Travel The Distance

Chapter 22

Ngl, I don't know how interesting this chapter is going to be, it'll advance the plot but I'm not so sure about it. Sorry.  

After breakfast, in which Shoto and I exchanged glances every few minutes, it was time for my advisors and me to move to the meeting room where we would discuss important business. I called for Tores, they came scurrying into the room via the servant's passage with a pastry hanging from their mouth.

"Don't walk with food in your mouth unless you want to choke and die." I chastised the teenager standing beside my chair. Tores rolled their eyes and quickly ate the rest of their pastry. They wiped their mouth and turned to me with a smile.

"How can I help you, Oh so magnificent King." Tores teased, giving me a sweeping bow and grinning at me cheekily. I pushed them gently and rolled my eyes. Only Tores could get away with treating me like that. If anyone else was to treat me with such cheek I would most likely knock them out, but I felt for the kid. They didn't really have anyone in this world and I felt like it was my responsibility to give them at least a semblance of the love they had been deprived of since they were a child and their parents were robbed from them by a soldier in Endeavour.

"Take Eri and entertain her in some way. Make friends with others or something, I don't know. Do whatever you kids do." I shrugged. Tores nodded and walked over to Eri and bowed to her.

"Good morning My Lady. Would you like to accompany me, we can go and sow mischief throughout the castle." Tores simpered in a faux tone of politeness. Eri giggled and took Tores's hand as she slipped out of her chair and allowed them to pull her from the room.

"Don't break anything, you shithead!" I called as the two left the room.

"No promises, old man," Tores replied cheekily as they shut the door behind them.

"I'm not an old man, I'm 7 years older than you!" I shouted as the click of the door closed. I heard Tores and Eri giggling as they ran away from the door, no doubt about to cause trouble.

My advisors laughed around me, they were as fond of Tores as I was. No matter how cheeky they were, no matter how much trouble they caused, we all forgave them and played along. They were just too similar to us for us not to see a bit of ourselves in them.

"Dude, they might as well be your kid with how much your relationship resembles a parent-child one!" Denki chortled. I rolled my eyes at Dunce Face and stood up from my chair.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Now if you lot are done, we need to get to the meeting room. There's a shit ton of stuff we need to talk about." I tutted. The sounds of chairs scraping across the floor echoed around the room as everyone stood up from their chairs and started heading towards the meeting room.

Once everyone was in the meeting room and we had all sat down, the meeting was ready to begin. "Alright, fuckers, let's start. Mezo take minutes. Have you all got your lists of concerns and that shit?" I asked. My question was met with nods of confirmation. With everyone ready, the meeting started.

"Ok, first we'll go around each of the town leaders and see if anyone has any concerns or problems from each of their towns. Itsuka, you start." I said, nodding towards Carrot Top.

"Yeah, ok. There haven't been any concerns from the town's people this week. Expansion of the town had been going well with more house having been built and the market place now fully operational. We've sent some of our produce, primarily dragon fruit and grey herbs, out to Taiyo to Tsuki. That's about it." Itsuka said, checking her list for a second before nodding and looking up at me.

"Ok, Tsu?" I said nodding to the frog-like girl beside Itsuka.

"Nothing much out of the ordinary. The town is developing and more building materials have come in." Tsu answered shortly. I nodded and gestured to Hitoshi.