CHAPTER 58: A QUESTION OF LEADERS.

Maria and Seraphina waited in front of the dark domain, particularly the dark, glowing entrance where Dorian had walked a few moments ago.

It had been an hour, and there had been no sign of Dorian’s presence.

Seraphina contemplated whether they had fallen into a trap and led Dorian right to the enemy, but that wasn’t the case at all, seeing as Ishtar’s personal knight was still standing in his position like a log.

Not to mention, the night before, during the period when she was doing the mana transfer on Dorian, she added a tracker to keep tabs on his status at all times.

While she noticed there were multiple distress signals and mana loss, there was nothing hinting that he was facing a life-or-death situation.

Sigh.

Seraphina let out an anxious sigh.

"Honestly, I don’t think I have ever felt this anxious before. Just what has he been doing in there for an hour?" She let out.

Maria, still composed, gave her a slow glance.

"Perhaps we should go in. For all we know, he might need our help."

Seraphina looked back at her, though she didn’t say anything quickly, only sighed to gather her thoughts well.

"I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do that. But at the same time, Lord Dorian already trusted us to wait for him; if we do otherwise, he will definitely be angry at us."

"There is no reason for you to come along. I’ll do it myself."

"Eh?"

Before she knew it, Seraphina watched Maria take a few steps forward, obviously ready to cross the gate.

"Idiot! Don’t just walk in there—"

They both froze as the barrier shattered like glass right in front of their eyes.

The black tinted particles shimmering in the air like crystals and slowly descended to the ground.

Following that was Dorian.

There he was, standing still, his gaze fixed to the sky as the dark particles danced around his body.

As soon as she saw him, Seraphina smiled with relief. Maria, on the other hand, had eyes widened in mild happiness, grateful to see he was alright.

Or so they thought.

"Lord Dorian!"

Maria wasted no time charging forward, leaving a gust of wind blowing right behind her.

Upon getting to the front, she grabbed him before he could fall and hit the ground.

His head rested on her shoulder, with barely any other part of his body moving.

Before anything, Maria moved her hand to his chest, making sure to check if his heart was beating.

She could feel the vibration of his heart beating, leading to her sighing in solace. He was still alive.

After that, it suddenly hit her. Dorian was resting on her chest, and they were practically hugging.

Her cheeks turned red, eyes darting left and right as she tried to stop herself from getting flustered by it. It was just a hug; there was no reason for her to keep acting this way over the littlest thing involving Dorian.

"Same thing."

Seraphina, who was slowly walking over, had a small green magic hovering above the back of her hand, with multiple symbols appearing left and right.

"Mana exhaustion," she said with indifference. "The second time in two days. This isn’t normal, Maria. Something is sucking him dry."

There was no other explanation as to why Dorian was running out of mana so fast. That had to be the case.

"I’ll make sure to have him do fewer tasks for a while, until we get him to a doctor," Maria uttered, her flushed cheeks already settling, but just as she wanted to turn around—

"So my lady lost..."

A voice erupted behind her.

Her danger senses flared up.

Quickly, she held Dorian tighter, doing a fast step backwards and allowing Seraphina to charge forward.

Using her powers, Seraphina made a magic circle, using it as a shield to stop the attack.

The attacker in question was Killa, who had launched forward with a short blade, aiming to decapitate Dorian’s head.

However, because of the magic shield, his blade bounced off, sending him flying back.

His feet glided on the ground for a while before he eventually came to a stop.

Killa glanced at his hand, which was holding his blade, and noticed not only was he bruised, but his blade had been chipped from that single counter block.

"You lot are really interesting people," He uttered, throwing his blade to the side and then pulling out another from right behind his lower waist.

Maria glared at him. "I see, I was right to suspect you. That was the plan, Assainte Lord Dorian, if he ends up being the winner of the bet."

"Maria, was it? I can tell you are strong. Which was why I tried a sneak attack, but, to think, a Monteli would be strong enough to repel my attack." He sighed, "I don’t get paid enough for this. If my lady knows i did this, she would probably object; see, you might call her a masochist for these types of things."

Maria glanced to the side, noticing Ishtar was unconscious on the floor a bit further away.

Seraphina took the bait, shrugging her shoulders with a teasing expression on her face as she responded.

"Then why don’t you quit? Might as well, since your boss wouldn’t like it. Or are you one of those who can’t follow orders?"

"Taxes aren’t exactly something you can run from. Look—" he clapped his hand, as though pleading, which worked well since his voice was of a higher pitch.

"Why don’t you just let me kill that man, then come work for the Forane family instead? Think about it, would you rather serve a Baron or a Viscount?"

A frown made its way to both Maria’s and Seraphina’s faces.

If she weren’t holding Dorian, Maria would have surely launched herself forward for a fight.

Seraphina, on the other hand—

"Forgive me if I am wrong, but what is the net worth of the Viscount again?" She asked, pointing at Killa.

"..."

"Somewhere around 600,000 gold pieces, I assume," she uttered, clearly unimpressed. "Most of which are from direct funds from the count himself. It took your Lord 60-plus years to get this done, need I add?"

"..."

"Whereas, my lord, did so in less than a month. The Aurelian barony is stated to have a net worth of 3 million gold coins in assets. That is, without adding the shareholder of the Monteli company."

Each word she uttered came from a place of passion.

Then she pointed even more aggressively—

"Your Lord is aware of how fast and how much of a genius my Lord is. Which is why he is willing to go to great lengths to make our land his. So I ask you this—"

She glared.

"Would you rather serve a jealous fool or a genius capable of ruining a fool?"

...

[A/N]

I have been seeing comments about the money value, and i should clear it up with simple terms.

1 silver is equivalent to 10 dollars.

10 silver is 100 dollars.

1 gold coin is 100 dollars.

And so on. Now imagine this setting in a third-world country. I think you should be able to understand how gold operates in this story.