novelraw Chapter 91: Your value to me
Chapter 91: Your value to me
It didn’t take long for Doran to arrive in Goldenveil with all the loot he’d taken from the goblins: jewelry, weapons, precious stones, a few mana cores, and, of course, plenty of gold.
More than three hundred coins in total, divided among gold, silver, and bronze.
All told, that brought Ethan’s wealth to one thousand five hundred and ninety-five gold coins, a true fortune for such a small settlement.
But that, of course, wasn’t all.
Along with the loot, the guards escorted over two hundred people to Goldenveil.
Most were starving, thin, and weak, and many needed healing potions just to survive the journey.
"How on earth am I going to house this many people?" Ethan wondered, closing his eyes.
Doubling the settlement’s population overnight was something difficult to handle even for the most efficient urban development plans.
And for Goldenveil, which had none?
They would need to set up tents in a hurry so people wouldn’t have to sleep out in the cold and focus all efforts on building as many houses as possible.
Population growth would always be welcome in Goldenveil, but at that pace? It was truly problematic.
"My lord..." Doran approached with a downcast look.
"The guardhouse can shelter about seventy if some sleep on the floor, and the guards without families can take in another two or three in their own homes, but it’s still going to be complicated."
"I know..." Ethan looked at the people scattered across the courtyard, receiving food and being attended to by the people of Goldenveil.
It was tough, but with time, everything would work out.
With a sigh, he left that problem in Doran’s hands and headed straight for the lord’s mansion.
The dead had already been buried, and the people were beginning to clean up the goblin corpses, removing any useful metal and taking everything to Roderik.
In total, between the weapons the goblins used and those they stockpiled in their large warehouses, two tons of metal were gathered.
Added to the three tons of refined steel Ethan had received earlier, it was an absurd amount for a single blacksmith in such a small settlement.
Roderik would soon have to find an apprentice.
Upon entering the mansion, Ethan found Evelyn and Alice in the kitchen, resting.
"Don’t cook anything today, just rest. I’ll take care of everything." Ethan said, hugging Alice from behind and planting a kiss on her delicate neck.
"Nghnn~~ Stop it~ I’m dirty~" A sweet moan escaped Alice’s lips as a sharp slap landed on her ass.
She shuddered, panting.
"Fufufu~ You killed it today, it’s obvious our man is going to give you a special reward!" Evelyn laughed at the sight, taking a sip of green fairy wine.
There were only two bottles left, so she savored that flavor on her tongue.
Alice blushed even more.
Yes, she had killed it.
She hadn’t been a burden, quite the opposite.
If it weren’t for her, that battle would have been much more bitter.
She may not have had all of Evelyn’s confidence, but she had truly helped her man.
Ethan nodded with a smile, pulling Alice to his chest in a tender embrace.
It was funny. Alice was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life: kind, sweet, and understanding, as well as incredibly intelligent and talented.
Yet she was often unable to see her own worth.
A mage of Rank S talent, with a legendary spellbook and ancestral knowledge in her hands.
She could even reach the fifth stage and become a being capable of wiping out entire small towns with a single spell, living for a thousand years without ever losing her youth.
"Do you know what the brown mages were and why they were destroyed by all the other magic towers?" Ethan asked Alice, gesturing toward the book on the kitchen table.
"No..."
She didn’t even have to move. She pointed her finger, and the book floated into her hands.
"Because they were too powerful. The Green Tower studied nature magic, the Red Tower studied fire magic, the Blue Tower, water and ice, the White Tower, light magic, the Black Tower, darkness magic. The others had their own elements."
Ethan opened the book beside her.
"The twelve magical towers of the continent were born this way, but there was a thirteenth: a tower that studied and mastered all types of magic.
With its leader reaching the legendary seventh stage, the Brown Tower was deemed too powerful to exist and, for that reason, was wiped out."
Ethan barely managed to read a few words before looking away.
It was a bound item, and unless Alice taught one of the spells written there directly, she was the only one capable of reading it.
"This book holds a value that even the entire kingdom of the Burning Ice would be unable to match, and yet it represents only a fraction of a fraction of your value to me," Ethan said.
That sounded so fucking cringy, right?
His cheeks burned with embarrassment when he saw Evelyn’s lips curling into a constant smile.
"Hm... silly husband." Alice closed her eyes for a moment, her face red as a tomato.
Turning to him, she planted a quick kiss on his lips and then ran off to take a shower.
She had sweated a lot, and even though she didn’t stink, she still needed to be all clean to receive her husband’s gift, right?
"Hm... for you to know so much about a power that fell so long ago, your family must be pretty powerful, right?" Evelyn exhaled, massaging her healed shoulder.
There wasn’t even a scar there, but it still stung a little.
"A little. I learned that story from my mother, she’s a fourth-stage mage." Ethan replied.
He still needed to choose his new Golden Lord’s ring skill, but there would always be a little more time for his women.
Evelyn choked on those words, staring at him in shock.
What the hell was the son of a powerful fourth-stage mage doing in such a damned place?