20 Meeting Count Bastion

The main hall of the Aron Army facility was not as large as the throne room back at the palace in Windfall city, but it was definitely sufficient to showcase the great wealth of the Aron family.

This was where guests of the facility were received by the Aron family representative, so the decorations surely had to live up to their name.

Two rows of chairs were lined up by the sides of the hall, facing each other, allowing for more interactive meetings.

At the far end of the hall, the host's chair was positioned in the middle, where Count Bastion usually sat to address his guests.

However, today he had no choice but to relinquish that seat to the guest, whose social status was too far above his.

King Roland sat comfortably on the seat that was slightly elevated above the others, and looked at Count Bastion who seemed to be hiding his restlessness while seated in front of him.

"Is there anything troubling you, Lord Bastion?" Roland curiously asked.

"Not at all, Your Majesty. But aside from that, may your humble servant know the reason for the visit?" Count Bastion was an experienced noble, and felt not one bit nervous simply because he was in the presence of the young king.

However, he felt a tinge of anxiety every single time his eyes landed on the lady standing beside King Roland.

Like the other nobles, he had previously been summoned to the capital to attend the Coronation Ceremony, and during the visit to the Royal Army facility, he had seen in person how this personal maid of the king had far surpassed everyone's expectations and took down Marquis Berghis.

His eyes had almost popped out of his sockets when he witnessed that scene!

Who was Marquis Berghis? He was the strongest noble leading the strongest army!

But more than that, he was the one whom Count Bastion had decided to lend his support for the contention of the throne!

The plans were all set up in his head. All he was lacking was Marquis Berghis' agreement.

All that was left was for Marquis Berghis to finally give the nod, and their combined armies would overrun the royal capital!

However, that loss against the personal maid seemed to have triggered Marquis Berghis into requesting a personal audience with the king.

Count Bastion had no idea what was discussed during that meeting, but when Marquis Berghis returned from the palace that day, he was completely broken in spirit!

In fact, Marquis Berghis actually refused to leave Windfall City along with the rest of the nobles, opting to stay in the capital for a while more in order to sort out his feelings.

For a moment, Count Bastion had considered the possibility that Marquis Berghis might have sold him out during the audience with the king.

However, seeing that there were no signs of movement from the royal family, it seemed like that was not the case.

Thinking about it, it was not too surprising for the Marquis to be so downtrodden after being publicly defeated by a personal maid, so Count Bastion decided to leave him be, returning to Waterfall City instead of continue waiting for the Marquis' answer.

Despite that, he still had not given up on his plan to rope in the Marquis!

Now that the king was actually paying him a visit, Count Bastion could not help but sneer in his heart. This could be a good chance to prove how pathetic this young king was, and give Marquis Berghis a final push towards joining his cause!

As he thought of that, Count Bastion could not help but shift his gaze away from Rose and back onto the young king.

Now that he took a good look at the man in his mid-twenties, the king did seem to project a certain majestic poise that could not be imitated on a whim…

No! That must have been an act!

It had already been weeks since his coronation, so the king must have had plenty of time to practise!

Spending his time on this kind of meaningless practice instead of tending to the country's affairs, what kind of a king was this?!

This was why everyone had been calling him a wastrel king!

Count Bastion made a mental note to definitely inform Marquis Berghis about this!

"You are a smart man, Count Bastion. What do you think I am here for?" Roland's expression remained impassive as he responded with a question of his own.

"Is it because of the goblin attacks?" Count Bastion inquired, feeling smug about being praised as a smart person.

Indeed, in the eyes of everyone else, including the king, he must have subconsciously revealed his high intellect just from the way he handled things!

An exceptional man truly had no way of remaining low profile!

While Count Bastion had his thoughts running wild, Roland was also trying his best to observe Count Bastion's every single body gesture.

Back in Windfall City, Marquis Berghis had already come clean with everything he knew about the planned coup.

And within that information, Count Bastion was clearly named as one of those who had hinted at the Marquis for a possible collaboration.

At that time, the Marquis had immediately begged Roland for leniency regarding the punishment of these perpetrators, causing Roland to see him in a light of approval. After all, solidarity among the nobles was a good thing.

It was only a pity that these nobles were treating the royal family as a common enemy this time round.

However after the Marquis had left, Roland had Erin shed light on her thoughts about the matter, and she provided a completely different interpretation to Marquis Berghis' statement.

In summary, she believed that there were numerous possibilities to what the actual story could be.

Marquis Berghis could be using this opportunity to smear the name of his enemies.

Marquis Berghis could be trying to divert attention away from the Tonquello family by selling out his accomplices.

Marquis Berghis could be making up this whole thing in order to throw the kingdom into chaos.

In any case, Roland had understood from her words that he could not afford to believe Marquis Berghis' one sided story without investigating the matter.

If at all possible, he would very much have preferred to have Erin personally come along with them to meet with Count Bastion in order to sound him out.

If there was anyone capable of sounding out Count Bastion, then his genius of a sister would probably be it!

However, the risks were too high this time for that to be feasible.

After all, they were effectively voluntarily entering into the very heart of the territory of a man suspected to be planning a coup!

As if it was not enough that this suspected traitor had a powerful army at his disposal, but on top of that, Roland was also intending to take on the goblins at the same time!

This was equivalent to facing two different opponents at once, amplifying the level of danger by multiple times!

Roland was well trained, and with the support of Rose and Alexander, he was confident of safely escaping from most dangerous situations.

Erin, on the other hand, was helpless!

She would not only be incapable of taking care of herself in a dire situation, but she would even end up being a burden for the others, causing unnecessary trouble and possibly jeopardising any chances of escape.

The risks far outstripped the benefits of bringing her along this time, and that was why Roland had firmly refused Erin's request to tag along.

That was also why he had requested for as many troops as Marshal Dominic could spare without compromising on the border security.

Since that was the case, Roland had no choice but to rely on his own ability to figure this out!

As for Rose and Alexander…he would like to believe that he was much more superior compared to the two in terms of analytical ability!

"Smart man indeed, Count Bastion. The goblins are indeed the main reason for my visit," Roland nodded with a calm smile. "Now then, what can you tell me about the current situation?"

"Everything is under control, Your Majesty. The goblins have got nothing on our powerful defences, so they could only resort to guerrilla tactics in order to try and threaten the villagers around the city. But no worries, we will catch these cowards sooner or later!"

Count Bastion gave his casual report as he leaned back into his chair comfortably, seemingly not placing much importance on the matter.

No, it would be more accurate to say that he truly did not place any importance on the matter at all!

The loss of villager lives might affect the taxes he received, but the effect was minimal.

The main problem would be the loss of villager lives and morale, but so what?

Was that going to affect his lavish lifestyle?

No!

If he were to send his troops out repeatedly to chase after the goblins, then any mishap to his army might affect his hold on power within the region!

With that, it was no surprise that he chose to turn a blind eye to the plight of the many villagers situated near to Dragontail Valley, East of Waterfall City.

"Have you tried going on the offensive against the goblins instead?" Roland asked.

"Your Majesty might not know much about this since you are still new to this, but our troops have an advantage thanks to our formation planning as long as it is on open ground. It is not wise to move our troops into somewhere like Dragontail Valley that would just cost us our main advantage over the goblins!" Count Bastion's voice carried with it a tone of condescendence as he answered.

"You might find out that I know more than you thought!" Roland frowned upon sensing the hint of disrespect from Count Bastion's tone.

Roland might have been worried that his words were blindly treated as the law when he was back in the palace, but now that he was being openly doubted, he realised that he actually very much preferred to be given blind trust!

If nothing else, at least he would feel much better about himself that way!

"I do not discount any possibility, no matter how slim," Count Bastion smirked, obviously hinting that he did not believe the king to be better than he imagined.

While Count Bastion seemed to be awfully rude, he was actually treading carefully on the edge, never once directly insulting Roland.

This was the skill of an experienced noble, able to reveal a glimpse of his thoughts without truly speaking his mind!

Just as Roland was about to give his own retort, one of Count Bastion's servants scampered across the main hall to whisper a few words into Count Bastion's ears, causing the Count's eyes to light up in surprise.

"Let them in!" Count Bastion ordered before turning to King Roland. "It seems that we have rare guests today. Phoenix Sentinels, the S-ranked adventurer group native to our Waterfall City requested to join in on our meeting, and I have already asked them to enter. Hopefully Your Majesty would not mind that!"

This was in fact an extremely presumptuous action, giving permission to enter without first consulting the opinion of the king. It could basically be seen as disregarding the authority of the king!

If Erin were here, she would have already flown into a rage just from seeing this!

However, Roland was not Erin.

In fact, he did not even notice that he was being deliberately slighted at this moment!

In his head, all he remembered from what Count Bastion just said was that the new visitors were S-ranked adventurers!

One had to know that there were no more than five S-ranked adventurer groups within the Great Manta Kingdom, indirect proof of exactly how powerful the S-ranked adventurer groups were!

Roland had long since wanted to meet some of these powerful warriors in order to exchange pointers and perhaps learn from each other.

Who knew that he would suddenly gain an unexpected opportunity to do so?

At this time, Count Bastion was feeling extremely smug about how the inexperienced Roland had failed to find the right words to raise any objections to his actions of basically ignoring the authority of the king.

At the same time, he had a thought that perhaps the new king did not even have the sense tonotice that he was being slighted!

However, what Count Bastion did not know was that the king who seemed so inexperienced and incapable in his eyes actually more than welcomed his decision, and was even rejoicing in his heart at being able to meet the new guests!

If he did, then Count Bastion would never have decided to invite the S-ranked adventurers into the facility to participate in the meeting!