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Chapter 377 Delayed Engagement

Without beating around the bush and ignoring pleasantries and such, I planned to go straight to the heart of the matter.

However, before I could even add another word, she raised her head and shook it sideways.

"You mean the Empire, right? I was there when their envoy came, after all. So you're backing out, just as I feared..."

Although she accurately guessed what topic I was about to raise, it seems she got the wrong idea.

"No? We wouldn't leave someone about to become an ally even if someone else threatened us."

I quickly reassured her before telling her the vital part of the previous talks.

"Rather, I wanted to tell you that we picked a fight with them, so prepare for some rough days to follow."

"You... what?!"

Queen Thalia slammed her hands against the table, causing the pile of documents on top of it to slide down. Ember moved like the wind, catching everything before it scattered and returning it to the table's top immediately. Everything happened in a split second.

The rabbit ears on top of Queen Thalia's head perked up in attention as she took on a severe look.

"I... I'm thankful that you're willing to go that far for our kingdom, but are you sure about picking a fight with the empire?!"

Her worries were quite valid. After all, the empire was vast, and they had a lot of manpower to spare. I pondered for a short while before nodding my head.

"Right, I think we have a problem."

"..."

Hearing my serious reply, Queen Thalia's expression quickly darkened.

"As of now, we don't have a valid reason to help Cleaver Kingdom out. We should proceed with the engagement as scheduled."

Right. That's the problem.

Although we're helping out the Cleaver Kingdom right now due to them asking for help, we would lose the justification to send help to them after the demon invasion problem was fixed.

"You really..."

As if exasperated by my attitude, Queen Thalia sighed with a thin smile.

"Well, we were the ones who requested it in the first place, so we'd be thankful if the event wasn't delayed any further."

She turned to me once more, her expression firm and noble.

"President Will Seimei, I'll leave my daughter in your care."

...

After the talk with Queen Thalia, I returned to Fina once to check on the progress of the preparation for the engagement announcement.

"It's going well. We should be able to make it in time for this evening's event."

Fina declared with confidence.

After confirming with her that the plan would go on as is, she became a lot more excited and even said she'd make it even grander than anything I'd seen.

"Now then..."

I returned to my office in the castle, but there was no paperwork on my table at all. Apparently, the clones I left here last time moved to work directly on the respective divisions, clearing the paperwork before they even got collated on top of my desk.

Thanks to that, the necessity for this room became nil, meaning I've got all the privacy I could afford.

Just in case, I still locked the door to the room before I took out a large chunk of metal and several pieces of gems with different colors.

"No matter what, I want the girls to have a custom ring each, one that will last in their memories for all eternity!"

It's not a necessity per se, but more like my self-indulgence. Still, I'm convinced that making their rings myself is the best choice!

I took out the size measurement of everyone's ring fingers (I asked Ember to gather the accurate data) and even created clay models of their fingers to test fit the rings. After I finished setting up everything, I finally began with the rings' creation.

"First is Ember's..."

Ember, my first tamed monster. I already made a perfect-sized ring for her, but I wasn't done with the personalization on it yet. I took out the ring, with a dull silver loop and a little, pale pink diamond embedded on its top. Rather than a gaudy engagement ring, this looks more fitting for a wedding ring instead.

To personalize it, I etched my and Ember's names on the underside of the ring, while I created reliefs of slime and such on the surface, along with images of gears and machines, until I could no longer fit them.

"Hmmm... Perfect!"

The reliefs were faint and wouldn't be noticed without scrutinizing the ring up close. With that, I'm one ring down!

Next up was Fang's ring. It was similar to the rest, being a normal silver ring with a gem embedded on top. The gem, being of a different color than Ember's, is a deep violet amethyst.

During fitting, the ring failed to fit her finger at all. Now that I have a model of her finger, I noticed that the cause was her joints. They were thicker than her finger's girth, blocking its path. To make up for this, I decided to make Fang's ring a little special... The silver loop expands slightly, like rubber!

It was made by creating a spring-loaded sleeve for the two halves of the ring. With the sleeve protecting the gaps, there would be no risk of the ring clipping her skin. Still, it was hell to create it, as it needed precision to create such a small sleeve.

After that, I began etching my name and Fang's name on the inner loop while doing similar reliefs to Ember's. Fang's had a wolf relief on it. Along with it, I added some bone and fang reliefs here and there, giving the entire thing a "death" theme.

I wiped my forehead after completing another ring before looking at the remaining ringless molds. It looks like I need to increase my pace if I want to finish them before the event.