Taking over the Abyss

54- Veggie Tales

You were too busy with business down in Enkanomiya to even think about doing anything major for the next few days. Approving requests to rebuild and repurpose old buildings, sharing your Resistance some of the Dendro Samachurls and other Hilichurls being brought in, convincing some of your subjects that they couldn't go and beat up humans and steal their stuff, and having to assemble a team to manage the treasury were just a few of the more interesting things you had to handle.

Thankfully, yesterday was a little much on your schedule, letting you slip back to Sumeru to try and set up some basics with Kaveh. He'd promised to work extra hard for you, half because he was trying to woo you, and half because you promised to pay him in both mora and some extra goodies. Unfortunately, that did mean that both Kaveh's and Al-Haitham's romantic intentions with you became known to Osial, who you made the mistake of bringing with you that day.

So now all of your subjects down in Enkanomiya knew about that whole thing. It was pretty apparent that most of them were pretty upset aboutit, viewing it as a slight against you. You were able to calm them all down by saying it was completely harmless, but it didn't stop Leiptr from muttering darkly to himself while slicing up a carrot. You figured it'd calm down soon, especially since Kaveh's career as an architect was actually helpful.

You leaned your head against one of your hands, idly flipping around a ballpoint pen in your hand. You were waiting on Osial to come back so could finish things up with Kaveh. Most of your work today had been rather light, since all you had left was just rejecting or accepting certain proposals- and not the sort that you'd received from Al-Haitham and Kaveh.

Osial marched into your room, hair tied back into a loose ponytail and dripping wet, tracking saltwater all over the stone floor. He grinned widely at you and motioned that you bring up both of your hands. When you did, he dropped a large handful of pearls into your hands, "Here ya go!"

You marveled at the shiny quality of the pearls, slightly surprised he'd managed to collect so many of them. Especially with the wide variety of colors he'd managed to get. Everything from pink to blue, and black to gold. Curious, you asked him how he'd found them, "I know I asked you to bring some shiny things back, but how did you get these?"

"You're looking at me, the Overlord of the Vortex. All I had to do was ask some cute little sea critters, and they let me take whatever I wanted," Osial boasted, setting his hands on his hips triumphantly. He made no effort to hide the immense pride his power and status gave him.

"So long as you didn't crack anybody's skull open," you said, carefully setting the pearls down on your desk. Before he could speak again, you faced him with a smile, "Thanks for getting these. I really appreciate it."

Osial, who had been about to demand your praise for getting you the pearls, huffed quietly. He relaxed some, still dripping seawater all over the place, choosing to acknowledge your thanks in his own special way, "... well, my undersea palace is full of wonderous pearls like that. It was hardly a challenge for me."

"Oh, is that so?" It wasn't often that Osial talked about his previous residence. You barely knew anything about it, other than the bits and pieces of what he mentioned, "Did you embed the walls with pearls or something?"

"Hardly. The walls are made from the whale bones. It's the flooring that I embedded with pearls," he clarified. After a moment of quiet, he wandered closer to you, "Hey, why are you bothering with that human architect in the first place?"

In response, you held up one of the concept works Kaveh had let you take home with you as a sample of his work. Osial leaned forwards, studying it closely. He looked to you with a skeptical look on his face, prompting a small laugh from you, "You don't like it?"