Count Hubert-2

"i want to buy the Rose Valley from you." Adui said 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."

Baron lowered his eyes, he knew this fact. "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 is 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.

"So you are telling me that I should sell the piece of land for some pieces 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."

Baron smiled, then he shifted in the chair. "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 he 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 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.