The nobleman looked like he had just survived a hurricane. Even his apologies sounded frantic and terrified. When he finally got the chance to explain his own predicament, the nobleman was barely coherent or sensible. It was all thanks to Undine who acted as a semi-translator that Baiyi managed to understand his drivel.
This 30 years old nobleman was the young Earl Harold, whose title was apparently inherited. In the past, his family dealt in quarries and mineral exploitation, so his ancestors were quite well-off. After an unfortunate failure in expanding their business in a new realm, they lost a lot of fortune, and they lost their noble status as well. Right now, the family was not exactly poor, but they were very close…
It was fortunate that the family had pretty strong and good ties with some other families — such as the Doles. Undine found the nobleman and offered him a huge chance to restore his family status. He was to be one of the middlemen, and in order to invest into this, the Earl had salvaged every last ounce of money he could — the money he set aside for his wedding and funeral, for example — in an attempt to change his family’s fate.
And, indeed, that was his primary goal. The Earl could not stand to see the Dole family dominate the ballpark, so he had plotted to snatch away the trump card from Undine’s hand. He stole a few of the set formations of Baiyi’s glider. Afterward, he summoned some people from the Doors of Conundrum and the Sorcerer Association to decode or replicate the formations.
And, of course, the rest was a tragedy.
Knowing he had been instrumental in a major fiasco, the Earl was understandably remorseful — especially because he had invested every penny of his money into this, and yet the business may not even work anymore. Everywhere else he looked to led to a bad end, so eventually, he confessed his vices to Undine, and that was how they both got to Baiyi’s place to ask for help.
Baiyi was not very worried that his work had been stolen or bootlegged. Instead, he looked at Undine and asked, “I see! So, you dragged this treasonous bastard here so that I can take his life for ya? Well, to be honest, even if I wanted to, it will not be here. I’ve got my students’ welfare to take care of!”
The Earl’s knees went weak and buckled to the ground; he lowered his head and burst into tears.
“Uh. His family and mine have been partners forever, man. A friendship that lasted generations, or something like that, and apparently, our families have helped each other through a lot of hardships; so for the sake of my ancestors, my dad told me to let him off the hook this time,” Undine replied snappily.
“Oh, I see? I thought it’s because you like him.” Baiyi grinned.
“As if anyone would be interested in a trash who can’t even get anything right!” Undine cried furiously, kicking the kneeling Earl, making the latter hide in a corner.
“Aww, now what do we do?” After that display of violence, Undine reverted back to her pitiful little girl demeanor, sitting next to Baiyi and drawing herself close to him. She even mimicked Mia and the other girls’ technique by shaking his shoulders.
“Master Hope, you kinda have to help us this time, you know? ‘Cause if this business goes south, well, not only that will we not earn anything, you won’t either. That’s not good!”
“Please. You’re an adult who has long since joined the society. Can you please cut the teenage girl act?” Baiyi remarked without mincing his words. “Show me the banning order that the Sorcerer Association issued.”
Baiyi’s usually would not even give the slightest crap to petty problems between merchants, but the Earl had bought the materials for Baiyi’s formation — and even made a pile of the products already. Whatever it was, Baiyi was not keen to be beaten like that.
Plus, he was quite interested in having a little fun with the bold morons who dared to claim the Fifth Walker’s possession as their own.
Undine produced a piece of paper and handed it to Baiyi. Then, she sat obediently beside him like a good girl, waiting for him to finish reading.
The piece of paper contained a ban notice. The ban was simple enough; the guiding program and the production of the glider’s wing had been patented by the Association, so anything that worked similarly to the aforementioned would be classified as copyright infringement. These products would be banned. The rest was just a description of the runes and the functions of the patented products.
To have his guiding formation stolen was something Baiyi had expected; that was why he had placed encryptions on them. He just had not expected someone to copyright his plan, banning anyone else from making the same thing. He also had not expected the culprit to be a powerful, respectable organization like the Sorcerers Association. That was too low and despicable!
Baiyi considered a few ideas in his head for a while, then he said, “There’s another force behind this. Have you guys investigated their motive?”
The Sorcerer Association was never an organization that needed money*; their services had always been in demand. Even if the air route was a lucrative business venture, it still would not be important enough for the Sorcerer Association to make such a despicable move. That was what hinted Baiyi that their might be other forces at play.
“We did, and it’s bad. Looks like the Southern Duke is pulling the strings,” Undine replied, feeling frustrated.
“Hmph! A vassal of the entire empire — interested in a small business between common merchants and lower aristocrats?” Baiyi remarked, feeling amused.
“Trust me, we didn’t believe that either, but after a lot of investigation and follow-ups, everything just keeps leading back to the Duke. The only thing we don’t know is if he himself had actually participated in this directly,” Undine replied.
That was probably the reason why Undine was being so grumpy. This business was more than just the Dole’s family venture — it was a mega-cooperation between merchants and the nobles. Although the size of both parties who were teaming up in this business venture was not small — seeing as the involvement of high-class members meant that this alliance was not gonna be a pushover — compared to that Southern Duke, the teaming parties were still at a huge disadvantage.
Who was the Southern Duke? He was none other than Link — the Duke of the South of the Empire. Like Duke Wright, who had his gruesome, decadent family incident exposed, Duke Link was one of the founding vassals. His territory was, as plainly reiterated, on the South. People group him with Northern Duke, Duke Wright, and call them the Twin Pillars of the Empire.
It was only recently that Duke Wright suffered from his curse which brought him ill health and made him abstain from politics, causing his political influence to wane. Because of that, the Southern Duke rose to fill the vacuum, making it seem as if he was the first admiral of the entire empire.
However, Baiyi had no idea how could someone could give these two such grand titles. One of them was a sexual deviant who enjoyed being cuckolded, while the other did not think it was contemptible to snatch meager business returns from common folks despite his own wealth. Twin pillars of the empire? More like two ends of the asshole spectrum!
“Looks like I still have to face dukes, huh?” Baiyi sighed.
Baiyi had been wondering if he really needed to get involved in this one, and honestly, he realized that he would have to; even though the troubles that came with a direct participation would be migraine-inducing, to say the least. Additionally, he naturally loathed political fights.
However, not helping seemed unwise. Not only that his profit would be eaten, but Undine could also probably get hurt.
Although Baiyi found himself inching towards lending his aid, he still thought he should ask the other Voidwalkers first.
“Ask us? Oh please, my student, what happened to that stubborn determination back in Gouve? Have you been softened by the tranquility of your current peaceful life?” The Archmage was the first to jump up, feeling quite displeased. He had been an emperor for the better part of his life, and so to him, all this hesitation was completely unwarranted.
“Must I remind you that you are my student, the Fifth Voidwalker, the agent of us all, and the heir to the throne of the Rohlserlian Empire! Is my heir seriously contemplating bowing his head before a mere Duke?”
‘Oh, come on. Your empire went extinct long ago. Of all the awesome titles you just mentioned, none of them actually contain any substance…’
“I support your choice, as well as Sir Archmage’s opinion,” the Thane added. “Sir Hope, your attitude towards power and influence has been too meek to favor to our escape plan. You needn’t ask us about this; after all, this is the best chance for you to show the world just how fierce and how much a leader you can be.”
“Ha! If it were me, I would finish this with an assassination done with a cinematic flair!” The Hitman said, voicing his assent in a rather contrived way.
“I probably wouldn’t get myself involved in this, but if you wanna do it, fine by me. Just don’t go looking for pretty girls to woo again!” The Assassin’s support speech was as teen-girlish as ever.
“For our future, you need to earn more money because I’m not very good at making money,” the Warrior said calmly.
Even the Scholar, who had made a name for himself as the pacifist of the group, said, “In the grand scale of life, money is not the only fortune a man can recognize. Nevertheless, the respect that you and Sir Engineer deserve for your ingenuity must be acknowledged, even if the effort you placed in the construction was a bit negligible. Do not let larceny prevail. Ergo, I stand behind your decision, Sir Hope.”
Baiyi did not even have to ask the Lich or the Devil at this point; those two were all about wrath and retribution, after all.
Wait — did the Voidwalkers just reach a similar conclusion?
Frankly, in the past, whenever the aristocrats or politics were involved, the Walkers were always been divided in their opinions. Now, this consensus that had been reached was quite novel, in comparison. Maybe it’s because this time it involved their own profit, and suddenly, they became less “detached”?
‘Looks like the Voidwalkers aren’t a charitable bunch, either. ‘
With a unified consensus, Baiyi no longer had any reason to hesitate. He turned his focus back to reality and said to Earl Howard, who was still curled in a corner rubbing his waist, “Go to the mansion on this left side of this one and look for a butler. Tell him I’m looking for him.”
Although Vidomina had effectively emancipated herself from her old family, Duke Wright still did not completely cut off his ties with her. Her army of maids no longer visited them every day or waited outside their gate every morning as they did before. However, they did not leave the neighborhood. They just occupied the house next door so that they could always come and serve their lady whenever she required them to.
It was obvious that the order came from the Duke; he still loved Vidomina, after all.
“You, go to my study upstairs and grab some papers. I’m gonna have to write some letters.” Baiyi turned to Undine.
Then, after a hard soul-searching, Baiyi realized he almost forgot the most important matter. He summoned the big fox and said, “Go and carry Sunny over to the yard, so that it can water my plants.”