22 DEAL WITH THE GRAND DUKE

"Relax, Ms Lily, I am not asking you to be my slave, I am asking you to become my subordinate who will do my bidding. Rest assured, I won't treat you like a slave. And about killing me and taking the pill, do you think, I am that naive to meet you here without any safety measures ensuring my life?"

After he said this, five people who are of the same rank as the duke appeared in the room encircling us. They all work for the grand duke in his private army, but they can't stop me, they can almost delay me from killing the duke.

As if reading my mind, the duke said, " You are right, they can't stop you from killing me and they definitely won't try to stop you from killing me, but they are here to delay your return to your home. Where your precious son is having fun with the neighbour girl, who is surrounded by my best team of assassins who are led by an S-rank."

Hearing this, I pull back my weapons from his throat and said, " Do you think, I would leave my son without any protection? And..."

The duke cut her off saying, " Yeah, yeah, you must have used some defence artefact that can protect your son for some time till you can get back to him and precisely for that reason, you were surrounded by my 5 strongest subordinates. They will give enough time for the assassins to take care of your son."

'I know, he is bluffing but, I am not sure whether Max, will be safe till I return to him. I want to cancel this deal and get out of this mansion immediately, but this is a rare chance for Max, what should I do?'

*sigh* "Fine,... I will take upon your offer. I will be your subordinate and will work for you." I said to him reluctantly.

"I am glad you agreed, that's the best deal we both can have. Now I need you to work for me for two years in my army."

"No, I can only do for 3 months only, and who do you think I am to work as an ordinary soldier?" Saying this, I released my aura to pressure him a little.

"One year and you will only be below my generals."

"6 months and I will receive orders from no one."

"6 months and you will do whatever I say and kill whoever I point. I can't go any lower."

"Fine, 6 months and I will do whatever you say and kill whoever you pointed out except the things which can harm my son and daughter. And you need to take care of all the resources my son needs as long as I work for you as my pay."

"Hm... tough bargain, 6 months may not be enough time to kill some of my enemies without raising any suspicion, but I can work it. Who knows maybe you will enjoy working under me?"

"Hmph, like hell I would like to work under you, if it's not for my son, I wouldn't have accepted to do your dirty work. Now let's just close this deal and go on our separate ways. And I will only start working under you after 3 months."

Raising his brow, he said, "Why is that? I wish you would start working from now."

"No, I don't want my son to know that I am working under someone, I want to send my son to the Royal Academy next year. There is still 3 months' time for the start of the new academic year at the academy, so you need to wait till then."

"*Sigh* You are making this harder and harder Ms Lily."

"Hmph, that's what you can get from my side, take it or leave it."

"...Fine. I will prepare an SS-rank mana contract based on these conditions. We don't want anyone to break out of our deal."

"Fine, just do it quickly, I need to return by night."

After that, the duke quickly sent one of his servants to fetch an SS-rank contract and filled all the conditions that were agreed upon by both of us beforehand. 'He must be really paranoid, that I might break the contract. Higher rankers can break a low-rank contract without any backlashes. I can break out of an S-rank contract and the maximum backlash I can get is to lose 40 to 50 per cent of my power for a few months. It may be dangerous but I can hide for a few months without worry till I recover, I can almost have minimum to no damage by breaking a contract which is A-rank or below. Now I can't back out of the contract due to it being an SS-rank and there are chances of me dying, whatever, It's just 6 months and it will be gone like that and I will get some fine resources for Max to help him on his path.'

After reading the contract and seeing there is no tampering with my conditions, I spilt a drop of my blood infused with my mana onto the contract before handing it to the duke and who did the same. The contract burst into golden light and flew towards both of us making us bound to each other.

Then I took the wooden box which is containing the pill and kept it in my storage ring and stood to leave. Before I reach the door to let myself out, I heard him saying, "I forgot to mention before, the absorption of the pill will be a little bit painful, more so for your son who doesn't have a speck of mana which can help him to withstand the pain."

I simply nodded at his warning, ' A little bit of pain won't make my son back out and he always says 'no pain, no gain' during his physical training so, no need to worry about it.' Thinking so, I left the mansion and the capital and rushed to my home.