They repeated the trip until everyone had come to Ars new kingdom, and when the people on the last ship disembarked, Ars went to search for his promised surprise. It didn't take long for him to find it, to be precise it was hard not to find it.
On the place where his house used to be standing , now stood a large palace. It was indeed a surprise, he was so surprised that he didn't even know how to react.
He decided to enter and inspect the insides. Once inside, he quickly started exploring and found his queens there talking with each other about random stuff. And by their side Risa and Rika were sleeping peacefully.
When they saw him they quickly approached. And welcomed him with warm smiles.
"Welcome back your majesty, how was the trip? And do you like the surprise?"
"It was good, but we did find a spy from a pirate crew from the grand line, we might have to fight them in the future. And yes I enjoyed the surprise, though I would prefer one of you wrapped as a present…"
That made their smiles freeze. And then Kuina asked with a serious face.
"Are they strong?"
Ars moved his head from side to side thinking about the question and the enemy strength, before answering.
"Well they are not that strong but they do have a few akuma no mi users, but instead of being strong, they are very confident, so they are very aggressive… And you chose to ignore what I said last!?"
Elia smiled sweetly and replied playfully.
"Nobody said you couldn't have both!"
Ars smiled at her and then froze. He realized something, he got distracted with the fight and his duty to bring the people back, and he had forgotten to take the head of the spy to change for his bounty…
Bellmere noticed his face growing unrest and asked about it.
"Is everything alright? Your face is going through a range of emotions."
He laughed awkwardly, and explained embarrassedly.
"I forgot to pick up his head and change his bounty, it was 60.000.000 berries, and i only realized it now when I was talking about how aggressive they are."
They laughed and Elia smiled sweetly again and tried to comfort him.
"Don't worry about it, next time you won't forget. And money doesn't always bring happiness."
Ars nodded, he agreed with her, more precisely he agreed that it didn't always bring happiness, but he added.
"Well… Yes, it doesn't always bring happiness, but I think if you have money you always have more options to be happy, if you do things right. Some people say money doesn't bring happiness, and it's true, but it is only true if you don't use it, because if i am given a choice between having it and not having it i will always choose to have it. In short, if you are in a position where money wouldn't bring you happiness, then being poor probably wouldn't be much better. With money you still have more options to choose from and through those choices you can become happy, very different from if you are poor with no options. Crying that money doesn't bring happiness most of the time, it is rich people who were born that way and never experienced poverty."
He then looked at her directly and added.
"And I wasn't born rich, so losing a decently large amount of money makes me unhappy."
They all smiled and agreed with him, especially bellmere, who commented.
"Sadly, what controls this world is strength and money, my death was quite literally because I didn't have enough of any of those."
Ars face turned awkward, and changed the subject to training.
"By the way, have you all been training properly?"
They all nodded, it wasn't exactly stated that they needed to train but, after Ars pulled them into training a few times in the past, it somehow became a habit to exercise at least 2 hours a day for all of them, with Kuina always training more.
Ars smiled at them proudly. Then Olivia asked something that may define their relationship.
"I have a question…And I know you cherish us very much, and are always looking for ways to make us happy while keeping us safe… But do you actually have romantic feelings for us?"
That made all of the queens freeze, it was like Olivia said, especially since they knew this system with several queens was a way to distribute work to trustworthy people on his side, Ars looked like sometimes he wasn't that interested in romance and was only interested in them as tools to facilitate his life, all of them questioned themselves in the past about it, but never had the guts to directly ask him.
Ars thought about it, and tried to think of a good way to explain how he saw them, and how he saw romance in general.
"Well, if you are asking if I brought you here and was love at first sight, then no… But I don't even believe in love at first sight. I instead believe that a romantic relationship is a relationship where both sides always take extra good care of each other and look out for ways to help each other when either side needs it. For me love is something to be nurtured with that care and those feelings of wanting to protect and help each other, something like taking someone on a date, or cooking for them are all expressions of that care for each other, and once you nurture those feelings to the extreme, i believe that is what i called love."
He paused and quickly added.
"If you're asking why I'm not the most romantic in my actions, like taking you all on dates and things like that, it's because i am not good at it, even in speeches i need to practice for a few days, i'm not a natural at being the center of attentions, i am more the quiet guy who would see you asleep on the couch and put something warm over you so you can sleep well, or the one who tries to take you to your room without waking you up… Not the guy that will be super romantic in his words… I prefer to demonstrate my love for you all through actions…"
He paused, looked at them with a sunny smile and then continued.
"But if you are asking, if I like your appearances? And if you think that liking your appearances is love, then yes I do love you… But I intend to do my best to nurture those feelings no matter how small they are, and turn it into what I consider actual love."
They were all very embarrassed but even more happy.
All of them knew that Ars had brought them here out of boredom or out of necessity. So while their relationship with him was very good, they knew their roles and tried their best to fulfill those roles, but listening to him saying that he intended to fall in love with them and try to make them love him, they were very happy about it. And they decided to do the same.
Before his house was filled with smiles and good relationships, but now there was something new. It might be the palace, but Ars thought he could feel that now besides those, it was filled with happiness and warmth.
Maybe after listening to him, they finally realized that he actually was trying to make them feel at home, he just wasn't good at it. Before they felt like family with each other, but Ars was not included, now he felt that they were starting to include him.
Ars smiled at them and asked.
"So, who will show me my new house?"
They all smiled and looked at each other, and Bell-mere commented.
"Why not everyone…"
They all nodded, and started bringing around, showing all the new places, and the renewed ones.
In short, everything the previous house had, the palace had more and bigger, it also had a bunch of new areas and it had an amazing large bathhouse where everyone could enter at the same time and it would still feel quite spacious, Ars couldn't wait to try it with them.
Ars found that the passage to the underground machine area was behind a mirror in his own room.
His new bed was big enough to have 10 people in it with room to spare, he couldn't help but comment about it.
"Well the bed is big enough to house half of the island population… Is there anything you would like to say to me?"
They all laughed, and Elia playfully answered for everyone.
"Now you can take all of your wives and a few more to sleep with you and we still have enough space to move comfortably."
Ars laughed at the answer and the faces the other 3 made, were enough to make Ars almost fall on the ground laughing.
While they probably accepted it in their talks, saying it directly was another thing entirely, their faces went from all smiles to absolutely red and embarrassed.
After the new house tour, they went to have lunch.
While they were eating, Ars asked about the current situation.
"How has the kingdom been doing while I was away? And do you guys need anything to help in your roles?"
They all shook their heads.
The more time they passed with him the more they realized that he liked to play around but was also serious and trustworthy when it counted. And he wasn't one to lie.
Elia, looked at the others, who weren't saying anything and decided to inform him, herself.
"Well, while you were gone, the land fill was completed, and so was the orphanage and finally the market was not only complete but we executed a test run and it was a big success. Other than that, a few babies were born, and the mining town, on the blacksmiths side Nori and the other blacksmiths that were trying to create a new metal succeeded, and they are very happy about it."
Ars raised his eyebrows curiously and asked.
"Do you know the details of the metal?"
She shook her head, she had no idea. It was Olivia who explained.
"Other than the blacksmiths, no one else knows the properties of the metal yet, they have been keeping it a secret, and are still doing tests on the metal, but the confirmed details are still not known to others."
Suddenly they all heard a child crying nearby. And shortly after, one maid that had stayed behind to keep an eye on the 2 sleeping girls, came in with the 2 little girls with her.
The moment the 4 queens saw the little girls, they quickly moved to pick them up, Ars couldn't help but say.
"Well, you and those 2 little girls bonded quite quickly."
They all avoided his eyes like they had done something bad, so he knew they had done something.
This time Kuina looked at him very seriously and questioned him.
"We are your queens and we have some authority right?"
Ars was confused by the sudden question, but he nodded, they were queens of course they had some authority.
Looking at Ars confused expression, she realized she may have been unclear, so she clarified.
"I don't mean as queens of the kingdom, I mean as your wifes."
Ars was still confused but he still nodded, she then showed a very happy smile and explained.
"Well in that case, if we decided to adopt them without consulting you it shouldn't be a problem, right? And by the way even if you say no, we went with democracy, and we all voted positively on adopting them. And if you say no, and actually stop us… We will throw a tantrum until you allow us to do it."
Ars showed an awkward smile, and replied.
"I don't really mind, like I said before, as long as it makes you guys happy i will do my best to provide it, but please tell me you didn't make it official without me here? "
Now it was her turn to show a confused expression.
"Let me put it this way, I am the king, and I also am the head of the family, right? So if you made it official without me being here, it could cause some people to start thinking that you all hold more influence than me, and that shouldn't happen."
They realized after he explained, that even if they knew that he would most likely agree, unless he gave them permission beforehand, they should wait for him to make decisions, they should do it together when those decisions were about family matters.
Bell-Mere quickly denied it.
"No, we didn't make it official, but most people already know we decided to adopt them."