The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 604: Amie’s True Form

Jenna frowned. "If you can still shift your appearance, how did both of them recognize you from a mission? Do you not disguise yourself?"

Amie laughed, and her face shifted to look a few years younger, terrified and gaunt with hunger. It was clearly still her, but even in her clean casual clothes, she looked every bit of the "Easily abductable and never missed street orphan" stereotype.

"Alright, I get the point. You don’t have to not look like yourself, that’s enough to make you basically irresistible to human traffickers."

Amie smiled, then her fingers extended into hard bone claws, then reshaped into normal fingers with ten different keys as fingernails.

"It’s the subtle work that is the most important. Horny traffickers are too distracted to realize that they’re about to die until it’s too late."

Jack nodded. "And putting an Antimagic strap on her wrist doesn’t stop her from shapeshifting."

So, she could just let them capture her, thinking that they were safe from her during the hours she was unable to use magic, then she could pick the locks and stab them to death.

Or, she could just cut the strap off with a claw and start hurling magic around.

"Alright, I can see why you got the job. Now, what is left for us to see? We’ve been out in the city for quite some time, the Royals will be looking for us soon." Lord Blackwell asked.

"It’s just the Airship factory over there. We’ve been keeping the area open on purpose for future military and industrial use. The other side of the river is mostly unguarded, there are no Barons over there, and there is a Monster Summoning Array that we are deliberately keeping active."

The Advisors frowned in unison, and Amie laughed.

"The array often summons edible monsters, and it gives the Adventurers something to do as well as keeping our soldiers in trained fighting form.

Without anything to actually challenge them, they would get lazy and rusty, and then they wouldn’t be ready when we needed them.

The days that the array spawns boar monsters are the best, but that doesn’t happen often."

"I see the logic behind it. A constant threat to the Duchy, even if it comes from within the Duchy, keeps everyone on a state of alert. Complacency breeds laziness, and laziness breeds corruption." Jenna insisted.

Dave nodded. "Keeping busy is good. The boss lady always has something for us to do."

Whether that meant Alexis or Ingrid, the Trolls’ mother, was unclear. But between the two of them, there was no shortage of things to do.

Especially when it came to cleaning.

Ingrid always had something for Dave to be cleaning, and if it didn’t need cleaning, it likely needed growing, which meant a dose of nature magic, which would take them just as long.

It was a genius plan to keep them all from getting bored and sidetracked, but it kept everything within the Manor running like a well-oiled machine.

"Alright, I don’t think that we need to see the details of the airship factory today. We know where it is and what they make.

I can see the new model anchored by the cargo docks.

I am also told that it carries a truly prodigious amount of cargo, and uses minimal magic to keep it aloft." Alistair insisted.

"Indeed. You only need someone with enough talent to operate the magitech controls and charge the heater for the boiler.

It can fly with no more than that, though it flies exceptionally well when you start adding at least a bit more magic to the process. It has a number of additional magitech circuits for the purpose.

But that will likely be of more interest to Jenna, as she is the one who volunteered to help with our accounts.

The airships are not cheap, and we will have a second one up for sale soon."

Jenna sighed. "Yes, I went over the details of the budget with Castellan Julio. Your financial situation is chaotic to say the least, with all the side deals and non-monetary exchanges.

However, it appears that you are still in the positive, as long as you can continue to keep up the sales rate."

Dominic smiled. "If the sale of magitech fireplace inserts drops off as more people have them, we will branch out to other nations. But we can also scale back on the production and run lines for other products as we develop them.

Fear not, we’re not likely to go broke any time soon."

Jack laughed at Dominic’s assurance. The Duchy didn’t even need tax revenue from their citizens to be profitable enough to be self-supporting. The chances that they would actually go broke were extremely low, even if one or two of the Duchy owned businesses failed.

"It looks like the residents of Wistover are settling in very well. Have you started thinking of any special directives you will implement for the city?

Every city has some of its own special rules, beyond the most basic." Lord Blackwell asked.

Dominic nodded. "That is a matter that we will have to discuss. I don’t think that heavy-handed enforcement of rules is going to work out well for us, but at the same time, Sheriff Nate is not one to let lawlessness slide.

So, we can likely come up with a few regulations for the city to make life easier for our law enforcement teams.

I know that many cities prohibit openly wearing weapons, but in my experience, that just encourages hidden weapons and weapons in secondary storage items.

I don’t think that we should do that.

Using hostile magic in the city is already restricted by default, it’s a King’s Edict for all of Cygnia, with minimal penalties for small issues.

That’s been working out well for us.

I wonder if there’s a way that we can just codify {I will let Dave slap the stupid out of you} into law?"

Blackwell laughed. "I have no idea how you would even word that regulation. I think it’s better as an informal punishment."