Seriously it seemed the man would calculate the cost of absolutely everything before he even did anything.

"At least four hours."

Another pained expression appeared on his face.

"Eight silver." He whispered.

"And it isn’t possible that we can just go train somewhere else?"

He actually asked that!

He would rather go and train in the wilderness than register as an adventurer, or pay a measly eight silver entrance fee.

I was about to finally concede, and tell him that we could just go and train in the forest when Julia stopped me with her eyes.

"Unfortunately not, Darling." She said as she hugged his arm. "If we leave the city now, you would have to pay the entrance fee again."

Which was a complete lie, the entrance fees he paid gave them the right to stay in the city for a week, whether they left or not during that week, they wouldn’t need to pay again for a week.

But her words immediately swayed him to stay, of course he still looked like he was giving away a part of himself when he had to pay the eight silver fee, but at least we finally got him into the training ground.

The training grounds of the adventurers guild was basically just a massive arena, which was completely empty at that time.

"Now then," I said as we stood at the centre of the arena, Julia taking Erick and his men to another area where they would be training under her.

"Before we start, I should do what Julia should’ve done from the beginning, and tell you more about faith."

"There’s more?" Daniel asked, a confused expression on his face.

"There’s a lot more." I smiled, kind of enjoying the process of teaching.