Conquering His Cold Heart

As Frost crossed the threshold into the mayor's manor he couldn't help but notice the pampered cat lounging atop a fluffy bed as a young servant brushed his thick fur. There was even a bowl of fish sitting by his side which he could pick at as he pleased.

Frost struggled to say anything, simply twitching at the lips as he held back his complaints.

'How can a mighty glacial winged tiger transition to an adorable house pet so easily?' He knew best how vicious Kiba could be when it came to battle, even he occasionally struggled to endure the sight of him rending apart the limbs of his enemies.

He decided to completely ignore Kiba and entered the manor. There was several things he still needed to discuss with Yarrow and Chia before he left.

"Frost you're back, I missed you." The moment he walked into Chia's office he was met with a joyous smile and a kiss on the cheek from his green skinned lover.

"I missed you too Daki." He kissed her back. "Have you managed to sort out all the legal stuff with Chia and Yarrow?"

"Most of it but not all, give us 30 minutes no an hour and we'll be done." A fair bit of paperwork needed to be completed for Daki to properly abscond with Frost. Her relationship with the mayoral family, her high ranking smithing skills as well as the business she brought to Kranor all needed to be quantified. What would the enclave be losing by allowing her to leave with Frost.

The enclave needed to be aware so it could deal with the incoming loss in income. Borris would likely have to got through a similar situation with Furano's legal department when decided to leave.

The enclave had no intention in taking advantage of Daki it just needed to be filed and recorded. Tedious work but necessary as Frost understood it.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Though he was a bit unnerved at seeing the stacks upon stacks of paperwork surrounding Daki and Chia he still offered a hand.

"Thanks for the offer but no, this is something only I can do." As thanks she leaned in and kissed him deeply on the lips before allowing her large hands to wander down his body until they took firm hold of his cheeks and squeezed. "Ah much better, I'm full of energy again!" She loudly declared as she pulled away from her lover's lips, a trail of glistening saliva still connecting the two.

She now understood Frost's fascination with her own posterior, squeezing cheeks was a great stress reliever.

Frost initially looked surprised before his lips formed a predatory grin. He chased after his girlfriend's escaping body, wrapping her muscular waist in his arms before leaning in for a true kiss. He invaded her lips with his skilled tongue, quickly causing her mind to grow fuzzy from bliss. Her left leg naturally elevated from the ground as the two delved into a moment of passion.

"Hit hum!" Unfortunately they weren't alone. Chia who was facilitating Daki's paperwork was also present and got front row seats to their intimacy. She wasn't too adverse to the sight in fact normally she'd even encourage it but right now there was work to be done.

Her loud announcing cough brought the two lovers out of their moment albeit reluctantly.

"Finish your work first, then the two of you can go at like rabbits if you want." She declared in a commanding tone, not taking no for an answer.

Frost and Daki thus looked at one another before sharing a knowing smile.

"Try to make it 30 minutes."

"I'll aim for 20." Now that their switches had been flipped it was very hard for them to turn them off, their physical attraction to one another was irresistible. Chia practically had to physically shoo him out the door and order a servant to escort him to Yarrow and Lola. They could deal with him while she finished with Daki.

"It's like dealing with lovestruck teenagers." She loudly complained as she saw Daki's eyes trailing after Frost's figure.

"Oh come on we're not that bad, and even if we are is that really a bad thing."

"Haaaaaaaa" Chia loudly sighed in response. Young love was not a bad thing per say, it was innocent, free and exciting but terribly distracting. Just a single kiss and close proximity completely wrecked their focus, throwing all else to the back of their minds.

"You're just jealous hmph." Daki hmphed and started humming a pleasant tune as she started the next line of paperwork, looking forward to indulging herself with Frost afterwards.

Chia let out another sigh before refocusing. Perhaps Daki was right, maybe she was a little jealous.

Frost was quickly brought before Yarrow and Lola who's work situation looked even more hectic that Chia and Daki's. Lola even had bags under her eyes and a lack of her usual sparkle in her irises. That changed however the moment Frost entered. Seeing an opportunity to ditch her work she jumped from her seat and wrapped her body around him before dragging him towards the sofa.

Frost was to be her shield against her overbearing mayoral father who didn't know the meaning of too much work.

"Get your butt back in that seat and finish going over the agriculture department's budget report young lady, don't make me spank you!" Unfortunately for her, Yarrow didn't give a rat's ass about his or her image in front of Frost. Lola visibly trembled, before sullenly dragging herself back towards her desk.

Her father wasn't kidding, her age made no difference, if he thought she deserved a spanking, a spanking was what she got. Perhaps that's how she managed to overtake her mother in the size department, the many, many spankings as a child and even as a young adult leading to a defensive ballooning in size.

With his daughter in her rightful place and focusing on her work Yarrow turned to his guest.

"Mrs Fennec was just singing your praises and demanding that I do everything in power to retain you as a teacher."

"Hahahaha I had a feeling she wouldn't be one to give up so easily." Frost respected her tenacity, but it didn't change his mind.

"How was Druakai's did he have you help with those little demons of his?"

"Urgh! Yes he did, do you know he finds them cute."

"Yeah he's always had strange tastes." Yarrow was quite versed when it came to dealing with Druakai's unusual tendencies.

The young orc had a fair amount of free reign when it came to managing his monster ranch, so he wasn't adverse to taking some liberties with such power. More than a few times he purchased or rescued some of the most eldritch looking monsters you can imagine.

Obviously these oddities didn't sell well but Yarrow was remised to cage his passion, Druakai was the only highly skilled monster breeder in the enclave after all.

"Regardless I was able learn quite a lot about his profession and gain more respect for it, monster breeding isn't for the tame of heart nor the lazy."

"That's true, he works hard, too hard sometimes." Yarrow shook his head, hoping that his new employees would eventually reach Druakai's exacting standards and help him out with his more strenuous tasks. It was easy to find simple labour to take care of the cuddly and friendly monster pups. They were so docile that they were practically no different from regular beasts, very easy to manage.

It was the feral and brutal first and second spawners that were the real challenge, breeders needed to be on their toes and have genuine skill if they wanted to reign in these monsters and train as battle mounts.

The two chatted amicably while Lola was forced to work her butt off, her irritation growing with every word spoken as if she was but a fly on the wall.

Seeing that she was likely to blow a fuse Yarrow and Frost changed to topics that could use her input, i.e. managing territory and the agreements between Frost and Kranor. It wasn't exactly what she hoping for, but it was better than being left out.

"When do you think you'll be fully up and running?" Yarrow asked in a rather serious manner. The longer Frost took to set up a fully functioning camp the greater the risk to his control and the longer they'd have to wait before engaging to proper trade.

Frost stroked his chin and thought for a few seconds before answering.

"At the moment we're still building the foundation and have zero form of traffic but that's to be expected given that the monster stampede just ended." Lola and Yarrow nodded their heads in agreement.

"The camp's area encompasses 25km2  around the entrance of the dungeon. Currently we've erected a sturdy wall that's 4 metres high, but we plan to make it 8 metres within the coming weeks, that should be enough to ensure decent protection.

The final height we're aiming for is roughly 12 metres, similar to Furano's walls and like Furano we plan to reinforce it with multiple war machines, but we should be fine without them in the interim."

"Our buildings are still very raw, only a couple are near completion, but we've lined out multiple districts for future development, there'll be no issues in regards to space for quite some time. However to answer your question I'm not exactly sure it, depends entirely on how the initial visitors grade the camp.

If they find the dungeon to be very profitable I expect waves of adventurers and merchants to flood to my territory in a matter of months but if it doesn't take off well then perhaps a year or so until we can facilitate proper relations between our territories." The prosperity of his territory was heavily dependent on adventurers, when they'd first arrive, their experience with the dungeon as well as how they find the camp's facilities.

Frost had worked out a fair number of options to help entice people to stay and invest, but word would have to spread first.