Chapter 139 - Great Appetite

Robin was shocked by the Duke's reply and his smile vanished, he thought Galan would ask him for more talismans or a larger share of the categorized armaments, but this… 

"Your appetite is very worrying, father-in-law.."

"Hahaha, frankly, I have some envy in my heart... In one fell swoop, the little Burton family has acquired nearly enough lands to be declared a duchy for yourselves, and I am a duke with a bigger army and wider resources, still have the lands I got from my ancestors… Do you think this is fair?"

" You got what we agreed upon, it's not like you were the losing side in this matter.." Robin replied plainly

" Honestly, I didn't think we would keep a single inch of land out of that war, not to mention half a duchy... Two saints and hundreds of knights of my family have died in that war and I got nothing besides a future investment

I know that I got what I wished for, and if I have to go back in time I will probably take the same decision and have the methods to make the fire talisman... 

But the land... Land Is Power! you might not feel the bless you have at your hands now, but you will feel it clearly after you finish developing it... more territories under you means more cultivation resources, more minerals to arm your soldiers and more rich beasts zones, more gold mines, more men to join the army, more talented youth to join and serve the family... more of everything!

.. congratulations to you about that sweet fat piece of land you got to yourself, but now I want to invest what I got out of that war.. the fire talismans, they must put to use for my own benefit this time! " Duke Galan spoke seriously

"...But the timing…" Robin muttered, he understood that the Duke was trying to say, but his own plan for the incoming years was peaceful as if can get, he already gained enough land for the family to grow and expand their base upon for the next few generations, 

As for himself, he only needed to expand his legacy by training more Rune Masters and researching for more laws, even finding more ways to spread his work to everyone... now is the time to relax and gain the fruits of the past 150 years...

Galan smiled, " What about it? Is there a better timing? The prestige of the Black Sun Kingdom among the other kingdoms is at its peak right now, and everyone is still waiting for any move from us, even the Dukes of Lying Water next to me started to send gifts and deal cautiously with the Border Patrol! haha, their soldiers were extremely arrogant not long ago and now they are behaving like kittens... 

I can say that if I move now, I will win half the battles before they even start because of their intense fear of the talismans... If we lingered for much longer, this fear may dissipate and I will lose many more soldiers."

Robin nodded, "You have a point... then? why are you here? What do I have to do with all of this?"

"How can you not have something to do with it, you are a partner in this war as much as me and Galan, the talismans are the basis of this ambition," Raymond added

Robin turned to him, "Sorry for asking, tell me again what are you doing here!?"

Raymond looked at Galan in the eye and found him chuckling, then sighed and replied to Robin, "Your son-in-law is really as rude as you said" then went back to look at Robin and said, " I'll join Galan in the attack."

"Why?!" Robin looked at Galan, "You already have the necessary army to take on any duchy head-on, and you have the method of making the fire explosion runes which makes you nearly invincible among your peers... why do you need the Alton family..?!"

Galan spoke seriously, "I will not lie to you, the matter of involving the Alton family was the advice of Sage Albert when I went to visit him to tell him about my intention to attack the Lying water kingdom and take the piece of land next to me, 

even if they don't make a non-aggression pact like yours, I'm confident that I can permanently take at least a quarter of the Duchy next to me...

But he didn't like my suggestions... Between us and the Lying water kingdom, there is a great frontier stretching between the duchy of Alton and mine on our side and three duchies on their side... 

I only wanted to attack the duchy with which I share the largest frontier and take what I can from them, but Sage Albert suggested that I take the Alton family with me and widen that scope of the attack... we will invade three enemy duchies At the same time.

This might have been just a dream in the past, but not now... Now we have an irreplaceable opportunity to increase the lands of ​​the Black Sun and make it the largest kingdom among the eight. 

The sage said that after many small wars, the other kingdoms will get used to wars using the talismans they might find a way to reduce its danger and our advantage will be lessened greatly, so we have to take advantage of what we have now and strike as hard as we can before they have time to find solutions."

Robin rubbed his chin for a few seconds, then nodded, "Sage Albert really knows how to really take his chances, but is it easy to start wars like this? Dolivar has spared no effort during the past tens of years to drag us into a war..."

Raymond shook his head, "We have had a lot of wars already, but it was between the duchies of Evren and Tinley...Wars on an individual level are easy and we can come up with any trivial reason to start them, we can send a soldier to take a shit in the enemy's land, that would do! haha, the real problem is in the royal war...."

Galan nodded, "Right, I went to the sage to see if he would support me in case the Lying Water Kingdom's royal family joined in or not, and he agreed and even told me to increase the attack scop by taking the Alton family and attacking three duchies instead of one, haha that would be a good fight."

"Oh.. it looks like everything is ready, so.. what is my role? Don't you know already how to make a level 6 Fire Explosion talisman?" Robin replied to Galan without emotions, he didn't want to get involved in all of this...

"His name has become a fire Explosion talisman now? never mind... frankly you left me in a dilemma, I couldn't find people with the qualities you demanded - strong spirits or knights - who would be completely loyal to me, so I built underground dungeons and filled them with thousands of slaves And he taught them all how to draw the fire talisman, yet they only produce about 500 talismans per month! Some of them fail to draw completely after wasting valuable resources and food, so I kill them, and some of them produce one talisman per week... It is  becoming frustrating."

"You.. you did.. WHAT?!" Robin stood up and yelled angrily, that idiot has taught the *secret* technique to thousands of people!!

"What did you want me to do? You only created the oath tablets recently, and even after their creation they are too expensive for me to buy..." Galan innocently shrugged.

After hearing this, Robin did not say anything else, but sat down again and put his hand on his forehead, it was not clear whether he was depressed or angry...

Galan felt he had screwed things up and tried to quickly change the subject and not go too far, "Ah, let's get back to the important topic… What I have right now is not enough for an invasion of this scale, we previously invaded the Duchy of Tinley with about 8,000 talismans, but that worked because it was a new invention, and frankly if they organized One more attack they would have wiped us clean done because the talismans were already out,

Also, we will attack three duchies, not one, and Brother Raymond here doesn't have a single fire talisman, not even mentioning the darkness talismans, vitality talismans, and the sound rings... without you heavily involved in this,  I will have to reject Sage Alpert suggested and stick with my previous plan."

Raymond nodded and a big cruel smile appeared on his face, "I heard that you are spending gold like water in your new lands, this project can help you out in that matter, I can buy any rune you have in large quantities, you wouldn't regret this... As for me, I only want to serve my kingdom and raise the Black Sun flag on more lands...."