"Not sure if you got lucky by meeting us or unlucky by having been caught 2 times in a row."
Ars then introduced her options.
"You can come with me and stay on my island until you recover from your injuries. After that you can decide if you want to stay or leave."
Gluppy accepted his offer, she had nothing to lose. At worst she was being deceived and she would become a slave, but considering Ars had no reason to lie, since he could have brought them by force if she didn't choose to believe in him.
Ars then looked at Pecillia and asked Gluppy.
"How old is she?"
She smiled at her daughter and then at Ars before answering.
"She is 3 years old."
Ars then remembered that she needed a place to rest and asked her about what she preferred.
"Would you like to sleep here in the captain's cabin, or with the other people on the ship?"
She thought about it and then chose and answered calmly.
"I will sleep with the other people."
Elia had just finished organizing the ship outside, when both Ars and the mermaids left the cabin. He looked at Elia thankfully.
"Thank you for taking command of the ship while I was inside, let me introduce you to our new mermaid friends, this is Gluppy and this is Pecillia. They are gonna stay with us, at least for a while, since Gluppy needs to recover from her injuries."
Elia then smiled at them and introduced herself.
"I'm Elia, I'm the head maid of the royal family and I'm also one of the queens."
Blinkie was shocked, she had realized that her sister had a high status in the kingdom thanks to the way the sailors behaved, but she didn't know how high it was and knowing that her partner was Ars… That would make Ars the king. She was shocked, the king himself had come to save them. She looked at Elia and asked her, a bit nervous, because of Ars presence.
"Can we talk?"
Elia nodded, but didn't forget to take the mermaids along.
After a while they spotted their destination and slowly docked on an available dock. Then Ars, with a few men, left the ship in the direction of the marine base to cash in the bounties, while the people who wanted to remain on the island left the ship after thanking everyone once more and saying their goodbyes.
After getting the bounties, Ars decided to go shopping for a bit, first on the list… A few things the island needed, then a few barrels of several different drinks, some of them alcoholic. And finally he brought some jewelry to his queens.
When he had everything, he decided to return to the ship leisurely. He calculated how many berries remained from the bounty and realized that he only kept 10.000.000 berries.
Once they returned to the ship, they restarted sailing home, and after a while they arrived safely.
Ars decided that it was a good idea to introduce Tom to the mermaids. The mermaids probably would feel a little bit better and safer, knowing that there was a fishman living safely on the island.
He brought them along and went to meet Tom.
When Tom saw the mermaids he was surprised and got worried about them.
He approached them and asked Ars.
"Did everything go alright? And I didn't expect you to return with mermaids."
Tom then looked at them with a reassuring smile and welcomed them.
"Welcome to Nautica Kingdom, I am Tom and I work here as a builder and a shipwright. If you need something you can ask me."
Ars then explained their history to him. And then explained why he was here.
"I know you have a lot of work, but I would like that while they are on the island, you could keep an eye on them, just in case something happens."
Ars noticed by the mermaids movements that they relaxed a bit more after he introduced Tom to them.
Then Ars left them behind and went home, to distribute what he bought and was needed on the island.
Later on, that night he gifted the jewellery he bought to his queens. And who doesn't like presents, especially if they come from close family or friends without second intentions.
Olivia had been thinking, for the last few days, about the number of future queens and she decided to ask at this moment while they were all relaxing.
"I have been thinking. If every queen has or will have a different role, that would mean that you will have a certain number of them but it also means, you won't have more than that, am I correct? And if I am, how many queens are you thinking about?"
Ars didn't think too much and replied.
"You are correct but I still didn't think of an exact number after all i can fill in any field."
She nodded and then changed the question a bit.
"But what if we are talking about the minimum amount?"
Ars then actually started to think about it, after a few minutes of trying to identify a minimum number, he replied.
"I'm really not sure, but I would like to have at least one in charge of agriculture, one in charge of the military and one in charge of health. So at the very least, another 3 of them… "
She kinda understood what he meant. Until now nobody had ever asked what he wanted for the future he always decided at the time and he had just decided that it would be good to have queens in charge of those areas, but he had never thought about other areas. Then she asked what everyone there besides Ars wanted to know.
"Any idea on who you will take as queens to be in charge of those areas? And you might need 2 more than that, unless you do those jobs yourself, someone to handle foreign affairs and someone to handle business."
Ars smiled at her and answered with a mischievous smile.
"Two of them, yeah I have an idea for candidates, the other not so much. Maybe one actually. And I only thought about the ones the kingdom could use right now, so yeah there might be a few more in the future, I'm really not sure."
Olivia then asked his reasoning for not getting them if he could do it now. Ars just shrugged and replied with the definition of, i really don't care.
"I didn't feel like doing it yet."
That left everyone with shocked faces that screamed 'What kind of reason is that…'
Olivia put one of her hands on her forehead, sighed and decided to ask.
"You originally said 2 but then you changed to 1, why?"
Ars then smiled and explained.
"Well you know how the machine always makes your body, or rejuvenates your body at it's youngest peak?"
She nodded, so Ars kept going.
"Well this one I thought about, died when she was still a child but I would really like to revive her and I only remembered her age after counting her but then I changed my mind because I won't marry a child. So it will depend on how the machine handles it and if she accepts of course. I'm kinda curious about how it will work too."
She showed an understanding expression, and then asked.
"And the candidate you are sure of, when can you go get her?"
Now it was Ars showing a surprised expression, so he asked his doubt out loud.
"Why do you seem to be in a rush, for me to get more queens?"
Olivia stopped and then started thinking about it herself. Her conclusion?
"I'm just curious, I guess. And if you don't feel like going to get her right now, why not go get the one you're not sure how the machine will handle it. At worst we will have an extra child on the island. And I will happily take care of her if you need me to."
He thought about it and nodded. It would be an interesting experiment, then he remembered and asked.
"Is the TCP still on cooldown?"
Olivia shook her head and answered.
"No, it finished 2 days ago."
He nodded and went to the machine. He started searching for the incident, and after a few minutes, he found it.
Then he entered the machine, when he arrived she was right about to go down the stairs. On her way down, her shoes got loose and caused her to trip. In the middle of the fall everything froze, she was there suspended in mid air and looking at her, there was a stranger.
Ars looked at the shocked and confused Kuina, and chuckled before commenting.
"Impressive right?"
She nodded, she didn't know what to do in this situation, so she just stood there in silence.
He laughed once more at her awkward expression before explaining her choices.
"Well, you are about to die, or were about to die, depending on your choices. Now you have 2 choices, the first you will remain here and die, the second you will come with me and the machine will make a fake copy of yourself, and everyone will think you died."
She looked at him hoping he was joking, but his face was completely serious, she took a deep breath and replied.
"Why would I choose death over life at any point ?? I think the choice is obvious. I choose the second option."
The moment she agreed, something different from the usual happened. Normally the machine would create a new body quite fast, but not this time. The machine took its time.
When Kuina appeared once more, she was older and had a bewildered expression, Ars looked at her full curiosity and inquired.
"Why do you have such an expression?"
She looked at him and returned the question.
"You don't know? The machine made me live like I never died descending those stairs, so I lived until I was 21 and then I reappeared here."
Ars nodded and then led her back to his present time, where Elia and Olivia were waiting for him. He was thinking about the implications of the machine always bringing people at the exact same age.
When Olivia and Elia saw her, Elia showed no unusual behavior, but Olivia seemed a bit disappointed, Ars laughed and then questioned her about it.
"Are you sad that she isn't a child for you to take care of?"
Olivia didn't even bat an eye and nodded, that made Ars and Elia laugh at her, while Kuina just stood there confused.
Ars then explained to her, while he also introduced his queens too.
"These are Elia and Olivia, my queens. And we are laughing because, since this was the first time we brought someone who died before 21 years old, we didn't know what was going to happen, and Olivia seemed to prefer it if you stayed as a child. By the way, since this all was a surprise to everyone, I didn't ask you if you accepted being one of my queens because previously you were a child."
She was surprised by the sudden proposal and she contemplated it. She had lived for 21 years because of the machine so she was quite aware of what the proposal meant.
On one side it meant more resources to pursue her dream of becoming the best swordsman in the world, but on the other it meant more responsibilities and less freedom.
While she was thinking Elia was confused about what was confusing her, it was just a simple yes or no.
Ars was also a bit confused, what was going on in her mind?
Kuina then looked at them and replied.
"I will accept the proposition."
Ars smiled and replied simply.
"No regretting your decision later on, ok?"
It was now Kuina's turn to smile, and she replied with a serious expression.
"Once I make a decision, I won't back down from it."
Ars nodded and then remembered that she had taken a while to answer, so he asked confusedly.
"By the way, why did it take you so long to decide if you accepted or not?"
Kuina just scratched her cheek and replied with a little bit of an embarrassed expression.
"Well my dream is to become the best swordsman in the world, or at least it was before coming here, I'm still not sure if it still is but I will still try to become one of the best. So I need resources."
Ars was confused, and then asked her about it.
"Why not keep chasing that dream? And even if you didn't become a queen sooner or later you would get the same resources as long as you worked hard."