"Ah… Choo!"
Hikari sneezed.
The force of her sneeze knocks Ria to the ground along with several maids.
Several ladders were knocked down as well.
"What's wrong Hikari?"
Ria got back up and dusted herself off.
Hikari wipes her nose.
She was in the RazenHeir gardens with Ria. Behind her, a mural of the wyvern peaks hangs down the pristine wall of the RazenHeir mansion.
The grey mountain stone. The towers housing the wyvern. The bright blue and mist of the peaks. Specks of wyvern flocks.
"It's windy"
"Oh, I guess so. It's starting to get cold again. Tomorrow it might even rain so we have to get this done today."
A gust of wind blew between her legs.
Her wyvern skin suit is air tight.
But it still feels uncomfortable.
"My lady."
"I know. I know. It rained yesterday so your last pair has yet to dry. This won't take long so you'll just have to tough it out."
Hikari glanced down.
She looks up.
In front of her, several painters were setting up their canvases.
Ella sat on the ground on one side. She was fumbling with a wyvern head costume. The large piece of rubber was big enough to fit her large head.
"My lady?"
"Yes?"
Ria stood where the painters were. Shifting her position around to get a view of Hikari from different angles.
The latter was in her full wyvern skin suit. The polish was still fresh as she had yet to see combat which appeared to be exactly what her lady needed for the occasion.
"What are we doing?"
"Recruitment posters. Due to the extra territory we now have to take on, we still have to recruit batches of more troops to defend it. The last batch is just about ready to be assigned to front duty, but we still need more."
Ria stands behind the painter to check his view of the giantess knight.
Ella puts on the wyvern head. It was an imbalanced shape with a front. Her head bobbed back and forth with the large piece of rubber on.
"A bit to the right Hikari, that tower in the wyvern peaks. It's a historic landmark that has been there for generations so we definitely want to capture that."
Hikari shifted.
The painter nods in approval.
"Now, pull the flag pole over."
Hikari leaned over, grabbed a flagpole and pulled it closer to herself.
The tower in the wyvern peaks stood between her and the RazenHeir standard.
"Ella. Take your position."
Ella crawled over to the foot of the flagpole. The unwieldy wyvern head prop fell off her head as it was too front heavy.
Ella picked it up and put it on. She was constantly adjusting the sides as the loose costume struggled to stick.
"Place it over your head and lay down with your head to the ground Ella."
Ella got into a bowing position facing the painters. The mural of the wyvern peaks to her back.
Hikari to her left. The flag pole to her right.
"Perfect. The great champion of the RazenHeir house defeated the wyvern queen. That'll be a poster for the ages. It's nice of Ella to help out and play the defeated wyvern queen."
Hikari glanced down at Ella. Her tail was wriggling underneath her robes behind her back where the painters could not see.
"Hikari, could you take those wing props and attach them to Ella?"
Hikari grabbed some large rubber pieces of wings. She bent down and placed them onto Ella gently, allowing them to balance.
"Perfect. Now both of you, just keep still now. There's some leftover steak from the meeting that you can share afterwards."
Hikari straightened her back and looked straight.
Ria blushed.
The painters began. Ria strolled back and forth, supervising the painters.
The first drafts were soon finished. Ria held one of them up and studied every detail of it.
She sorted them. Picking the best ones and discarding some, giving feedback to the painters who start over on new drafts.
One of the painters whispered something in Ria's ear.
Her face glowed fiery red.
She quickly walked past the painters towards Hikari before they could notice.
Her giantess knights shift her curious gaze down.
"Hikari, one of the painters suggested … umm … maybe you could?"
"My lady?"
Ria was trembling with excitement. She seemed barely able to stand properly on her petite legs.
"Does Ella mind if you … put your boot on her head."
Hikari glances down at Ella. The painters couldn't notice, but she was trembling visibly.
The cloth above her legs was wobbling as her tail thrashed below it.
"Yes."
She shifted her massive weight on her left leg, lifted her boot off the ground and shifted it above Ella's head.
Ria shivered at the immensity of her movements. Her heart was pounding.
Slowly the gigantic boot lowered onto the disguised half wyvern.
Her head was too small to hold the whole area of the soles.
The heel part rests on her back.
The front on her head.
The painters sounded exclamations of approval.
…
Hikari was in her smart outfit.
White skirt. Bright red ribbon on her chest. Complementing the color of her eyes.
Black gloves. Her silver hair tied up in a neat straight pony tail.
A pair of ribbons to tie each of her side tails resting on the front of her shoulder.
Black long skirt covering down to her knee caps.
Neat black socks. Polished black loafers.
It was the outfit she put on to welcome guests.
She left her armour back in her chambers.
They stood atop the hill in front of the RazenHeir mansion overlooking the bustling trading town that had developed around their estate.
Ria sat on her shoulder.
Her vantage point now overlooks a central junction in the trade between Herdial and Moradale.
"It's great of you to help build all those extra roads. We would have been in trouble otherwise."
Ria nudges closer to her neck.
"It's crowded."
"It sure is. On top of the regular trade convoys, there's now a fully ongoing raid on Carla much like the one you fought not too long ago. Our estate is now the main base of operations for a raid and a growing trading hub all at the same time."
"Nice."
The crowding was made worse by the construction efforts. Wagons of sand and stone further cluttered the roads.
"The foundry. The refining capacity it produces is going to bring in enough revenue to keep us afloat in the coming days. Especially for steel. We have to put in a down investment though. Better heat shielding. Better pulley. And more security. It is after all an artifact you have recovered from the wyvern peaks."
Hikari looks over at the giant hole some distance from the estate.
She had excavated it just the day before. The forge core stood in the middle. A cylindrical structure of sand and stone.
The workers were fixing the steel wirings to expand the upper floor of the foundry.
Ella stood in the hole channeling her magic, soothing the forge shard now embedded within to allow the workers to safely do their job. Rune inscribed platings fixed onto the chamber acts as conduits.
"Herdial had always been short on steel since they are mostly an agrarian society. They definitely need it to hold the front against the constant monster waves. Negotiations to resume proper trade relations had stalled. This at least partially brought them to the table."
Ria pointed at the center of town. A stack of marbled bricks, markedly different from its neighbors which were assembled with wood and skin.
"An administrative building. The estate is not big enough to house the scribes needed for the volume that we are handling. They kind of get in the way of your training too, don't they?"
"Yes."
They looked on at the traffic down the hill as they waited patiently for their guest.
"Spire symbols?"
Ria squints her eyes and looks around.
She notices a group of mages marching through the east gate escorting a chest sealed with runes.
"Ah, those guys again. Looks like they are back from their trip to Herdial. Judging from that symbol, it might be the same ones we saw at Escher. Let me try to remember, what were they trying to sell?"
"Twenty rune master crafted stormbane cleaver?"
"Ah yes, the twenty rune master crafted stormbane cleaver. It's a splendid weapon. You need special mana shielding and transportation to ship it. Not to mention a formidable escort. The crafting process has a very high failure rate so it might even be a decade before another one is created. I can't see from here, but are the runes on the container active?"
Hikari turned her eyes. She could see the faint glimmers of mana.
"Yes"
"Ah. That means that they failed to make the auction. Times must be really tough now. They failed on both the Moradale and Herdial exchanges. I can't think of a reason why though, the bid on this weapon has always been lucrative because of how potent it is."
"Hm."
The gate opened. A well dressed woman with brown, neatly braided hair. Purple outcoat. Gloves. A briefcase in one hand.
Her escort waits outside the gate.
She makes her way towards the mansion.
"Let me down, our guest is here."