Chapter 163 - Stubborn, Old Fool

—An Hour Later—

"You have done this family a great service, thank you for saving Ghislaine and Hilda!", Sauros proclaimed, after he was brought up to speed by the two women, "I will ensure you are compensated well for your time and effort, the Greyrat Family always repays its debts."

"It was no trouble at all, it has been a nice change of pace for Ciri and me.", I replied, giving him a firm handshake, "Now that you are up to speed, can you tell us what is happening here in the capital? Assassins attacking us in broad daylight and the warm welcome we received at the gate would suggest the nobility wants the Greyrats eliminated. Your enemies have moved surprisingly fast given this incident happened just a few days ago."

"Ha, you do not know the half of it, Cole.", Sauros laughed, walking over to his liquor cabinet to pour himself another drink, "It is not just the nobility who want it either, the Prime Minister and my son James have been working tirelessly to push the blame onto me. They are spreading rumors that I am a copper-pinching miser who used inexperienced, novice mages to stabilize the orb above Roa. I attempted to prove my innocence to the King, but I was promptly thrown out of the castle the moment I denied the allegations."

Just like in the storyline I knew, the Human God was using the Prime Minister to hamper the rebuilding efforts of Fittoa. Knowing full well that Sauros was the type of man to go broke rebuilding his territory, they wanted to replace him with his bastard son who would fail miserably at it. The Human God wanted the thousands of displaced people to continue suffering just because he found it amusing.

"Jeez, your King and the nobles here sound like complete assholes.", Ciri stated, not caring if any loyalists heard her, "It sounds like they had it out for you well before this happened, are you sure none of them caused this?"

"I would like to believe that my fellow noblemen would not kill thousands of our citizens just to see our family removed from power, but at this point, I cannot rule that out.", Sauros said, looking back at a family portrait before looking at me, "I hate to ask another favor of you, but there are few who I can trust with this task. Please take Ghislaine and Hilda away from the Asura Kingdom before further harm comes to my family?"

"Uh…why are you not including yourself in the group? I can easily carry you on my platform with the rest of us, it is not an issue for me.", I remarked, "You are not thinking about throwing your life away over some misplaced nobleman bullshit, are you?"

Scratching the back of his head, Sauros acknowledged that he indeed planned on dying to appease the masses. Even though none of this was his fault, he felt duty-bound to take whatever punishment came down from the Crown. While I admired his dedication to his duties, I also thought he was an idiot for throwing his life away when those who loved him needed him the most.

"You are a fool Sauros, your family should be the most important thing to you. There can always be another person to take your place as Lord of Fittoa, but Hilda and Eris can never replace you.", I scolded him, "Can you live with yourself knowing that your granddaughter will have no one to give her away at her wedding? Will you be satisfied with missing the birth of your great-grandchildren? Are you okay with letting your bastard son use you as a stepping stone for his political gain?"

Looking back at his family portrait for a moment, Sauros stared at his granddaughter Eris. Seeing a warm smile creep over his face, I could tell that he was coming around to the idea of coming with us.

"While I do agree with you that family should come first, it is hard to just turn my back on the nation I have dedicated my life all my life", Sauros remarked, still resisting the urge to throw it all away, "Please give me the night to sleep on it, I will have an answer in the morning."

"I understand.", I said, turning to Ciri, "We should head out to the market to buy the necessary supplies for our next trip. Once we leave the capital, staying in any settlement will be a risky venture till we are out of the Asura Kingdom. Ghislaine, I trust we can leave guarding the home to you while we are out?"

"Of course, it is my job after all.", the Beastwoman replied, stretching her arms and back, "I am going to have a look around the perimeter to make sure everything is secure. When you get back, can one of you cook something for us? I am fucking starving…"

"You can just ask the chef in the kitchen to make you something.", Sauros said, before recalling that all his staff members had abandoned their posts, "Oh right…we do not have a chef anymore."

"Yeah, I can take care of that.", I assured Ghislaine, "I assume you would like a meat dish, right?"

Giving me a thumbs up before leaving the room, I could see the unhappy expression Ghislaine was attempting to hide. She held Sauros in very high regard so hearing that her savior intended to potentially throw his life away had to upset her. In my mind, the only way she would be content would be if he died peacefully in his sleep of old age.

'Hopefully the stubborn, old man makes the right decision. It will be a pain if I have to drag him away kicking and screaming.', I thought, as Ciri and I followed Ghislaine out the front door, 'When we leave, I am stowing this whole mansion in my Storage. They can buy a piece of land somewhere, and continue using their family home.'

Seeing us out the front gate, Ghislaine broke off and began carefully examining the walls that surrounded the building.

—3rd Person POV, Royal Castle—

"Prime Minister Darius, I heard you wished to speak to me.", James Boreas Greyrat said, entering his superior's private chambers, "How can I be of assistance to you?"

"My apologies for calling you here on such short notice. I have received word that your sister-in-law Hilda and your family's bodyguard Ghislaine have arrived here in the capital.", Darius informed him, "They were ambushed by assassins on their way to the Noble District, unfortunately, neither of them was harmed in the attack. According to the City Guard, they are now holed up at your family's estate in the Noble District."

"I see…", James replied, not happy that Ghislaine was now by his father's side again, "That will make dealing with my father all the more troublesome. Ghislaine will not willingly let my father be executed like we had planned. Any attempts to capture him will likely be met with a bloodbath, she is a Sword King Class Swordswoman after all."

Nodding his head in agreement, Darius understood the problem she posed to their plan. Few people in the world could come close to her skill, and none of them were in the capital at the moment. The only way they could gain the upper hand was to fight dirty by using magic to incapacitate her, and then take Sauros away while she helplessly watched him get dragged away. Voicing this idea to James, the young man shook his head stating that it would not be that simple.

"Ghislaine is the type of person that will come after us the instant the magic wears off. Killing her while she cannot resist is our only option here, though I am not happy about it. It will be a great loss to my family to lose such a talented bodyguard.", James admitted, 'I will also no longer be able to sneak peeks of her in the bath anymore. Damn it all!'

"You know her better than I do so I will defer to you on that.", Darius conceded, "I should also mention that there were two other unknown individuals with them when they arrived. There was a young, white-haired woman and a young, bald man dressed in very strange armor. From what witnesses report, the man is an incredibly powerful mage. So far they confirmed that he can use Ice and Lightning Magics, but there may be others he can use."

"I do not believe my father had anyone like that in his service back home, they must be Adventurer's Hilda hired on the way here.", James remarked, knowing he had never met people like that before, "We can attempt to bribe them with gold to abandon my father when the time comes. If they do not accept, they can suffer the consequences of standing against the Prime Minister's will."

Cracking a smile, Darius was happy that James was living up to his expectations. Unlike Sauros, James was more than willing to throw his family to the wayside for political gains. Not only that, he did not share in his father's love and kindness toward their citizens. Without any suggestions from Darius, James already intended to levy taxes on the people to cover the rebuilding of the Fittoa Region. He was adamantly against putting a single copper toward rebuilding his territory which made him the perfect replacement for his father.

"Since Hilda is here now, we will need to move our plan up to tonight.", James stated, knowing what was likely happening at this moment, "Once the old man knows my niece Eris is missing, he will likely want to head out to find her as Adventurers are in short supply at the moment. If he leaves the capital, the King will likely shift the blame onto me and it will be my head that is lopped off."

"That is true, we have done too much groundwork for him to run off now.", Darius said, as a dirty smile crept up on his face, "Just so we are clear, you do remember our arrangement for my continued support of your family and your position as a Cabinet Minister, yes?"

"Of course, Eris will be handed over to you the moment we locate her.", James replied, happy his niece would take the place of one of his daughters.

"Good man!", Darius laughed, licking his lips with pleasure, "Begin the preparations to abduct Sauros, I will work on gathering the remaining forged documents."

With that, the two corrupt politicians parted to begin enacting their devious scheme.