Michael sighed as he heard the news. Even if he didn’t go snooping on his own, he would have heard about the ergence of this ’new’ Iron Maiden religion purely from the hushed conversations and whispers among the people waiting around in the streets.
He truly couldn’t believe that Fudge was able to spread Iron Maiden that fast in just a matter of a single day.
"Fudge...," he called out into his shadow.
Silence.
"Fudge... I will count to three. One...two...—"
Finally, his threats seed to have worked as Fudge jumped out of his shadow and lovingly dove into his arms.
He dodged, with his hands crossed against his chest.
"What have you been planning?" he asked Fudge, eyeing him suspiciously. "You better not be thinking of doing anything nefarious."
Fudge brought up his blobby hands in innocence. "Master! How could such an innocent sli like beco nefarious?! I’m just a ninja!"
"Really? Then what’s this I hear about the Iron Maiden religion? Surely you had nothing to do with it right?"
Beads of sli appeared on Fudge’s forehead. "Uhhh...Iron Woman? I don’t know them hahaha...But worry not, Master, I have good—I an, they have good intentions about their spreading of the Iron Maiden!
I heard that Vampires have a positive reaction to organized religion. The Iron Maiden could definitely help Master beco friends with them!"
Michael stayed suspicious. "Uh huh...and I wonder where you heard that?"
"...sowhere...Anyway, Master, you don’t have to worry about the Iron Maiden religion!" Fudge assured.
And Michael believed him. "I know I don’t. If any problems arise, then I won’t interfere at all."
"Yup! I’ll take care of it, Master!" Fudge answered, seemingly admitting to the fact that he was the one in charge of the Iron Maiden.
Michael watched as Fudge rrily hopped out of the room, thinking that he had succeeded.
Hmmm, I wonder if Fudge knows that it’s not that easy to establish a religion in a large territory like this. Eh, whatever. It’s his problem.
...
...
...
Another day passed and another batch of Vampires entered tropolis, with this batch being a lot more than before. There were probably close to a thousand Vampires now directly inside tropolis at this point, and it would only continue to grow in the future.
But strangely enough, there was sothing else outpacing their growth in numbers.
These past few days, the Iron Maiden religions seed to have picked up a lot of speed and slowly creeped their way into the mainstream conversations.
Eventually, even the higher-ups of the Association decided to confront the so-called Iron Maiden religion for their illegal spreading of doctrine in tropolis.
After all, like companies, religious groups couldn’t just simply plant down their flag in tropolis and operate as normal. They had to go through the proper steps and channels in order to register their religion into tropolis. New religions weren’t illegal. They just had to make it official.
"We have had a roadblock, oh great sli," said Hestu, aka Priest. "The soldiers and guards of tropolis are cracking down on our eting spots and breaking up our gatherings. This is slowing down our expansion significantly."
"That’s not the only problem, oh great sli. We are not able to hold on to our new mbers because they cannot be tethered into a specific place to start their worship into the Iron Maiden."
Unlike the other territories that they had spread into, tropolis was a tightly packed city with no open spaces. This ant that they couldn’t have their own gathering spot that their mbers could converge into.
They needed a church.
But of course, in order to be able to buy property, much less establish a church, then they’d have to register the Iron Maiden religion into tropolis.
It was actually quite easy to do so. They just had to fill up so forms, and they were good to go.
But for Fudge, it was almost impossible to do so. After all, he’d have to give up his anonymity to establish the Iron Maiden into an accepted religion in tropolis.
And he couldn’t do that. How would he be a good ninja if people knew his na? He wanted to be the power in the shadows, not the light. That was reserved for his Master.
"I will fix this like Master!" Fudge declared.
He teleported out of their eting place and arrived in the Nation of Reborn.
As soon as he landed in the Parched Lands, he heard the sounds of cheers and shouts echoing from the stadium in front of him.
Right now, there was a baseball ga going on that sold out the seats for the entire arena.
Fudge turned himself into a shadow and sneaked past the bleachers, before eventually landing near the most prestigious spots in the arena, the front row seat behind the ho plate.
"Wooo! Go HobMankey Engineers!"
"Horun! Horun! Horun!"
"Nixie, you shout at them too!"
The four royal grandchildren plus one shy rmaid girl cheered for their favorite team, wearing their baseball uniforms and a giant glove on their hands.
Right beside them was none other than the ruler of all of tropolis, Duchess Regina.
She, too, was engrossed in the ga just like anybody. She was drinking beer and eating hotdogs, making her seem just like an ordinary person and not an unapproachable Duchess.
"Such an exciting ga! We should have this in tropolis," she praised.
Once the inning ended, she sat down back in her seat and sipped her beer.
"Hello, Fudge. Care to join ?" she greeted.
Fudge erged out of her shadows and imdiately jumped into her lap.
"Duchess... you like our Nation, right?"
The Duchess nodded. She didn’t deny that she was having fun these last few days.
"I am," she replied. "I have half a mind to extend my stay a little while longer, to be honest."
"But Master probably won’t like that, would he?"
"No, he won’t," the Duchess replied. She then looked at Fudge and saw the scheming look on his face. "What are you suggesting?"
"Hehehe, Duchess. What if Master has his hands full doing business with the Vampires? Then maybe he’ll forget that you were even here!"
The Duchess raised her brow, interested. "And what do I have to do to help that?"
"Hehehe... please approve this request."
...
...
...
With the Duchess’ express approval, the expansion of the Iron Maiden continued unimpeded. Their numbers continued to grow steadily, especially since more and more people realized that the Iron Maiden religion actually got registered into tropolis despite not disclosing the nas of its mbers.
"The Iron Maiden must be looking down upon us!"
"I believe in the Iron Maiden!"
"If she could make sothing as wondrous as the automobiles, then she can build more amazing stuff in the future!"
All seize and desist orders about the Iron Maiden were rescinded.
Once Michael caught wind of this, he realized what Fudge had done.
He couldn’t believe that the mischievous little sli sohow convinced the Duchess to use her executive power to cut through all the bureaucracy needed for their registration.
He was hoping that this would be the end of their expansion so that he wouldn’t have to worry about Fudge getting more influence, but it seed that Fudge was more competent than he gave him credit for.
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