The Takes From All Sides (2)

There are 12 founding nobility households who hold the power to steer the direction when it comes to making an important decision for Xenolith Principality. The current party consists of the grand duke, the three archdukes, and the eight dukes. As for the count and baron, their argument doesn't matter at all, it's unnecessary and even can be unreliable when it comes to the stability of the principality.

The name of the current grand duke household is Ellion. The names of the current three archduke households are Brent, Guirez, and Lafite. The names of the current eight duke households are Angmar, Creto, Dzihir, Fujiame, Halken, Izlihir, Joix, and Karias.

Although they are in different ranks because of their strength differences, it's just a formality to keep the tradition of their ancestors. In an actual formal meeting or gathering, they will argue and view each other as equals.

These high ranked nobles always wear many layers of clothes. A shirt and tie on the inside, an additional layer of knit vest to hold the inside together, and on the outermost part is the suit.

The lower part is wearing long pants. A casual leather shoe that will make some sound when they walk to make their presence known.

The thing that really stands out for being able to distinguish them from their appearance is the glove and the cape. A short cape can be seen wrapped on their shoulder and gloves can be seen on their hands. The most distinct part of this is the family crest that is engraved on the back of the cape and the gloves. This will make their upper part more elegant and their identity is being known by the other nobles. Additionally, there will be a badge that shows their rank on their left suit.

Inside a big mansion in one archduke household of Xenolith Principality, a secret meeting is being held. There are 6 people in this room sitting on a round table. From their badge, we can conclude that there's 2 archduke and 4 duke households sitting together and discussing something important.

Archduke Brent: "Archduke Lafite, are you sure that we can trust them? Even though we are using each other for mutual benefits, we need to be more careful when playing with fire or else it's us who will get burned."

Duke Creto: "Those dirty criminals have been hiding for years, camouflaging themselves as ordinary people waiting for the chance to do something. As soon as something happens, they start to become more active nowadays."

Duke Dzihir: "I never thought that old man will retire so soon and even without a proper successor at that. He must be so old that his mind started to cloud his judgment."

Duke Halken: "But, this is good for us! Because of this reason, those crazy people started to reappear and organize something big in the future and even invited us with some great benefit."

Duke Joix: "It doesn't matter if you get burned a little. As long as we can get those SCs, we can cooperate with whatever they want to do."

Archduke Lafite: "You are right, in this day and age, the most important thing is those SC. As long as our safety is guaranteed, nothing else matters. This time it's a double win for us if we agree to help them. We didn't need to participate in a dangerous war just to create some stories for those gods and we only needed to help them with some accomodation so their trace didn't get noticed by the federation."

Archduke Lafite is the one who gets a direct invite from the criminal organization that wants to cooperate with them. That's why, today, the archduke invited these people who he really trusted would agree to the shady cooperation with the benefits those criminals would offer. He's been interacting with all the high ranking nobles for years, he already understands their personality preferences. For those who he didn't invite today, it means they are nobles with neutral standing and would never allow themselves to work with these rats.

But it didn't mean that they don't know about what's happening in his mansion, Archduke Lafite already understands that those smart nobles just don't care about what we are doing so this meeting could happen smoothly, as long as we didn't disturb their territory and safety then it's fine.

The Darkwave is the one who will cooperate with them, that's why he agrees. If the one who asked is those insane fanatics from the Dusk, even he wouldn't agree to their request. He still remember years ago when they bombed the principality territory. Even if it's not his, it still leaves some bitter taste in his mind because he still invested money on some of those businesses. Many other nobles also quite hate the Dusk criminal organization because of those incidents. After those incidents, the principality has been hunting them, so the Dusk choose to move to another area of activity that's more profitable to them, the kingdom.

Archduke Lafite continued his discussion with the other nobles.

Archduke Lafite: "So as our meeting now unfolded here, the Darkwave core members also have their discussion near this location. I've already lent a mansion to them for their area of activity. After we all agree I can go and inform their messenger that they have been waiting since a while ago in this mansion. For our safety and cooperation we didn't need to meet with them personally, you can pass your words to me and I can continue it to them through my personal communication line with them."

Archduke Brent: "I think this is enough discussion for today, we should start to enter the voting session in our meeting. I, Archduke Brent, agree to the cooperation with the Darkwave."

Duke Creto, Duke Dzihir, Duke Halken, and Duke Joix discussed for a little while and also decided to say their decision represented by Duke Creto.

"We, the duke, also agree to cooperate with the Darkwave organization. For an addition we need to remind those dirty criminals that we should never disturb the other high noble territory and their safety. They are our ally and founding members, so no matter what happens their safety is also for the stability of the principality as a whole."

Archduke Lefite: "Okay, we'll add that clause to our demand when agreeing with them, now let's sign this proof of cooperation with the Darkwave so no one should ever betray one or the other."

Archduke Lefite and Brent signed the proposal agreement that they made first and then followed by the other dukes. The next thing is to wait for the Darkwave answer to their cooperation request. Let's say if they accept it, then from that day on the nobles will invest in them. Cooperation works both ways, the Darkwave get huge initial capital for their business and the nobles who cooperate with them will receive some SC without risking their lives, definitely a free lunch.

After the meeting, the other nobles went back to their own territory. Archduke Lefite then goes to the lower basement and calls the Darkwave members that have been waiting here and gives him a copy of their agreement proposal for the cooperation.

This is the Darkwave normal members, they usually didn't differ much from the other normal person in appearance. Now, the Darkwave has some cooperation with the principality and their area activity is in this location, so their normal members also wear some clean and simple noble clothes to blend in with the trend. For some occasions like right now when they are meeting personally with a client, they will wear a mask to hide their real appearance. For these normal members they will wear a white mask that only shows their eyes and mouth.

This lower basement is connected to the other mansion that he has that he lends to the Darkwave to hold their area of activity. Archduke Lefite also didn't live in this mansion, so after everything was done, he locked the door of the mansion and went to his own home. What are you kidding, no one would live in a building connected to an active criminal location.

After getting a hold of the copy proposal agreement, the Darkwave messenger walks through a long corridor that's damp and dark with only some little lamp lighting them until he reaches an end on this road, a stone staircase can be seen. After ascending to the surface through the stair, he reached the back garden of another mansion. There are many people with similar clothes he's wearing guarding many important locations of the mansion. After giving the copy proposal agreement to another member who has been waiting for him, he leaves the mansion through the front gate carefully without meeting anyone. This is an archduke mansion area with little to no people around it, so it's quite easy to evade them. In an empty alleyway, he takes his mask and walks through some streets, he comes to his usual workplace and continues his normal life duty.