Isth’Vrikt walked through the uniformly paved streets of the city of New Brasilia. A nobleman had come into great wealth and built a small town populated by freed slaves on the frontier.

  The last time Isth’Vrikt had visited the frontier, he hadn’t seen anything surprising. He was the Western Colonial Diplomat of Cascetta in charge of diplomacy with their rivals, the Veskayans.

  Most frontier cities had dirt streets at best, but in this place, the streets were made of Liquid Stone, a material produced only by Zatan Kolack. The buildings were made of mana-shaped stone, which made sense for a rushed city.

  His carriage passed leisurely through the streets. It needed only one horse, due to enchantments. People seemed happy, well-fed, and generally employed. Isth’Vrikt knew where the manor was and directed his driver who doubled as a bodyguard there. The few other carriages on the street easily and fluidly moved around his own.

  He unfolded his accordion-like chitinous arms and stretched in his pile of cylindrical pillows. Cascettan beds were designed like the egg piles of their nurseries-cylindrical pillows, like eggs. The insect-man stepped out of his carriage on the street outside the main keep in the city. It was only a middling settlement. The manor wasn’t bad, but it was only a few stories high and about a quarter of a block wide, including administrative areas and such.

  He and his bodyguard, who was actually a highly experienced Gold ranker, scuttled on their four legs up to the main gate. A guard in thick enchanted armor stopped them at the gate. “State your business. The manor will be open in three hours for civilians.” Isth’Vrikt stepped forward. “We are diplomats-we wish to speak to the new leaders of Kathman, and to renew agreements and such.”

  The guard froze for a moment, stunned, but recovered quickly. “Please follow me.” The guard motioned them towards the gate, as the palace was enclosed in a small inner wall.

  ————

  Kyle had been in the city for a few days. He needed a break from the constant stressors. He only had limited implants and chose not to mess with his endocrine system. Long-term spacers often needed countless modifications and regulators on their endocrine and nervous systems to stay away from the ground for too long, but it was known that endocrine mods were sometimes a little too effective.

  Watching the work of more refineries and warehouses always brought him peace. An alert appeared in his view-that was one implant he couldn’t go without. Some diplomats had arrived, non-humans looking like huge praying mantises.

  He immediately rushed down to the main hall. Pounds all old religious paraphernalia and ancient portraits taken down, replaced with a few landscape tapestries from the hoard. A guard escorted two bug people down the hall.

  One was wearing flexible and well-made scalemail, while the other wore a ceremonial but travel-friendly robe. They both bowed upon reaching Kyle, who simply stood. He would not dishonor these never-before-contacted aliens by acting dismissively in their presence.

  As diplomats, they of course spoke Cussian, the language of the region. “Greetings. I am Isth’Vrikt, and this is my colleague and bodyguard Seth’Kraram. We are from the Communal Cascettan State, a preeminent world power. We will not ask for submission, unlike the Veskayans, we ask only for trade and to allow open borders for guilds and organizations.”

  Kyle considered them-they weren’t communists, just bug people applying watered-down buggy values to other species, basically creating early communism. “I am open to those things-all I ask is that you disallow the adventurers’ guild from entering my lands and any others I conquer.”

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  Isth’Vrikt thought, What kind of ruler disallows the adventurers' guild in their nation? You can’t have professional soldiers killing monsters in the countryside and protecting farmers, adventurers are the grease of the great powers' wheels!

  “That is quite acceptable. I assume you have assistants to hammer out an agreement?” “That will not be an issue.” Kyle simply shook hands rather awkwardly with the mantis man’s segmented three-fingered claw. The mantis men followed one of the guards out of the hall towards the building that held the small but growing administrative corps of the city.

  Eventually, the Cascettans would become valuable allies and may even be worthy of joining the league in the far future. Their willingness for diplomacy was telling already.

  Kyle returned to his alcove on the top floor of the manor, now equipped with a few things like a simple telescope and a chessboard. He was excited to see more of the exotic races the planet had to offer. Some out there must have been really exotic.

  Kyle was ready to undertake diplomacy with anyone who wanted to, but the Veskayans would have to go. A huge, religiously motivated slave-state? They would be incompatible with Kyle’s new world he planned to build.

  ———

  Aside from hammering out a trade route, the cordial bug diplomat had done little but talk and leave. Kyle was excited to interact with their nation more, but a stretch of wilderness was between them. Maybe someday.

  In the meantime, before he’d gotten sidetracked, he still had to deal with those adventurers who appeared. Adventurers were widely known as a blessing and a curse. Either they killed the monster terrorizing your village, or they accidentally burned down said village in the effort.

  The mix of Platinum and Gold rank adventurers was quite impressive. That usually meant they cultivated their bioenergy to a superhuman level, took many rare and permanent performance enhancing drugs, or were mages with naturally huge mana pools and intake rates.

  Strong people, who got in the way of things often. Walking up to the marketplace with some crates of goods and a few perusing merchants, he saw them.

  It was a group of 1 young man and three women. The man looked to be in his young 20s, had black hair and eyes, and was handsome even if his face was a bit boring to look at. He wore standard plate armor, with a glowing adventurer tag on his breastplate.

  His female partners were more interesting. One wasn’t human, but rather Folk. She had cat ears and a tail. Her facial structure was oh-so-slightly feline as well. The other two were human women-one blond with straight hair, and another with brunette hair.

  All were of about the same height. What was really interesting to Kyle was their incredibly stupid manner of dressing. The three of them wore strange almost noble dresses that showed rather unstrategic amounts of skin. One of the humans wore armor, but it was so stylish that it basically did more to weaken her defense than otherwise.

  The man confidently and arrogantly walked up to him. Due to the PAST armor, he had to look up at Kyle, but still managed to seem disinterested. “Are you the lord of this city?” “Yes. Who are you… kind people?”

  The man flourished his arms. “Dante Destarter, Platinum rank adventurer, at your service. We’re here to open an Adventurers guild branch! We have our documents and license, and money to buy a buildi-”

  “No. The adventurers guild will not operate in my city. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, and I can compensate for your teleportation costs out here. But you will leave empty handed, I’m afraid.”

  Dante and his companions looked absolutely shocked, as though they had never been denied before. “Wha… why… why wouldn’t you want the adventurers guild in your lands? We reduce crime and monster attacks by nearly 80% wherever there’s a guildhall!” The man looked more confused than angry.

  “I do not need to explain myself to you and your impractically dressed companions. You may stay in the city, but I will not sell you a building.” So self entitled… just from simply being denied, the man had already curled his fists and elevated his heartrate. This should be fun.