The guy who just came out of the room, looked at remains on the ground, and the surroundings of it, they looked like the upper body had exploded all over. He looked at Ars and asked, shocked by the state of the remains.
"What kind of suicide leaves such a mess? It looks like he was chewing on an explosive…"
Ars looked at him innocently and replied like it had nothing to do with him.
"The kind he rushes people and scares them… See… I'm still trembling from fear."
Rook looked at Ars who all of a sudden started trembling and rolled his eyes. Everyone else was also speechless but went back to his work, deciding to ignore Ars' antics.
Ars then looked at the female spy who was now actually scared for her life, he took out a contract and said very calmly while plastering a fake smile on his face.
"You can swear your alliance to me and my kingdom by signing this contract. It comes with a bunch of upgrades compared to your previous work. Like some freedom and proper pay…"
She took it trembling and commented absently minded.
"How many loose screws do you all have?"
Rook actually was shocked by her words, he considered himself actually pretty normal, so he asked shocked.
"What!?"
The female suddenly realized that she said her thoughts out loud and hurried to explain.
"I mean… That guy over there, that is supposed to be your king from what I understood with the information that you said on the way here… Just hit someone so hard that their body went splat, like a fly getting hit by a cannonball, to the point just the wind pressure from the slap caused cracks in the room… And your first reaction? You worried about the floor…"
Rook was shocked, was that not a normal reaction? He looked at Ars who had an air around him of… Don't ask me, I think it's a pretty normal reaction… Then at the guards, who were also thinking if the reaction was wrong or not. And finally back at the female, before he asked.
"You are not one of us… So isn't it normal to worry about our stuff first?"
She was visibly astonished by the simple explanation, but then she heard from the side.
"Will you hurry up and sign it, and let me give you some advice… The less resistance you put up, the less pain you will feel."
She looked confused at him.
"What do you mean?"
Ars decided to explain what he meant.
"See that contract, in your hand? You can think of it as a contract created by someone with a special akuma no mi, so once you sign it off, you will actually be forced to follow its contents."
She looked down at the upgraded contract with fear, before she thought it was weird, that one of her coworkers was standing politely by the side without trying to help them, but she had thought that he was simply putting the mission above their lives, like normal… But now she realized that might not be the case. She lifted her eyes towards Ars and asked fearfully.
"If I don't sign… I will die right?"
Ars nodded. She sighed and warned him.
"You also know that vivre cards exist, right? And we will be found!"
Ars smiled and told her very calmly with a serene expression, a bit pleased she warned him.
"I do, but I have a way to make your vivre cards burn and make your previous masters think you're dead. And if it's some consolation about losing the illusionary freedom you thought you had, you will be allowed to live a pretty good life, other than being absolutely loyal to me… It's an improvement on that too, you used to have to be absolutely loyal to the world government and they treated you like an animal, now you will be loyal to me but i will treat you like a human."
She smiled, knowing they wouldn't be hunted and would be treated nicely, it served as a bigger comfort than Ars realzied. Finally she sighed and signed the contract, but unlike the first man, she actually felt no massive pain, just a bit of pain.
Everyone was shocked, even Ars went to read the contract again. Once he confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the contract he looked at her.
Rook looked at him and questioned.
"Maybe she signed off with a fake name?"
Ars shook his head and explained.
"That 's Impossible. The contract can only be signed off with your actual name, if you try to sign with a fake one you will be unable to write it."
Ars then looked at the female and said, there is nothing wrong with the contract or with her name, the problem is with her.
She smiled and calmly explained.
"I just thought of getting fired from my previous employers and getting a new one that treats me better… It wasn't that hard. Besides, I had been thinking of upgrading without dying… But I found no way until now…"
Ars just nodded and commented.
"The world government doesn't fire people indeed… They kill anyone who stops being useful for them and might know too much about their actions, so your thoughts were mainly correct..."
She showed a sad smile, she knew it too, but she didn't want to admit it until now.
Ars face relaxed a bit and ordered.
"From now on your name is Roygu2, and you will be absolutely loyal to me and this kingdom and will never do anything that may cause harm to it!"
She nodded and then asked hopefully.
"Can we decide on different names to use in everyday life? And only use those when working?"
Ars thought about it and saw no harm as long as their names were normal.
"Sure, but only if your names aren't weird."
"WUHU!!!"
Ars heard from his side, it was Kaz or Roygu3.
"Sorry, I might have gotten a little bit excited about not losing my name. I kinda like it."
Ars looked at Rook and informed him.
"I will be back… Can you manage to get them a place to sleep even if it's only provisory?"
Rook nodded and left to complete his order.
Ars finally grabbed the 3 new royal guards and teleported them into his laboratory. There he quickly started working on their new appearances. He decided that all members of the royal guards would have a few shades of blue hair. The males would have darker shades and the females lighter ones. All with green eyes. Finally he let them decide on their bodies' appearances.
Only Roygu1 seemed uninterested in changing his appearance, so Ars decided for him, the other 2 were having the time of their lives, making themselves quite attractive.
Kaz commented happily with a huge grin.
"I'm going from just normally awesome, to all females squeal in delight at my sight type of awesome."
After all of the 3 had their appearances changed, Ars took them to the tank to increase their potential to have a Body at 20 and mind at 10, the first to go was the female.
He took both of the males outside and left them in Rook's care.
Once he came back he started explaining that she probably would lose her akuma no mi but might gain something from it.
"This tank will increase your potential and give you back your ability to swim, but will take away your akuma no mi… But in the future I probably will grant you abilities that make your akuma no mi look like a joke and without the drawbacks."
She was shocked but nodded and entered the tank. After the machine started Ars left.
The next 2 weeks were all similar days, with him changing the person on the tank every few days.
The female after leaving made a question that interested both of the other 2.
"If we have children, do they become royal guards too?"
Ars smiled at her and replied.
"That depends, if they want or not, but they won't be forced."
The female and Kaz were relieved from the answer. Life went on.
It was decided that Roygu would be a unit directly under Ars. But they normally trained with the other soldiers and the 3 of them were well received by everyone. Which surprised the 3 of them.
During one morning Kuina approached Ars slowly, while he was working, and sat on his desk looking at him. Ars gave her a warm smile and inquired about the motive of her conflicted face.
"Is something wrong for you to be wearing such a frown?"
She looked at him seriously and replied with a hopeful expression.
"Do you think you can become super strong just by training or you think you also need combat?"
He thought about it and told her his opinion.
"Yes you can, but at the same time, I think that if 2 people with the same potential and the same training were to fight, the most likely to win would be the one with more actual combat experience."
He thought about it and decided to add a bit more.
"And the one who went through a lot of combat is more likely to break through his limitations, if he survives. After all most people have buried potential, that only becomes an actual asset if they get pushed hard enough, in life and death situations for example. Fighting someone as strong as yourself, or at least at similar levels, is also a good way to train your willpower. And it's not always the one who is most likely to win that wins in the end. Sometimes things can go wrong."
She nodded and left, still frowning but now with a frown a bit smaller.
Once she left Ars quickly finished his remaining work, and was going to train but on the way he got an urge to go on a walk.
He quickly informed his queens and put on some clothes and a mask to hide his identity.
He got his wings out and took flight. His first destination was getting a few donuts.
Surprisingly when he got there, the kingdom had changed quite a bit. He went to meet the king curious about the changes.
He quickly found Vin Moun through a window, he was in his office talking with the butler.
Ars knocked on the window and at first they were startled but Ars took his mask off before putting it back on, they relaxed. Smiling, they opened the window.
Ars entered and quickly greeted them.
"Hi, how has your majesty Vin Moun been?"
The king smiled and quickly greeted him back.
"We have been good, and lately the kingdom managed to increase its revenue, so we managed to train more soldiers and give a better life to everyone in the kingdom. How about our young hero, your majesty Ars?"
He then quickly said to his butler, before Ars could respond.
"Go get some beverages and snacks."
The butler nodded and left in a hurry.
Ars started responding.
"I've been good, came for a walk and decided to get a few sweet snacks from the kingdom, but then I noticed that it had changed a lot and I got curious."
Suddenly the doors from the office opened up and the queen entered.
"I heard we have a guest!"
When she saw Ars, her eyes shone. She quickly greeted him joyfully.
"Hello, how have you been?"
He smiled back at her and answered.
"I have been good and apparently you guys too."
She sat down beside her husband, looked at him and requested.
"Can you brief me on what you guys were talking about."
He nodded and quickly summarized the requested information.
"He just arrived a few minutes ago, we were just getting started, but we were talking about our kingdom improvements."
She nodded, but her eyes went from shining to full on beaming, she quickly explained for her husband, who was also smiling.
"Do you remember what you suggested to improve our kingdom revenue?"
He nodded, he did remember making a few suggestions. Seeing his affirmation she continued.
"After discussing with each other, we decided that we should ask our few retainers their opinions too and after much discussion we decided to take one of your suggestions. We chose to risk it and send some of our fruit jam and a few different flavored donuts to Big Mom. And guess what? She likes them, they were probably not the best ones she ever ate, but they were good enough."
She spoke so fast that she was out of breath, seeing this the King continued.
"After that, from time to time some of her children came here to buy some, with a good discount of course, and suddenly merchants started noticing our island way more, coming to buy our fruit jam, and because of that the kingdom improved its condition massively."
The queen who had recovered some breath quickly asked full of curiosity.
"And how is your kingdom going? Do you have a wife now? Do you have a lot of new people in it? Are you doing business with someone?"
Ars smiled at her enthusiasm, and replied calmly.
"Well, my kingdom is going well, I have 5 wifes, we currently have around 25 000 people and we sometimes sell ships, but we still not doing full on business with the outside and honestly I'm not sure if we will, we are pretty much self-sufficient."