Chapter 14: Chapter-14: Council Meeting

AN- Sorry i was not able to upload chapter on previous Friday, i was exhausted that day, and i couldnt write. So yesterday, i made some stockpile for rainy days like those.

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BAAM BAAM… BAAM BAAM BAAM BAAM… BAAM BAAM…

Charlotte’s jabs on the stone hedge echoed in the empty training hall, they were so powerful that they created gusts of wind every time they made contact with the stone. There was a distinct smell of blood and sweat in the air, and she loved it. She became the queen of this accursed kingdom a few years ago, and she hated every single part of this job, she was a warrior, she belonged on a battlefield, but now she was stuck here.

Her husband was supposed to handle the office of the king, but that bastard died on her soon after her lovely son was born, still, after his death, she was happy. She carried the title of Duke, like her husband, and was just fine in her territory. But then the old Gorgon king died, and the responsibility of his office fell on the lap of the strongest of all nobles, her.

It has been 8 years since she has come to the royal palace, since then her life has been about fancy parties, tea parties, afternoon parties, tourneys, a bunch of playboys trying to seduce her, and last not but least, a lot of council meetings. She hates her life. She only keeps up all of this is because of her son, becoming a queen was never her dream, but seeing his son become a king is…

BAAM BAAM… BAAM BAAM BAAM BAAM… BAAM BAAM…

Her arms ached because, after her bout, but she loved that pain, to catch her breath and drink some water, she turned and went to the corner of a ginormous hall. Her servants had put freshly squeezed orange juice there, and seeing the crystal jug full of juice, she became reminiscent of her past, she didn't use to have enough money to buy a single orange, but now she could afford a farm of it. 

While drinking, she glanced at the body-sized mirror in the corner, as a woman in her late sixties, she looked quite young, her mana had done a pretty good job in making her look so youthful, but her body has deteriorated. She no longer has defined muscles, which she cultivated through blood and sweat, her skin of soft now, her hand which used to be full of calluses was now soft as a bunny’s hide.

But she looked beautiful, more womanly, everything on her body was fully stacked and in shape. No wonder I have so many admirers. 

Thinking of admirers, she couldn't help but wonder whether she would ever be able to find a man again. She loved her husband and she loves her son, but in politics and ruling the kingdom, she had become lonely. Most of the men that do approach her, are the people who just want her money and power, and she knew that perfectly well. Seeing that she wonders sometimes, if would she find love again. Life is a sentence that is too long to suffer alone.

“What are you thinking?” She was startled, she looked back and saw her son standing not too far away from her.

Her son was a handsome man, standing high with a height of 6 feet, he had black hair like her and lilac eyes like his father. He likes to train as well, it could be seen by the way his muscles were peeking from his clothes, the bushy beard though made him look very old for his age, and despite that, he was still quite dashing.

“Thinking, what should I do? I am losing my mind here.” He chuckled at her response. “Are you losing your mind, because I was able to sneak up on you?”

“Oh please, you're 100 years too young to sneak up on me.” There was no way she was admitting that he really was able to sneak up on her. She was really losing her edge.

“Really? I thought I really surprised you over there.” She shakes her head. “No, you didn't. Now, how can I help my dear son this morning.”

“Council meeting. Me and the General had something to discuss with you. So I took the liberty of scheduling a meeting after breakfast.”

She groaned in frustration “You should have asked me first.”

“No can do, I have to go meet some friends tonight, so I needed this meeting to be over as soon as possible. ”

“So you threw me under the foot of mammoth so that you could have dinner with some of your friends?” She was annoyed.

With a big smile on his face, he replied. “Yup. Now go change, we have some work to do.”

Rupert is a smart kid, based on his potential there might come a day when he would have to sit on the throne and command the office of the king. That is why she decided that it would be for the best to teach him everything she knew about ruling, she gave him the role of her personal adviser and made him sit through most of her council sessions.

She thought that it would be a good idea, he would learn to run a kingdom as well as she would be able to spend some time with her son, little did she know at the time that decision would come to bite her in the ass.

***

As the gates of the meeting hall were opened, everyone present stood up, her mother and the queen, Charlotte Gorgon was here. Rupert also showed common aristocratic courtesy and got up as well. He felt weird that he have to do all of this for her mother, but he didn't complain.

Sitting just beside him was General Tarrain, he is an old man with a balding head and a long white beard. He is the head of the Royal Army as well as the strategic advisor to the crown. Just beside him was a small scrawny little middle-aged man, he is Howard, he oversees the Royal treasury as well as he is the head of all nobles of the kingdom… 

Like always, after pulling her chair from the round table, Charlotte greeted everyone and then all of them sat down.

“What is the important thing because of which I had to leave my workout early?” Charlotte asked Rupert.

“We are here to talk Gizelle Salvatore,” Rupert said.

Both Charlotte and Howard’s raised their eyebrows with confusion, they knew about her, but didn't know the reason for their recent interest in her.“The young mage that completed her first ring? Why do we have to talk about her?” Howard asked

Rupert turned towards General. “You want to take it from here General?” The old man nodded. “Sure”

He then continued. “We have to talk about her, because not only she completed her ring recently, but is also mingling a lot with Duke Fraser. His eldest son and she are having an affair from our intel.”

“So why does this concern us?” Charlotte asked.

“The affair or whatever they have, doesn't concern us, but Gizelle had done something very suspicious stuff recently, that is what made us interested in her.” General said.

“Like?” Queen asked.

“She bought the Rose valley, the disputed land between Baron Hubert and Geon,” Both Charlotte and Howard were astonished, they knew about the matter of that land, this council made the decision to turn blind eye to it, the reason being that they could not anything at that moment resolve it. After all, it was a scuffle between two Dukes. 

Howard couldn't help but ask. “She bought the land from whom?”

General turned toward Howard. “She bought the land from both of them. From what we know, she sent a guy to acquire that land with his name, she hid the fact that she wanted to acquire the land.” 

The Queen chuckled, she was surprised to see this matter resolve so easily. “Isn't that interesting? And that Hubert fellow, he agreed on selling the land?” She had met him before, she knew what his ideals are, and it was surprising that he agreed.

It is then Rupert chimed in. “Yes he did, from what I have been told, he was made an offer that he simply couldn't refuse.” 

Interested, Queen asked.“How much gold did she offered?” 

“None, she offered something else,” General said.

Curious now, Queen asked. “And what might that be?” It was Rupert’s turn to answer. “She offered him mana stones mother. A lot of them.”

Charlotte was surprised to hear that. As a mana wielder, she knew how precious mana stones are, they are the life and blood of a mana wielder, but they are very rare, which is precisely why even the royal family didn't have much of them. And yet that woman paid with mana stones, that is just absurd.

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As the master of the treasury, Howard also got curious. “How much did she gave him?” 

Rupert turned toward him. “Hubert has been quiet about it. No one knows. We could only estimate a number by the pace of his and his men’s growth. And my experts tell me that he may have around 100-200 joules of mana stones.” 

“THAT MUCH?” Howard was astonished. As the person who runs the royal treasury, he knows how hard it is to acquire mana stones, even if you have money, even then it is pretty hard to acquire, and yet here this girl has so much of it to spare, this was simply unbelievable. 

“What about baron geon? How much did he get?” Queen asked.

“The guy that she sent was able to fool him and give him the short end of the stick. He only received like 50 mana stones from her. We don't know the exact number of his gains as well.” Rupert said.

Charlotte was speechless. “So how the hell, a young woman from a declining mana wielder family was able to procure such wealth?” 

“That is the thing mother, we don't know. Not only she had completed her ring, but she also have so much wealth as well. I sent some people to investigate her” he then continued. “ And the results are rather surprising.”

“What did you find out?” Queen asked.

“She had stopped all the activities of her family shop and fired most of the employees. And had made some friends apparently. There is a knight stationed outside her house, guarding the gate. His strength is unknown for the moment. He is a foreigner and is quite strong.” Rupert said.

Talking about a foreign knight got Charlotte interested. “How do you know that?” 

General then joined in. “Our men while investigating her found a young man named Oliver. He complained to the city’s watch that his aunt or something is held hostage in her manor. I think her aunt is a maid there.” 

He then continued. "A Gizelle had completed her ring, she had become too big for the watch, and no one volunteered to investigate his aunt. Upon our men’s request, the city watch commander himself came to the doors of her manor to investigate, and then…”

“What happened,” Howard asked.

Rupert chimed in. “The knight beat him silly. Most of his arms and legs were broken. He is alive, but he won't be able to continue to serve as City’s Watch commander. Though I have compensated him fairly for his inconvenience.” 

Queen couldn't help but ask. “Do we know about anything, what that girl is planning?”.

General shook his head “We don't know that yet, from what we know, she is strong, has strong allies whose pockets are very heavy.” He then continued. “And none of the people on the piece of land have that kind of power. My guess is that she is being backed by some foreign power.” 

“But who?” Howard asked.

“We don't know that yet. Prince Rupert is working on investigating her currently.” General said and everyone started looking toward Prince.

Rupert then shifted on his seat. “My men were not able to uncover everything. But we need to throw caution to the wind. She had just purchased a large piece of land just two days' ride away from the capital. Who knows what she will do with it? But there is one man that could be able to answer our questions.” 

“Who might that be?” Charlotte asked.

“Ah… Goes by the name of Adui Hampshire. He is an alchemist and a Rank-4 Mage. From our intel, he used to work for Gizelle before he was fired, at least that is what workers of the shop saw and heard.”

He then continued. “But few days later, he acquires the Rose valley by both Barons under his name. He is her henchman, if we could get him by our side, maybe we would be able to uncover something.” 

Charlotte closed her eyes, she started thinking. “How strong is the commander of the City Watch?” she asked, with still her eyes closed

“He is around… Rank-6, if I am not wrong.” Rupert answered, it is then she raised her head and opened her eyes.

Charlotte looked towards General. “Find this Adui Hampshire and keep an eye on his activities. Do not approach him or try to win him over. We don't where his loyalty lies, for now, so beware. Just keep an eye on him for now.”.

General nodded. “Understood, my men are in the Laverdale currently. I will inform them about your wishes.” 

She then continued. “As far as that knight is concerned, General get your sources together, see if anyone of the could recognize him. Men of that power are rarely unknown, we might get some lead on him.”

“Understood,” General said. It was then Howard cleared his throat. “My queen, if I interject over here.”

“Yes.”

“My queen, I believe that there is something special about the Rose Valley itself,” 

Everyone turned their heads towards him. “How so?” Queen asked.

“Well, believe it or not, a few days one of my subordinates came to me. He said that he was looking for information, about a particular family that use to live in that region. He wanted to access the old records. He told me that he was doing it because of a favor, so I allowed it.” Howard said.

In disbelief, Rupert asked. “You allowed someone to access the Royal Library?”

“He is a clerk at the library and didn't need any permission at all to access those records. But that man is what we say, a noble common man. Good kid,  and a hard worker, thought he needed to inform me, so he did. I basically didn't have any reason to say no to him as well.” Howard said.

General then chimed in. “Well send him to me, and I will extract some information out of him.” 

“No need. He is a weak man. He will tell me everything if I put some pressure on him.” Howard said.

“Alright then,” General said.

“So then what should we do about that land? We could annex it back, with a royal decree.” Rupert suggested.

Charlotte shook her head. “No, that could outrage the nobles and could create unrest,”

Howards then volunteered. “I have a better idea. I will put some people around Rose valley. They could keep an eye out for any suspicious activity in that area.” 

“Sure, you do that,” Charlotte said. 

After some more talk, the council was finally dismissed. 

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