Chương 22: Chapter 21 - The Head of House Yountal

"Were there any of the estates that you liked, Lady Shian?" Dustin asked.

"Are you going to keep calling me that?" Kiara asked with a hint of annoyance.

"Of course," Dustin replied with a small smile.

"That is the image that we wish to present, my lady. Beyond that, it's obviously true."

"I'm not a noble," Kiara said with a look of confusion. Dustin gave her a look of equal confusion.

"Plenty of wealthy people use the honorary titles of Lord and Lady, regardless of nobility."

"Your point?" she asked, still not following his logic. He gave a small sigh of exasperation.

"How many people in Easton do you think have ever seen forty ruby coins in the same place at once?

"When you paid eleven silver coins for that sword, and didn't seem to mind having been scammed, I was pretty sure that you must be from a wealthy house. I'll admit, your constant denials over the past few weeks had me wondering if I'd misread the situation, but today put all of those doubts to rest." Kiara blushed as she realized what he meant. She was quite possibly one of the wealthiest people in all of Eshela now.

"So should I call you Lord Dustin?" she asked.

"I'd prefer you didn't," he replied.

"But aren't you from a wealthy house yourself?" He shrugged.

"I have gone by that title before, but would prefer not to be associated with house Savage at present. You, on the other hand, have an image to maintain, at least for the time being. As such, I should refer to you by your proper title." She realized he was right. If she wanted to come off as a wealthy and powerful house, someone that Lord Grivalt would want to invite to his estate, she needed to start playing the part.

Otherwise, she might as well just barge in there now, sword swinging, and deal with the fallout later. No, she had already decided to pursue this path, and needed to do everything she could to make it work. Her family's safety was on the line.

"Very well," she said, "Lady Shian then. Whatever it takes to help ensure my family's safety. And all evidence to the contrary, I don't know the first thing about being a wealthy person or a Lady of any kind. Will you help teach me? Point out when I'm doing something wrong, or behaving in a way that might jeopardize the mission?" Dustin nodded once, a smile growing on his face.

"And which estate would you pick, if you were in my shoes?" She asked him.

"Hm. We want to project a comfortable air of importance, not a strained one. Buying the most expensive estate might give the wrong idea, like we're trying to impress someone, or like we're moving here permanently.

"Even if you do want to move here permanently, for the time being I think we're better served by coming across as a wealthy house looking to temporarily set up shop nearby as we spin up new business ventures. If people think that we're rich enough to buy whatever estate we want, but chose something smaller, then it lends credibility to that image.

"I supposed the third one we looked at would suit that purpose nicely. It was well maintained, but wouldn't require too many staff to keep it up. A few dozen acres, with fruit trees and a small stream of fresh water running through it. The house is large enough to accommodate your own family and a few dozen staff, plus the small guardhouse leaves room for any guards you wish to hire." Honestly, the analysis was way deeper than Kiara had even considered. She was glad Dustin was here to help guide the discussion.

"Perfect!" she said.

"How much was that one again?" She could have easily remembered the details if she had been trying, but hadn't really concerned herself with it at the time.

"Eight diamond coins," he said without hesitation, "or eighty ruby coins, eight hundred platinum coins, or eight thousand gold coins, whichever denomination you prefer." The server arrived with their meals, and the smells filled her with delight. A large portion of mashed potatoes and gravy sat next to a perfectly seared stake, with a fresh salad on the side. Dustin had opted for grilled salmon with rice, and a large glass of something he'd called "Foamed Speltz".

It was a drink of some kind, but Kiara hadn't ever heard of it. After eating, and with a full belly, Kiara was ready for a nap. It was getting late, and while Dustin assured her that they would be able to purchase the estate tonight, and spend the night there, she was dreading the paperwork and logistics of it all. All she wanted was to rent a room at the nearest inn and mentally check out for the night. Maybe she could trick Dustin into doing all of the work for her while she relaxed in a hot bath.

"Let's get the estate you suggested," she started off. Dustin nodded.

"A wise choice, my lady." She smiled slyly.

"With all of that 'my lady' stuff, people might think you work for me." His eyes sparkled.

"Well, well. Are you offering me a job, Lady Shian?"

"Are you interested?" she countered. He leaned back in his chair with a contemplative look on his face.

"I already told you that I'll help you as long as you cover food and lodging." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Yeah, but that was only until we reached Portish. And yet… here we are in Easton." He nodded slowly.

"A new arrangement is in order then." He leaned forward suddenly.

"What did you have in mind?" Kiara knew that Dustin's business sense outclassed her by an order of magnitude, plus she truly had no idea how any of this stuff worked. She had never employed someone before. Trying to negotiate a fair salary was quite honestly beyond her.

"I'll tell you what," she said after a moment's thought.

"Why don't you be my business partner? You run all of House Yountal's business ventures, and keep me up to speed on things that I should know about, and I'll pay you whatever sounds fair." He studied her for a minute. Quite literally, a full minute. She even began counting in her head after the first few seconds of silence, because of how awkward she felt. She glanced to the side to break his intense eye contact, then took a sip of water.

Finally, he answered, although his voice was quieter than she had expected, almost a whisper.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He exhaled slowly and looked to the side.

"The enigma continues," he mumbled under his breath. He looked back at her.

"Once your family is safe, won't they wish to retake control of the family holdings? What then?" She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"Family holdings?"

"Yeah, how do you know they are okay with me coming on board? Won't your parents want a say in how things are run, or will you have full license to run an independent arm of the family Yountal business?" She gave him a blank stare.

"I'll be honest Dustin, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sure my parents won't give a flying hoot what I do with my estate or my businesses. His look of confusion deepened.

"Who is the Yountal family head?" he asked slowly.

"Uh… me, I guess?" She thought about it for a second. The World Engine had most definitely said that Shian had no relatives around. She nodded more confidently.

"Yeah, most definitely me." His eyebrows shot up at that.

"Oh." He was silent for another minute. He folded his hands and pursed his lips, and stared at the table. He opened his mouth a few times to speak, then closed it again, contemplating. Kiara sighed and decided to come clean.

"Okay look, I was just trying to trick you into doing all of the work to buy the estate tonight while I draw up a hot bath, and I figured running my business ventures was a good way to lure you in. If you don't want to do it, I guess we can find someone else, and I can come with you tonight." Dustin snorted out a laugh.

"I think you misunderstand my hesitation. What you have offered is so far outside the realm of feasibility that if it were anyone other than you, I'd have thought it a joke or a cruel trick. Just what business ventures do you plan to start?" She waved her hand dismissively.

"I honestly have no idea. But I'm assuming you do?" He nodded enthusiastically.

"We'll need servants to run the estate, and possibly some guards for the estate as well. Once we do a bit of research about Lord Grivalt's business dealings, we'll know which sectors to target to be able to influence things in that area. And we…" She cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds like you have it all well in hand. So do you want to do it?" He smiled and nodded.

"More than you know! But we'll need some funds to get things in motion." She nodded as he continued, but stopped paying attention to what he was saying. Instead, she focused on transferring coins from her soul space to her storage ring. He would need about 40 more ruby coins for the estate purchase, in addition to the security deposit she had left behind at the firm. She wasn't sure how much more he would need to get business ventures off the ground, but she assumed it wouldn't be cheap.

If she gave him 200 ruby coins, would that be enough to cover everything? Eh, it was probably good enough for now. Assuming that ruby coins would be difficult to spend anywhere outside of the real estate firm, she moved 40 ruby coins into the storage ring for the house. For the business seed money, she put in 600 platinum coins, intending to do gold coins for the rest.

She tried to fit 10, 000 gold coins inside, but found that her storage ring ran out of space before she could even fit a total of 4, 000 coins inside. I guess I should have bought a larger storage ring, she thought to herself. She settled on filling the ring with 40 ruby coins, 1400 platinum coins, and 2, 000 gold coins. Dustin stopped talking as she handed him the ring.

"What's this?" he asked after a moment.

"Give me the ring back afterward, but first transfer everything that's in there into your own storage ring," she said.

"Use that to buy the estate, hire the staff, and all of the other things you mentioned, and take your own pay out of there. Whatever wage you think is fair." He hesitantly accepted the ring, then a look of alarm came over his face. He had obviously seen what was inside, and it must not be enough.

"Wh-what is this?" he stuttered out. Huh… interesting. She didn't think she had ever heard him stutter before.

"How much more do you need?" She asked with a sigh. He shook his head fervently.

"Well, I… wait what? Shian, this is more than enough to start a number of small businesses. I can't possibly take responsibility for your family's entire fortune. I'll just take enough for the estate tonight, then we can discuss further financing as things come up." She noticed his formality had slipped, and he hadn't called her 'Lady Shian'. And just when the title was starting to grow on her. He was glancing nervously around the restaurant now, checking for prying eyes.

She supposed it wasn't fair to make him carry around what he thought might be an irreplaceable fortune; she needed to dispel that notion. She took the ring back and moved the coins back into her soul space, then filled the ring entirely with ruby coins. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face as she handed it back to him. He nearly fainted. His eyes grew to the size of their dinner bowls, and all of the blood drained from his face. She couldn't help but laugh.

His hand was shaking as he held the ring back out to her. His voice was barely a whisper.

"How? Just how? That's…" She took the ring back with a giggle.

"That's nothing. Wait until I show you the full [Fat Stack]!" Dustin furrowed his brows questioningly at the term, but remained speechless. After she stopped giggling, he was still staring at her slack-jawed. She actually started to worry that she might have broken him. Poor guy. Maybe his family wasn't as wealthy as he'd claimed. With a bit more poise, she put the original denominations back into the ring and offered it to him again.

He took it without a word and mindlessly transferred the coins to his own storage ring before handing it back to her.

"Well, I'm off to find an inn, then," she said merrily, standing. He stood as well and followed her out, but didn't say a word the entire way out of the restaurant. They stopped just outside the door of the restaurant for a moment, but he still didn't seem able to form a complete sentence, so she decided it was probably best if she just left to go find a bath. He probably just needed time to wrap his head around it.

"Let me know how it goes!" She said with a smile, and waved as she walked off to find an inn. It wasn't until she was soaking in the tub that she began questioning the wisdom in what she had just done. When she met him, he was running a black market at the war front between two kingdoms. She had only known him for a month, and then had handed him a fortune large enough to last generations. She wondered if she would ever see him again.