abcnovels
Chapter 1439
Chapter 1439
“B-boss!”
“How are things?”
To make things simple, I returned to my place in Alerith. As soon as I stepped out of the bedroom, I had allocated for portaling, Drake and his men were sitting there playing cards. They jumped up as soon as I walked in. I didn’t bring the girls to follow me for much the same reason as before when I went to Matty’s dungeon. They could come on their own if I called, and if there was a trap, I’d rather we all not be captured at once.
“W-we’re doing good sir! Have you been getting my reports?” He asked.
He was making reports? I kept my mouth shut instead of revealing my ignorance. It was probably better to just focus on the important things. I ignored his mention of reports and decided to just ask him anyway.
“How are funds holding out?”
“Funds are doing well sir. The shipment of steel we stole we’ve slowly been selling off, and have managed to keep the coffers level. Other than that, we profited substantially off the gladiator fights. We bet on you, and once word came of your survival, there was quite the payout!”
My solemn expression couldn’t help but slip slightly. They had been selling stolen goods back to the enemy and had been placing bets on my life. This is ultimately how Drake had survived the last few months. I probably shouldn’t give them much lip. I had given them no guidance. They were already a streetwise bunch used to surviving by themselves, so it seemed they had done a pretty decent job considering.
“You’ve done well…” I managed to force out some praise. “What is the leadership like in the city since I left?”
“Hmm? Quiet.” He responded thoughtfully. “There was a large number of knights growing in the city, and it was causing a great deal of unrest. Taxes were also becoming obscenely unreasonable. There was about to be an uprising any day. Then… the knights all left. Lord Reign issued a formal apology, sent out a massive tax refund, and then lowered the taxes considerably. The people were appeased, and the city has been quiet ever since. We’ve been able to live like lords thanks to our winnings and-” one of the other men kicked him. “Ahh… I mean… comfortably! Just normal. Boss knows we work hard, right?”
Hearing Drake’s account of the rise and fall of Demon Lord Aberis was perhaps the most terrifying part. He had snuck his way into Alerith, put up a puppet lord, controlled the city for nearly twenty years, built a massive army of demonic knights, and then attempted to cause a civil war in Aberis, invading another lord’s territory, and nothing. No one here knew about it at all. The commoners were completely in the dark about the war, the nature of the demonic knights, or even the reason for taxes.
That was the difference between the lords and the common folk. I wondered if my people in Chalm were equally as clueless. To them, was I just some busy body who occasionally left and came back with more people? No, they had to know more. Lord Aberis publicly announced his intentions in Chalm, and I had personally freed many slaves. I had a personal connection to my people. I wasn’t some aloof lord sending out policies the normal riffraff didn’t understand.
There was one problem with Drake’s account though. He didn’t help me understand the true situation in Alerith. I called Lord Reign a puppet, but I had no clue. I had only met him a few times, and he hadn’t left nearly as much of an impression as his Master. Was he freed now, or was he some kind of thrall? It was still possible he worked with the Imperial Cloud Meadow too. That had been my original guess.
Perhaps, the best course of action would be to overthrow him without the commoners ever knowing. Simply wipe him out, declare myself the lord, throw them a tax rebate, and then start recruiting for my battles. It felt slightly cruel, but it seemed like how things were done here.