The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 729: The Wait

Chapter 729: The Wait

There was very little paperwork getting done in the sitting room.

Sure, there was lots of it laid out so that it looked like they were busy. But everyone was either too excited or too nervous to focus on actually reading and signing the documents.

Dominic was trying, he really was.

He had all the documents that were tagged as “urgent”, “time critical” or “military” set out on the table, and he was slowly making his way through them.

However, his hearing was exceptionally sharp, and he was no longer certain that all the epithets that his wife was placing upon his name and lineage were in any known language.

He did think that he had heard one in the ancient magical tongue not long ago. But hopefully that curse wouldn’t stick.

Lunch was brought out at some point, telling Dominic that it had been about five hours since breakfast, and he was through all the paperwork that was truly urgent.

That left three quarters of the day’s work, and normally, he would have been done by now. But most of this could wait for tomorrow, or he would get a similar update to it again tomorrow.

Rill prepared to depart right after lunch, urgent business calling him back.

“I will be sure to send the Princess a gift tomorrow to celebrate, but I simply must get those shipments out of my warehouses.

The farmers of Wistover Duchy have been far too generous with their shipments for the Dagos relief effort, and I’ve still got to arrange portals for the Trollish donation.

I swear, if this keeps up, nobody else in Cygnia is going to have to donate anything at all to the King of Dagos, it will all be coming from Wistover. And that’s after I’ve already sent three convoys this week toward Castle City and Darden, loaded with food.

If the production numbers keep up at this rate, things are quickly going to get out of hand.

We can export a lot of food, but the yields are twice what would seem reasonable for the amount of land that has been planted. They’ve overfilled all their storage, and it’s causing prices to plummet.

The market price in the city is less than half what it was a month ago.

That might be good when you’re looking to pay bills, but the farmers still need to make enough to keep their homes afloat. They’re doing twice the work planting and harvesting for the same profit at these prices.

The only advantage is that they have traded for everything that they can get into their pantry, and nobody will be going hungry. Or even eating wild vegetable soup before the next harvest.”

Dominic laughed. “Well, if there are buyers in other cities, we will just have to work on our export abilities.

The more that we can move out of the region, the higher the prices will stay, while still being a discount compared to what the prices are elsewhere. I’m sure that you can work something out.”

Rill sighed at the Duke’s faith in him.

Sure, he likely could come up with something, but he was trying to imply that there was no need to encourage the farmers to keep up this rate of production.

Induced scarcity was better for the market, and it would drive up the prices everywhere that they traded to.

At this rate, he would have to keep finding new markets so that he didn’t collapse the price of potatoes, corn and beans all over the region. They also had an excess of oats and barley, but those were still being stockpiled in the city for later.

They were popular as animal feed, as well as human. So, if the price dropped too far, they would just start feeding the excess to the goats.

Another thing that Wistover was quickly gaining too many of.

The trolls had to be doing something to increase the birth rates of the goats. There simply shouldn’t be so many of them in the region, according to the math that he had done on the imports.

Dominic poured another glass of wine, then paused as the sounds upstairs went suspiciously quiet.

Quiet was suspicious.

Either things had gotten bad enough that they had activated the soundproofing, or there was no energy left for cursing his name.

Dominic knew that the trolls had given her powerful painkillers, they had potions specifically for the purpose that were assured to be safe for the baby. He had even purchased them in advance, simply picking every possible option they presented him, just in case it was needed.

If it wasn’t, they could either keep it in reserve, assuming it had the shelf life, or they could donate it to someone who needed it.

After a few minutes of silence, Dominic heard the door open, and the tap of the Royal Guard’s boot heel on the hardwood. A common signal to each other that something was about to happen.

So, he put his drink down, which alerted the others that something was up just before one of the veiled maids entered the sitting room.

“If you would like to come up and meet your daughter, they are ready for you now.”

The Advisors patted Dominic on the back as he left, following the maid up the stairs. The woman’s face was hidden under her veil, but Dominic could see nerves in her posture.

She was very nervous about showing Dominic to the newborn, or perhaps about Alexis’ reaction now that he was back in the same room with her.

She had been quite adamant that she would never forgive him for this experience only a few minutes ago, after all.

The maid was a younger woman, with no children of her own. So, this was the first time that she had experienced a live birth, and she wasn’t entirely certain that the trolls were correct about Alexis forgiving Dominic by morning.

“Your Grace, may I present to you, your firstborn daughter.

Princess Katerina Alisha Josephine Wavemates.”