Chapter 125 – Unexpected Advice
“Ask Tila for help.”
Crali looked relieved to have made her mother react but the content of her words was weird.
“Tila? Who’s that?”
This time too, Angin didn’t answer, no matter how many times her daughter asked.
“You’re so infuriating, mom!”
The high-ranked sorceress closed her book and stood up.
“I’ll be going around the city to help relieve the diseased. Call me when he arrives.”
She left just like that, leaving a fuming daughter behind. Crali knew there was no risk to her health considering her high rank and she admired her for standing for the citizen but surely there were more critical things to do for someone in her position. She took a minute to calm down before thinking about her mother’s “advice”.
The name Tila probably was something she heard during a random general meeting since she was attending all of them. She might have noticed something that only she could and kept the name in mind while the rest of the participants didn’t know any better. As for her? The amount of information and names she had to go through all the time was simply too much to hope to remember every single one.
She exited the meeting room and opened the door right in front of it, corresponding to her secretary’s office. The woman was startled by the sudden intrusion and looked at her employer with wonder.
“Loanee! I need some information, first priority.”
“More important than the pandemic?”
“It’s related to it. Can you find out who Tila is? It’s probably someone we talked about in one of the weekly meetings. A man.”
“Tila? The name sounds slightly familiar. It must be relatively recent. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Great. Give me all we know about him and how to find him.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Thanks.”
She left the small office and was ready to go back to the meeting room when she thought about something. Her mother was safe from the disease but she, and many of the government’s personnel, were far from it. If the disease was as contagious as Olaqin said, it would be better to move their headquarters outside of the city during the pandemic. If the ones supposed to help fix the situation also fell sick, that would really be the end.
By the time she was done giving orders related to that, Loanee was waiting for her in the meeting room.
“How is it?”
“As expected, it was recent. He’s the man whom we consider the first source of the new selnic items. We probably focused too much on the technology itself and didn’t remember the name.”
“Ah, that person. I remember we were monitoring him. It should be easy to find him?”
She had no idea how someone who was selling better enchanted items could help with a pandemic but she had no choice but to trust her mother on that one.
Loanee put on a regretful expression.
“Unfortunately, he left for a business trip to Makji around half a week ago.”
“Just our luck! Do we know where he was going? When he is expected to come back?”
“According to our intelligence, he was traveling to Alfiro. If that’s his only destination, he should be back in another half week.”
“5 days… We can’t send our troupes to Makji to get him. And if we send normal people, it’ll just be as fast as him coming back by himself…”
She realized she was talking out loud and dismissed her secretary.
“Thank you, Loanee. We’ll move to a temporary operation center right outside of the city soon so be prepared for that.”
“Yes, miss.”
After a bit more contemplation, she went to the relevant people and gave the order to fetch the man as soon as he crossed the border. And to not forget to contact her mother when that happened.
Now that this was done, she couldn’t rely on such vague hope. She had a ton of preparations to make and probably would be extremely busy for a long time. Couldn’t that pandemic have occurred when her mother was still ruling over the city? There’s no doubt she would have handled the situation much better than her inexperienced self.
**********
Four days later, our small group had almost retraced its step back to its starting point. The return trip was quiet and we only had a small argument the previous days when coming closer to the place where the bandits attacked us. Wico wanted to raid their camp while Selva was against the idea. Since I believed there wasn’t much to gain from it except taking unnecessary risks, I sided with Selva, allowing us to win by majority, even though there was no need for democracy since this was my caravan. Wico was left disappointed but that didn’t last too long considering her personality.
Back to our current time, Selva came to me as I was taking care of the horses during the midday break, looking more serious than usual.
“I want to talk to you about something.”
“Go ahead.”
She stared at Wico.
“In private.”
“Okay.”
Of course, our master immediately reacted.
“Are my two disciples going to lose their virginities together? That’s all this poor master asks for! Take your time!”
She waved at us cheerfully but we both ignored her. Selva took me to some woods not far from the road and only stopped when she was sure Wico would never hear or see anything. She then turned my way and pointed at me.
“Tila. You be mine.”
“I refuse.”
My answer was so fast that she was left bewildered, unable to react for some time.
“…What?”
“I refuse.”
I wasn’t sure what she truly meant but that didn’t matter. These words were taboo for me. I had long sworn I would never let anyone be above me after graduating from my apprenticeship. I would prefer to die than allow something like my training to happen again. Even if it made my life much harder, I was to be my sole and only boss, forever. No matter what.
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