The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 491: You Messed Up

Dominic watched as Alexis and a few of her Royal Guard marched over to where he was getting the girls from Dagos settled.

"Alright, explain yourself, and it had better be good, because you’ve caused chaos in the debutante event."

Dominic shrugged. "They’re debutantes, sent from Dagos with a rather minimal dowry. There are no soldiers with their group, other than three deserters who are at Larry’s clinic. So, I’m setting them up here next to the trolls, where they can sleep in relative safety, while they try to convince the Noblemen that they deserve a shot.

I did consider simply turning them away, but worst case scenario, they can take on a debt contract to stay, or get a day job, possibly marry a commoner with a good job. There’s plenty of options if they’re desperate enough."

"Did you check to see if any of them needed trauma counselling or perhaps deprogramming, to keep them from working as spies?"

"They definitely need trauma counseling. But I don’t know how to do that, and one of them is pregnant by a Gnoll. That’s way out of my area of expertise. As far as deprogramming, I don’t think that they’ll need it. They’ve been through quite a bit on their way here, and from what me and Dave were able to gather, they were sent away more for their own safety.

Sold to the soldiers as brides, a reward for what was supposed to be the conquest of Wistover, but which never even made it to use, because the wild monsters they unleashed to the north of us simply killed and ate their entire army.

They lost the last of their soldiers to the Trollish village, and I have ordered them a truckload of goats as a reward." Dominic explained.

"Why a truckload of goats? Most of the trolls are vegetarian."

"They like goats."

Dominic’s simple shrug made Alexis roll her eyes. It was true that the Trolls did like goats, but enough to pay them in goats as a reward? That seemed like a stretch.

However, she didn’t spend as much time with them as Dominic did. She had her own guards, and at most they would just get one or two Trollish shadows when they went out around town.

Which wasn’t often, as so much had been going on around the Manor that they’d had to summon everyone to them, or request items with a messenger.

Alexis paused her response when she saw some of the young noblemen headed toward them. One was a son of a northern Count, and flat out ugly from birth, while the other was a soldier of the Natural Sons’ Regiment who had massive scarring that healing magic hadn’t cured.

It covered his face, his chest and one of his arms. Dominic guessed it was likely magical fire, possibly from an Ettin Mage, which tended to leave lingering damage unless high level healing magic was used for the first round.

They were definitely headed for the ladies, and not for them, she decided.

But the two men stopped a polite distance from the tent, and whistled to get the attention of those inside.

A few of the braver girls came out, and the soldier offered them scented soap bars, the very good stuff from the Capital. If they were from lower Noble families in a border town, they would have run out of it long before they ever left home. If they had ever been in a position to have their families spent luxury money on them.

The girls giggled and flirted with the two men, who offered to escort the Dagos group to dinner and introduce them to some friends.

There might be an imbalance, but that didn’t mean that every Nobleman was guaranteed to score a wife here today. The debutante balls lasted for a year or more before most of the ladies had made a choice, or their families had done it for them.

This was just the biggest of them all.

With the girls from Dagos afraid they would get snubbed, and the less desirable men already aware that they would as well, it was a natural move to try to land themselves a good wife before any of the others saw past her origin and started to view the Dagos debutantes for their talents.

It was a brilliant strategy, even if both sides knew that the other was looking down on them in some way.

Alexis sighed as she realized what was going on. "Dominic, gather some of the boys, and we will introduce the ladies of Dagos properly. Just let me do the speaking, so that it doesn’t cause an even greater incident."

Dominic smiled. "I knew that you would come through."

The smack to the back of his head was a sudden as it was completely predictable.

"Yeah, I earned that one. But look how happy they are."

His voice was a bit loud, and the two men turned to look at him.

"I said look how happy you are, you ugly bastards." Dominic shouted to them.

The two men laughed and straightened their coats.

"But I’m rich, dammit."

"And well dressed."

Dominic laughed at their good natured comebacks while Alexis glared at him and the ladies tried to hide their amusement.

After a moment, the Royal Guards brought more men over, following Alexis’ orders, as they knew that Dominic would take too long to do it himself. He had already gotten distracted, and the Princess wasn’t going to wait forever.

Especially now that the ladies were nearly finished preparing for the event.

"Ah, wonderful. Ladies, your escorts for the first event of your stay are here. Gentlemen, meet the newest arrivals, a fine group of Noble ladies who have travelled here all the way from Staptontave." Dominic announced.

Both sides looked relieved that he had put it somewhat delicately, while Alexis’ look of anticipated pain had yet to fade.

The other ladies would get over themselves, Dominic was certain. After all, they didn’t even want these men. Why should they object?