Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1912: Overlord, Not Administrator

The shift-bells were still ringing when Quinlan Elysiar rode his own wind back up the great shaft from the deep tiers, and set down on the high terrace beside the council hall, where his girls lounged and chatted with each other.

Below them, the vertical city glowed tier upon tier, and its people were answering the new era on their feet.

Cart teams hauled battle debris along the tier roads. Masons walked the galleries with chalk, marking what the war had cracked. A column of miners tramped down toward the deep seams, singing, still in last night’s bloodstained clothes.

"They fought a war all night," Lucille mused, watching them go. "Drank through the aftermath, and lined up for the morning shift anyway." A small frown followed the miners down the tiers. "It’s like their bellies convert booze to nourishing food."

"Sturdy people." Serika’s grin kept widening. "I know we’re a family that went the elf route but they’re growing on me with every hour."

"If only they produced women that could get Quinlan Junior to stand at attention, maybe their fate would’ve been different," Kitsara snickered.

The foxy received quite a few dry glances, but no one corrected her.

Word of the new Council of Hammers had gone out with the shift-bells too, and the arguing had started before the hangovers ended. The broad concourse outside the council hall still held half of last night’s celebration, beards crusted with ale. All of them had opinions.

"It has to be Old Thargrim!" a mason bellowed at his crew. "The man rebuilt the second tier three times!"

"Thargrim’s deaf as his own bricks!"

"You’ll be deaf too when he hears you said that!"

Farther along the concourse, two brewers had each other by the aprons. "Mother Bruna! She has to be the one. Her stock is legendary and she has the finest beard in the under-tier! Who else speaks for the vats?!"

"She drank half that stock herself!"

"That’s called quality control, you ignorant pup!"

Vex watched the shoving matches multiply along the concourse, delight all over her face. "A brawl is about to start~"

"Why am I not surprised?" Ayame sighed.

Then Quinlan raised one hand, and a warp gate opened.

Through it came dwarves in town clothes. They wore aprons and tool belts instead of armor, carried road dust instead of weapons, and their wide eyes climbed the lit tiers of the mountain of their birth.

The dwarves of Miri Town, the ones he had liberated out of Ravenshade and given a home in his own lands, stood on home stone once more.

For one breath, the two crowds just looked at each other.

"...Brannek?" A tunnel-warden shoved out of the crowd with his axe forgotten. "BRANNEK?! YOU’RE ALIVE?!"

The concourse dissolved. Brothers found brothers. A gray smith crushed a daughter he had mourned for dead against his chest, weeping into her shoulder with his whole body. Somewhere in the crush, two old women were screaming happily at each other in a dialect nobody under eighty still spoke.

Lucille had gone still beside him, watching that smith, and she did not look away.

She had spent months walking into her own daughter’s life under a borrowed name, wary of being herself.

What sat in her while she watched him was envy, plain and honest. He had gotten his reunion out loud and in front of everyone, with nothing to explain and nothing owed.

Hers had needed a borrowed name, months of pretending, and a husband stubborn enough to drag the truth out for her. She kept her face aimed at the crowd.

Quinlan then resummoned his dwarven Elite Souls, letting them meet their families as well.

He let the reunions run their course around him, watching people find their loved ones while he was surrounded by his family, each woman wearing a soft expression.

When the liberated slaves turned back his way, he spoke warmly.

"Help your friends and family find their feet in the new era. Afterward, you may decide to stay here, bring your loved ones to Miri Town, or go wherever you prefer."

"Thank you, Lord Elysiar!" a forewoman called back. Many echoed the statement.

Orianna stood by the side, took in the concourse, the reunions, and the shoving brewers in one unhurried look, and set off toward the quartermasters’ stations. By afternoon, the mountain’s enthusiasm would have schedules.

As the city began to move again, Quinlan was ready to do the same.

"Well, then-"

Ayame read that perfectly.

"You keep running from rulership," the petite samurai observed at his shoulder, dry as chalk.

Quinlan reached over and pinched her cheek, pulling with great love.

"Mmgh?!"

"I run from nothing. I’m an overlord, not an administrator."

He meant it.

Quinlan knew his own limits as a person: he could plant himself in that council hall and bark orders until the pillars cracked, and the mountain would not move a single day faster for it.

The dwarves knew stone, Brokk knew the halls she had spent her whole life in, Jasmine knew her ledgers. What the Primordial Villain knew was how to break the things standing in his people’s way.

Nothing on this mountain needed breaking anymore.

Besides, he had somewhere better to be this morning.

"My work here is done."

The girls giggled. Ayame tried to scoff at him with her cheek stretched between his fingers, and what came out was, "Thath ith not-"

He looked around at the rest of them while his second-in-command kept yapping on and on. "We begin in a few hours. The morning is yours until then. There are beds waiting at home, if resting is what any of you want."

"And leave a hundred thousand drunk dwarves unsupervised?" Serika stretched until her shoulders popped. "We’ll stay. Someone has to make sure your new mountain doesn’t rebuild the wrong wall out of pure enthusiasm."

"A hundred thousand dwarves who drank the night on empty stomachs," Lucille added, already rolling up her sleeves. "I’m opening a kitchen."

Blossom’s ears shot straight up. "Blossom will help Miss Liora with the wounded! Blossom can sniff out all the ones who are pretending to be fine out of pride!" She was accelerating down the processional stair before anyone could bless the mission. "Dwarves are terrible patients!!"

Serika was already a tier down by then, cracking her knuckles at a crew of masons wrestling rubble twice their size. Lucille went the other way, hunting down the mountain’s kitchens with a trail of hungry dwarves falling in behind her on pure instinct.

That left Ayame. Cheek still captive, arms crossed, dignity holding at roughly sixty percent.

"When will you let go?" she demanded.

"I don’t know." Quinlan considered her with deep scholarly attention. "My petite samurai is way too cute when she’s pouting."

Ayame stomped.

"My, my." Vex arrived at her other side, and slender fingers claimed the free cheek. "Come, scowling miss. Let’s pick up hubby’s slack. I want to make sure the dwarves seat ’reasonable’ people on this new council of theirs."

The Hexwitch’s definition of reasonable was simple. Any dwarf who thought her hubby could be crossed would never sit on that council, and she intended to be standing in the hall in person to make sure of it.

He finally released Ayame’s cheek. The two of them walked off toward the council hall’s great doors, Ayame hissing and rubbing her face, Vex grinning and steering her by the elbow.

Quinlan watched his girls go, warmth sitting openly on his face.

’Truly the most amazing women in the world.’

Still smiling about it, he opened a warp gate and stepped out of the mountain entirely.

...

In the royal palace of Vraven, Queen Felicity Valorian stood before her study’s desk with her hands on her hips, glaring at the paperwork as if it had insulted her ancestors.

"Look at it, Feng. Just look at it." She gestured at the stacks with both arms. "There’s more this morning. It’s like being handed homework for the rest of my life!! So terrible!! I want to be like Quinlan and ditch all the work-"

"You’re just a figurehead. No one is forcing you to do anything. In fact, I’m pretty sure things would work smoother if you stopped trying," Feng Jiai grinned from the windowsill, flipping a grape and catching it in her mouth, entirely without sympathy. "Ask your father to take over all your duties. He can be your Jasmine."

"I can’t!! Father finally gets to relax a little, I want to see him work less!"

"And you think his teenage daughter doing statecraft in his stead lets him relax? He’s a workaholic."

Felicity puffed her cheeks at her best friend.

Then her gaze drifted to the tall doors that joined her study to her father’s. Behind them the old man was already awake and already grumbling at somebody about something, loud enough to carry through solid oak, and she found herself smiling at the wood instead of glaring at her desk.

"...At least I get to spend more time with father now."

A warp gate spun open in the middle of the royal study.

"Quinlan!!"

The Queen of Vraven crossed her own study at a dead sprint and threw her arms around him.

He caught her, chuckling. Then the hug didn’t loosen, and the chuckle quieted.

"He’ll probably never thank you for what you did." Her voice arrived from against his chest plate, small and soft, wobbling at the edges. "He’s the worst at thank-yous in the whole kingdom. So... I’m really grateful, Quinlan. Thank you for saving my father."

She held on. He let her hold on, fingers moving slowly through her hair.

"Iskaris would feel awfully dull without that old bastard’s incessant grumbling."

A giggle broke through the sniffle. "It really would."

"Good morning," Feng grinned. Then her nose wrinkled. "...Where have you even been? You smell terrible even from here. Felicity, how do you bear it?"

"Big girls can take a little stench! Majestic queens such as I even more so!" Felicity puffed her cheeks. Then she looked up. "So? Where have you been?"

"I conquered the dwarves."