Ars nodded and commented with a warm smile on his face. They were wearing cloaks that didn't show their faces, but Ars had quickly recognized them by their frames.
"I am glad you guys are doing ok. So you came here for business with our shipwrights, right?"
Both of them nodded and Kuma added.
"And a few days of rest as well as some provisions for the future trip."
Ars smiled and looked at one of the soldiers on the side.
"Call either Oak or Tom, and tell them to meet me at the palace."
The soldier nodded.
Ginny looked around while they were moving towards the palace, and couldn't help but comment.
"The place changed a lot, you almost can't recognize the place from what it was before, and you even have a palace now."
Ars laughed and answered with a light joke.
"I can't have the children be the only ones with a castle, can i. And with the palace I can finally say that, I am king of the castle."
They all laughed softly, and talked about random stuff while moving to the palace.
There, Ars asked them.
"Have you eaten yet?"
They shook their heads and Ars asked the maids for breakfast.
"Can you bring breakfast for me and the guests?"
They nodded, laughed a bit, and replied.
"Yes, your majesty."
Shortly after the maids started bringing breakfast for everyone else, and Ars restarted his own.
A while later, when they were speaking about random stuff, there was a knock on the door, and Ars heard Tom from the outside.
"Can I come in?"
Ars replied quickly.
"Come in."
When Tom saw that they had guests, he realized he was probably called for a job, and looked at Ars for confirmation.
Ars nodded at him and explained.
"I'm not sure if you guys have met officially, if not, let me introduce you."
He pointed at the guests one by one, while calling their names.
"This is Ginny… That is Kuma… and that is Bonney. They will be staying for a few days, and they have business with you or Oak."
Ars then got up and prepared himself to go train. While doing so he told them.
"You can stay here if you want and negotiate, but you can also go somewhere else, or even one person staying to do business while the other 2 go explore. Anyway I'm off to train, since this doesn't concern me."
Ars then left them talking about their request, while he went to the military field to train.
Today, unexpectedly, Koral was here training too along with most of the girls in the island, this got Ars curious, so he approached them and asked about it.
"It's rare to see almost all of the capital ladies training, what is the reason for this welcome but unexpected surprise?"
Koral laughed, and returned the question with a playful smile.
"Is it that rare? I'm pretty sure I train from time to time when I have time."
Ars smiled back at her and replied peacefully but with a curious smile.
"Yeah you train from time to time… But not so much lately, and it's not like I don't know why… But so many ladies training at the same time is very, very rare."
She looked around and showed a clumsy smile, yeah today there were more females in the field right now than guys, and the majority were not even soldiers.
Kuina approached, smiled at them and commented.
"Confused about the high numbers of ladies?"
Ars simply nodded.
"Can't a few ladies come to lose some weight while flirting with a few soldiers?"
Ars grinned at her, and with a serious face answered firmly.
"Be my guest, everyone is welcome here, hopefully they become fit enough to take the soldiers home… But I doubt that was the only reason why they are here."
Kuina showed a smile and added more information.
"Another reason is the fact that some of the females from the villages stayed here to request something from me. Then today they came to the field to talk and everyone decided that since they were already here they would train a little, word spread fast and almost all females in the main city came to train while they were catching up with each other."
She stopped talking for a few seconds and then she added.
"But you did come at a good time, they stayed to request training grounds in their villages."
Ars nodded and quickly agreed.
"I will talk with Nene and Rosar about it soon."
After confirming everything was alright, Ars did his warm up runs before going to the port to pull his training ship around the island. But when he arrived there were a lot of people in the port.
Ars felt it was weird… Yes the port normally always had a few people… But today it was weird… The whole island felt weird.
Pretty much every man in the main city was here, instead of being on the training grounds, where most of the city females were for today, trying to flirt. Not like Ars cared too much but it was weird.
He knew of a few soldiers that were here, that were pursuing a relationship with some of the girls on the training grounds, and in his mind he could only ask himself.
'What are they doing here, that is more important than trying to flirt with their ladies… They are not training, they are just cheering for someone…'
The more Ars listened, the more confused he became.
One of the soldiers saw Ars and approached, seeing Ars with a completely confused expression, he smiled and explained.
"Your majesty is probably wondering why we aren't training on the training grounds when some of the females there are a couple with some of the soldiers here or being pursued by some of the soldiers…"
Ars quickly nodded, he was very curious about this. He was pretty sure that some of the soldiers here would prefer being able to show off to their significant other, who were on the training grounds… Or flirt with them directly… So he was feeling a bit confused.
The soldier with a very serious expression, looking at Ars in the eyes calmly said.
"We simply did a transaction with the females there, where until tomorrow we can't go to train in the training grounds…"
Ars couldn't help but laugh and commented with a joke.
"I can see you guys are not that good at business…"
The soldier laughed and joked back.
"Hey, I'm married to one of the females there… And something I learned in the short time we were married, is that you can't win a business trade against your wife… If you even dream of trying, it normally ends pretty badly for us…"
Ars laughed even more, and nodded.
"Yeah, I can imagine that if you love them it would be pretty hard to negotiate…Thankfully my wives are all nice to me when doing business… Or naughty sometimes… I tend to do my best to make them happy… So they probably don't have the need to negotiate…"
Then Ars looked at the crowd and asked about the reason for the cheers.
The soldier laughed and explained.
"It all started with most of the males having little to do at this time, since we had plans to train, but were politely kicked out… Then Rook and Fierzy decided that they wanted to ramp up their training, and decided to try to imitate your majesty's training regime. But then they started competing on who could pull their ship further…"
The soldier looked at Ars face to see if he was angry, and once he realized he was not he continued.
"People started gathering when they heard the discussion. And then people started betting."
He paused and smiled. Then he added some interesting and juicy information.
"Rook and Fierzy also have their own bets against each other. They agreed on, if Fierzy wins, Rook will confess his love for Miss Rosar, if Rook wins, Fierzy will train a whole week with just her tight training suit and a bikini underneath… And lets be honest those suits leave little for the imagination since they are super tight, and are made to wear under your normal clothes."
Ars laughed out loudly, but that didn't stop the soldier's explanation.
"The rest of the people are betting on the winner of the contest, how far they will reach and how long it will take to reach certain points. And just so your majesty knows, the 3 people who are betting and cheering for Fierzy the fiercest are Nene-san, Miss Rosar and her mother."
Ars could already imagine Rook black face… So he broke off laughing even harder.
Ars after a few minutes finally started making sense of the situation.
Some of the females were uncomfortable with training with the males, so the other females must have agreed to kick the males out for today. With nothing else to do and such an interesting bet going on, they all grouped on the port to bet and have a good time.
The surroundings were filled with cheers and playful banter.
"Go Rook, show them what you are made of."
"Fierzy, you got this."
"Go, go, go, you are almost past the starting point."
"Fierzy show him your boobs that will distract him."
"Mom, if anyone is gonna show Rook her boobs it's gonna be me…"
"Hahahahaha!"
"At that pace by the next year, you guys will have managed to drag the ship from the beginning to the beginning."
"Rook don't worry, you can lose and give me grandchildren, I will be very proud of you and very thankful."
"Dear general Rook, please pull the ship, so I may win a lot of money."
The more Ars listened to the cheers from everyone the bigger his grin got.
He looked at the soldier and thanked him.
"Thank you for explaining the situation to me, I wasn't aware of the interesting bet or the transaction you guys made with the females. By the way, what did you get from that transaction?"
The soldier smiled awkwardly. before telling Ars of their rewards.
"Well some of the guys got a chance on a date, and in the case of married men like me… We will get happy wives at home."
Ars nodded, smiled and started to move towards his training ship. He chained himself to it and decided to ignore the other 2 who were struggling to move the ships from the starting point.
He finished the lap around his island, and when he returned the snail race was over. He inquired from someone nearby about the results.
"So who won in the end?"
The man looked at Ars, laughed and said with a huge grin.
"Me and a few others."
Ars was going to clarify his question, but the man explained before he had the chance to.
"I and a few others betted on a draw."
Ars looked at the man speechless and asked…
"So no one managed to leave the starting point?"
The man laughed harder and explained,
"They did manage to pull the ships from the starting point, but the distances they pulled the boats were very similar, so it was decided by everyone that it was a draw, so neither won or lost much to the displeasure of the cheerful ladies involved."
Ars laughed and commented, much to the man's amusement.
"So now… I can pour salt on their wounds? And I can make fun of them for the rest of the week… What a good day… Well thank you for the information, i gotta go walk all over their egos."
Ars left the man laughing, and quickly went to poke fun at both of them.
He found them in the clinic beyond exhausted. And with a polite smile he approached them, and poked fun at them.
"I heard that you guys barely got out of the starting line, that's so sad, maybe i can offer you guys a floatie to make it easier."
Rook and Fiery just grunted at him, but Olivia, who was there, defended them.
"Unlike you, who can make the ship move faster by dragging it, than it moves by wind, they are 100% human. And because of it, I'm not sure if you are still human or not."
Ars smiled happily and answered much to their shock.
"Thank you for your praise, I work hard."