- Veena -
"Drink… drink… today's party is on me hahahaha, you should have seen the faces of those two bastards." Sir Ralph laughed "David was so insufferable for the last two years. The look on his face when you caught that attack with your hand was a sight I will never forget. Totally worth waiting two years. Good job, boy. Great job."
The man looked positively enthralled by the whole situation. In fact, he was probably the one who was most happy among the members of the Knight's Academy who were currently partying in the Inn.
Arthas did tell her that he was the one who was the most gung ho about pushing him into the competition.
Still, not everyone was happy… at least not everyone in Greenfrost.
When Arthas had left with the group to collect his rewards, she and Rose were asked to remain in the VIP Rooms. There she had kept an eye on the man who had questioned Rose's kidnapping, Hector Black.
He was the one who had invited and even recommended the Order of the Black Hand to participate in the Tournament and was most likely the one who was behind the whole kidnapping incident. So, Arthas' beatdown of the representative sent by him must have been enraging for him. But to his credit, the man didn't show even the slightest hint of that. Not even when his representative didn't show up to receive the reward.
At least he has got the calm mind of a noble, far better than many of the High Class Devils in the Underworld.
But no matter what, every person's facade had a limit.
Hector Black's limit was when the Prince was revealed.
So even he wasn't expecting the Prince himself to be the one who was following Uther and not directly with his identity but as a normal bodyguard.
He had thrown a very fleeting gaze at Rose as it was the Prince himself who had saved her life. It wasn't something others would have noticed, perhaps even her, had she not been keeping an eye on him the entire time. The man regained his calm almost instantly… but all of that came crumbling down when Arthas was awarded the City Lord position by the Prince in the end. A clear look of shock, anger, and maybe even fear quickly flashed across his face.
The man lowered his head and covered his face with his hand, pretending to cough and not many people noticed this as everyone was busy looking at the Award Ceremony.
He left right after that without waiting for the end. That said, his subordinate did present them with a golden sign which could be exchanged for a million gold coins from the Greenfrost territory as he had promised earlier.
Was this his way of saying to let bygones be bygones?
She will have to wait and see if he makes any moves.
While the Prince and Uther had promised that there would be no retaliation against Arthas from the Order of the Black Hand, nothing was said about Hector Black.
Right now the Fairy Tail Guild was in its most important phase and they needed lots of missions. Nobles and ministers were the main mission providers and both were under Hector Black's control.
They couldn't have him as an enemy or it would cut the profits of the Guild. That meant they would have to handle whatever comes in a… more subtle way.
For that, she needed the support of other people, other high ranking people, like Sir Ralph, Patrick Gale and David Bright, the three Vice Presidents of the three major military organisations in Greenfrost.
That's why she was here, socialising with everyone to get their favourability high and secure their help.
"...and they had the gall to try to poach Arthas in front of me. Those shameless bastards. Remember Arthas, don't fall for their tricks. Grand Knights can kick the butts of Magic Knights and Holy Knights any day of the week."
"Yeah!" The rest of the group cheered, half drunk, half happy at the claim.
"As for the Skill I promised? You can come to me later and I will train you in it." Sir Ralph patted Arthas' shoulder.
Battle Aura is a very useful Skill from what she had heard from Arthas. It was the prize promised by Sir Ralph to him to participate in the tournament and win.
It was a Skill similar to Touki and Armament Haki which Arthas was already using.
She wondered how his attacks would look after he learned this Skill? Even now, with just Armament Haki and Touki, his normal attacks looked like Active Skills of other players.
If Battle Aura were to be added on top of it… that would make him truly an unstoppable force in this game world.
"I will." Arthas nodded
"By the way, you two need to go to the capital in two weeks, right? You should start learning from tomorrow or the day after so that you can understand the basics before you leave."
He nodded at Sir Ralph's suggestion. "I will start the day after tomorrow. I have a meeting with the girl who helped Rose tomorrow morning and then a dinner with Lord Uther and Prince Arthas later in the evening."
"Oh yes. For the formal appointment from the King. Arnold will be going to from what I hear. Good job. After so many years, Greenfrost has again produced someone like Arnold Straight and it was from the Knight's Academy again hahahaha."
….
They talked about different things for a bit.
"Sir Ralph." She took the opportunity to enquire about the place.
"Yes?"
"Could you please tell us something about Alverton, the city given to Arthas to rule?" She asked.
Arthas looked at her in realisation but nodded and turned towards the man too. "Yes Sir. Any information would be helpful. I don't even know where the City is let alone what kind of place it is and I have to rule the place. I don't think it has sunk in yet or else I would be freaking out about it right now."
"Hahahaha no need to freak out. Guarding a city is not that hard a job. Alverton is a city under Greenfrost but it is on the extreme border of the territory, on the north western side of the country. It is separated from the country of Baweth on the west by a city and Western Frontier Camp so that side is completely safe unless the barbarians manage to somehow mow down the dozens of the kingdom's strongest Knights and then kill an entire city to reach you. The Dark Forest in the north, separated by a small mountain range between them."
The man took a gulp of his beer and continued. "The city has a natural barrier of mountains around it. In fact, it was built as a fortress city, surrounded by mountains and was the previous borders before our King conquered the land on the west and expanded the Kingdom further, building another city and then the Western Frontier Camp there. You can easily guard the city against an army several times your size. I guess the Prince wants you to focus less on guarding and more on increasing your strength, so he gave you an easier place to defend."
"What kind of dangers should I expect there?"
"Dangers? Well, the mountains have several mountain bandit gangs while the Dark Forest is the den of undead and other kinds of dark monsters. Every decade or so there is a horde of undead who attack the kingdom. To prevent this, we lead a subjugation and clean up the outskirts of the Dark Forest every three years of any undead to prevent this situation. The last horde was just a few years ago so it won't be happening anytime soon though."
"How are the city's soldiers?" Arthas asked.
"Similar to Llyne in terms of power although they have more Templars and Magic Knights than Sword Knights or Shield Knights since they are better at dealing with the undead. If you want any changes to be made there, you will have to do it yourself. Since you are going there, I will have you appointed as the head of the Alverton Knight's Academy. All three forces will be under your direct command so you can decide what to do with them."
On talking further they discovered that Llyne and Alverton were quite a distance away from each other, almost on two opposite sides of the Kingdom and even continuously travelling would take them around a week to reach from one side to another.
That's going to make managing the Guild people in Llyne difficult. Will they agree to move to Alverton? Not to mention the players in the new town of Alverton. Did they have any Guilds there? What were their strengths and what kind of situation did that place have? They will have to go there faster than any other Guilds could be established by any other player so they could use the incentive of joining the Guild to recruit people there..Then there was their newly established business with Sabaody…
Just when they thought they were getting somewhere, new doors opened up, making them change all their plans.
Still, this place had much more advantages for them.