Chapter 26 - Episode 25- The Daily life of Spies and secrets

A man was stood in front of the window watching the clouds in the sky. He turned around and looked at the person in dark attire kneeling in front of his desk, that was covered in paper and documents.

"Speak"

"It is all true. The conservation of ingredients is so much that it increased about 10 days' worth of magi accumulation of about a low talent magi, without losing any taste, in fact the taste of the food is good enough reason to visit there. Other than that, I don't see why everyone is giving the restaurant such importance. The accumulated magi particles amounts to nothing in the eyes of higher ranked magi's and talented magi's."

"That is where you are wrong Archer."

"I am afraid I don't understand, my lord."

The man who was called lord walked towards his desk and took a sheet of paper and passed it to Archer. As he received the document he read it, appearing confused. So, the lord explained "As you can see the list shows the ingredients he bought. It can be separated into 2, normal ingredients and beast ingredients. From seeing the amount of normal ingredients, he bought we can assume he used that for the commoners, thus answering the question, why the commoners could never experience what many of the agents did. However, look at the beast ingredient he bought."

Archer looked at the paper again "It is just cow beast. I still don't get it."

"That is expected. Now look at the price of the cow beast ingredient he bought."

Listening to his lord he looked at the price. Suddenly his face turned black "That scammer, he bought the meat of cow beast for 1 gold and sold it to me for 1000 gold." Archer remembered the pain in his heart as he was forced to spent 2000 gold for what amounted to less than 2 golds worth of ingredient.

"You are looking at the wrong picture here Archer." Seeing that Archer was going off rail he carried on "What kind of cow beast cost only 1 gold?"

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"What type of cow beast meat cost only 1 gold you idiot?" The old man lectured his agent who was still trying to understand the paper in front of him while still sat on top of the tree.

"Seriously if you still don't understand the situation I am going to beat you up, for making waste my time. Who the hell took you in as my intelligence unit, if you can't even figure this simple thing out?"

The man sat on tree twitched his eyebrows as he thought 'You did you asshole.' "I presume a level 1 beast cow?" He replied without revealing his inner thoughts afraid of getting pummelled by the monster in front of him.

"What the hell do you mean by presume? It is a level 1 beast cow that cost 1 gold. So, what do you understand from that?"

"That beast cow meat is cheap, John is a scammer, to not trust him with my money, and he is a great businessman?" The agent listed as many reasons as he could possible to hopefully get the right answer.

However, he could see the elders face getting pissed off more and more as he was listing out all the possible reasons. Finally, when he finished there was a moment of silence before the old man shouted in rage

"I am going to kill that idiot for not even training the intelligence unit properly. I told him to leave me alone of all affairs as I wanted to enjoy my peaceful free time, but he had to drag me into mess." The agent offered a silent prayer to his lord, as he could imagine his bruise faced lord calling him tomorrow, inquiring why his dad was pissed off again.

"Fine listen to me you idiot and make that damn son of mine understand, if the soulless is capable of cooking food that is capable of accumulating at least 10 days' worth of low talent magi particles, then imagine what he is capable of with higher levelled beast ingredients?"

Suddenly the agent said out loud "Oh Shit.". After saying that he disappeared from the tree.

"Also tell him I am going out for some food, and I am taking the new travelling board with me." The old man shouted towards the direction where the man disappeared.

The agent ran even faster to inform his lord, after hearing the old man was planning to take the travelling board. Everyone knew the accidents caused by the old man when he took the travelling board

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"Seban did you hear about John? Everyone is excited about him" The man asked as he came into the room where Seban was lying down.

"Yeah" Seban's mood deteriorated as he thought about all the commotion caused by John's food and new restaurant.

"Why are you upset about it? Don't you see if he enters the competition then we can be free?"

"Flint" hearing his name be called Flint stopped his rambling and turned to Seban. "Tell me why we ended up in this situation?"

The smiling face of Flint shattered as he realised that everything they done to protect John for all these years was for nothing.

"Flint, if he enters the competition we will be free, but what about him?" Flint sighed in depression as he knew once John entered the competition he was free to be killed. Even they couldn't stop the commandments and the Emperor's assassination attempts. They are mercenaries not soldiers or bodyguards.

"Seban he has to enter the competition anyway, if he wants to live for long, with his condition." Flint tried to convince Seban that John entering the competition was inevitable.

"Perhaps he could live longer, but I wanted him to die a natural and peaceful death, instead of being killed by assassin for the betterment of other people's agendas or living in fear of being killed. I wanted him to have a better life than that Flint. Is thinking like that wrong Flint?"

"Who knows man? But let me tell you something, I still don't regret making that deal for John. If he wants to live like that then let him. It is his life; he can choose what to do with it and..." Flint paused before getting Seban's attention "you would make a good dad."

"Hahahaha" Hearing Seban laugh Flint started laughing too. Soon the other 4 came in to see what they were laughing about only for the contagious laughing to spread as well.

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"Tom did you hear about the new restaurant opened by my brother?" James the 3rd asked Tom as he walked around the garden while eating some kind of chicken popcorn.

Tom nodded while he was walking behind his lord. Suddenly James faced Tom as he whispered "That's great I wanted to go there, but annoying Smith just won't let me, due to staying out past my curfew. What do you say about escaping the palace tonight to eat from there? I heard that the restaurant is open all day."

"As you wish my lord." Tom nodded

"Why are you always so serious Tom? I have told you many times to call me by my name. Just chill and enjoy life man." James scolded Tom as he started to walk back towards his room in the palace.

"And I have told you many times my lord that I won't address you by your name in public, or when there are people around us." Tom replied back as he silently put his left hand behind his back from which a small strand of black shadow escaped to fly off into the direction of butler Smith.

"Seriously, you know when I become the emperor, I will make a rule that you have to call me by my name." James laughed as carried on talking without being aware that his closest friend just snitched his plan to butler Smith.

"I am pretty sure you can't just invent random rules in the courthouse, as the nobles and other kings under the empire are looking for a reason to oppose you."

"Meh, dad will deal with those idiots." James replied without any care, as he reached his room, while grabbing a maid on the way to satisfy his desires.

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"Cason, do you think John has a chance to enter the competition now, due to his food?" Jack asked Cason, while drinking their tea.

"From your expression you don't seem worried at all. So, tell me what you think that makes you so unworried?" Cason replied back as he looked at Jack, interested in what his answer might be.

"Well I think he won't be able to enter the competition."

"Correct answer." Cason replied while clapping his answer. "Care to explain why? If it is the right answer I will help you with the rebellion uprising in the north."

"Obviously because no one in the court especially the emperor wants unreliable variable getting in their playing field. So even if the emperor, miraculously decided to award him a title, everyone else will object. Unless John's mysterious supporter pulls the strings."

"Correct again, but you ignored one minor thing. Even if that person pulls strings for John, it won't matter because I doubt they have enough connections or resources to do that. If they had the connection or resource they wouldn't be hiding behind the darkness."

"Speaking of that person any clues about who it is?" For so long, it has been confusing everyone, that knows about John's assassination attempt about who the mysterious backer was. No one likes needle that stabbed them to turn into a cleverly hidden dagger. So, everyone has been guessing and accusing each other secretly about who it might be. The commandment nobles who haven't picked a side are especially in the spotlight.

"No, he/she is elusive as always. No tracks or records showing how he communicates with John. No nobles so far has shown any signs either. This is slowly becoming a headache." Cason replied while rubbing his head.