Chapter 332 - Possible Targets

"No need to be so guarded, Luca," Elder Kuran said as he took a seat inside the office.

Eustace followed suit and took a seat beside his grandfather. Luca narrowed his eyes at their blatant lack of respect for him. He hadn't even invited them in.

Luca scoffed before saying once more, "I'm going to ask one more time. What do you want?"

Elder Kuran only laughed amusingly before saying, "Hahah, I didn't come here to fight with you or the main family."

"Hmph, then what's this about spying on my mother and contacting the Goldenias, huh?"

The elder's hand that he had placed on his walking stick imperceptibly twitched. Kuran smiled at Luca and asked, "I won't deny that the Goldenias have come into contact with us since you've already found out, but spying? What do you mean?"

"...Hmph, you know exactly what I mean, but enough of that. I want to know exactly why you even came into contact with those bastards from Goldenia! If you're answer isn't satisfactory, I can have you put on trial for this act of treason against the main branch and the kingdom!"

"Treason? My, isn't that a little too harsh?"

"..."

Seeing Luca's unyielding attitude, Eustace stood up and yelled, "Luca! Don't think that just because you're from the main family that you can just blatantly disrespect—"

"Settle down, Eustace. As a member of the main family, it's only natural that Luca would be suspicious of our actions since we're contacting the family's long-time enemy," Kuran said in Luca's defense.

Luca only eyed the two before him in disdain. 'Tsk, look at these two monkeys putting on a performance.'

"Enough! Well, elder Kura, give me a good reason why I shouldn't report this to the Patriarch?"

"Oh, no, no, no, I actually want you to report this to the Patriarch as soon as possible!"

Luca blanked out for a moment before slowly asking, "...What?"

"You see, the Goldenias want to arrange a meeting with the main family. Don't worry. Their intentions are pure, at least, from my perspective."

"..."

"They've been experiencing a few mishaps with their connections outside of this...closed-off land. They were able to make contact with an outside human power like we did, but it seems that they're facing hostilities instead," Kuran explained.

Luca's expression didn't change even after hearing this.

"If you don't trust me, have your men look into the Goldenia's city-state's situation. You'll find that they're genuinely asking our family for a meeting since they need our assistance..."

"...I'll be the judge of whether they are genuine or not, I'll be reporting this to mother so you better cease all contact with the Goldenias if you don't want to arouse any more suspicion, Elder Kuran," Luca said before clapping his hands. A few men immediately walked into the room and Luca gestured for them to escort Elder Kuran and his grandson out of his office.

"Sirs, please come with me."

"Hmmm... they are using me as the middleman so I'm afraid I can't comply with your request, Young Master Luca, after all even they need someone to mediate for them," Elder Kuran said as he got up from his seat. Eustace glared venomously at Luca but still stood up following his elder.

"Then you can't blame me for the possible punishment you might earn if I find that you're secretly colluding with the Goldenias with this farce as a front. Those Goldenias would rather die than ask us for assistance."

"Times have changed, Luca ma boy, it's about time you figured that out as well. Old hatreds may vanish and so do old allegiances."

Luca frowned at the double meaning behind his words. He waved his hand and the men immediately ushered and escorted the two guests out of the office. Kuran and Eustace didn't kick up a fuss and passively complied.

After being left alone in his office, Luca looked down outside and soon saw his two uninvited guests get on their carriage and leave.

"Tsk, look at those two. Putting on a performance...did they really think that we didn't know about those fools' plight?" Luca disdainfully mumbled.

His father, Kaiser, was already aware of the Goldenia Family's plight. Kaiser was also aware that the Goldenias were moving around the No-Man's Land in search of allies to help them with their problem.

They were currently facing the crisis of a foreign power threatening to attack their lands. The native Alternian power that they had come into contact with was the Faustus Archduchy who, judging by their history since their not-so recent establishment, were deemed to be a nation of war-mongers.

The Faustus Archduchy was originally a part of the Omnifaust Republic before it recently became a republic. The brother of the former Omnifaust Kingdom's Queen didn't quite like the kingdom's transition into a republic and since he didn't want to cause an internal strife among the people of his former kingdom, he decided to break away from them.

The lord of the archduchy was able to fortunately cross the sea and found his own nation away from the republic's lands and since it was first established about 10 years ago, the Faustus Archduchy was constantly taking over the neutral lands it was occupying.

The sea that separated the Faustus Archduchy and the Omnifaust Republic was once very treacherous to tread through, but recently, ever since the Earthlings were teleported into Alterna, the sea had somewhat calmed down.

This was how the Goldenia family was able to exit the No-Man's Land with their boats and make contact with a native power of Alterna. Too bad that the power they came into contact with was the Faustus Archduchy instead of the Omnifaust Republic.

The Faustus Archduchy had one major problem since it was first founded. The lands that it was established upon had a severe lack of fertility due to it being mostly a desert. When the Goldenias first came into contact with the archduchy, they didn't know the language and had traded some bizarre and rare fruits that couldn't be found within the desert or were native to the Omnifaust Republic.

This naturally aroused suspicion and when the lord of the archduchy issued an order to 'befriend' the foreign people, they slowly but surely gained the Goldenia family's trust. Although, in the Goldenia family's eyes, they were the ones using the archduchy's people in order to learn more about the world they were in.

They learned about the language, mana, magic, magi-tech, and all sorts of others things while they interacted with the archduchy's people, but in the end, they were duped into giving out their location inside the No-Man's Lands.

Now that the archduchy knew about the fertile lands of the No-Man's Lands which were now accessible to them, they naturally wanted to take over the Goldenia family's lands before gradually expanding into the No-Man's Lands.

Naturally, this threatened all of the Earthling powers situated inside the No-Man's Lands and Kaiser was well aware of this fact but he was averse at the thought of cooperating with the Goldenias.

The Silvaria's also had an advantage in the advanced knowledge that they had gained through Fatima's close connection with the Regulus Kingdom, so they didn't fear the Faustus Archduchy. In fact, Kaiser wanted the archduchy to push the Goldenia Family in a difficult situation where their backs were literally up against the wall then they'd have no choice but to come beg for their help.

This way, when the Goldenias came to negotiate cooperation, the Silvaria's would have the upper hand and they'd be able to ask a leg or an arm's worth of compensation from the Goldenias.

Everyone in the kingdom's administration was aware of Kaiser's plan and they were in favor of this arrangement. The Silvaria Family wasn't the only family who have been screwed over by the Goldenias once before. In fact, all of the family's in the Silvaria Kingdom's High Council had some sort of beef with the Goldenia family.

Now that an opportunity to screw over the Goldenias had arrived, they naturally wanted to take it. The only catch was that this time was that the Faustus Archduchy's invasion could potentially throw the Earthling powers into turmoil and war would descend on the land.

It was a cause for concern, but now that Cecil was back and he had provided many new information and knowledge that had already boosted the overall power of the Silvaria Kingdom, so the potential turmoil was no longer of Kaiser's concern.

Whether war would descend upon the land or not, Kaiser was confident that their kingdom would pull through. And that was why he didn't concern himself with the Goldenia's plight and went to wage war against the Merkruz Principality who had attacked them.

Of course, not everyone knew about Cecil's contributions or about the fact that he had rampaged around and singlehandedly destroyed the Merkruz Army so because of this, not many outside of the main family were privy to Cecil's freakish combat prowess.

The branch families only knew that Cecil was somewhat powerful and that he had contributed a few things to the kingdom's magi-tech that led to Kaiser being unafraid of attacking Merkruz despite the impending crisis that will eventually befall the earthling nations inside the No-Man's Lands.

Luca deduced that this was one of the reasons why people were spying on his brother's workshop. They most likely wanted to find out what Cecil had been doing inside the place, but he wasn't worried that anyone would be able to break in. The lock could only be opened by three individuals and they were Cecil and his two wives.

Luca was only worried that the branch families and the Goldenias might try something underhanded now that a majority of the family and the Silvaria Army, other than the defending army still stationed back in the Kingdom, had gone off to attack Merkruz.

"Those bastards must be scheming something. I'd better hurry back home and tell mother and Serilla to be cautious. Since they were spying on them then their targets are probably those two..." Luca deduced before he started sighing tiredly.

"Our family really can't catch a break. Cecil just came back and we hadn't even celebrated his return yet. Those Merkruz bastards attacked us then it was our 'allies', the Regulians, and now this..."

Luca straightened out his clothes before heading out of the office and going back to the family estate.

After he arrived, he immediately ordered all of the main family's guards to stay alert and on their toes. As reassurance, Luca assigned more guards to the patrol around the family's estate and he also ordered the family's servants to be aware of any suspicious individuals.

He ordered them to not let anyone unaffiliated with the main family near the mansion. This included anyone from the branch families. If anyone wanted something then they'd have to go to the hall situated adjacent to the mansion.

After finishing a few more arrangements, Luca went to find his mother. He found her near the outer garden area that overlooked the valley sitting together with Serilla. He looked around and frowned a little when he then noticed that there were too few hidden guards in the area. He silently noted to himself to assign more people to watch his mother and sister-in-law.

"Oh, Luca, isn't it a little too early for you to be done with work?" Anastasia called out when she finally noticed that her son was standing nearby. She was out relaxing with Serilla so she hadn't kept her guard up.

Luca walked over to the two women and said, "Mother, Sister-in-law, I have something to discuss..."