Chapter 839: Same but Different

Khan stretched out his limbs as his body slowly increased in size, the magical paint slowly fading from the exposed stone on his body, "There we go, a lot more comfortable, ain"t it?" he said to himself, and Eisen smiled at the elderly giant.

"You can rest up in the castle for now. We"ll get a place for you ready soon, but until then just rest up for a while," Eisen explained, but Khan just scoffed and shook his head, "Nah, I"ll just stay outside until then. I know that ya wanted to make it seem like I was outside when in the dungeon, but I was able to tell it was just a ma.s.sive cave."

"...I"m sorry about that," Eisen replied awkwardly.

"No need ta apologize. It"s a lot nicer than being stuck in some stuffy small room."

"I can probably put together a tent for you, if you"d like to stay outside," the old man suggested, and Khan thought about it for a moment, "Well, how"s the weather "round here?"

"Well, decently stable, I guess. We do get storms and such obviously, but it doesn"t tend to swap without any warning. And it looks pretty clear right now, so I figure it won"t be raining at least."

Khan smiled and nodded, "That"s enough fer me, at least! I"ll go take a gander around the place, don"t mind me! Do yer thing in the meantine, Eisen."

With a sligthtly relieved sigh, Eisen watched as Khan walked through the port, dodging past the non-giant species gathered around and simply stepping over fences to get away from the crowds.

Eisen turned his head toward Girland, who was still stood next to him, simply watching on, "We should make some more accomodations for giants in this town, especially those like Khan that might have lost their ability to reduce their size."

"Did you have anything particular in mind?" the metallic secretary asked, and Eisen just thought about it for a moment, "The northern side of the island is still pretty vacant, right? How about we build something like an Inn for larger species there? A central building in the front where they can rent out a place, and then a number of different cabins scattered about.

We won"t need too many, I imagine, but just a dozen or two might not be a horrible idea."

"If you say "Larger Species", I imagine you mean not only giants?"

"Right. Dragons, for example. They can also get pretty large, and even if they can transform into smaller forms, I figure it might be more comfortable for some of them to stay in their draconic form. And then there"s species like... Cyclopes. They"re not as large as Giants, but they dwarf even t.i.tans.

And they can"t transform or shrink down as far as I"m aware. And since there"s a G.o.d that"s a Cyclops, I figure one of the islands we haven"t been to yet is an island of Cyclopes. So they"re our people. And if we can"t make every single structure accomodate every single race, we need to make sure they can make do otherwise."

Girland jotted the information down in her notebook, but stayed eerily silent otherwise. Once she was done, she just glanced up at Eisen, almost curiously. The old man raised a brow, "Everything alright?"

"Of course, your Majesty. I was just taking notice of the fact that you... are different than you used to be."

"...Well, yeah. I"m not really the same person I used to be. You know that."

Girland thought about it for a moment, but simply ended up nodding, "It is as you say. Nonetheless, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself. The way you go about certain things. The air you give off feels nearly identical to the man you used to be not too long ago. But..." she thought for a few moments, looking at the s.h.i.+p and the people that were stepping out of it.

The monster children alongside Kiron, as well as Sky and Aria, "The actions you take. Your decisions and the direction you choose to push yourself and this country. It seems much more like the stories of Eisen from the golden age."

Eisen didn"t know exactly what to respond to that. He figured that if it was the "golden age", then that was a compliment, right? Though, overall, it felt weird to hear how alike he was to the former Eisen. But instead, he figured he should concentrate on the good parts about it all, "I see. Well, I"m just trying to do the right thing. And bringing people together seems like exactly that."

Girland smiled lightly. It was one of the first times that Eisen had seen that from her, but he was quite happy about it.

---

Pus.h.i.+ng his way through the hedgemaze, Eisen turned corner after corner, until he finally reached the maze"s center. There stood a small building, surrounded by the familiar scent of soot and coal. And in front of the door stood a short young man with a broad excited smile on his face.

"Welcome back, Eisen!" Constant, the guardian specifically created to manage Eisen"s workshop on prototype exclaimed excitedly. He seemed giddy and more than ready to get back to work. After all, he had been stuck here, unable to do much over the past two months.

"I"m back," Eisen smiled, approaching the door and rubbing his hand over the guardian"s head, "Have you been lonely while I was gone?"

Constant thought about it for a moment, but ended up just shrugging, "A little... but I had a lot of visitors! Serio and Girland came by the most! Oh, and Satel would also drop by every once in a while, but they"d always try to steal something, so it was getting a little annoying..."

Eisen looked at Constant and raised a brow, "Satel was trying to steal from here?"

"I mean, nothing huge or expensive. Just like, small trinkets. Pretty sure it was more about the thrill than anything. But they did get bored of it when they realized there"s no spot within this building I can"t see all at once," Constant pointed out with a smug grin.

"How has Satel been since I was gone? Have they been causing trouble?"

"Not really. Actually, Girland was praising them since they opened up some new industries in prototype."

Eisen looked at the Guardian with a concerned expression, "New industries..? What kind..?"

"Nighlife, clubs, bars. A casino. I was going to introduce some things a bit more hardcore than booze, but Girland told me I couldn"t just do whatever I wanted," from behind Eisen, the young Devil, banished from h.e.l.l after losing to Eisen in battle, explained. They were wearing a much more casual outfit compared to last time Eisen saw them, but it was still extremely cla.s.sy.

A half-unb.u.t.toned blouse, waist-high pants, and dress shoes. All made of extremely high-quality materials and apparently even imbued with powerful enchantments of various kinds. Their pointed ears were pierced with expensive-looking jewelry, and the rings on their fingers stood out quite a bit as well.

"Looks like you"ve been doing quite well while I was gone," Eisen replied, looking Satel up and down, "You didn"t do anything shady, right?"

"Pah, how could I? With Girland around, I can"t do anything illegal, and with those boring-a.s.s sticklers Xenia and Jyuuk, anything too immoral was out the window as well.

Even the casino is as squeaky-clean as it could be and barely has the odds to make a tiny profit for us at the end of the night," Satel scoffed, "Honestly, the idea of "true love" and "soulmates" sickens me to the depths of my soul, but even I"ve gotta admit those two are made for each other... they"re also kind of cute when they"re flirting while thinking n.o.body"s watching..."

Eisen smiled lightly, "I"m glad you"re alright, Satel."

"What about you? Sounds like I missed quite a party over there, huh?" Satel asked with a grin on their face, but seeing Eisen"s deep stare directed at them, they awkwardly straightened their back and scratched their neck, "Sorry, that... came out wrong. I"m really sorry about what happened there. If you need an open ear, I"m at the Devil"s Horn basically every night?"

Eisen let out a deep sigh. He knew that Satel didn"t mean any harm, but he just still wasn"t in the mood to laugh about what happened in the giants" capital, "The Devil"s Horn?"

"You know, my nightclub. You"d be surprised, but that Evalia chick can party like there"s no tomorrow, and she introduced us to some mean c.o.c.ktail recipes," Satel explained, "Come on, the first round"s on me!"

The old man let out a quiet sigh and finally just nodded his head, "Fine, fine, I"ll come take a look later. But I"ve still got a lot to do before then. Did you just come over to say h.e.l.lo, or was there anything else?"

Satel shook their head, "Nah, really just figured I"d come take a look. It"s been a while, y"know?"

Eisen raised a brow. He could tell that this wasn"t the fully truth. Realizing that they couldn"t sneak it past Eisen, Satel let out a sigh, "Just... go talk to Ambriel, a"ight? They"re really not doin" well down there, and without your say so, Girland wouldn"t let them go. But they"re...

I don"t know, a bit less insufferable than they use to be."

"Don"t worry," Eisen replied, slowly glancing inside the workshop, "I was going to make something real quick and then head down to see them anyway. I figure it"s about time we have a bit of a conversation about some things."