The volume starts as always with a preview of events to happen: Tsunenobu and The Empire fight off The Illuminati (I’m going with this since it’s catchy), represented by a guy with a goat mask, from now on to be referred to as “The Goat.” He attacks Natalia’s country with what looks like a literal floating island. They manage to avert the crisis by using the floating island’s technology against it and force it to shoot up into the stratosphere.
Back to the future, Tsunenobu’s held prisoner in Erzurum, Malaika’s country, remember? He got teleported into her bedroom – naked – and got caught. Jaffer (I dunno whether they messed up his name, since “Jaffar” would make more sense), a bear of a man and one of the royal family’s most loyal servants, would like to snap Tsunenobu in half on the spot, but he’s awaiting further instructions for now. Bice and the rest of the crew are on their way, but they’re basically on the other side of the continent and it’s gonna take a while. Anyway, Malaika’s the one to eventually bail Tsunenobu out by using her earth powers to just dig through the walls to him. They flee to a private room of hers in a specific inn that she uses to relax.
There, they first of all talk about how she’d like to go back to being an idol, but the internet is kinda like, “Meh, she quit to become the Emperor’s wife, so her heart’s not with her fans anyway,” or something so it’s complicated. They also hear a bunch of merchants pissing each other off. She tells Tsunenobu that recently the merchants in her country seem to be on edge and that she suspects sabotage to be the reason. Malaika persuades Tsunenobu to help her investigate a suspicious, errr, lounge where all the rich merchants meet to bargain and let off some steam.
We soon realize that it’s basically a brothel. Malaika and Tsunenibu hide themselves in one of the walls (earth powers) of the VIP room. After the guys in there are done motorboating, they are good little bad guys and talk about all the evil things they’re scheming. So basically they got legislature in place that allowed them to gain a monopoly on certain goods which allows them to rake in huge profits while treating their employees like dirt. You probably wanna know that while they’re in the wall, Malaika and Tsunenobu are in a very narrow space, which basically forces him to feel her up real good.
Once the coast is clear and both of them are back at the inn, Malaika decides she wants to make her comeback as an idol – but as an idol of justice fighting evil while… dancing… and… singing… it’s weird. Bice, Paola, and the gang have caught up in the meantime. Cuore in specific is very upset about the restaurants she’s been recommended while sightseeing. To explain: She arrived in Erzurum and was immediately swarmed by her faithful followers – being a goddess and all. Apparently, she’s into food sampling, so she asked around for the best places – however, the places she was shown weren’t all too pleasing. And so Chara shows them the new restaurant rating site that’s on the fantasy internet. It’s apparent that the evil trading companies are trying to keep their own shady places popular while keeping the smaller unknown but good restaurants exactly that: unknown. Cuore and Paola make it their mission to tour all kinds of restaurants in the city and give them appropriate ratings.
Cuore with her 5-ish million and Paola with her 300-ish thousand fans on that site have quite the impact on the local gastronomical economy. While spying on the main bad guy in the city – I think he’s called – Saul (again, writing from memory, take everything with a grain of salt) with their magical drones, they find out that he’s not very amused their business ventures are being undermined by the Emperor and his fellowship. Even more drastically, he suggests they should get rid of him. On the other hand, Tsunenobu and his friends do want to get rid of Saul, of course. While they’re about to make a plan which also allows Malaika to make her weird idol comeback, her father, the King, steps in and tells her that she mustn’t take action, and neither should the Empire. He’d take care of his country‘s matters himself.
Of course, Malaika does elope eventually and seeks out Tsunenobu. Her only talents are singing and dancing and while she understands that her father doesn’t want anything to happen to her before her comeback so that she can make everyone happy with her dancing and singing, she also wants to be selfish (?) and serve justice. A few steaming hot moments together later, Tsunenobu conveys that he very much wants to help his bride and her selfish wish.
The climax is that Tsunenobu rents the whole territory (that the night club with the bad guys is on) from the King, making it a temporal part of the Empire, performs some weird reality TV show bit with Malaika where they do a recording in front of the club, then bust in with hidden cameras and capture Saul, and accuse him of goggling the Emperor’s bride with lustful eyes on imperial territory.
The King’s not even mad and thanks Tsunenobu for taking decisive action and ridding his country off the evil presence. Malaika suddenly decides that she doesn’t want to be an idol at all. After their hot exchange that one night she realized that she wants to be Tsunenobu’s idol only. The King gladly gives his daughter’s hand to Tsunenobu not being fazed by him having numerous brides since he himself has three wives also. Tsunenobu is a bit overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events and by Jaffer, who’s suddenly turning up, upper body exposed, a saber in each hand, dead set on cutting Tsunenobu down rather than giving a perverted leech like him Malaika. And so Tsunenobu takes an urgent leave…
…Which is handy anyway, since a visit to Natalia’s island country is next on the agenda. Taking care of loose ends is left to Bice, who he couldn’t notify fast enough of their leave given the sudden emergency. They’re taking a ship towards the island but encounter pirates on their way. Hildegarde and Rosalinde could’ve taken care of them, but a bunch of pegasus knights turn up all of a sudden. They take swift action against the pirates. It turns out that those knights are in fact lead by Sonya, Natalia’s right hand. Natalia herself shows up soon enough after that. Only maidens can right pegasi, so they’re a pretty hard to come by combat force.
Tsunenobu gets briefed that lately a huge naval trading business in Natalia’s country has gone bankrupt. That lead to a huge amount of unemployment, and that lead to a surge in piracy as a lot of people suddenly had no way to feed their families. Natalia’s set on sieging the pirate stronghold since innocent citizens are suffering because of them. In her heart, she knows that at the same time those pirates are just desperate people trying to survive themselves, so she’s torn. As such, we’re having another steaming hot scene between Tsunenobu and Natalia this time, where he vows to her that he’ll help her take care of the pirates without killing, and that he’ll take care of the cause that made those people go rogue in the first place. She thanks him for his kindness and IMMEDIATELY drags him into the water with her. Their sudden disappearance causes a panic soon after. And soon after that, the area around the pirate stronghold is reported to have gone frozen solid.
After Natalia used so much of her power, she kinda lost consciousness and both of them ended up on a deserted island. It’s quite the long sequence with nothing of importance happening. The most notable event aside from getting food and taking a bath is them getting caught by a local tropical plant which is a quasi tentacle monster doing the usual things. Also noteworthy: They discover – let’s call it – “Flight Stone.” It’s a gem that – if infused with magic – allows the holder to hover/fly. Anyway, that gem’s used by Yuuri, she jumps out of it and the both of them are found.
In Natalia’s island country, there’s an exchange between Tsunenobu and her about how she wants him to reign as the King of her country when they marry and be by his side, since she cannot become the ruler due to sex restrictions – only men can become King and rule her country. He, however, encourages her to fight to become the first Queen, instead. And that he’d help her make her fellow countrymen realize that women don’t just belong in the kitchen. Anyway, there’s news of a flying island, which basically brings us back to the start. What they’re doing is acquire a large amount of those “Flight Stones” by using their fantasy Amazon to buy them off of people at a good exchange rate and they’re utilizing that weird idol spec ops group they founded in the past volumes by deploying one of them each to an island and letting people go join their favorite idol on that island and mine gems. Those are then used to heave that flying island fortress right into the stratosphere.
The illuminati guy (a goat this time, meeeeeh) has nothing much to say other than that it appears that they were just used as a decoy (followed by a sinister laugh). And true enough, when they try to return to the capital, it appears that a rebellion took place. Lord Jacob-something lured the remaining troops out of the capital and led the rebels in. The Emperor is not amused.
It’s apparent that Jacob-something is just a puppet of the illuminati, set on undoing all the good things that Tsunenobu and his friends have done for the Empire, and by undoing them putting the big trading companies back in a strong position. It’s also very apparent that he’s totalitarian. He censors the fantasy internet, so that only positive opinions on his regime remain, and sends all beast folk out of the city since they’re filthy. He also renames the Gloria Empire to – insert his weird name here – Empire. What a guy!
Anyway, Tsunenobu and his friends are now in exile for the time being. First the weird idol spec ops leave since their families are held hostage, at the same time his royal guard leaves, since, well, there’s a new Emperor, right? Next, Chara and Paola leave to where the beast people live. Jacob also announces that he declares a holy war on the old Emperor and the imperial army is deployed to get his ass. When Cuore asks Tsunenobu what he intends to do, he says that he doesn’t know. What he does know is that Hilde and Rosa would be enough to cut the troops down, but he’s sworn to not start wars and to not hurt people as much as possible, and he intends to hold onto that promise. Not being a very smart man, he says he just needs time to maybe come up with something a smart man would do. Moved by his words, Cuore sets out to do something herself.
In the end, that means that she goes around and gets all the princesses. Additionally, the idol spec ops return, having cut ties with their families, only wanting to serve the Emperor. Also, his royal guard captain returned (I forgot his name, the noisy one. Gilbert?). Everyone back by his side, Tsunenobu is inspired to get the Empire back.
