I laughed.Shannon appeared beside me, her expense report now covered in glitter and mustard and what looked like a tearstain from the emotional rollercoaster of the day. "Master Art, I've calculated the damages. We need approximately fifteen thousand gold for repairs, twenty thousand for civilian compensation, and at least five thousand for my emotional suffering.""Done," I said. "Add another ten for the beard.""The beard?""For the beard trauma. You earned it."She blinked. Then, slowly, she smiled—the first real smile I'd seen from her since the dragon showed up. "You're not as terrible as I thought.""High praise, Shannon.""Don't let it go to your head, boss.""Too late. It's already there. Right next to the admiration bonus."She rolled her eyes and walked away, but she was still smiling.I leaned back on my crate, the Red Beast's engine cooling beside me, the fire crackling in front of me, and my team scattered around me in various states of exhaustion, celebration, and hot d

"But what about the health code violations?""The Gothic Kingdom doesn't have a health code.""We're going to invent one.""Fine. We'll invent one. And then we'll give Greg a waiver. Because Greg is a hero and heroes don't follow rules."Shannon stared at me. "You just want the hot dogs.""I do want the hot dogs that is not chicken. The hot dogs are terrible and I love them. Don't judge me."The Gothic citizens, predictably, had opinions about the recovery efforts.Some were grateful. The families moved into the palace with tears in their eyes, clutching their children and their few remaining possessions, thanking Ellene and me with the kind of desperate sincerity that made my chest hurt."Thank you, Lord Merchant," an old woman said to me on the second night. She was sitting on a royal couch—royal—with her granddaughter on her lap, both of them covered in glitter and wrapped in blankets that had once belonged to Gothic nobility. "We thought we'd lost everything. And now... now we're

"People of the Gothic Kingdom!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the stone walls. The Red suit's built-in amplifier helped, but honestly, I just had good lungs. "My name is Arthur. Most of you know me as the Merchant Lord, the guy in the red suit, the idiot who stood in a V-formation and shot a rainbow at a three-headed snake until it turned into glitter."The crowd murmured. Some laughed. A few cheered. The goat bleated."Celebration time is over," I said, and the murmuring stopped. "We've had our fun. We've eaten the hot dogs. We've rolled in the glitter. We've watched Kevin terrorize the population in the name of ghost rights. But now, now, it's time to work."A woman in the front row crossed her arms. "Work how? The dragon destroyed half our farms. The nobles are squabbling. The knights are too busy polishing their armor to actually help. And the Athens Kingdom is still out there, probably sharpening their swords and waiting for us to fall."I pointed at her. "That's exactly the at

The inns were packed every night. Merchants from Athens, from the Crystal Realm, from as far away as the Sunken Isles came to trade, to eat, to see the glitter. The roads were safe. The taxes were low. The people were happy.Even the nobles, grudgingly, complainingly, dramatically—came around.Lord Blackthorn got his red suit. It wasn't Aphrodite-grade, I wasn't about to drop that kind of VP on a man who had called me "a jumped-up peddler with delusions of grandeur"—but it was red. And sparkly. And it made him look like a very angry, very old Power Ranger."I look ridiculous," he announced at the monthly noble council."You look unified," Ellene corrected."I look like a*fool.""You look like a fool who's part of the team. Now sit down and vote on the grain distribution."The nobles voted. They always voted. Not because they agreed—many of them still grumbled about the changes—but because Ellene had a rainbow beam and I had a bottomless supply of VP and neither of us was afraid to use

Elsa floated on her back, her Pink-Black-Pink armor piled on a rock beside the shore, her face tilted toward the sun. She looked... peaceful. Not like a warrior. Not like a strategist. Just like a woman who had decided that the water was warm and the sky was blue and nothing else mattered for a little while."Master Arthur," she called out, "you have algae in your hair.""I'm accessorizing.""You look like a swamp creature.""A fabulous swamp creature."Herbert laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that echoed across the lake and startled a flock of birds from the trees. Barnaby, who had eventually given in and waded into the shallow water up to her knees, was staring at the algae on my head with the expression of someone calculating exactly how many gallons of shampoo it would take to fix me."Twelve," he said."Twelve what?""Twelve gallons of shampoo. Minimum.""Put it on the expense report.""It's your hair.""Then put it on my expense report. That's what expense reports are for.""That'