Morning arrived, and Marcus crawled out of bed. There were two heat sources in his bed this time around. He is used to having one in this specific world.
But it did bring a smile to his face when he saw who it was in his bed. To think that the Princess herself would end up in his bed.
He made sure Marina experienced what it means to be an Emperor's woman. While he had been having fun for hours upon hours, he now felt like shit. He was tired.
'Thankfully… I have this.'
Code manifested on his chest, and his body rapidly recovered before it vanished. Having such a weird tattoo on such a visible spot isn't something he wants to wear all the time.
While he has no idea why he can't change the location, it doesn't matter anymore; he can control when it appears and disappears.
Regardless, now that he recovered, he slowly crawled out of bed and walked to the bathroom to get a shower.
He still needs to report to his post. Celestial Being doesn't wait until he is done having fun with the Princess.
As he was dressing up, the pair of women in his bed were finally stirring up.
"Ugh…" Marina moved around until she ended up lying on her back. Marcus could see her body as the blanket was kicked aside; this is, after all, a desert country, and it is warm.
"Good morning, my dear Princess, did you sleep well?" His voice caused her to turn stiff as she opened her eyes and looked around.
The Princess turned pale as reality finally caught up with her.
"...M-Morning…" She tried to play it off like everything was fine, but that blush told a different tale.
"I have to go, duty and all that. We can talk about what you need later. I hope this ends as a fruitful relationship, Marina." As he said, he had put on his blue jacket and hat before leaving the hotel room.
"...D-Does he think I will do this…again?" The black-haired Princess asked herself more than she asked anyone else.
"Of course we will. Or you think that single night you spend here is worth millions of his money and people he will send here to work, who will risk their lives." Shirin rolled over and looked at the Princess.
"... No …I mean…" Marina tried to explain herself, but when her assistant pointed it out like that. There was nothing to say.
"...Won't this lead to having children with him? We won't be able to leave him. I still have my duties to my Kingdom." The Princess reasoned as she tried to move, but she felt like she had done 14 hours of intense labour.
She was sore, and her legs were trembling just from trying to stand. This was both embarrassing and concerning.
Though this proves to her why this man can have a harem.
"As expected, you are quite naive." Shirin sighed after hearing that.
"You should try to tie him to yourself, because if you do, then he will help Azadistan even more. Isn't it simple? Quite an easy solution for you."
"...But…our people don't like foreigners…"
"And you can solve that by allowing his people to train your people so that we could have specialists here instead of getting foreigners."
Shirin's explanation made the Princess pause and think. What she just said was right.
"...I-I Understand… I guess I will do what needs to be done." Marina replied with a resigned tone. This was not the way she wanted it, but if it helps, so be it.
"Oh, please, you liked it just as much as I did," Shirin smirked a bit as she looked at Marina. While she can't see it properly, she can tell that the Princess is flustered about that!
"C-Can we not talk about that!" The woman slowly walked to the bathroom; she needs to clean up!
"Ha, very well."
~~~
Thankfully, Marcus is the leader of this mission; he doesn't need to explain why he was half an hour late.
And thankfully, no one heard what he did last night, as only he has the VIP floor. It's a protection mechanism to keep people away, as he could easily talk to his followers from the Empire side.
That came in handy when he brought the Princess and her assistant to his bed.
But now that it is over, he needs to get back to work. First, he checked with Veda. Celestial Being was already here. Exia and Dynames were deployed to Azadistan.
Exia's pilot is doing recon.
'Hoh, maybe I could meet him. I do want to see a main character in person.'
Marcus rubbed his chin as he wanted to meet a fellow MC.
"Do you have anything from your flyby?" The Commander asked the moment Graham walked over to report.
"Nothing, it's like that Enact magically disappeared." The blonde replied with a frown.
"Then we will go on foot, it will be a good morning exercise." The Disguised Emperor said with a small smirk.
"It's better than sitting around and waiting for anything to happen." The Over Flag pilot sighed. While the heat is annoying, it's better than just sitting around and thumb-twiddling.
"Indeed, so get out of your uniform and put on some regular clothes, I will do the same."
With a new mission in hand, the pair of them got out of their Union uniforms, borrowed a car, and left the city to explore where that Enact shoots its rockets from.
Since Marcus had a chance, he decided to talk about certain things; after all, the disguised Emperor is modern-day Cao Cao, a Leader who likes recruiting talent.
"So why did you join the Military, Graham?" Marcus asked as he drove the electric car toward the power plant.
"Oh, well, I had nothing, a street orphan, military was the obvious choice, turns out I was good at it.
What about you, Commander? Why engineering of all things?" The blonde asked back, he was intrigued by his Commander, his Commander that this unique aura around him, as he comes from some sort of noble lineage, the way he holds and sometimes speaks… it screams to him nobles oblige!
"I lofty dream. Since I can remember, I wanted to reach the stars. To grab them with the palm of my hand.
Obviously, when I was small, I thought they were just sparkly things, but when I grew up, the dream only grew bigger.
Each star is a sun or a galaxy, with countless planets. What I want is to put humans on all of them.
That is why Anaheim exists, a company that will help humanity become an interstellar civilisation."
"...That is a great dream… nothing like mine…" Graham was a bit awed by what he heard.
"You are a warrior, while I am a creator. We both need each other's roles. I build you protect, and reverse is true as well, a warrior needs to protect something."
"I never considered you a philosophical kind." The blonde chuckled after hearing that!
"Philosophy is a neighbour of creation, the process of thinking is the same, why this or that is like that?" The disguised Emperor shrugged at that reply.
"That is why I end up thinking about things like that. Like our new fascination, the Celestial Being." The moment Marcus mentioned Celestial Being, Graham perked up. Gundams are his new 'love'.
"It's a bit concerning to me that Celestial Being is ignoring our nature. We as humans need someone to show us the way. Our history is full of incredible people who did amazing things, yet they keep attacking us, wanting us to unite against them. Thinking that things will just end when all three superpowers are united and try to fight them, they will beat us and then tell us what to do.
It's stupid idealism at the core."
"...Then what would you do in their place? Your dream is similar, is it not?" Graham was curious what the Union's Golden Boy would pick if he were the leader of Celestial Being.
"Unite everyone under a single man's dream. That is the best way. We need a fancy goal to pursue. It happened many times; the only difference was the technology.
The greatest conquerors in history did this very same thing.
If you don't know something, then just open a history book and look for a similar event." Marcus smiled at him as they arrived at the Power Plant.
The pair wandered through the wreckage. Some soldiers showed which missile pieces were left.
"Looks like AEU standard issue land missiles." Graham inspected the black metal pieces.
"Nothing fancy here, we found what we expected to find," Marcus replied with crossed arms.
"Yeah, the black Enact had a full package of AEU military hardware." The blonde pilot frowned as he looked at pieces of missiles.
"Indeed. Not hard to do, considering the intel we have is that these guys were remnants of Moralia." The Commander said with a frown.
"...Yeah. As a consequence of Celestial Being's interventions, we now have to deal with mercenaries all over the world. Same with terrorists, at least that organisation dealt with them."
Graham mentioned the recent terrorist attacks around the world and how Celestial Being swiftly dealt with them.
But this time it's a bit different, as Marcus was the one who was pulling the strings.
"Yes, well, Celestial Being is quite informed."
*Snort*
"Rich conglomerates controlling them." Graham snorted. He wasn't bought over by these people. Marcus's words had a bit of sway after what happened to Alejandro Corner.
Celestial Being is no longer Celestial. The whole 'mystery' factor was gone in the first couple of days. So regular people are not as swayed.
But this is only the beginning; Marcus has plans far beyond that. He is going to turn Celestial Being into a menace that needs to be stopped.
"We won't be finding anything here. We should check the location where that Enact shoots from." The Disguised Emperor said to Graham.
"Yeah, let's go."
The pair left the power plant and moved to the outskirts, to a mountain from where this Enact shoots the missiles.
"Hmm… this should be the place."
The pair of them began to explore. But then.
Graham stopped something; his hand went to his side, where his handgun was hidden.
"Reveal yourself, I know you are hiding there."
As he said that, Marcus looked where the blonde was looking.
'Oh my, the timing is wild, is this destiny?' The Emperor was curious. One could say he was the world's 'protagonist', and this guy who just revealed himself was this world's 'protagonist'.
Or at least this is how Marcus is seeing things.
"Why don't you show what you are hiding?" Graham asked the teen who was standing on a hill.
The teen showed a ferocious look as he revealed a handgun.
"At this age, he already has a gun, quite something. Are you here to investigate the attack on the power plant, young man?" Marcus asked with a small smile. He can tell that the Gundam Meister before him doesn't like him at all.
He already got the intel from Wang Liu Mei that Ptolemaios is very suspicious of him. Which is a pity; he had hoped they would be ignorant for a bit longer, but it is how it is.
~~~
Setsuna was baffled to meet Marcus Anaheim here… of all places! He read the reports, the Commander of Over Flags was dispatched here, but to meet him like this.
'What a perfect place to take him out.' Part of him wanted to shoot and hope for the best. Exia is a bit away from him; it would take a while for his Gundam to arrive, but at the very least, he would take out the number one suspect.
But at the same time, he recalled what Sumeragi had said: they needed him for the Orbital Elevator.
"Tell me what your name is?" Marcus asked, and Graham, next to him, had a look of realisation; he realised something just from this simple encounter.
~~~
500 powers stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1000 Power Stones = 2 Extra Chapters
And so on, You know what to do.
~~~
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