“I want to die…” Those words flowed out of my mouth like my lungs exhaling air. The tone I carried was a welcome change, with the scratching of mana pens writing down words on parchment, and dragonewts arguing and discussing laws and events in the background, causing my brain to melt.

  “Our young princess finally understands why most of the elder scales completely avoid senator duties by putting all the burden on either the clan’s dragonewts or their children. Haha.”

  I felt a pat on my back, prompting me to lazily move my head to the side to see Uncle Guyul’s heir, Lissandrath. Although her humanoid form still had a lot of scales and cyan-colored fur covering her body, her elven face was still left bare. Her smile felt so calming to look at.

  “Twelve days… twelve days of nonstop work since I got back to Iceskale. I haven’t even gotten the chance to do any training or even do my normal routine. Where is my singing? Dancing training? Why have I only been reading documents and authorizing stuff?” I complained as an extreme depression was slowly encroaching on my heart. I felt like my soul was slowly being killed inside this… inside this damn room!

  When Mom said that I should prepare for the bureaucracy, warning me of how intense it would be, I sorta prepared myself for the workload, but… not for the boredom. When I was still working as an “intern” under Sieg, I had proper work hours and received a ton of advice from everybody around me. I also had physical interactions with people to quell arguments, mediating between businesses, contracts, and also for my own project in the digital media guild.

  However, instead of that happy, go-lucky, white-collar job, I received… twelve days of only staying inside this stupid room! … Though I did get to go back home to sleep. With all my attendants, the resting period was pretty okay since I could just let Hikari pamper herself while my mind slept.

  Regardless, the point was that I was torturing myself for twelve days. I didn’t even get a day to spend with Mom since she had to zoom back to the mainland with Nong, when I explicitly told that peacock to take a rest. I understood that the issue with Mr. Illvenus was problematic, but he should really just leave the stuff to our empress-mothers. I could really use some sibling moment with all this annoyance.

  “Enough!” As I was tormenting myself about the last few days, the room turned silent as Sieg raised his voice. The dragonewt and true dragonkin bureaucrats stopped what they were doing, dropping their pens and arguments to listen to the lead representative senator. “We have worked past lunch. Everybody, please, enjoy a length break and return in two bells back in Her Highness’s office.”

  “Thank you very much!” the crowd said with a bow, storming out of the room with clear exhaustion on their face.

  The whole battle against the Water and Wind Elemental Emperor was already a paperwork nightmare to settle everything, which included the immigration of the elementals under Tasianna, the construction plans to rebuild everything that was destroyed, and, most importantly, the destruction of our barrier.

  I wasn’t the only one who was dying, but unlike me, the people working under me were clear veterans. They had the mental stamina to survive this boredom.

  “Your mood affects everybody else, Your Grace,” Sieg chastised me, causing my sour mood to worsen.

  “Twelve days, Sieg. I am an entertainer, not a… pencil pusher!”

  “You are a princess as you are an entrepreneur and musician, Your Grace,” he argued. “Usually, when your mother is away, her clan’s senaschal takes over since your uncle lives on Altrust. Skardvro has his own tasks, and you have yours as your mother’s representative. Lazing around is no ruler’s privilege; it’s a luxury.”

  “Ahh, Siegragxus, your tone will only anger her further.” Lissandrath sighed. “Not every dragon is born with an unnatural inclination for paperwork, of all things. Our Highness isn’t even a fledgling, and you’re trying to lecture her on how to be a ruler? Your own younger brother only recently joined the town hall. You should focus on your own family first.”

  “She is our princess, Lissandrath…” Sieg massaged his temples. “Haaa, the rest of Kargryx has already learned the destruction of our blizzard barrier. We’ve had reports of fire dragons flying further in than they ever could. We can’t forbid them from visiting Frozen Nest outside of due process, but when have they worried about due process? Fehrkatruk entering our land through Prince Nongramos’s grace was already a step too far. The immigration laws we’ve never needed have to be set down first, and then we have to set up defences to assure those fire dragons won’t sneak into our land from.”

  “It is already difficult enough for us. We have to deal with Kargryx’s own laws. We’ve been able to ignore the need for them until now because Her Majesty had intervened with Thalaxarus’s barrier. But we’ve been ordered by the first empress to set them up! And according to the mainland’s laws! If we are already at the brink of exhaustion, imagine Princess Hestia.”

  “This is simply another of her responsibilities! Her Majesty has to deal with the recent talks with the leviathan, and both of our fathers had to accompany her for that. The elder scales have to interact with those spiteful leviathans, so we, as their children, have to do our part!”

  “Ah, don’t bring that into the argument! You—”

  ‘I’m zoning this out…’ Hikari told me, and I agreed, shutting my ears out as I excused myself outside. Sieg and Lissa were too occupied with their arguments to really realize I had left the room.

  Haaaa, twelve days… and here I thought I could use some of the authority to get Mom’s birthday ready.

  I felt dizzy. Not because I was mentally exhausted, but the last twelve days had felt like a complete blur. Kargryxian laws written down by the empresses, transcribed to books by dragonewts, and then spread through common sense by simply living in the empire.

  The concept of laws already went against how most dragonkin liked to live their lives, but it was needed to keep the empire going. Immigration, for example, was quite loose for us imperial dragon children since, well, none of us ever got into a big problem. Even Neill, reportedly, never made a big scene when she got bullied, letting her emotions loose only when she was inside her clan’s land.

  On the other hand, each Nest had a blacklist to stop unwanted elemental dragons and clans from entering their borders. Documentation was needed to justify these choices, as restricting access to enter a Nest was against our right as dragonkin to fly wherever we wanted and run wherever we could. After all, the empire was reformed by Eltharion and the empresses to better suit the new age, prioritizing mending past woes and assuring ways for nests to cooperate.

  Sadly, that ideal had diminished greatly at this point. Many nests still harbored strong, hostile feelings towards their rivals, like Sacred Nest and Dusk Nest or Inferno Nest and Frozen Nest. Yet, citizens of Kargryx were still allowed to venture into any nest they wanted if no documentation was needed, for example, due to a blacklist.

  Frozen Nest, pampered by the fact that our barrier was a natural blacklist, never needed to worry about our borders. The elders have forgotten how to defend the island, while those born after Thalaxarus’s death never needed to know how to defend and patrol our borders. We had no laws to stop unwanted visitors outside of the pure might of our Dragon Ruler of Ice and Mom. In a way, this was one of those “sitting on their laurels” moments Kramps told me I had to uproot.

  How ironic that the dragons themselves would do it themselves through Yothmlak’s rash decision.

  Regardless of who caused it, the barrier was down, and the dragonkin of Frozen Nest had entered a state of panic with fire dragons looming in the sky as if they wanted to taunt us. Sieg was stressed out. Everybody was. Yet, the gears of our town hall had to continue working since the rest of Iceskale counted on us breaking our backs to get things in order, and this also included any other civil issues that would creep up on a normal day.

  How do normal people survive this crunch?

  I needed to take a breather!

  Though even if I wanted to take a break, I didn’t really know what to do. I wasn’t exactly hungry since I ate and drank inside my office, since I could just use my subspace to have my dragonewt attendants bring me my meals from the mansion. Speaking of subspace, I still hadn’t forgotten about the fact that I did break Father’s taboo to not enter it, but I decided to tell him whenever I had the chance to meet him. No need to go out of my way to tell him, and I had a pretty good excuse with all this work.

  Regardless, even if I didn’t have anything I wanted to do, I decided to just wander around the building. Thankfully, due to how busy everybody was, to the point where people were running down the hallways with stacks of parchments and books, I was left relatively alone as if I were any other bureaucrat.

  My crimson scales and hair made no difference now, since a few fire dragonewts from Clan Kleodrastia were hired as interns. Fehrkatruk’s accomplishment as a war leader really did help his clan, as Nong said. They were still the vast minority inside, but the town hall was making good use of them, especially since I made sure to keep an eye on them so workspace bullying wouldn’t happen.

  Hmm? Uncle’s office?

  Mom’s office was on the highest floor, the fourth, and aside from hers, it also included the office of Uncle Alextraxus, as the Dragon Ruler of Ice, which was why everything related to overall nest management was located here, like the judicial, military, and so on. The third was reserved for Senate meetings, while the second was controlled by Uncle Guyulthanos’s culture and economic branch. The ground floor, though, wasn’t just our foyer; it was also where the rest of our branches were located. Funnily enough, although part of the economic branch, Uncle Karydrinos’s office was actually situated here.

  And while Uncle Alex and Guyul had accompanied Mom to the mainland, Uncle Kary actually stayed behind since he was needed to fix the marine terrorism the leviathans did to our coralbed. Furthermore, he also volunteered to take care of our marine defense.

  Shrugging, I knocked on his door before I entered it, feeling déjà vu as his office was equally as full and active as mine. Sneaking past the levianewts and dragonewts, I tapped on my retainer uncle’s shoulder, causing him to snap up. Surprise contorted his levianewt-like face, with all the fins and whiskers, until he turned his mouth into a wide smile.

  “Ah, our little princess!” He jumped up before giving me a tight squeeze, almost similar to how Mom nearly ended our spine when she met Hikari in her silver dragonewt form. “It’s good to see you! Hahahaha, Siegragxus told my son that there is a mountain of work, but it seemed you managed to get through it! As expected of our little Hestia!”

  “Most likely not, Father!” Drakunov, Uncle Kary’s heir, shouted in response without looking away from the document he was reviewing. “I noticed some of Siegragxus’s subordinates exited the building when I got us some goat milk. It’s lunch time.”

  “Lunch?” Uncle Kary let me go. “Why is that young scale working his people to scale powder? Bah, late lunch. That’s how you get your sailors killed.”

  “Hear, hear!” his subordinates yelled in unison. Most of them usually worked at the harbor management, so the majority were seamen or could relate to them.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “So you were getting some food? I think we still have some dried walrus and some tuna klessha! Or, some sliced cooked squid with lemon sauce?” Uncle Kary offered, prompting a few workers to bring over the dishes for me. Unable to deny some sashimi, I ate the sliced tuna with fermented oyster sauce.

  Mhmmm! Hiehie, it’s too bloody good to resist. Ahh, I love our fishing industry.

  I definitely missed soy sauce, but the oyster sauce was filled to the brim with umami that it was really addicting, if you could ignore the pungent smell. Speaking of food, I really hoped we could find a chocolate substitute in this world so we could have some hot cacao on Frozen Nest. For now, warm strawberry goat milk was good enough.

  “Busy as always, I guess?” I asked as I took a seat next to Uncle Kary, as the other workers continued wherever they left off.

  His smile waned as my words left my mouth, causing his draconic head to growl to the point I could imagine him wanting to bite somebody’s arm off. “When the elder scales went to war on my demand, the harbor management managed to save a good the coral bed from the venom, but the coralplunks had to be relocated to a proper fishing farm so we can assure their numbers. Generally, the venom didn’t leave a lasting effect due to our alchemists.”

  “But it will take a while to regrow the schools of fish, right?”

  He nodded. “Our yield this year will be lower than we wanted, simply because we cannot risk selling contaminated fish. Even if we manage to purify the haul, the meat quality and taste will drop to reputational damage. Frozen Nest’s fish has been the definition of high quality since I took over as the industry’s operational head. I would not compromise the sales. At least, the rotting fish will be good compost in a year for our farms.”

  “U-Uncle, you do know that the mainland relies on us for fish imports, right?” I said, wanting to eye his documents out of curiosity.

  However, unlike my trepidation, he shook his hand. “Yes, but we still have other fishing harbors on the rest of South Frozen Nest. Far smaller than our operations in the capital, but my retainer clans and their own subordinates are doing well. We can rely on them, even if sales drop for the next two years. I am more worried about the lack of our barrier. Our fishing operations will be more dangerous.”

  Uuurgh, barrier here, barrier there. Our country has really relied on that barrier for far too long.

  Uncle continued, “You’ve seen it already when I took you on that diving trip, right? The open ocean inside the barrier was already deep enough that you wouldn’t be able to see me if I were to dive down. It is worse outside. With the expansive nature of the oceans, leviathans and adamantoises can grow far larger than most land and air dragonkin of a similar rank.”

  “I know. Mom’s battle with Kahalantheel allowed me to picture it clearly. His serpentine body could mummify her if he had managed to grab her for a moment.”

  “And if it were any other ice dragon, a single mistake could leave them to drown,” Uncle added. “My clan is comprised of dragon-leviathan hybrids, so we have no issue breathing underwater. Our lungs can act as gills. We are our best divers, and that allowed us to ambush the leviathans. Ha, we might have gotten comfortable with our barrier, but they underestimated the fact that our marine force hasn’t lost its fangs just yet.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “The leviathans got overconfident. They lurked closer to the surface, while my attack squad went into the abyss layer—the deepest depth. Like sharks hunting for seals, we struck at them where they couldn’t see, and that allowed Alextraxus and Guyulthanos to lead our aerial force. Pincer attack from below and above. The water was quickly frozen, and we managed to land quite a few of them, especially their levianewt depth knights. Our dragoons and drakes took care of them, and that single fatal mistake from the leviathan allowed us to snowball the battle in our favor as we quickly took over more and more water, turning the entire battlefield into one giant ice island. It only stalled when their adamantoise allies arrived. Slow as they might be, their shells can be as hard as ice structures.”

  Ooh, war stories!

  Unfortunately, while Uncle Kary loved boasting about his work, he was less inclined when it came to conflict. Once he was done summarizing everything, he immediately went back to the original topic.

  “But a single ambush does not make you victorious in a war. We might have a ceasefire due to Emperor Eltharion and Her Majesty, but that doesn’t mean the leviathans won’t continue acting as pests as long as an heir apparent isn’t chosen.” He sighed. “When it comes to hauls to feed dragonkin, we need to dive deep to hunt down larger prey. The ones in our fish farms are grown for taste. Not to mention, deep dives are a brilliant leveling opportunity for any young scale.”

  “However, now that the barrier is down, the abyssal layers aren’t protected by the blizzard barrier all day long. You fear our enemies might sneak into the depths and ambush us, similar to how you ambushed them.”

  “Exactly. I cannot risk my fishers and kin to such a risk, but we can’t cower like skinks. That is why I am trying to find a solution to all of this. There has to be a way to keep our underwater borders safe without stationing our leviathan family members in the depths, like those underwater cities that those levianewts create.” Uncle tapped his ice stone desk, creating a small indent in it with his claws. “Say, Hestia. You are quite ingenious, right? You wouldn’t—”

  “I only know technology from Earth, Uncle. I can’t somehow figure out a solution outside of the usual mana barrier technology we have,” I interrupted him, causing him to groan.

  “It was my mistake. I apologize. A mana barrier truly will be our only choice at this rate, but that would require too much maintenance to make it feasible. We might have to invest some funds in your artificer to figure something out then,” Uncle said. “Speaking of which, how is the digital media guild faring?”

  I shook my fist as my lips curved upwards. “The only thing that has been going smoothly! Haaa, with everything that happened when we fought the elemental, the streaming demand has exploded. People have been requesting me to start my second stream, but the issue is that I’m working here, right? I’m just thankful that the culture branch has been doing their best with daily streams to keep people invested in the technology.”

  The digital media guild still had to build a ton of recorders since we still had to repay Empress Forminaxtrass and Dusk Nest for their help to establish a type of “internet” for my streaming services. As such, they were still operating on the funds allocated to them by Sieg and Mom.

  Though that didn’t mean my personal recorder couldn’t be used to film stuff, right? I, too, had promised Uncle Guyul and Kary to use the recorder for the sake of education, so Uncle Guyul had started streaming daily updates, similar to a TV news station, to Iceskale just before the evening, reporting on recent events, the weather, or anything else of importance.

  Town criers became employees for this streaming service to gather information, and over the twelve days, this “news station” was starting to gain a lot of traction. Naturally, some town criers were nervous that my streaming platform would soon push them out of their current lifestyle. In their eyes, it really was a “sink or swim” situation.

  Hopefully, Lissa and Uncle Guyul would find a good solution to this.

  After my talk with Uncle Kary, I left his office. The sashimi had reawakened my appetite, so I had to go get something before Sieg chewed me out for being too late. However, just as I was about to leave the town hall, I noticed Sieg’s younger brother, Rhekk, sitting on the foyer couch, looking like he had just run a marathon.

  “Dude, you okay?” I asked the poor guy, prompting him to look up, before letting his neck fall again.

  “Just resting. How are you? My brother finally gave your office a break, huh?” Rhekk said.

  Although he wasn’t working under his brother, but one of Sieg’s direct retainers, his workload was probably just as strict as if he were working under the former. Poor guy.

  Rhekk technically was already an employee of the town hall due to his desire to make his family proud, but Rhekk never had the talent or patience to remain inside an office. That was why he was used more as a field operative, in a way. He only recently started acting like an actual bureaucrat, like his brother. Why would he do that when he knew how his brother was? I couldn’t understand, but it was nice to see him wearing a scaled suit instead of his usual mob-looking outfits.

  “Considering what we experienced when we were on our expedition, I think we’re doing pretty well. At least, a giant ape isn’t trying to kill us, right?” I joked, although Rhekk was barely able to laugh. “You’re worse off than I thought… Is it that bad working in the diplomacy department?”

  “Aside from mediating peace between clans, making sure they got properly rewarded after all the conflict, and how the whole civil war thing is still brewing, I think you can imagine how much we have to deal with. How do true dragonkin even endure this sort of work? It’s beneath us.”

  “Say that to your brother.”

  Rhekk slapped his mouth shut, groaning in pain as his usual attitude came out. “You won’t tell him, right?”

  “The receptionists heard us, so, no, I won’t.”

  “Father’s horns… I will get chewed thoroughly once I return to the mansion. Ahhhh…” Rhekk seemed like he was about to give up on life. I wanted to tell him that he might not be suited for this job, but it was clear he was trying to better himself, so stopping him now didn’t seem helpful. “Anyways, speaking of my job, have you heard the rumors going on down south?”

  “Nope. I’m trapped in my office or falling unconscious as my maids and butlers drag my lifeless corpse around to make it look pretty. If it doesn’t involve the workload, I’ve been ignoring it,” I said, causing Rhekk to give me a look of pity. He should have seen how I looked at him just a moment ago.

  “Then you haven’t heard about it. The sailors and wyverns that went down to Coral Beard recently heard some curious information from a few drunk dragonewts that Kahalameet and Wendriosa have been meeting each other more often at your paternal clan’s mansion.”

  “And? I know they consider each other political enemies, but that doesn’t mean that our family is that broken. The Kargryxmor mansion in Coral Beard is huge. It has multiple buildings inside its private land,” I replied, but Rhekk shook his hand.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. Meeting, as in, talking a lot! Far more than usual compared to all the years they’ve been feuding. Furthermore, after your father crushed the leviathans taunting in front of Coral Beard, he hasn’t returned to his nest. He’s been residing in the mansion and going to and from the city’s town hall. He’s been working, again.”

  “… Say, again?”

  Rhekk nodded, sitting up properly as he continued the gossip. “I don’t know if it’s still happening since the last trading ship just returned a few days ago. It feels like something is about to happen in the succession battle.”

  Father is working? That lazy bum? What are Kahalameet and Wendriosa doing?

  He continued, “I know you announced to the country that you won’t participate as a candidate, but I think you should still try to get some information on this. This is your clan, after all.”

  “I am not close to Father, but… actually, we can just ask my mother for that. I’ll try to contact her with the subspace later in the evening. If the artificers weren’t so preoccupied with the recorder and rebuilding the information tower, we probably could start developing towers on the mainland. It would help connect people.”

  The idea of long-range communication was already being explored by the mages of Aleistunum. I wasn’t trying to race them for the technology, as I was doing this for my own sake, but I wouldn’t scoff at the fact if I managed to get things established before them. The idea of streamer was already put to the test twice, and in each of them, the results were fantastic.

  I could stream myself singing and speaking to everybody within a mana barrier, and with the information tower, I could do it even when I was stuck so far in the north; it would require multiple days of flying for an average wyvern. Due to the daily news station, the third test was conducted to determine if streaming would have any negative effects on Iceskale’s mana barrier. As I told Rhekk just a moment ago, everything about the digital media guild was proceeding well.

  The guild looked future-proof and would surely recoup the costs it required to build it up. One day, the entirety of Kargryx would have information towers in notable regions, and that would allow the first version of the “PWW” to come into existence. The first “Peolyncian Wide Web.”

  “Yeah, you do that, Your Grace,” Rhekk said before jumping up. “Anyways, I should get back to work. You, too. Don’t come late.”

  “… Maybe I shouldn’t have used all this time to talk to people, but, oh well. Miss! Could you send somebody to get me some food?”

  Since time was of the essence to finish all the work, I asked the receptionists if they could order a to-go for me before I returned to my office. After seeing Sieg and Lissa having cooled down after their argument, I returned to my stack of documents before enjoying my meal once it arrived.

  The days working at the town hall continued with no fuss. Peace was standard for Iceskale, if you ignored the recent battles, but it was especially a blessing since the fears of the barrier being taken down hadn’t come true. We were allowed to settle any issues we had with the elementals and managed to establish a border patrol to keep ourselves safe, not to mention some construction plans for forts around coastlines to station dragoons and wyverns.

  At this time, I also followed what I told Rhekk and asked Mom if something was going on, and she confirmed the rumors. However, she was told by Eltharion that she couldn’t announce it for now since the details weren’t set in stone. She would give me all the details once she made it back to Iceskale.

  As such, 13 mundane days had passed since then. We finally went through all the extra workload placed on us after all that happened, and the elementals’ official registration as clan members under my family had been immortalized on parchment. With their return after they visited the glaciers with Tasianna, everything had become official, and the information was shared with the entirety of Iceskale through the streaming service.

  Naturally, there was some dissent about it even after Sieg explained what Yothmlak had done and why it caused the elementals to attack. We used the same “territory” argument Mom advised me to use, but it was understandable that not everybody was happy about it. Regardless, it was still agreeable that, as punishment for having attacked us, the elementals would take responsibility by working for clan Nordor with all the rights of a normal Frozen Nest citizen.

  Now that most of the work was over, I was finally given a real break time by Sieg, and I was allowed to stay at home for four days until next FireDay. Weekends, woohoo!

  Aaand, I would definitely not let this free time go to waste. Dancing, singing, and, naturally, going to see Tasianna after her trip and to get a summary of all her improvements. I couldn’t wait to see her new Profile!

  you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon:

  For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.