Chapter 5

It was a bright sunny day in Kuoh, the sun was bright, the birds were chirping, and I finally going back to school after spending months in a remote island in another universe. Yeah it was just as crazy as it sounded.

Still I was back in Kuoh and while the classes were boring as usual, I was glad to be back in a room filled with boys and girls around my age and not being stuck on an island surrounded by animals and plants that could kill you in seconds, crazy mad-scientists who had one crazy idea after another and were asking my approval, necromancers who like to scare the living hell out of everyone using skeletons and ghosts, dragons who…wait that list is too damn long!

I really did the right thing to get away from the craziness of the island for a while. Gnarl and Artoria were good enough to manage for a few days and I was only thinking about spending a few weeks before going back which would be some 2-3 days back in the island due to the time conversion.

In the meantime I was going to buy some games, go to the arcade, hang out with my friends, do my homework and generally live the life of a normal teenage high school student.

During lunch time I wandered around the school a bit. To be honest I had become a bit unfamiliar with the layout of the school due the long months I spent on the island that had made me forget quite a bit about the school

Now that I think about it I almost spend a year in that world, which was enough time to make me forget some parts about the school. It was a good thing I wrote some notes about the recent events or else I would really have been lost.

Well at least I knew where the kendo club and the tennis courts were. I can still feel the beating they gave me way back when I peeped on them. Ah good times, though the two assholes did not even let me get a decent view and left me alone to get the blame.

Speaking of the two assholes, I found that they were curiously avoiding me, stalking me even. I wonder why?

Well I was not in the mood to deal with them today, especially when all I could remember about them was that they abandoned me to face the wrath of the girls they peeped on. Really why was I friends with them again?

I'm sure there was some reason but my brain could not think of one at the moment and I was not in the mood to think about it too. So for now I ignored them and began to familiarise myself with the school again.

Going through the corridors and wings of the school, I realised that the school had an awful lot of clubs, ranging from the typical sports club, the literary club, the token occult club, the high class music clubs to the outright exotic clubs like the cooking appreciation clubs, the history compilation club, the historical cooking research club and the Table Top games club just to name a few, and that was not mentioning the totally bizarre clubs like the Onmyouji papercraft club.

Thinking about my school again, I recalled that it was only last year that it had become Co-ed, so either the boys had gotten permission to open quite a lot of clubs or the girls of Kuoh Academy were always this weird and had established the clubs themselves.

I honestly didn't know which was the less crazy option, the fact that the boys were given free rein to establish clubs or the fact that the girls of this academy were a bit crazy and weird in the head, making Kuoh Academy a crazy rich girls' academy.

Truly, genius, success and eccentricity went hand in hand.

During my small walk, I noticed that I had gained a bunch of stalkers. The majority of them being girls with some boys in the mix, some of whom I recognised were from the Student Council if my memory served me right.

Really why were they stalking me all of a sudden? And did they really think that I could not notice them? Wait are they still after me about that incident of me accidentally walking in on them when they were changing? It was so long ago that I almost forgot about it, though granted from their perspective it was only a few days or a week at the most.

Still I ignore them, if they were curious about me let them be. It was not like they were harming anyone.

"The library?" I muttered out loud as I read the sign of the large hall, it was quite massive almost comparable to one of the main halls. Well that was Kuoh Academy for you, grandeur that was worthy of their prestige.

"I wonder what kind of books I would find." With how prestigious the school was, I bet that the library had a lot of books on medieval culture and modern industry, books that would help me in my endeavours in Halkeginia.

I could not help but smile as I thought how much of a boon the library would prove. It would really save me the trouble of buying the books from the market and with the money saved I could buy some new games. I think I had a duplication spell which I could use to create copies of the books too.

Yeah this really was a jackpot for me.

With a grin on my face, I entered the library curious to find the treasures hidden in the pages of the books it held…

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Reya Kusaka was confused. She was very, very confused.

The reason for her confusion was due to the presence of one boy who was playing havoc with her heart, Issei Hyoudou.

Now she was intimately familiar with the boy due to being his classmate and being part of the Student Council and had personally monitored his detentions more than a few times. And who could forget the incident of him walking in on them when they were changing in the Council Room. Not to mention Reya had been the one closest to door and Issei had gotten quite the view of her body.

Damn Momo and her prank. It was really embarrassing and mortifying really.

Going back to her current problem, the problem was the Issei Hyoudou she knew and had become familiar with over the past few months, was an immature perverted boy with no common decency to shut up about his perversion and had little to no respect or care about the fairer sex.

Yet the Issei Hyoudou she saw today in class was far different than the one she had seen yesterday.

She had known that Issei Hyoudou was acting strange for the past week, coming to class looking tired as hell, though that did not stop him from his usual antics and generally looking lethargic for the most part.

Today he looked quite energetic and fresh, his pervious fatigue being absent from his frame and he was filled with a more energetic and lively gait.

But Reya noticed that Issei Hyoudou while looking energetic had a more laidback demeanour to him today, he looked restrained but it did not looked like he was forcefully restraining himself out of some sort of forced compulsion like she had seen him do so many times before. But, it was like he was naturally subconsciously restraining himself from acting out like he usually did, and that made him look more 'mature'.

Reya was not the only one that had noticed this and there were girls and even some boys that were now interested in the sudden changes that Issei Hyoudou was displaying. It was this sudden maturity that was making her heart and the heart of many girls conflicted.

It was no secret that despite being a perverted voyeur, Issei Hyoudou was one of the nicest boys in the whole damn school and was too damn honest to a fault, it was due to his extreme honesty and sincerity that he was labelled a pervert, as he was honest and sincere about his passion for the female anatomy and made no effort to hide it.

Looking past that tiny bit, one could say that Issei Hyoudou was an average boy with some good traits that could endear him to the female population, but due to his perversion those traits were ignored and many girls did not think that it was worth the effort to become his girlfriend.

But Reya had a feeling that might change as his now more mature look had also given Issei a degree of cool look too.

It was nowhere near the coolness of Kiba Yuuto or some of the more pretty boys and princes of the school but it was just enough to make girls interested in him and if he kept his perverted behaviour in check than by the end of the week Issei Hyoudou would be getting multiple confessions or love letters in the least.

Reya knew that she might be one of those girls who would confess to Issei.

It was not like love at first sight but the maturity Issei displayed had prompted Reya to think about him in a more positive light and the more she thought about it the more she had a feeling she was growing a crush on him.

It really scared her how an idiot like Issei was easily capturing her heart. It would take a long time for her to really fall in love with him, if she did at all, but for now to temper her crush on him she was going to keep observing him. She was not stalking him, Honest!

If he was changing and not being a pervert any more than she might consider confessing to him, Issei was much more approachable in her eyes than Kiba Yuuto, who while was friendly all round was not the most social person and was in fact a bit cold and uncaring of others, especially girls. This had made Reya wary of confessing her admiration for the blond knight and this was not factoring in the fact that the Vice President Tsubaki was also after him.

Reya was still unsure whether she was in love or simply had a crush on the breast loving idiot but well she was a simple high school girl and such kind of feeling were supposed to be normal. It was the fact that it was Issei Hyoudou of all people that was igniting such feelings that was creating a conflict in her heart, not to mention she still held some admiration for the blond knight in her heart too.

Why was love so much complicated? It looked so easy in the novels she read and not this complicated mess of feelings that were brewing in her heart.

Reya decided that she would simply observe for now and see what course of action she should take. She was not stalking him, damn it!

A small part of her hoped that Issei was back to his perverted self so that she could dismiss his existence and keep pinning for the blond prince, for if he kept up his current behaviour, Reya feared that her crush on him would simply keep growing.

'High school crushes sure are complicated.' Reya thought as she followed Issei into the library. 'Hurry up and go back to being a pervert Hyoudou. Stop trying to usurp Kiba's place in my heart.' Reya raged as she saw Issei Hyoudou being polite almost courteous towards the librarian, then going towards the medieval section of the library after thanking the librarian.

Following him, Reya noted that Issei had a more alert and driven look to him, a sense of joy and passion emitting from him that made him look more confident and overall happy and cheerful. It was an odd combination upon seeing which Reya could not help but think.

'Why does he look like he just found a new peeping hole?'

Reya knew that Issei only had that expression when he was determined to peep on the girls and now that she thought about it, it had a certain cool factor to it. 'I guess the context really ruined the effect.'

Still Reya wondered, just why was Issei Hyoudou suddenly interested in medieval economics and medieval history?

Guess that was another mystery that she would have to solve.

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Back in Halkeginia, Gnarl was facing a different kind of problem. His new master in his hurry to take a break had accidentally forgotten to properly adjust the time dilation properties of the portal and had ended up with a 3 hours to 1 hour dilation.

It was not that bad per say, but Gnarl knew that his master would be out for at least a week and even Gnarl acknowledge that his master needed the mental rest as the mental fatigue had been piling up for some time now.

The problem was from the correspondence they had established with the guild, a message had come asking the urgent presence of his master for some official matters.

Gnarl really did not want to recall his master yet as he needed some time off from all this yet he knew that the meeting could not be ignored too.

Bell Carnell had not being so forthcoming as to what the meeting would pertain about but Gnarl guessed that it would probably have to do something about the properties and territories that were in his master's name.

Looking at the territorial map given by Bell Carnell, Gnarl had to sigh at the very small amount of territories that were in his master's name. The territories Issei Hyoudou now controlled were not even half the size of the first ancient kingdoms of the Original Overlord and it was a far cry from the multi-universal empire of the later Overlords.

'Baby steps I guess.' Gnarl mused, as he planned out how to govern this small territory. 'Don't want to overwhelm the poor boy, yet.'

It was going to take a lot of effort to even make these small territories prosperous and bring them up to a satisfactory standard. They would have to set up a lot of infrastructure, set up local militia forces, train and equip them with proper gears, set up suitable governors and mayors, create an efficient bureaucracy and lots more.

It would take a lot of work and Gnarl knew that he still had much to teach the young Overlord about the running of an empire.

"And these territories seemed to be a good way to start doing just that." Gnarl muttered looking at the map of the Continent of Halkeginia.

'It really is strange how the rich merchants of Germania as like pseudo-rulers and kings, acting as vassals of the Emperor of Germania.' Gnarl mused, thinking about the Germania constitution as a whole.

Really there were so many loopholes in that constitution that were being actively used by not only the merchant and the nobles but were in fact encouraged by the king and the royal family too.

There were even laws pertaining to the declaration of independence from Germania, with even merchants having the power to declare their privately own territories independent from Germania, but due to the might and power of the Royal Military which no merchant could hope to match, they did not dare to declare independence from Germania.

Past examples had shown what happened to such merchants and their families.

Gnarl knew that the battle between the Germanian Army would be a good way to test the new minion forces and they had enough resources to drown them in numbers, even though the sheer quality of the troops would have long won the day.

It was a good option to keep now if his master ever gets tired of playing merchant though the line between king and merchant was quite blurred in Germania, so it was a mote point anyway.

Now what to do about that meeting?

Gnarl could go by himself and attend the meeting but he did not feel like it and Artoria did not have much training in the ways of politics, diplomacy and statesmanship, so sending her might result in some bad deals which might result in a war.

'So sending Artoria seems like a good choice.' Gnarl thought stroking his beard, 'Wars are always good for young Overlords and this might put his name on the map.'

Looking at the remaining territories of Tristan Gnarl could not help but muse and think how he could annex the remaining territories of Tristan, would really patch things up on that end instead of having several spread out pocket territories in Tristan.

'Well the overall economy of Tristan is going to suffer a lot with the recent sales of their territories and Germania and Gallia would be foolish to not take advantage of the situation and press their advantage and try to annex Tristan.' Gnarl thought as he thought about the other two states, 'Albion is in no condition to do anything with the growing civil discontent and the rising possibility of civil war, so they won't be able to help Tristan much.'

'Now, just what can I do to annex Tristan before the other two kingdoms move to do so?' Gnarl thought over the options.

Military conquest was out but not off the table, political pressure would be useless for now as they had little of it, so that left economic and espionage tactics. For now Tristan was slowly being economically crippled with the sales of territories slowly showing their effects and in a few more months would collapse unless they wised up and enact some short term and long term solutions, fast.

''I still can't believe the nobles of Tristan were so short sighted when they sold their lands and holdings. Really it's like they did not pay heed to the consequences of their actions that the kingdom would have to shoulder." Such nobles were either killed off at a young age or recruited into the army to be trained properly before they could cause much damage back in the empire.

"Hump, guess Tristan's loss is our gain." Gnarl said, smiling savagely as he thought about the various ways he could pressure the Royalty of Tristan. "I wonder if I can find a good Lady for my Lord. It is always good to get a Queen early to keep things like sex drive and love in check. It also gives the Overlord quite a lot of time to corrupt said queen to his side, though I guess Lord Issei might object to that as he seems fixated on creating a Harem."

Gnarl could not help but sigh in exasperation as he thought about his lord's dreams and goals, "Well at least I have advised him to have some parameters to limit his Harem or else I have no doubt he would end up like Solomon and his Thousand Concubines and Wives. He really seemed to be greedy like that."

Still it was not like anything he had seen and it was pretty tame in comparison to some of the Overlords he had served like Lord Hadrian and Lord N.U. now those were true raging perverts as they did not even seemed to discriminate between gender or species, while his current lord was simply fixated on Human Females of specific characteristics.

Plotting and scheming Gnarl happily hummed an old tune as he went about his tasks.

"Through the warp and far away~

~through the warp and far away~"

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While Gnarl plotted and schemed to annex Tristan, back in the Royal Palace of Tristan Henrietta was putting her own plots into motion to save her kingdom.

"Have the invitations sent out?" Henrietta asked Cardinal Mazzini as she looked to the arrangement of what would probably the most important ball in the history of Tristan.

"Yes, your highness, the invitations have been sent out and our friends in Germania have replied that the young Merchant would be attend the ball." The cardinal replied, "All that is left now is to wait and watch and prepare ourselves for the fallout."

While Henrietta did not like it at all there was nothing she could do in such a situation.

"Wait and watch, huh?" The princess said as she looked towards the woman who would possibly have the power to dictate the future of not only Tristan but Halkeginia as a whole. 'I guess it is fitting that the Vallière who always were great bringers of change for Tristan would now change the landscape of Halkeginia as a whole.'

Off to the side said woman in question had only one thing going on in her mind.

'I just hope that Germanian Brute does not run away like all my other fiancés'

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AN: I really wanted to put more into this chapter but I found the later parts to be more suitable for a whole other chapter.