Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 246 - 44: Situation

Chapter 246: Chapter 44: Situation

In the afternoon, after a so-called recruitment storm, the Weisbach family dinner was about to begin.

The so-called family dinner was a social event of this era for internal family communication, attended by direct members of the Weisbach family as well as members from major branches, vassals within the family, and knights from the direct servant class.

Of course, the Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps had no right to attend. If one were to talk about qualifications, only Eleanor and Aske could enter.

The former, as the daughter of the ruling house, had to attend, while the latter found an excuse to decline.

On Fire Island, with the resources provided by Eleanor, the girls began to continue building houses, starting with the original wooden houses and flower beds as the foundation, they put together the foundations for a kitchen, a library, and a movie projection room, and even designed a large bathhouse behind the wooden house.

They planned to bring water from the lake below the mountain into the bathhouse, which would be purified and heated through a filtration bunker and boiler. Nora took charge of all the hydraulic and electrical engineering among them.

"Speaking of which," when everyone gathered to discuss the details of the plan, Medea suddenly sneered, "This afternoon, the butler of the Weisbach family suddenly sought me out, apparently trying to poach me from the team."

"I guess this wasn’t just happening to me. If anyone among you has accepted their offer and plans to change jobs and leave like Hood, please speak up soon. Let’s not continue to waste everyone’s feelings."

The girls looked at each other.

"Indeed, someone who claimed to be the head of a hospital found me and invited me to be their chief physician," Nora calmly said, "I’ve already refused."

"The annual salary for a chief physician must be quite high, right?" Medea sneered. "Aren’t you tempted?"

"Not tempted," Nora replied with a flawless, impeccable smile.

Medea habitually tried to read Nora’s mind again but discovered that Nora’s Mind Body quickly changed colors, and she couldn’t read anything for a moment.

"Did you forget that I recently took the Mind I Potion?" Nora’s voice sounded in her mind.

"Oh, it looks like our Mind Reading Club has a new member," Medea quirked a smile. "The person trying to recruit you, did you read her mind?"

"Her poaching action is probably instructed by Eleanor’s brother," Nora replied.

"The same as what I understood," Medea responded.

"Why would he do that?" Nora expressed her confusion.

"Not sure," Medea said. "I can only confirm that he meant no harm."

"That makes it even stranger," Nora remarked.

Medea looked towards Sigrdrifa, who appeared confused and said:

"Speaking of which, indeed a man claiming to be some Knight Captain named John or so, invited me to spar with him today."

"And?" Medea asked immediately. "Did he intentionally lose to you and then took the opportunity to praise your strength before inviting you to take up a position?"

"Ah? No," Sigrdrifa honestly replied. "That guy was really weak; I knocked him down with one ax swing."

"Then, many others who challenged me appeared, all just a bunch of weaklings, none could even make three moves against me."

Medea and Nora exchanged looks.

Clearly, there were people trying to recruit Sigrdrifa, but this naive girl knocked them down with three swings before they even had a chance to speak.

"We encountered it too," Thira calmly stated. "Today, while we were visiting the Court Art Gallery, we met people with similar intentions."

"Peggy drove him away right then, and later we had Mia contact Eleanor, who said she would handle this matter and told us not to worry."

I see, Medea nodded. The minor girls weren’t swayed, the grown women were naturally even more cautious, and as for the Squad Leader...

"Ah, today her brother invited me to become his vassal," Aske mentioned, as though he had just remembered something.

"You agreed?" Medea asked incredulously.

"Yes," Aske said.

The girls were all dumbfounded.

"How can this be!" Medea angrily stood up, "In the end, we all withstood the temptation, but you, being the squad leader, are the first to defect. What’s the meaning of this?!"

"He’s clearly trying to poach all of us on a large scale! If your will is so weak, why would he need to poach at all? He might as well directly buy out The Azure Longsword from your hands!"

"Calm down," Aske said with a smile, "It’s just a nominal role."

He explained the matter in detail, leaving the girls stunned.

So Aske doesn’t have to pay anything and gets a knight’s title and a fief for free, with automatic income and someone to manage it for him?

"My gosh, why can’t such good things ever happen to me!" Mia cried out enviously and resentfully.

"Cough, I plan to put all the tax revenue from that land into our team’s public funds, to benefit everyone," Aske cleared his throat and said.

"Wow!"

"Awesome!"

"Our squad leader is so selfless!"

Since he declared it openly like that, the girls all applauded him.

Wait a minute, isn’t this team his? Why is he considered generous for putting his own money into his own team, transferring from one hand to the other, and we should thank him?

Such thoughts rose in the girls’ minds one after another, leading to the applause gradually fading into an awkward silence.

"Right," Mia said as she took out something from her bag, "This is what we found in the corridor of the Court Art Gallery, inside the ossuary of ’Mad Ludwig,’ according to your instructions."

She showed the object in her hand to everyone; it was a hexagonal brass-colored object that resembled a key or perhaps part of some mechanism.

——————

In the banquet hall, glasses clinked, and an endless array of meals and desserts were laid out like a production line. Guests, well-dressed under the bright lights, talked softly and toasted with laughter.

Naturally, the most noticed were three members of the main family, freshly returned from the Lorraine Duchy, Viscount Henry of the Royal Guard, Elizabeth, who had returned from Thuringia to visit her family, and Miss Eleanor, who had mysteriously reappeared after many years of absence.

"What a pity father isn’t here," Elizabeth said regretfully, "otherwise the whole family would be together."

"Is mother still unwell?" Henry asked.

"She’s improved a bit this month, able to get out of bed and walk around," Ludwig sighed.

"Ellie, let’s go see mother," Elizabeth took Eleanor’s hand, and the two radiant noble ladies left the banquet hall, leaving behind sighs from the guests.

Ludwig knew Elizabeth was deliberately leaving "men’s talking time" for them, so he subtly stood up, pretending to head to the restroom.

Henry, catching the hint, stood up and followed his brother Ludwig out of the banquet hall, heading upstairs to their father’s—the Duke of Bavaria’s—office.

"What’s His Majesty’s stance?" Ludwig asked eagerly as soon as they closed the door.

"War, of course," Henry said in a lowered voice. "The envoy from the Wolf Family has already arrived in Aachen."

"What did they say?"

"The Wolf claims they were not willing to start the war but were pressured by the Church Court."

"The same old story. Does His Majesty believe that?"

"Whether he believes it or not, war is looming." Henry crossed his arms, leaning on the door of the bookcase. "His Majesty might also be intending to use this war to consolidate the military power of the duchies."

"If we directly oppose the Church Court, with the threat of excommunication hanging over us, it makes everyone anxious. Now that the Wolf Family has stepped forward, they provide a perfect target, allowing us to centralize and control the power of the duchies."