Chapter 327 - United Cana Tribes' Council

Mercury followed the young butler to the royal residence where he entered and found the royal couple inside along with Julia, Marie, Max, and the two crusaders Ben and Jey was also there, though they acted more as guards and didn't appear to participate in the ongoing conversation, the first to call out to Mercury was Kathrine that showed a wide smile when she saw him enter

"Mercury you sleepyhead, come and have some food, I bet you're starving"

Mercury nodded, he felt touched by the sentiment show to him by Kathrine and felt no reason to reject her

'"Don't mind if I do"

After Mercury arrived at the table they discussed a few matters of importance, eventually, Albert and Mercury began discussing golems and Mercury's plans for the future, Mercury drew up several blueprints on some paper which Ben fetched and explained a couple of them to Albert that eventually asked

"How soon are you able to produce the golem's you have proposed?"

Mercury showed a smile

"As soon as I am given access to a workshop where I can produce them… Oh, and I need some metal to work with too"

Albert showed a smile and nodded

"Of course, do you need any helpers? I could summon some blacksmiths to help you with production"

Mercury shook his head and spoke

"I and Marie are used to working the forge together"

Marie blushed slightly as she nodded Kathrine and Julia both saw this and spoke

""My oh my~""

Marie's blush spread further before she lowered her head, both Julia and Kathrine had the same fox-like smile on their face, it was clear to see now that they were mother and daughter…

Far to the east in the capital city of the United Cana Tribes, a council of 3 people had their monthly gathering or rather the continuation of their monthly gathering, they had been seeing an awful lot of each other over the cause of the last two months, one was a slightly overweight man with tanned skin and white hair, he wore various gold ornaments including a thick gold necklace and had the air of a merchant around him, this was one of the 3 elders: Rasul Shad, it was said that his family had a finger in every single trade deal on the entire Cana continent

The next was a warrior that excluded a rather cold aura, he was wearing what Mercury would describe as ancient Egyptian armor, though it was optimized with various rune circles and embedded monster cores that glowed with soft light, his head was filled with white hair, and his face and body was covered in scars, clearly, he was a seasoned warrior, his name was Ridwan of the Wasim clan, which was a long lineage of warriors that traced back thousands of years

Next was the only woman on the council, she looked rather abnormal, her entire body was covered in words, tattooed on her body they covered every bit of her aged exposed skin, her eyes were closed she was seemingly in deep thought, she was the oldest member of the council, she was part of a small clan of Word-Sharmans that dated back even further than the Wasim clan said to be the followers of a living god that controlled the power of words that had bestowed some of their power to the clan of Word-Sharmans in exchange for their servitude, her name was long forgotten and she was simple referred to as the elder

The 3 of them had been in talks about the same issue over the last couple of days, the issue, or rather a sudden windfall was the discovery of an underground pyramid that seemed to be back from the age of the Dragon council, with it much knowledge had yet to be uncovered and translated by the Word-shamans, but what they had uncovered was a large stash of very powerful weapons that had bolstered their position on the continent, The merchant Rasul spoke as he tried to persuade the other two

"I'll stick to my opinion, we now have force, the so-called buying-power of war, to leave it in the bank would simply be missing out on potential benefits, later on, we must push our advantage before a collision is set up to force the weapons from our hands"

Ridwan nodded before he spoke

"We have only ever seen a discovery on this scale once before, elder I trust you know how that went? Our forefathers were hesitant and lost their advantage, we lost the fertile plains to the East and the mountains to the North… I agree with Rasul, we are forced to take action and I say that the first thing we should do is reinforce the underground pyramid so that we can fully digest this treat the 33 has given us"

The elder nodded before she spoke

"I agree that the pyramid must remain in our control… But going to war with Julinatia over their involvement in the past war is simply foolish"

Ridwan shook his head before he spoke as he clapped his hand onto his study armor

"What can they do with their ships on land? We simply need to take Ode in a flash attack, then placing one of the weapons permanently in Ode will solve any amount of boats they send… Besides if worst comes to worst and they manage to take back Ode through a large amount of luck they'll be unable to fight in the sand like my clan, there are two weeks of travel from the edge of the desert to the pyramid, no matter how many they would send they would all be buried in the desert sand"

The elder sighed before she spoke again

"...Fine"

Both Ridwan and Rasul looked like they had heard wrong for a moment before they sighed, then Ridwan laughed out loud before he spoke with a glee unique to a warrior about to go into battle

"Was that so hard, Elder? You could have saved us all an awfully long time by saying that days ago"

The elder opened her eyes and looked over at Ridwan before she shook her head

"You long for battle, I have grown to understand that… We take Ode then we hunker down"

Rasul showed a smile, taking a port city would open up the sea trade where he could expand his influence further, soon he wouldn't have to bother being diplomatic with this council anymore, then he quickly raised his glass and spoke

"To our glory, the glory of the United Cana Tribes"

Ridwan raised his glass as he laughed

"Well said, brother Rasul, well said indeed!"

The elder looked at the two of them and sighed before she also raised her glass and toasted with the other two members of the council…

Mercury let out a sigh of admiration when he stepped into the royal workshop that was linked to the residence of the royal couple, from what he had just heard from Albert it seemed that his grandfather had a soft spot for forging and had a workshop made with direct connection to the residence, it had not been used extensively since his passing almost ten years ago, but out of softness in his heart for his late grandfather he had the workshop well maintained to this day

"Feel free to use this as you please, say the word if you need more metal, I'll do my best to source some for you"

Mercury nodded and walked over and picked up one of the forging hammers before he turned to Marie and asked

"Hey there pretty lady, want to play with my new toys?"

Marie nodded, she looked very excited to start forging right away, her red eyes shone with the fire of a working forge as she muttered

"Dad would kill for a forge like this…"

Mercury laughed before he picked up the firestarter and began starting up the forge, as he did a messenger entered the residence and made his way over to the king and queen before he kneeled down and spoke

"Reporting! Ode… Has been lost to an invading force from the United tribes of Cana after a surprise attack, late last night… The entire city is presumed to be under the control of the enemy"

Albert looked furious he took a couple of deep breaths before he turned to Mercury and spoke

"Looks like we going to need your help after all Mercury"

Mercury nodded and watched as Albert walked back into the residence as he began to relay orders to messengers and servants alike, Mercury felt fired up and spoke

"3 days"

Marie tilted her head slightly before she asked

"3 days what?"

Mercury showed a smile, a rather wide one at that, however, his eyes weren't smiling, they were rather cold

"In 3 days I'll have the first 'hound' prototype ready… Will you help me, girls?"

Marie looked over at Julia that nodded before she looked back at Mercury

"Yeah, of course, let's get to work… Julia, we'll entrust you with the metal orders"

Julia nodded and sighed

"At times like this, I wish I could help out with more than that"

Mercury showed a smile and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before he spoke reassuringly

"Don't worry about that, I, we, would still love you even if you didn't help"

Marie nodded before she also spoke

"We will all do our part"

Julia showed a sweet smile as she looked at the two of them and nodded before she echoed

"We'll all do our part"