"I'm suddenly starting to think life out in the Shuriman desert wasn't so bad after all."
Caleb wiped a hand down his face, looking a little heartbroken.
Sure, there had been wind and blazing sun every single day out there, but it had still been a pretty free life.
He had even managed to tame a Skallashi, and if worst came to worst, he could have just stayed under the Sun Disc for a long time.
The scenery might have been a little monotonous, but every day had basically been his to do whatever he wanted.
Unlike here.
It felt like he had instantly dropped right back into the office-drone grind.
Caleb's body was not really tired yet, but mentally, he was exhausted.
"Oh? So you really are the Governor."
Yuumi hopped up and wobbled into place atop her ancient book.
She was the one who had actually caught up on sleep the whole way. Even the hurricane-force wind during the trip had not been enough to wake her.
"Of course I am. Did you think I was making that up to fool you all?"
Caleb helplessly crumpled a sheet of paper into a ball. A flicker of fire gathered in his palm and burned the page to ash.
There were actually plenty of things Caleb only needed to glance at once and know about.
The problem was, even all those things he only needed to "glance at once" had piled up into a small mountain.
Yaanogel had fallen asleep after leaving Shurima.
If Caleb was not holding the long spear on his back, he basically would not wake up at all.
Otherwise, Caleb would have gladly shoved all of this paperwork onto him.
"Is it fun outside?" Kai'Sa finally spoke up.
"Mmm..." Caleb thought for a moment about Zaun on the way back. It was still mostly dark in tone, but the sense of decay had already disappeared.
"Governor..."
There was another knock at the door, and Caleb could only drag out the word in a listless voice.
"Come iiiin."
The one who came in was Ezreal. Over the past few days, it was not like he had not thought about running away, but once Ekko learned what his abilities could do, he had started riding his hoverboard even faster.
Truth be told, whether Ezreal worked or not really did not matter all that much.
Zaun had just had people stomping all over it for far too long, so in the end, that was just bad luck for him.
"It's you?" Kai'Sa cried out in surprise when she saw Ezreal's face.
The two of them had once fought side by side in an ancient Shuriman tomb, resisting the Void together.
"What are you doing here?" Kai'Sa sounded surprised, but not all that surprised.
After all, when he had said goodbye to her, he had made it clear that he was not really from that place.
"You're from the Twin Cities?" Seeing Ezreal here, Kai'Sa grew interested too.
The last time they had fought together, the two of them had only barely survived the Void swarm.
Using the magic stored within the Tear of the Goddess, they had managed to seal that tomb again.
"Yes, I'm from Piltover." Ezreal scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed.
"You can decide where you want to go now." Caleb was still burning through one document after another.
The people of Zaun really were efficient. Once the parts Caleb actually needed to know were filtered out, most of what remained only required his signature.
Then there was still the matter of the Piltover Council.
Kai'Sa looked at Ezreal in confusion, staring so directly that his handsome face turned red.
"This gentleman had some sticky fingers while he was here, so he spent a while doing community service in Zaun."
Without looking up, Caleb moved on to the next file.
The way Kai'Sa looked at Ezreal immediately turned disdainful.
She had thought he was some hero who fought the Void, but instead... he was a tomb raider?
After spending these past days with other people, Kai'Sa's way of thinking was no longer quite so simple.
Back then, her reason for stepping in had been straightforward, the Void was everyone's common enemy.
Now, looking at this man, he really did have that little bit of thief about him.
"Um, Governor..."
Ezreal squirmed awkwardly, then continued, "I was wondering if you might be able to help me get some cushy post in the Upper City."
"I can recommend you to the Council." Caleb finally lifted his eyes.
Ezreal really was extraordinarily gifted when it came to digging up ancient tombs, but in combat, he honestly was not all that powerful.
Still, for Piltover, which was currently a little lacking in top-tier fighters, he was better than nothing.
"Forget I said anything..." Ezreal laughed awkwardly, took two steps back, and opened the door again.
"Why did he ask for it himself, then give up right away?"
Kai'Sa looked at Caleb in confusion while Caleb shooed Yuumi off the files.
"He just wanted a cushy Piltover job so he'd have something to lean on when he travels far from home in the future."
Caleb lowered his head again and kept reading the text on the papers. "Piltover is the throat of the world, so naturally it comes with a lot of conveniences wherever you go."
"He just wanted to contribute a tiny bit so he could get some perks outside."
"If he cannot get that, or if it would actually take real effort, then he can just walk away."
Out in that godforsaken corner of Shurima, Caleb had barely had anyone to talk to.
And even when he did find someone to talk to, that person was liable to be on the level of an Ascended.
So all the negotiating and business skills Caleb had honed in the Twin Cities had gone completely to waste there.
"Want to go out and look around later?" Caleb asked softly.
Truthfully, he felt a little sorry for this girl too. Her village had been wiped from the map in the attack on Icathia.
Jinx at least still had Zaun. Kai'Sa had lost even her hometown itself.
Thankfully, the girl was tough enough. She had gone into the Void, put on a layer of skin, and somehow forced herself to survive all the way to adulthood.
Compared to Jinx, whose mind had been unstable since childhood, Kai'Sa really did have a will of iron.
Now, after being treated by Zuretta, Kai'Sa had regained the body a normal person should have, and she could even summon her old Void skin again.
If that technique was not used for cosmetics, it really would be a waste.
The thought made Caleb wince in pain. Such a good healer had been ruined for so many years by Rek'Sai's entire species.
Now that Azir had both Zuretta and an awakened Renekton, his rule should be able to settle much more smoothly.
"Okay." Kai'Sa's voice was small. She was looking around the room, but more often than not, while Caleb was reading files,
she was secretly staring at Caleb's face.
If she went out now, she did not even know how to greet those people.
Although she was not exactly afraid of those mechanical prosthetics, to put it simply, Kai'Sa got socially awkward around people when she was in her normal state.
"There's still plenty to discuss with the Council, so we might as well go out first."
Caleb crumpled the document in his hand into a ball and stood up.
Zaun's construction during this period really had been pretty impressive, and Piltover had genuinely contributed money, labor, and effort.
The main reason was that the Chem-Barons had been killed off, and there was not a single gang left that dared to try carving out territory from the Firelights.
So they could only honestly do business, surviving off the scraps of profit that had once been a tenth or even a hundredth of what they used to make.
If you ran with the barons, you were starving most days out of three, and sooner or later you were going to get beaten with a steel pipe.
That was enough to break even the toughest young guy. If nothing else, Zaunites really were fearless.
Anyone there would grab the nearest thing they could swing and crack you with it.
The Chem-Barons who had been hiding in the mines had now truly lost their source of income.
As for goods, Singed had plenty that were better than theirs, and cheaper too.
As for manpower, all the Chem-Barons put together still were not enough for Ekko alone to beat.
And when it came to hiding, those mine factories the Chem-Barons holed up in, places that chewed up your health just by staying there, felt like home to Zac, Blitzcrank, and Warwick.
How were they supposed to survive? They couldn't.
Better to just live quietly and accept that the days of obscene profits were gone.
"The Council wants you to go discuss... something, or whatever."
This time the door opened without a knock. A girl with long blue twin braids walked into the room.
She blew her bangs off her forehead, then immediately spotted Kai'Sa sitting on the sofa.
"Who's she?"
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