Chapter 4: Chapter-4: Meeting with Count Hubert

Adui felt very uncomfortable as he was stared at by the lifeless eyes of beasts hung on the walls, trophies of hunts by Baron Jon Hubert. This waiting room in the Baron’s castle had heads of every type of beast and animal found there, all preserved and hung on the walls, always staring and judging the visitor of the Baron’s family.

What the hell is up with this creepy room? And what kind of idiot decorates its waiting room with all this weird stuff? The deadly silence of the room was also disturbing, his heart was beating nervously because of the meeting, and the silence was only amplifying the sound.

“Believe in your gut. Believe in yourself”, he mumbled. Like a mantra, he started repeating the words over and over again to calm himself.

The door of the room was opened abruptly startling him, he looked at the door and saw the butler of the house Hubert, accompanied by a middle-aged man with a cruel and rough face. The man had a sword by his side and linen grey attire, clothes worn by House Hubert’s knights.

Adui pushed himself up as the man came in. “My lord will meet you now.” The knight said in an emotionless voice. “Please follow me.”

The man led him to another part of the castle, to a room filled with books and charts of the territory. By the end of the room was a large desk by the window. A huge man wearing Silk Garments was standing behind the desk, facing towards the window. The big shoulders and the muscular physique of the man were highlighted by his silk robes which made him look quite intimidating.

With a big smile on his face and repeating his mantra in his mind, Adui walked up to the Baron’s desk. He then made a fist with his right hand and then lightly tapped his red chest and saluted the Baron. “It is a great honor to meet you, Milord.”

“Adui Hampshire. That is your name correct?” he replied while still looking out of the window.

“Yes, milord.”

“You are of common birth, are you not?” Adui sighed inwardly as he heard the words, he figured the man in front of him was a typical noble that looks down on people because of their birth, they are always very hard to deal with.

“Yes, that is right milord.”

“A common birth who is not only a Rank-4 Mage but is also an alchemist. You have done pretty great for yourself.” With a raised eyebrow, Adui pondered about what to make of Baron’s words. As he could not see his face, he didn't know whether the man was mocking him or praising him. “Ah... Thank you.”

Baron then turned around and faced him for the first time. He then sat down on his chair and looked at him with a cold face. “Mr. Hampshire… You have exactly 2 minutes to impress me. If you are able to do that then we would talk further. Otherwise Ben over here will escort you out. Now please have a seat and let's begin.”

After taking a seat, Adui chanted his mantra once more for confidence, he desperately needed it. The main problem he faced currently was that he could give out all the details about the land nor of Kaisel to him. So he had to twist his words which he was very bad at.

“Now please, what kind of business you have wanted to discuss with me?”

“The business, yes… Can I talk to you in private about my business?” he then gestured towards Ben who was standing behind him.

“Ben is my closest confidant. You can talk in front of him.”

“Milord, the business that I will be proposing to you is for privy to your ears only. And I not allowed it to anyone else, no matter who they are.” A vein popped up on Baron’s head. He glared at him with blood-hungry eyes.

“Mr. Hampshire… You have a lot of guts. First, you sent a letter saying that you are coming here, not even asking for permission, you announced that you are coming. Then you sit in front of me asking unreasonable things.” He then gestured toward a clock on his table. “You have wasted 5 minutes of my time. And you have made me angry… So Mr. Hampshire what could of coffin would you like to have for your grave?”

Suddenly the tension in the room rosed to its peak, Baron started concentrating on the mana around him whose pressure could be felt by anyone in his vicinity. He had predicted that Adui would be affected by the mana, but he on the other didn't even budge because of the mana.

“Lord Hubert, it is not my first time meeting with a noble. I know all there is to know about the etiquettes that nobles follow. But I send you this letter with that exact words because of many reasons. One of them being that I could take chances of my plans getting leaked by someone from your house.”

SLAM

The Baron slammed his hands on his desk. He was very angry “Plans leaked? Do you think my house is full of traitors or illiterates?”

“I don't know milord. But I cannot afford my plans to get leaked.”

“And what are these plans anyway?”

“They are related to your dispute with House Geon.” Hearing his words, suddenly Baron’s expression softens, but he didn't stop glaring at him.

“What about the dispute?”

“I will tell you exactly what I want and why I am here, but I will only talk when we are alone.” Seeing that Adui was not budging, the Baron gestured Ben to go away. And soon there were only two of them in the room.

“Now we are alone, Let's talk.” The Baron said.

“The disputed land between yours and the Geon family, Rose Valley, I want you to sell that to me.”

Hearing his words, the Baron became very angry which was evident from the veins popping on his head “What?”

“Yes, I want you to sell me that land.”

SLAM

Baron slammed both his fist on the table. Because of his strength, the table broke into two equal parts, he then picked up the sword that was previously hidden behind the desk and then pointed it toward his neck. “Care to say that again?”

“I want to buy the Rose Valley from you.” He replied without showing any fear.

“You got a ball of steel I will give you that. Now you have exactly 10 seconds to tell me one good reason not to chop off your head.”

“600”

“And what is that supposed to be? Gold coins that you would give to spare your life?”

“No… that is the number of people that you have lost in the dispute between you and the Geon family.” Hearing this, eyes of Baron wavered, for only a moment. “These 600 soldiers that you have lost would get doubled in 20 years from now. And all of that is because of a piece of land.”

Adui then stopped for a second and then started speaking again. “Lord Hubert. I meant no disrespect, but this dispute started because of your father. And since then this dispute over a small useless piece of land had stretched to epic proportions which are very absurd. Even the king had to issue notice to you and House Geon for a ceasefire.”

“The cease-fire won't last. That Geon bastard would break it one day or another. And I will be ready then with my army to besiege his little castle.”

“Exactly! I know Baron Geon. He would do exactly that.” he lied. “But the question that you have to ask yourself is with what power will you be using to besiege that man’s castle? I have looked into some figures and know for a fact that the funds of your house are at an all-time low. And we all know for a fact that you need money to wage a war.” Hearing his words, Baron lowered his sword. He then sat down on his chair once again.

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“So you are telling me that I should sell the piece of land for some piece of gold that around 600 soldiers died protecting?”

“Correction. You should sell your land but not for gold… Sell it more mana stones.”

“Mana stones?”

“Yup. You have plenty of mana wielders here in your territory. Some of them are under you while some are not. But with mana stones not only you will be able to recruit more mana wielders but also increase the strength of people that are currently under you.”

“You are gonna supply me with mana stones?”

“I won't. But the man I work for will.”

“What do you want that land anyway? It is a disputed land between us and those Geon bastards. And as you said before, it is a useless piece of land.”

“Well, I cannot tell you who is buying the land or why we are buying it.”

“Why can't you tell me? Is there any sort of ancient inheritance lying around the land that I don't know about?” Baron asked the question rhetorically. But this question sure did raise some questions in Adui’s mind.

Fuck! How could I be this stupid? Kaisel’s actions have been very suspicious from the start. Maybe Baron Hubert is right. There could be an inheritance in that area. And all of this is just a facade to cover the fact news of an inheritance. The more that he thought about it, the more he started to feel that Baron’s theory could be true. But he then brushed this conspiracy theory aside for a moment as he needed to deal with him first.

“What do you say, Lord Hubert?”

“How many mana stones are you willing to fork over?”

“My people have discussed it. And based on your situation we think that 300 joules of mana stones would be more than adequate for this deal.”

“300? Are you kidding me? I would not take less than 450 joules.” Considering the value of mana stones, the land was only worth around 100 joules and Baron was just haggling. But Adui liked the man.

“480 joules of mana stones. Deal?”

“Why the generosity?”

“What can I say I loved your hospitality.” Baron chuckled a little bit as he heard the words.

“And what would you do about House Geon?”

“What about them?”

“They would not be pleased. That land originally belonged to us. But those Geon bastards insist that it belonged to them. If I suddenly sell it to you, then they will make things difficult for you.”

“I can assure you nothing would happen to us. We would not be gambling with something like mana stones if we didn't believe that this was possible. And we are sure that even the Queen herself would not be able to do anything to us.”

“Let's talk about the details of the deal.”

“Sure.”

***

After finalizing the deal with Baron Hubert, Adui made his way to the Post Guild. He wanted to see whether any reply came from Jarad. After he had heard the theory about an inheritance hidden somewhere in the valley, he couldn't just stop thinking about it.

Inheritances are the books or research or even magical artifacts left behind by the previous generation of mana-wielders. Those books contain valuable insights of the previous generations that they want to pass on to competent people, at least that is what Adui had read about. While any magical artifact was valuable in itself.

In the Gorgon kingdom, the teaching of Mage arts is passed down to every generation with the help of teaching, while there are very less books written on the topic. Gizelle who is the scion of an old mage family had only around 10-12 books on Mage arts that have been passed in her family for generations. She doesn't really care about those books and they all lie in her library collecting dust. Luckily he found them.

Most of his knowledge about the world of Mages comes from those books. But they were a little bit inadequate. One of them talked about the inheritance of the old generation of Mages and described it as a priceless treasure that every mana wielder wanted to get his hands on.

I may know nothing about Inheritance and what kind of treasures it holds, but I do know the strength of the person that is looking for it. And if someone of his caliber is desperately searching for something, then it is bound to be important…

A smile bloomed on his face when he received the clerk of the guild gave him a letter from Jarad. With eyes full of anticipation and excitement, he opened an envelope to find a small note.

---

We need to talk. Meet me at Bora Bora Inn, Room no. 22, Huston town.

---

Jarad is here? But why? Maybe he found something important. After asking around for a while, he reached the said inn, which was only 20 min of walk away from the guild. As he got to the door of the room mentioned in the letter, he didn't know what to expect.

KNOCK KNOCK

It is only after a few seconds the door opened, a woman was standing by the door. It was then the world around Adui slowed down. He smelled the lilac perfume that the woman had used, her long brown hair which was neatly wrapped in a form a nice braid, the small birthmark just above her lips which looked beautiful when she smiled, her supple lips, her hourglass figure that he knew she was hiding under that plain dress and her large breast that could make any man drool with lust.

“It is very good to see you Adui.” The woman spoke.

“Clair.” He said, with a big smile on his face.

“You have become skinnier than the last time I have seen you.”

“It is because of stress… But forget about that, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I brought her.” Came a voice from inside the room. Then came a skinny man wearing glasses and a smile on his face. “When I received your letter, she insisted that we should go visit you. And I was not able to say no.”

“Jarad,” Adui said.

“We were just about to go to dinner. Why don't you join us Adui.” Clair asked. And he was not able to say no to her beautiful smile.

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