Chapter 237: Epilogue 4 Oh If Only

Walter cleared his throat.

"Yes, Walter?" asked Joseph looking up from his paperwork.

"I finished going through the lesser reports, and was hoping you could take a moment to glance through them before I returned them to the council?"

Joseph sighed and took the stack from him. "I don't mind, it's just that there's so much to do after taking that time off to help Stella the other day. With Joe gone, busy exploring other new realms, and Stella gone saving world trees, I have to finish these reports on my own, so I can finish our first realm alignment."

"Realm alignment?"

"Yes, normally the realms are separate, but sometimes they come close, or overlap. One of the realms Joe found dead, where the world tree had been killed and all life went with it, is close enough to align with our own."

"What?" exclaimed Walter, confused and surprised.

"What? That isn't the surprising bit. Without Saisho and the dragon's in this realm, everything would have ended before I was born to fix it. Joe has found hundreds of realms like this already. But I put a world tree seedling in this realm for Stella, so it's restarting. However, if left alone, the seedling will take eons to create truly diverse life."

"I thought you said we couldn't fuse realms," said Walter, sitting down. He didn't understand most of the things that were going on with the other realms and the world trees. Only Joseph, Joe, and Stella really understood everything that was going on.

"It isn't a fusion, Walter. We are aligning the new realm near ours. It allows our barrier, that keeps the gods we don't like out, to cover it, too. But it's a delicate process and the timing is hard. Once it's done, our realm, and the dwarven realm, will be able to assist the seedling in growing quickly, as well as offering advice on what life to create in the new realm. Apparently, talking to seedlings is normally like yelling across the castle, because they are weaker. This will let the two world trees teach the seedling as if they were in the same room. If it works, then literally hundreds of the dead realms could be joined to ours. It also makes gating to these realms take much less effort and permanent gates wouldn't have the destabilizing effect that can sometimes happen when the gates go to far realms."

"That is amazing, Your Majesty." Walter blinked a few times as Joseph hadn't stopped going through the reports. These were only the reports the councilors deemed worthy of his approval, but he hadn't been in the office for two days and was trying to catch up. "I am quite surprised, though."

"About what?"

"Well, you don't seem to provide much help for Her Majesty in her world tree guardian duties, and I wasn't expecting you to be so calm with her in another realm while she was four months pregnant."

"She asks if she wants any help, just like I do with the kingdom. Strengthening the world trees and planting new ones gives the kingdom a lot of land to expand to in the future, so it's beneficial also. Plus, all the emergencies that needed violence have mostly been taken care of. Now, she is mostly negotiating with fey and elven communities that are under the world trees.

"Some have lost their high druids and can no longer hear requests from their tree, others aren't taking the job seriously enough, mostly things like that. One realm had elves harvesting branches and sap from the world tree in order to make weapons and medicines so they could fight off the invading orcs who were trying to get lumber from the forest. Stella kicked both of them out of the world tree forest and brought in some forest dwarves to care for the world tree. I think in a couple of months I will propose we open trade with them. MAKING/BREAKING and PLANT were quite impressed with some of their craftsmanship. They have several interesting spell variants too."

"That's amazing. Oh, and I almost forgot. The Elven king has requested permission to allow the twins to study here. He said, he was willing to provide ample compensation during the time they would be here, along with trade in that elven silk Stella seemed to like the last time they were there."

Joseph paused as he thought about that. His craftsmen could easily make the silk here, but if he did that, then the elven king wouldn't have much else to trade. Joseph had quickly seen the desperation in the king's eyes the last time they had talked, because his workers were surpassing the elves in everything they did. The fact that Stella had commented on the silk had merely been to provide support for them, rather than because of an actual like. It would be too late to try and explain that though, and they both knew it.

"I'm willing to hear his offer, and I have no problems allowing my siblings to learn here. They've grown so much, it's amazing they're old enough already to start studies."

"They wouldn't start until their seventh birthday, in two more years, but yes, it is amazing how time seems to fly."

"Thank you, Walter. Could you see to it that these papers make it back to the council? I have other duties to attend to," said Joseph standing up and stretching.

"Of course, Your Majesty," said Walter, taking the stack of papers and leaving.

Teleporting to the back of a dark alley, Joseph brushed his clothes, as if knocking dust off of them, and they changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with tennis shoes. Stepping out onto the busy street, he looked around at the throng of people, and turned randomly to walk down the street.

Noting a young boy staring at a scantily clad group of women, he moved up behind the boy and laid a hand on his shoulder. The boy jumped and turned around as if caught by a snake.

"Who are you?" he cried, looking around at the passing crowd, as if looking for someone. "What do you want?"

"Sorry, but I couldn't help but notice you were ogling the girls. I would recommend you keep your pants on. They have at least four different diseases, between them, and would probably take everything in your wallet, while you were busy."

The boy stared at him for a moment, confused, then anger flared in his eyes as he realized what Joseph was saying.

"Who do you think you are, telling me what I can or can't do?!"

"I didn't tell you to do anything. It's totally your choice, but I assure you, no amount of magic in this world is going to be able to get some of those diseases to go away. See how the one with red hair has really bright lipstick? That's because she's trying to hide the sores she has around her mouth. That one with the bright pink hair is going blind. That's why she has a death grip on the blond."

The kid looked back with a look of disbelief on his face, and as Joseph saw the truth become apparent to the kid, he turned himself invisible. No one on the streets noticed him. The kid freaked though, spinning around for a moment in a panic, drawing far more attention, before shaking his head and rushing off.

"One more saved," whispered Joseph to himself, as he teleported home. Being a hero was way more satisfying when it was yourself you were saving.