21 The Prequel

Ever since it was announced to the public their so-called "blunder" about the marriage arrangements with the third prince, the Monet family had to make corrections or lose their reputation or their network. Some of the nobles have assumed that they have done this intentionally. But they are in big trouble because the emperor has laid his eyes on them because of it. This means if they don't do anything right, the emperor will go down on their heads.

But the family has two major problems. The first is that a lot of the inheritances of Julian Monet were sold off. The baron's wives and children also refused to let some of them go. This means he has to find an equivalent of those items if he was unable to bring or buy them back. The other people to whom they sold the items demanded a much higher price than what they bought it. They were already cash trapped as it is. The only reason they have some money was because of the mines that were given to them by the Elroses in exchange for betrothing their bio son.

The second problem is the biggest. WHERE IS JULIAN MONET?

They could not find Julian. The boy is missing. Ever since they came back from the banquet, the servants have all claimed that the boy was in his room. It didn't occur to the baron that the boy's room was the storage room in the basement. This is because Julian was never given a proper room and sleeps in various locations when needed. Only when they finally find a way to open the door that they found out the boy was not there.

But how did the boy escape? The room was barricaded but there were no exits in the room except for the windows which cannot be reached and are too small for a human being to crawl in or out. That boy's magic is so weak that he can barely use it without fainting. That boy did try to escape once when he found out that he was to be married off to the third prince. The baron had him punished for that and thought he will never attempt it ever again.

The Monets have also noticed one of the guards is also missing. Now they have assumed the two have run away together. After all, they recalled that those two had a history.

"That whore! Does he not know what would happen to us?" The baron yelled angrily at the servants who bore the brunt of his anger. The servants also do not have a positive opinion of the bio so they ended up hating him for escaping because they were being punished for it.

A bio man who is part of their family engaged to the third prince runs away to be with his lover. They will be a laughing stock and the emperor and the third prince will be coming for their heads because of this.

"Get the guards and father for a search party! You have to be discreet about it. We can't let the third prince and the emperor know! Also, send a messenger to the Elrose duchy!"

While the baron is yelling orders at his servants and aides, Juliet Monet who peeked at the door listening to what is going on, turned to her mother.

"Mother, what will we do?" she cried. She was upset and cling to the necklace she is wearing. The same necklace that she managed to steal away from that bio! She wanted it because it was very pretty. She has to have it. She will not return it. But her father has been insistent about it because they don't have enough money to cover the rest of the inheritance. They don't want to get the ire of the emperor and the third prince.

Her mother is extremely upset. A few hours ago, she placed all the blame on the two wives of his father, especially that commoner wife of his. That woman was the one who gave birth to that "whore" of the house and now their household will be in trouble because of him running away.

Her son, Julius is currently assisting his father with this ordeal. The rest of the nobles and even the branch families of the Monets are now laughing at them. All of this would not have been a big deal if it wasn't for that old selfish man – the former baron.

That old man wasn't willing to make her husband heir to the household even though he is the oldest of his sons. Nobles don't often have fights over who can take over their household as the royal family does but normally, they passed the title to their eldest heir. But the old man still needs to name it to be official. Since he refused to do so, she made sure that he is gone before he could write the will. This led to a war between the heirs and his husband came out on top. Screw those branch families! But the old man still left them all an inheritance and gave them so little compared to his husband's brothers (those two men are now missing). And now they have to let those inheritances go? And the boy is no longer in the house. Probably got f**k on the way by that perverted guard.

Yes. She knows what kind of guard that was. No, she didn't bother to stop his harassment of the bio. She just didn't expect that guard to be successful in kidnapping the boy and compromising the family to the point where the royal family now has their eyes on them. Ugh!

"But if we tell the public that the bio ran away, wouldn't that hate be transferred to the bio instead? Wouldn't that nullify the contract and we don't need to give the inheritance?" Josephina Monet said in the background. The young woman is the younger sister of one year of Juliet Monet and also has beauty and charm but the two women abhor each other. Josephina is the daughter of the second wife. She has the same features as most Monets with blue hair but the two women looked like their mothers. Because she was the daughter of a concubine, she does not have the same privilege as the older sister.

"No. There was no stipulation on how to cancel the marriage in the blood contract. We made sure of that so the third prince could not find any way to prevent his marriage." The Baroness said. "We pay heavy reparations for the missing c**t if they found out that he ran away with that guard! We need to find him first! Who cares if that whore is damaged goods? The third prince is just a lowly prince who has no backing. Who knows how long his favor with the emperor will last!"

As for the missing bio, they never found him. As the deadline draws near, the entire Monet household panics.

******

Victor laughs when he saw the Monets panicking as he watched them in the mirror. Ariel is currently asleep so he is quiet today. He was surprised the Monets didn't inform the royal family by now that they lost the fiancé of the third prince. It's been three days since the banquet. Two more for him to go to the Monets and "meet" his fiancé.

He looks up from the mirror and looked at Julian who is currently sleeping on a proper and comfortable bed.

Julian now looked cleaner and calm. His fever has subsided and it has been three days since they took him away from Monet Manor. But his beloved is still unconscious, pale, but to his eyes, still so beautiful.

They have made an effort to keep him hydrated and put some food into him but it is a struggle. It would have been easier to get a light mage at this point. The healing would have been faster but Victor didn't want to approach the church or his father or any noble and say, "Hey I broke into the Monet manor, kidnapped my fiancé, and did not want anybody to know. So can I borrow your light mage to help heal him?". That would not go over well.

Victor is still not willing to trust anybody from the church, the nobles, or the royal family even with the emperor gaining some interest in building a relationship with him.

They have to make do with the assessment from his medics and give him some healing potions. Victor was able to get some good ones. Lysander (who felt so sorry for his brother's marriage even though Victor is not sorry) offered to give him a generous discount to buy his medicinal potions. Most of it went for the stock of the army, the rest he kept for his household.

He stood up and push up the blanket to cover Julian better. He knows how Julian easily gets cold. When they were in the dungeons, he lets the man cling to him for a little bit of heat. The fact that he was in a cold basement with a flimsy blanket, a thin shirt, and a fever made him furious. Victor is beating himself up for not getting Julian as early as possible. He thought he still have some time. He was wrong. The fever almost got dangerously high and even if they did get help the damage to his health will already be been done.

He kept the room a little darker by covering the windows with black drapes and dimmed the room by adjusting the fire crystal on the fireplace and the light stones under the lampshades. Magical crystals and stones are very popular tools used for magic with magical stones being cheaper compared to crystals (magic crystals require more magical power to use while magic stones can be used even by commoners without magic). The fire crystal also made sure to keep the room comfortably warm even though they are in the middle of summer (it is unusual for people to use fire crystals and stones during the summer months to warm a room).

The place they are staying in is the largest manor that was part of the assets of his territory in the area called Black Forest Estate. Most of the manors in this area belonged mostly to nobles from the northern region which he is now a part of since his territory is located there. However, most of the nobles rarely stay here so it is common to find manors empty.

Nobles who stay most of the time in their territories don't invest heavily in the management of their manors in the capital (unless it is an ancestral home of their family) so there was no maintenance of gardens (everything looked so bleak even during the summer), and there is barely any staff (with preservation and security spells and arrays most manors have there is no need).

There is also the part that most of the northern region nobles are not exactly well off compared to the other regions. Their lands are colder, and frostier, and have limited resources to work with so they rely heavily on the trade they have with the other territories including traveling to the capital to get supplies. This also makes sense why some of the manors do not look taken care of as some of the nobles have trouble finding the funds they need for their maintenance.

The other manor Victor owns is smaller and ironically, is located across the street from him. The past owner did not want a family member moving too far away and built them a manor close to theirs. It is thanks to the preservation arrays placed on the manors that have helped preserve the manor and its contents to look new even though it has been unoccupied for years. It is such a shame that the preservation arrays don't preserve food just nonliving objects like furniture. This is why gardens are left desolate or overgrown by weeds as they are also living things and could not be maintained when there are no people.

Victor did make some adjustments to the manor's furniture. Such as replacing the mattress Julian is currently sleeping on with one of the most comfortable ones he found in the online marketplace in his dimensional space. Some hotels on earth invest heavily in very good mattresses that are so comfortable. They are often in very expensive rooms. He made sure to buy one of those and luckily the mattress was able to come out the same when he took it out of his space. He wants Julian to be comfortable as possible. He deserves it.

He just needs some people to work for him. While Victor has good standing with his soldiers, he needs staff and servants to work in the manor and his territory when they travel there. Aiden is very efficient in finding solutions to their lack of staff but he can't do it all and Victor needs to hire competent ones. He can't exactly ask the soldiers. They are soldiers and his future knights not trained in home management. He was close to asking the emperor for assistance in this area as when they place announcements all over the capital, most were too scared of him to apply while others were there because they were spies from other nobles.

Rufus is currently in the base, Jason is training his men, and he had some guards moved into the manor. They are mainly staying in the dormitories even though Victor offered some of the rooms. Staying in a manor is inappropriate. Aside from the servant quarters reserved for the servants, most of the rooms are only for their masters or any important visitors. It's a big house and there are almost a hundred rooms in this place and only two of them stay here.

Victor made sure that his room is next to Julian. He can't exactly sleep next to him yet. And they are close to the kitchens so that if they need anything he can easily bring his food. Unfortunately, there are no bathrooms. If they need to do their business, there is an outhouse outside or they can summon the servants to bring them a wooden tub or a box with a hole in it which made Victor shake in disgust. His last life spoiled him.

*knock, knock*

Victor looks up and opened the door.

"Oh, Aiden you are back?" Victor asked in a whisper. "Still nothing?"

"Nothing, your highness. Most of those who applied are the same thing and I tried recruiting some people, but they were not sure if they should apply for work here or not. I did have a few prospects to see tomorrow." Aiden said.

"It's all right. You work hard. Thank you." Victor said.

"Also, I heard some rumors running wild in the market today."

"What is it?" Victor asked, curiously.

"Apparently, the "bio son who is engaged to the third prince ran away with a family guard a few days ago" and a lot of people in the market started to make fun of the Monet family but then someone tried to shift the conversation and blamed the bio for being unfaithful and disrespectful that he even run away with a guard. Some riots were going on about hanging the bio for dishonoring the royal family." Aiden answered.

"What?" Victor looked at him flabbergasted at him.

"Are you all right?" Victor asked.

Aiden looked surprised at the prince and answered, "Yes, your Highness."

The fact that the conversation shifted towards blaming bios is very dangerous. Victor was amazed at how fast that was and scary how people's opinions shifted that fast. First of all, this hides the incompetence of the Monets. Secondly, this will drive hate and abuse towards the bios, many of whom already lived and work in vulnerable positions. And because they are bios, the people will not even bat an eye even if someone were to beat a bio to death in the middle of the street in broad daylight. The Claesian culture of treating bios are third-class citizens is terrible and Victor has a sense that he knows who has done those rumors. Nobles are very good at shifting the views of the public in their favor.

Victor glanced at Julian and turned to Aiden. Both men are bios and if they were not connected to him, they would either have died or worse by now. The memory of Julian dying in his arms and never getting to have a funeral and just his body dumped in the forest to be ravaged by the beast made his chest constricted.

Ever since he came back, he planned to provide a good life for his family, especially for Julian. But if Julian's status as a bio would mean he has to live an unsafe life, it won't matter how much protection he places on him. He would feel like a bird in a cage. That's not the right way to live. Also, a bunch of people just called for his wife's head, those imbeciles!

Victor frowned and curled his lips then he suddenly got an idea and grinned at Aiden. The young man looked confused at his master. "You want to try a mission?"

Aiden still looked confused but he nodded, nonetheless. It is his master after all. What could go wrong?