Chương 73: Negotiations

His time to leave the estate safely, without getting himself into even more trouble, was running out. If he wanted to make it in time, he had to move now. Adolin moved past Tristan and headed toward the dining room. The guards didn't look happy about it, but they stood their ground. With a quick air spell, he pushed them out of the way and entered the room. He closed the door behind him and cast Lock. He wasn't planning on leaving—or letting anyone else leave—until he was done with what he needed to do.

Eduard and the Count's heads snapped toward him.

"What are you doing here?!" Eduard snapped. Adolin walked slowly toward the table and took a seat. The same seat he had before leaving the room, opposite the Count.

"Oh," Adolin said.

"I have some business with the Count." He smiled softly as he stared at Eduard. Eduard gritted his teeth, but said nothing. He really had changed over the past few days. Or maybe Adolin simply hadn't seen enough of him when they first met. Now that he thought about it, kidnapping wasn't really something good people did. The Count shifted in his chair.

"Speak." Adolin tapped a finger against the table.

"Did Eduard," he said, glancing at him, "tell you about me?"

"The mage part?" Adolin nodded.

"He informed me," the Count stated. Adolin wasn't sure if he had ever gotten the Count's name, but this didn't seem like a good time to ask.

"Revel Morcant wants to make an alliance between your houses." The Count chuckled.

"She wants men? Support?"

"…Yeah?"

"And what does she offer in return?" Adolin started to speak, but the Count interrupted him.

"House Morcant has little to offer. They've been in decline for the last five years, and with the corrupted eating away at their territory, I'm sure whatever she offered won't be enough." The Count's expression remained unreadable, without the slightest crack in it. At least, as far as Adolin could tell. But he had never been good at reading people, so he had no idea if he was right. He thought about using Trust to make things easier, but that didn't sit right with him.

Just as he hated using mind spells on other people, he hated using Trust as well. The only time he used it was when he had no other choice.

"It wouldn't hurt to hear their offer," Adolin said, leaning back in his chair. Since his role in teaching healing spells to the mages in the North was the main negotiating point of the alliance, he was confident he could make it work. Not that he was good at negotiations. Teaching mages healing spells that could be used at low levels with just a drop of mana was far more valuable than it seemed. Coupled with the Count's relationship with the church, it was an offer they couldn't easily refuse.

"Very well," the Count said as he put his hands on the table.

"I'm listening."

"Father..." Eduard said. The Count shot him a sharp look, and Eduard fell silent.

"How do I put it..." Adolin said as he took out a mana potion from his inventory and played with it in his hands.

"House Morcant has employed a rather peculiar mage." He paused, tapping the potion bottle with the fingers of his free hand.

"One who has promised to teach their mages healing magic." The Count nodded, but showed no reaction. If he had one, he masked it perfectly. Eduard, on the other hand, showed a brief crack in his expression before masking it moments later as well.

"How effective are the spells?"

"Well, as effective as you want them to be," Adolin said, and he wasn't downplaying it at all. He had dozens of healing spells, and healing had been one of the first magical arts he learned at the mage academy.

"Oh," he added, "the spells can be used as early as level…" Well, he wasn't sure what he should say. They could technically be used at level one, but wasn't that too low for this world? Any other level didn't make much sense either. Only level twenty-five. That was the level where people got to choose their first class. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"… level twenty-five. They only need the Mage Class, or something similar." Silence filled the room after that, and Adolin said nothing else. He needed to hear what the Count had to say first. And make Eduard more uncomfortable. It was also the perfect moment to ask for gold or more mana potions. He really liked the potions. They weren't as pure as the ones he had gotten from the dungeon, but they were the easiest way for him to recover mana in a hurry. The more he had, the better.

He also wanted to take as much as he could from Eduard. The man had tried to use him. The Count would be collateral damage, but since he was Eduard's father, Adolin didn't really care. Eduard looked like he wanted to say something again, but the Count simply stared him down. After a few moments, he spoke.

"The offer?" Adolin smiled at that. Revel had given him quite a bit of negotiating authority, but since he was also the one responsible for making the Healing Mages happen, he held most of the power here.

"Access to healing mages," he said, then paused. After letting the silence linger just long enough to make things awkward, he continued.

"Also, Revel said you could send a few of your own mages to learn."

"How many?" Eduard asked as soon as Adolin finished.

"To be negotiated," Adolin said. The Count interlocked his fingers. He really did have something in common with Eduard after all.

"And what do we need to offer in return?" Adolin took out a letter from his inventory and slid it toward the Count. The one Revel had written before he left for the capital. The man took the letter and examined the seal. A moment later, he nodded slightly and broke it open. He studied the contents for nearly a minute before placing it on the table and burning it with a... spell. Without an incantation or any visible movement. Just like how Adolin used spells. The world kept surprising him, but he said nothing.

Asking about something so common—or maybe not so common—wasn't something he could do in the middle of a negotiation. So he pushed his curiosity aside for another day. Or at least until this was over. A library would solve most of the gaps in his knowledge. And yet, he still hadn't managed to get access to one.

"This," the Count said.

"I can agree with." That was... too easy. Wasn't a negotiation supposed to go back and forth? He hadn't expected the whole thing to be over so quickly. He had expected it to be easy, sure, but not this easy.

"With everything in the letter?" Adolin asked. He really wanted some pushback.

"Some of the terms would be difficult to fulfill, but it can be done," the Count said with a nod. Since everything else was going too smoothly, Adolin decided to make things a little harder for them. For profit.

"There is also my fee for the negotiations," Adolin said. Now, he wasn't sure how much he should ask for. He wanted to hurt Eduard a little and become rich from the whole ordeal.

"Twenty mana potions, two hundred gold coins, and five dungeon health potions." They were quiet for a moment, then Eduard nodded.

"We can work with that." The Count said nothing and didn't object to Eduard's response, so Adolin assumed he agreed as well. He still felt like he had asked for too little again, but at least it was everything he needed, plus a good amount of gold. The Count exhaled loudly.

"Before I agree to anything, we first need to survive the siege." Adolin could already guess what was coming, but verified information was always better than assumptions.

"The siege?" The Count glanced toward Eduard.

"This... son of mine makes some questionable choices." He leaned back in his chair.

"He made an enemy of someone he shouldn't have, and now those choices are going to come back and bite us."

"The organization?" Adolin asked, glancing at Eduard as well. The man avoided eye contact and stared at the other end of the table.

"Yes," the Count said, exhaustion evident in his voice.

"It's a group of people that wants to bring the Empire down, and probably the neighboring kingdoms as well."

"And they either allied with the corrupted... or brought them into our world." Adolin tilted his head.

"The corrupted are otherw—are not from our world?" The Count nodded.

"We suspect they aren't. My grandfather—even the Emperor, at the time—searched through every written record for information about the corrupted, but there was nothing."

"And there was a lot of written history at the time."

"What is their motive?" Adolin asked. The Count chuckled and took a sip of wine before signaling for a maid to bring more. Their conversation paused as the maid returned with a freshly filled pitcher of wine and a glass for Adolin. She filled his glass, then quietly left.

"I have no idea," the Count said.

"There are a few theories floating around, but nothing has been confirmed."

"Most nobles prefer to pretend the organization doesn't exist, and the same goes for the Emperor." He took another sip of wine before continuing.

"But from what little I've managed to uncover, there are only a few possibilities."

"It could be revenge for something that happened long ago. They may have come with the corrupted, the corrupted promised them something or they simply want to eradicate us." He paused.

"What the truth is, I have no idea." Adolin nodded slowly as he processed the new information. The good part was that he had learned there were other otherworlders. There was also the new information about the organization and the corrupted. None of it really changed anything for him, but it was still good to know. Except if he somehow managed to make an enemy of them in the next few days. Judging by the look on the Count's face, that seemed increasingly likely.

The Count stood and walked toward the corner of the room, where a drawer was built into the wall. His movements were slow and stiff, and Adolin could see the pain etched across his face. The Count opened one of the drawers and pulled out a large parchment. He unfolded it and spread it across the table. It was a map.

"This is where our Empire is located," the Count said, pointing to a spot on the map. Next to the Empire were several borders painted in different colors. Kingdoms, Adolin guessed. And bordering the Empire to the north was a territory marked in black. The Count pointed toward the black-marked territory.

"This is the area the corrupted have already taken over." The territory marked in black was at least twice the size of the Empire.