69. Principled Rich Man

69. Principled Rich Man

Omen: 8, 11

Jurot lay there, ruminating on what Adam had told him last night. Jurot wasn’t sure what to make of it, and after a few minutes of thinking about Adam’s tale, he let out a soft sigh and let it go from his mind, sitting up to see his mother, Adam, and Lucy.

“Whoa! Whoa! How are you so juicy?” Lucy asked, grabbing onto Adam’s arms and his pecs. She hadn’t noticed his physique, which was quite powerful for someone with elvish blood. ‘I need to make him my General!’

“Anyway,” Adam said, trying to push her away from molesting him. “Now that the emergency has been settled, we should probably figure out our next steps.”

“Our next steps?” Jurot asked, staring at the pair of them in their comedy act.

“Aunt and Lanarot are safe, and we can’t spend all our time in the Iyr. Didn’t you leave the Iyr in order to adventure?”

“Jurot decided to set out on his own,” Sonarot said. “Usually Iyrmen leave with another, adventure until they rank up and then part ways, but he wanted to go alone.”

Jurot nodded. “I was a little older than the others, so I wanted to go alone and leave them in their preferred pairs.”

“So it should have been Amokan and you, but since Timojin is close to him, you let their bromance develop?”

“Yes,” Jurot replied, assuming the definition of bromance. “Instead, I will follow you.”

“You want to follow me?” Adam blinked.

“Your story is interesting. There is no Iyrman with a story like yours. If I am beside you, then I will be the first Iyrman to have such stories.” Jurot smirked, revelling in his ingeniousness.

“Well I’m going to stay here!” Lucy declared. “This is the best place to train. Once I’m strong enough, I’m going to...” She fell silent and thought about what she wanted to do. “Do something?”

“Alright.” Adam smiled. “We’ll stay here for a little while longer, and then we’ll leave.” He had thought about how he was going to adventure with Jurot, but since he decided it himself, Adam didn’t need to think about it. “Oh, right. Since I’m a nephew of the Rot family, is there something that’s expected of me? Do I need to pay dues? Do I need to help around the Iyr?” He wasn’t sure how the relationship worked with him as a nephew.

“We Iyrmen must pay at least one tenth of our treasure back to the Iyr, though we usually send more,” Jurot said. “You are just a nephew of the Iyr.”

“So I don’t have to pay dues?”

“Yes,” Sonarot said. “There is no need for that.”

Adam crossed his arms. “It feels weird that I won’t be paying dues. I’ll send back a tenth of my earnings back too.” He narrowed his eyes. “Though that involves maths.” He shuddered. “What if I created magical weapons now and again for the Iyr?”

Sonarot stared down at the boy, wondering why he was so eager to pay them. “You can speak with an Elder about the matter, and they can discuss it with the Great Elders and the Chief.”

“I’ll do that, then,” Adam said, nodding his head. “First, let’s go play with Lanarot. She probably forgot our faces.”

Jurot and Adam surrounded the tiny basket Lanarot slept in. “Hello little Lana,” he said. “Did you sleep well? We didn’t get to talk properly yesterday.”

She stared up at him.

“Did anyone bully you while we were gone?” Adam asked.

The Iyrmen threw him a curious glance.

“Just a bad joke, don’t mind me,” Adam said, noting how they were glaring at him.

“A joke?” Jurot asked. “How is that a joke?”Th.ê most uptodate novels are published on n(0)velbj)n(.)co/m

“It’s like if I were to say our fighting power has gone down now that an Iyrman is here. It’s a ridiculous thing to say, obviously wrong, which is why it’s funny. It’s more a joke about the person saying the joke being an idiot.”

Lucy stared at him. “You are an idiot.”

“Exactly.”

“So this is Lanarot,” Lucy said, staring down at the baby. “You did all that for her?” Having heard his tale, Lucy wondered why he had done so much for someone he barely knew. ‘Was he really serious about helping Mara?’

“Of course,” Adam said. “She’s my precious little sister, and Jurot’s precious little sister too.”

“She is fortunate,” Sonarot said, and almost immediately, Lanarot began to cough and cry. “And hungry.” She pulled her baby up to her teet and began to feed her.

“Ooh!”

“Ya!”

The children bounced excitedly, and Adam glanced over to see the disapproving looks of Jurot and the others, who wouldn’t be able to train as hard with the children.

Adam cleared his throat. “I need a little bit of a break today, so I’ll train with the children. I will show you some exercises from my home.”

Upon hearing that Adam was going to reveal exercises from his home, even Timojin’s eyes began to gleam.

It was on this day Adam introduced the Iyr to star jumps.

Timojin glared at Adam, his hopes dashed.

It was on this day Adam introduced the Iyr to burpees.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked from beside the half elf. She was sitting in the stream, admiring the bodies of all the hunky Iyrmen about.

“I hate burpees,” Adam admitted, having refused to lead the exercises after revealing the technique. He understood why the Iyrmen would like the exercise, but he hated it with a deep passion.

Once they returned back to the estate, Sonarot revealed a large pouch. “Adam, your axe has been sold.”

“My axe?” Adam asked.

“Cool Weapon.”

Adam coughed slightly, nearly taking damage from hearing the name. “Oh, right. How much I make?”

“One thousand and five hundred gold,” Sonarot said. “We’ve already taken what you owe us.”

“Nice. So that would be...” Adam tried to do the maths in his head. “Three hundred gold to Jurot, and one thousand and two hundred gold for me.”

“Jurot’s share?” Sonarot asked.

“Isn’t it too much?” Jurot asked, noting the look from his mother.

“It’s what we agreed one,” Adam said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Jurot, you will accept so much coin?” Sonarot asked.

Jurot began to sweat under his mother’s stare. It was as though he was being crushed by a heavy weight. “No.”

Adam glanced at Sonarot. “It’s fine,” Adam said. “It’s a fair price. Jurot’s wood work is amazing, and he also checks the quality of the weapon. His experience with that sort of thing is worth a lot. It might end up that I make something awful, in which case, I probably won’t auction it.”

“Won’t you lose lots of gold?” Sonarot asked.

"I will create decent weapons. If I end up making basic weapons, I might be sell them to the guild or another organisation, as basic gear for adventurers rather than auctioning them."

"Very principled, aren't you?"

"That's the goal." Adam smiled. "I'm principled, even if I am poor. Well, was poor."

Currency: 65GP, (16) Tiger Eye -> 165GP, (38) Tiger Eye

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