Gold

"UNO!"

I smile a little at my sister's enthusiasm at playing the Uno game. Today is the first rain that happens after the spring comes to the north. It is rather boring sitting down on the chair without doing anything, so I decide to take out some card games like Uno from the pocket dimension and begin to play with Lucina.

After playing with her for three rounds, my little sister came to my office and saw me play with Lucina and demanded me to teach her how to play.

Here I am playing a game of Uno with Lucina, my little sister, and my mother.

However, I never thought that this game would be anything like what I thought it would be. I thought that Uno's game would be a relaxing game where we laugh at each other, but…

I glance at the serious look of my mother, sister, and Lucina as they begin to think about the strategy they need to do in this game.

My friend in the previous life once said that Uno games are like war. I never knew he was telling the truth!

"Errr, skip."

As I place down the yellow skip, I can see Lucina giving me a stink eye while my mother has a smug face for some reason.

"Fufufufu, Plus Four. I'm sorry, Ginerva, but it looks like you will not win this time~."

"Nooooooooo"

However, while it was like playing in the tournament, I enjoy seeing them playing the game together.

Anyway, after seeing my little sister take four cards from the deck, I place down a blue skip on the table, and I can feel Lucina trying to drill a hole into my brain with her stare.

Lucky for me, before Lucina could drill a hole in my head with her stare, I heard someone knocking on the door of my office.

"Come in."

When the door opens up, I can see Richard walk inside my office and then bow a little before saying.

"My lord."

"Richard. Is there anything I need to know?"

"Yes, my lord. There is a guest from the Royal Capital coming here, and he said that he wants to meet you."

"Oh?"

From the capital? I don't think there is a report saying that someone from the capital will arrive at the Sea Dragon point. I look at Lucina, my mother, and then my sister before saying.

"I'm sorry to leave you guys, but there is something I need to attend to."

My mother smiled at me before saying.

"It's okay. We will continue to play. You can go ahead and meet this person."

I nod at my mother and let Richard lead me to the guest that just arrived. I follow Richard to the front yard and see a group of people standing in front of the guard post, and behind them is a two-wagon.

Fifteen people stay inside the front yard, but I can see more than twenty armed people staying outside. Three of the people are wearing fancy clothes while the guard is wearing full iron armor that is painted in silver color while having a sword on their hips and a shield on their back.

As I walk toward them, one of the noble-looking men walks toward me and says.

"You must, Lord Isaac Lionheart, correct?"

I nod my head, and when he sees me nod, the man takes a parchment out of his pocket and hands it to me.

"Please sign this document."

"Before I sign this, could you explain what is going on?"

"Did you forget that you won the war against the Blackbriar family?"

"No, I don't."

"Then you should know that they need to pay you a large sum of money if you did not attack them and take their land."

Ah! I completely forget about that. The peasant-thieving war only lasts when one of the houses loses their capital castle to the enemy, or the deadline is over. If one of the sides is defeated, then the winner will take all the loser's land, and if the deadline is over, the royal family will see which side gets the most victory in their fight. The loser family then needs to give a tribute to the winner.

I don't really know about the total amount of gold the Blackbriar family needs to pay, but I know it is a large amount of gold.

"Then lord Lionheart, please sign this document, and I will give you the tribute the Blackbriar family sent to you."

I snap from my thoughts and read the document. This document says I will not attack the Blackbriar family for three years, and the Blackbriar family will not attack the Lionheart family for three whole years.

If one of the parties decides to break this peace treaty written by the Royal Family, then they will be branded as the Oath Breaker, and the Royal family will declare war against the Oath Breaker.

"Before I sign this document, could I see the item the Blackbriar family sent to us?"

"Of course. Please follow me, Lord Lionheart."

Richard and I follow the man as we walk toward the two wagons that stay outside my front yard. As we approach the wagon, one of the guards opens up the curtain, and I can see a chest filled one of the wagons.

I can see more than twenty chests inside the wagon.

I look at the guard who picks up the chest and places it down in front of me before opening it up. I widen my eyes when I see many gold coins inside the chest.

"There is twenty-five chest filled with gold inside the wagons. There are a total of five hundred thousand gold coins inside this wagon."

I shake off my shock and ask the man about the second wagon in the back.

"What about the other wagon?"

"Ah! The other wagon is filled with Rare Metal and Rare plant seeds like Tea and some of the more common fruit seeds like Apple and Grape."

I raised my eyebrow when I heard him say that. Grape and Apple are known for their long time it needs to grow and tea that cannot grow in an environment that is too cold. While it sounds precious, all those seeds are not really good in the northern region.

I guess the Blackbriar family wants to be seen as a generous family by giving us these seeds, but in reality, he gives something useless or needs a long time before I could enjoy their so-called tribute.

Sadly for them, I'm already at the Journeyman stage in Green Magic, one step away from the Master stage.

"Where do I sign the document?"

"Please write it next to Lord Blackbriar's name."

I sign the document and give the parchment and the quill back to the man. After inspecting the document, he then bowed a little at me before saying.

"With this, all of the items inside the wagons are yours. Where should we place it?"

"Richard will be the one to lead you to the warehouse."

I look at Richard and say.

"Richard, please escort them to the warehouse."

"Of course, My Lord."

When I see Richard nod at me, I look at the man and say.

"Will you stay here?"

"I'm afraid not, Lord Lionheart. We have been ordered to go back to our lord immediately."

"Very well. I hope your journey home is safe. May we meet another time again."

"Thank you, Lord Lionheart. May we meet another time again."

I nod at him and walk back to my office. I need to change my plan regarding all the projects I have in mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"My Lord, all of us are ready to go."

"Good. Let us move out."

I look at the Sea Dragon Castle for the last time before taking a deep breath as I close the door to my carriage.

My name is Livius Darriel, the castellan to Duke Phineas Frederick. I said that all of the gold is coming from the Marquess Blackbriar, but the truth is that this money is coming from Duke Frederick's personal vault.

The idiot Matthew Blackbriar already explained his situation to Duke Frederick. He says that all his rations, gold, and even weapons are gone without a trace, and he has a gall not to inform Duke Frederick.

Instead of asking the Duke for help, this idiot man decided to cover this news and take a loan to the Holy Light Empire bank to buy all the food they need and basic equipment for his army. If they can win this war, then Duke Frederick doesn't have a problem with it, but sadly this idiot gets himself a devastating loss.

Out of twelve lords that came with him, only three of that said lord survived. The rest of the noblemen were either killed by the northern men or died because of sickness.

However, what makes Duke Frederick more infuriated is that out of ten thousand men who survive, only a thousand of them come back to their home. What makes matters worse is that the only one that survives is the so-called elite of the Blackbriar family.

That so-called elite becomes a joke to the other knights as they don't even have a dent in their armor. They arrive in the Blackbriar family with polished armor without a single dent or scratch. On the other hand, the levies that come back have a face scarred, and their armor and sword chipped, indicating they are the ones that fight in the frontline instead of the so-called elite.

"Lord Darriel"

I snap from my thoughts as I see his fellow castellan under Duke Frederick's banner.

"Sorry about that, Lord Lovirus"

"It's okay. I only want to say about what I see."

"Oh? Please do."

"Sadly, I cannot see much about the military strength of the Lionheart family. For some unknown reason, every time I want to sneak toward a more important place like the barracks or the armory, I always get found by some soldier or the captain of the army."

"I see…. That means our suspicion about the Lionheart family having a talented spymaster is correct. They know about our movement even without us knowing."

"That's right. That means the possibility of the Lionheart family being the culprit behind the loss of Blackbriar fortune is increasing almost to a hundred percent."

"Yes. However, we still don't have enough evidence to declare war against them. Not only that, but we also did not know how big the reach of Lord Lionheart spy. We cannot declare war without knowing if they can steal our fortune or not."

That's right. That is one of the reasons why Duke Frederick did not do anything about the Lionheart family. He is afraid they will do the same thing they do to the Blackbriar family. There is also the problem with the Lionheart family military.

Three thousand army cannot defeat Ten thousand army in a single battle. There is no record about it in any history or present book. However, Isaac 'Silver Lion' Lionheart successfully does the impossible.

While I know that the Ten Thousand army has an idiotic and coward general, but there is no denying that a ten thousand army is a massive army. Because of this achievement, many of the southern nobles begin to see the north as a force that cannot be underestimated.

While the more veteran noble that has an age around seventy to eighty years old have a smug face that says 'I told you so' as they are the one that keeps saying never underestimate the north.

They are the ones that tell many of the younger generations while the north doesn't have the quantity as the southern have they have the quality the southern rarely have.

"So, what should we do?"

"We will follow the Duke Frederick order and do nothing. There is nothing we can do, and the stake is too high if we do something reckless like the Blackbriar family."

While on the surface, they cannot do anything but in the background? They will send as many spies as they can to monitor and write all the things the North has before we make our movement.