On hearing the surprising news that his relatives came to visit him, he was at first surprised, before quickly coming to a realization. He did not know if he should laugh or cry.
He should have expected it. He was no longer the insignificant Clark that he was 4 years ago; he now had an exalted status.
His originally cold relatives suddenly coming to meet him now no longer seemed surprising, if their motive was to come to lick his boots and make their relationships better with him.
“The words of the wise are always right”. He sighed ruefully.
Pursue greatness, and greatness will come voluntarily to you. This was the exact template of what was happening. He had never seen his relatives physically before, but now they were coming to him voluntarily.
Well, dwelling on such insignificant matters was not his style. He calmly sat down on his master chair, before telling his butler to let them in.
A minute after he gave the order, dozens of people with some little children in tow cautiously stepped into his luxurious living room. They walked in, while curiously looking around in awe like a bunch of refugees.
Seeing how cautiously they moved and the way they behaved, Clark’s lips twitched a bit but he still kept a calm face.
After going around the small bend after the door, they finally set their eyes on their relative. No…, it was now their leader. On setting their eyes on his luxurious outfit, they froze immediately.
Seeing this, Clark’s efforts were rendered baseless as his face twitched more fiercely. “What the hell? Are you guys acting, or are you all just country bumpkins?”
He questioned inwardly, completely forgetting that he was once like them.
Under the leadership of the one who seemed to be the oldest, their small group quickly calmed down before coming forward to meet him with respectful expressions on their faces.
After coming before him, they all stood rigidly with lowered heads. Clark kept quiet, and as they were intimidated to initiate the conversation, they also kept quiet.
As the silence dragged on, making the unharmonious atmosphere stranger, most of the adults directly started fidgeting nervously.
The children among them who already felt the tense atmosphere already started widening their small cute mouths to cry, before the silence was finally broken by the same eldest middle-aged man.
“Err…, good morning Cla…, territory leader”. He wanted to call him by his name to make it seem like they were close, but he quickly changed his mind at the last second.
Seeing this, Clark shook his head, stood straighter before finally initiating a proper conversation with them.
Though it was already long since he last saw their pictures through his implant when he was small, he still remembered some of the faces here. Especially the middle-aged man. According to his father, the man was his uncle.
“No need to be so nervous, this is your home. Welcome, Uncle Kante”. He spoke out with a smile, before coming down to welcome his uncle personally.
Though their relationship was not too harmonious because of the era they were born in that did not favor such, family was still number one in all relationships, and he respected that.
Seeing that he recognized him, the middle-aged man heaved a sigh of relief, before finally revealing a smile that dispelled the tense and awkward atmosphere.
“Hi, Kate, Tom, and Chancy. How have you all been”. After greeting his uncle properly, he finally waved and greeted his nephews, the ones he remembered.
His friendly attitude did a good job in calming their moods, as they finally sat at the luxurious chairs after adjusting their original perceptive of their successful cousin.
His uncle, Kante, was the one who engaged in most of the conversation. Most of the others kept quiet, while secretly stealing glances at him which his implant diligently detected and notified him about.
His uncle first expressed their apology, for not coming to help, support, and mourn with him after his parent’s death. Before finally presenting the problem on the disunity in the family.
Despite the family just being one of 25 people, most of them only encountered themselves today because one of their cousins became the leader of their city.
After some discussions, Clark agreed with his uncle that they needed to make the family more cohesive and united. He was not petty, even if he felt dissatisfied with them then, that was then.
If he could mellow down on his revenge obsession against the Mocan republic, this was completely travail.
Now, he already lived past the death of his parents. Perhaps, if his family was united then and they came to comfort him, he would not have found the right motivation to get to his current heights.
After engaging in other random discussions about the family and his life, Clark finally stood up to usher them out of the building.
He teased and played with the little Pendragon descendants a bit, prompting wide smiles to brighten up their cute faces before they ran back to meet their waiting mothers.
Despite all the talks about unity that his uncle talked about, he knew that they came here only because of his current success.
He didn’t point it out though, he instead allocated a budget of 500,000 Spartan credits for them to build a new family home. If he wanted reforms, he had to make his family united also to ensure that it happened.
He also gave his workers new orders, that all his relatives were allowed to come into his mansion freely in the future.
After doing this, he sighed before turning to go inside amid the loud sound of music still coming from outside. The celebration was still in full swing, today was an unforgettable happy day for the whole city.
Perhaps, it would be recorded in the chronicles of the city. Thinking of this, made him feel right and fulfilled again.
He used his left hand to caress his permed hair, as he thought of his current circumstances while trudging slowly to the direction of his room. As he was about to step in, his butler coughed before interrupting him again.
“Sir, another man just came to visit you”. The butler said meekly. He knew that his master wanted to rest but this was his job.
“Who?” Clark sighed again, before replying helplessly.
“He said he’s your relative”.
“What the f**k?” Hearing this, he cursed subconsciously as his expression quickly darkened. “Tell him to come in”. He muttered with gritted teeth.
“Where was this one when the others came? And I thought Uncle Kante said we currently have only 25 members in the family”. He suppressed his doubt, before going to sit down again.
As soon as he sat down, a young man in a funky outfit with dreadlocks and tattooed arms suddenly swaggered into the sitting room with large and confident footsteps.
Seeing this, his face could not help but twitch again. But this time, he kept a poker face. He waited for the young man to talk, and he did not disappoint.
“Yo, how’s your day going leader? Terrific, right? I’m your cousin, pardon me please, I forgot to come in with the others. I predicted that you’ll be giving money, so I came for mine”.
The man spoke fluently with no regard for the fact that he was currently facing a bigshot. His tone was like he came to demand his dept. This succeeded in making Clark’s face darker.
“Get lost”.
Even before the man could comprehend what just happened, soldiers came from the corner swiftly and yanked him away. He wanted to talk and protest, but extra-large palms quickly covered his mouth, silencing him.
Seeing this, Clark felt exhausted all of a sudden. This is one of the bad perks that came with him hosting such a party as the leader.
He knew that there are some civilians outside, who already resigned to live their lives aimlessly. They just came to the celebration because of the crowd, and to enjoy themselves. This man was clearly one of them.
What actually gave him more headache, was that this man had the guts to come and impersonate his relative.
“Does he think I’m so easy to fool?”
He quickly ignored what just happened, before going into his room. As he left, he did not forget to inform his butler that he was indispensable for the rest of the day. No more visitors.
On getting to his room, he stood rigidly as he admired his personal space again. With the special walls of the room, all the noise of the blazing music was isolated from him, which gave him a much-needed sense of respite.
The room’s luxury never failed to impress him. Today, he was now the leader of a city and a proud owner of 2 mansions. His dream life was slowly coming to fruition.
Though he badly wanted to rest on the modified king-sized bed, to receive a much-needed massage to his back, he was not about to let luxury dictate his routine. He owned the luxury; the luxury did not own him.
Despite feeling that it was a pity, he still resolutely tore all his make-up façade off, replaced his formal outfit with his training outfit, before going to his training space to train.
After doing a quick warm-up session, he increased the intensity of his physical fitness training to stretch and contract his muscles.
As he did this, prompting sweat to slowly drop down his face, he was finally able to enter the right mood to think about what he intended to do for the next phase of his life.
After settling down to stabilize his reign as the leader of Vatican City, he intended for the city to be run mainly by his chosen delegates. The only job he intended to do was supervision.
For the next few months, he wanted to focus on his main career route again, he wanted to increase his strength as a soldier.
He already started making elaborate plans on what army missions and mercenary missions to take for the next few months. He wanted to narrow the gap between his next breakthrough as quickly as possible.
And, with his plans, he was sure that he could rapidly increase the level of Emily’s mercenary group so that they could access more rewarding and dangerous missions. He needed all the help that he could get, to break the 3rd rank boundary.
With all these, he already had a complete blueprint of how he would live his life for the next few months.
“Ha”. He suddenly made a shout to better channel his energy, as his spear stabbed into 5 simulated mechanical soldiers simultaneously.
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