You all surpassed the Power Stones goal twice, so here are two extra chapters.
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Although Kaguya did all those things so that Kaito would take his current position more seriously, and in a way it worked, after spending an entire day simply sitting and listening to reports from different people, Kaito is not willing to repeat it after resting for only one night.
No matter how comfortable that throne actually is.
That is why he quickly met with Luna and her guard and asked them to be fast and brief, which, somehow, aligned with Kaguya's idea, since both believed he was showing authority by not taking even a princess seriously.
"At the very least there should be an office, is it really necessary to use this exaggerated throne room?" murmured Kaito before reviewing all the information Luna had given him about the kingdom.
The first thing is the current situation, which is simply disastrous.
During the great war of the races, a group of elves decided to pray to the moon for help for certain reasons. The moon responded and blessed them with their current appearance and abilities, however they were ostracized by the rest of the elves, who call themselves pure elves, and were expelled from the territory of the sacred forest.
The sacred forest is an enormous forest that covers the lower half of the continent, surrounding the world tree, although in reality it is basically the world tree, since at least eighty percent of what surrounds it is actually shallow roots of the great world tree that adapted to the surface. In this way, the world tree receives underground nutrients with its deep roots and surface nutrients with its shallow roots.
However, the world tree caused a negative side effect in the rest of the continent. The tree has extremely positive effects, it purifies the air, eliminates diseases, blesses both flora and fauna nearby, among other effects that make the sacred forest the best place to live for almost any living being. This attracts people as well as flora, which leads to the negative effect.
Most beneficial flora, any type of medicinal plant, plants with special effects, with mana, or with special fruits, naturally grows in the sacred forest.
Not only that, but it is as if the area had a natural barrier that pushes away flora it does not consider at its level, creating a huge green wasteland in the center of the continent before reaching the far north, where all the displaced plants gather forcibly.
That is the black forest, a forest the same size as the sacred forest but completely incomparable. Useless trees whose wood is worthless and with little vitality, plants without effects or even with negative effects, dangerous fauna and low level species, that is the black forest, the opposite of the sacred forest.
Of course, it is not actually uninhabitable, but compared to the sacred forest, people instinctively see it negatively. For example, it is said that the black forest is filled with a miasma that makes the air heavy and even poisonous in the long term, but that is not true. It is simply normal air that did not receive any special purification from the world tree, and this is just one of many prejudices that exist against the black forest.
And when these dark elves were expelled from the sacred forest, you can imagine where they went.
They settled in the center of the black forest.
At that time they were few, so their government was based on a leader and eight sub leaders, based on those who guided the group to pray to the moon initially.
But they soon noticed an effect they had not seen before in the moon's blessing, fertility. It is well known that one of the disadvantages of elves is their low fertility, which makes their numbers few, but dark elves did not receive that problem, so they grew very quickly and soon became a kingdom that, with its strength, conquered most of the black forest in little more than two centuries.
From there everything grew like a bubble. As they controlled the forest, they gained the loyalty of the species and continued to develop.
But soon they reached a limit, and the bubble burst. Unlike the sacred forest, the black forest has a low limit, so they could no longer advance.
While the sacred forest is constantly evolving thanks to all its advantages and the mutual feedback between its species and inhabitants, the black forest is static, without serious disadvantages, but also without advantages.
In response to this, the decision of the first king was the following, "It is our fault, we prayed to another god, ignoring the world tree. No matter the reason, that is what we did. Even so, the great world tree was merciful, we were not punished or cursed, we simply lost the ability to advance further. This is the greatest mercy a god can have toward believers who betrayed it, which shows the goodwill of the world tree even toward infidels like us."
That is right, the first king accepted the situation naturally, assuming that was their punishment.
That was the moment when an invisible crack divided the once united group of nine who had led the dark elves.
Not everyone agreed. Some believed it was nonsense and that they should try to take other territories.
But with an ocean in between, although small battles were possible, a war for large territory was impossible, so only one option remained, an option no one wanted to take for years.
At least until now.
Due to the long lifespan of dark elves, there have not been many monarchs, despite the great war having taken place five thousand years ago.
Luna's father was the sixth king, a king known for his kindness.
And he was killed by Nerón Ashen.
Ashen is one of the eight noble houses that govern Lunareth under the royal family, specialized in fire magic.
And Nerón is the only son of the house. However, he is a complete disappointment, he is not only weak and untalented, he also has no intention of training or growing stronger.
Even so, whenever someone mentions how weak he is, he gets angry and uses his position to make their lives impossible.
That same weak and pathetic Ashen killed the current ruler of the dark elves and took the throne by force.
This is actually possible if he obtains the support of all the noble houses of the kingdom.
Why did the noble houses support Ashen? Because over all these years they became increasingly conspiratorial. When a nobody killed the king, they did not even question where he got his strength from, since most of them have their own plans to take the kingdom. Their first thought was that killing a usurper generates less backlash than killing the legitimate king, so they accepted that he became king.
As for why they did not deny his position and take the kingdom at that moment, although Kaito did not know, Kaguya gave her perspective, which helped a lot.
According to Kaguya, the noble houses do not see only the royal family as enemies, they also see the other noble houses as enemies. The fact that they have not acted yet means they have their own perfectly designed plans and are completely sure they will work.
Taking the kingdom now would ruin their plans, forcing them to defend their position by facing all the other noble houses at once and wasting their strategies.
That is why they all tacitly accepted using the strategy of retreating in order to advance.
The entire branch of the former royal family, on the other hand, was exiled from the castle, but only for a single day.
The reason is that Nerón Ashen likes the princess. His obsession with her is well known, so he proposed that she become his fiancée, which would allow the former royal family to regain authority, although this time political and not by blood, something that Luna of course accepted.
She also used the chance to investigate Nerón's strength, and what she discovered was very useful, Nerón's strength comes from artifacts.
And it is not just one, he has dozens of artifacts, each with strange and different abilities.
Regarding where he obtained them, after following Nerón, Luna only saw him meet with a stranger twice, and it was always the same person, so she is almost sure that he is the one giving them to him.
As for where he gets those items, whether he is only an intermediary, whether he works for the one who ordered the king's death, or what his objectives are, Luna does not know. The only thing she is completely sure of is that he is not the true mastermind, since he appears to be around twenty years old and he is human.
"So I have to be careful with Nerón and with that mysterious person, and if I make Luna take the throne it will be easy for them to accept her, I only have to deal with seven noble houses."
After murmuring that, Kaito moved on to the next documents. These were more systematic, the noble houses, information, names, territories, specialty, location, and more, and many names, too many. Due to their longevity but normal fertility, each one has many members.
The only exception is the Ashen house, where Nerón is the only heir.
While Kaito looked at the column of papers full of names in front of him, he sighed, then began reading everything at high speed while recording the information in his mind.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)