Chapter 184 – Secrets.

“What is this?”

“What does it look like?”

“I mean… how did you get it? What did that noble ask you to do? Did you sign a contract? I… we could have found a different way, why did you have to…”

“Wait, calm down, why are you crying? I didn’t sign any contracts, just wait and let me explain…”

Roland was back home, the nice-looking vest was off and he had returned to wearing some loose clothes around his home. After the conversation with the city lord, he returned to his home where Elodia was waiting for him.

Thus after relieving himself of the new clothes he handed her the orphanage papers that he received. This of course caused a misunderstanding in which she believed that he sold himself to the new lord. It took some time to explain that the man named Arthur Valerian wasn’t like most of the other nobles.

“I’m not sure I understand the new lord but… he might just be a better person than we expected?”

“It does seem that way but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another reason for it.”

Roland commented as he wasn’t quite convinced. There could be various reasons why he decided not to use a contract, maybe he wanted there to not be any paper trails to lead back to him.

“Do you think they could be problems? Oh my, do you think he is doing something illegal and needs someone to be a scapegoat?”

“That’s a possibility but I’m not sure, he didn’t give me the impression of being the evil plotter type.”

He shrugged as from what he knew, the new noble really didn’t have much pull in the city just yet. At most he could control the Auction House and help him get materials. If he tried to strongarm too many people, the rich merchants could use some of their contacts to get revenge.

While he was dealing with commoners, they were rich commoners. Some of the merchants were in a better state than other nobles. They could probably pay some of them off to cause some trouble for Arthur in the future.

After living in the Arden estate for five years and reading up he heard about a few incidents. In those, some nobles caused incidents where they challenged others to duels for no reason. Then later they were given a costly gift from a rich merchant that the other noble insulted.

By the size of Arthur’s entourage, it didn’t seem that he had much pull in his own house. The name Valerian carried a lot of weight behind it, but only if it belonged to a proper heir or part of the family. If it was one of the bastard sons, they wouldn’t be taken as seriously.

“What do you think his real intentions are?”

“I’m not sure, normally if he wanted to gain power and prestige he should have gone to the union or the rich merchants. He could easily make their life easier while funneling some money towards himself.”

For Roland, it made sense to stick to the corrupt ways of the nobles. He could easily accept bribes while slowly increasing the wealth of the merchants in the city.

“On the other hand… if he really wants to own this city, he would need to get rid of them all, or at least make them work for him.”

Elodia nodded, the city belonged to the rich. Even though Arthur was the acting lord, he could be replaced. He wasn’t much more than a bonafide tax collector and judge. The real power belonged to the Valerian household that he didn’t seem to get along with.

“Though I’m not sure how he can go about this, a good way would be to find evidence of their hidden deals, if they evaded taxes in any way, it would be within his right as the city lord to apprehend them but even then, he could just put away one figurehead while another one pops up to take over the business from outside…”

Roland gave out a sigh before sinking back into the couch. Even though it wasn’t that late, he was feeling tired. The discussion with the noble went better than he could ever expect but he wasn’t sure what the future held.

“This might be over for now… but I think we should prepare.”

“Prepare?”

Asked Elodia while looking at Roland that he had some concern in his tone.

“Yes, we will have to look into other options, maybe find a better location for the children, aren’t some of them already working? Maybe we could find them an apprenticeship where they could live?”

Roland’s biggest concern now was to get rid of this problem. Even though Arthur helped him out this time, it was easy to make another bogus inspection paper to kick them out again. Some of the kids were older and could work.

It wasn’t strange for younger kids to live together with a master that taught them their craft. They would assist them in their work while being given valuable experience and also food. He went through a similar experience back in Edelgard but there he was offered his own small home.

“We?”

While Roland was slowly blurring out words, Elodia cut him off as he didn’t realize that he was implying that both of them were working together.

“Did I say something wrong?”

He asked as he wasn’t sure what the problem was. At this point, it should already be obvious what his intentions towards her were. Would he be taking sketchy papers from an unknown noble to help her out, if he wasn’t at least somewhat serious about her?

“Did you think I’d kick you out or something? At this point?”

Roland chuckled while placing his hand on top of Elodia’s head, this of course caused the woman to blush.

“But… aren’t you worried that you are wasting your time and money with me?”

She answered while lowering her gaze down, it was clear that she didn’t want to ask for help and felt bad about dragging Roland into this.

“Wasting money and time? Well, I guess then we can waste it, together.”

While had made his decision about Elodia, he was not that keen about becoming a stepfather to so many orphans. Instead, his plan was to find them jobs after they reach a certain age. They could even work here as long as they wouldn’t live at his house where he needed to have his own space.

That being said, there was a stray thought that appeared in Roland’s mind. While he might have made his decision to go forward along with Elodia, he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. She was not aware of his past roots, if he really wanted to continue this relationship he felt that he needed to fess up.

“Elodia… I need to tell you something, you might want to sit down.”

He wasn’t sure why but he felt that if he continued to lie about his origins, that sooner or later something bad would happen. After spending so much time in this city, he became more comfortable with people around him, thus he would be inclined to stay true.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Oh? Is something wrong?”

It was clear that the lady with glasses was confused as the atmosphere quickly changed. Roland leaned forward from the couch to press his palm against each other while remaining silent. He was deeply in thought and somewhat scared about pronouncing his origins but sooner or later it needed to be said.

At this point, he trusted Elodia to not pronounce his secret to the world. Not many people would actually believe that he was a noble. This information was probably more detrimental to his enemies, as they would now have to deal with blemishing the name of a noble. Even though the Arden estate wasn’t that known, it would be enough to throw them into jail.

“You probably have already noticed that I always wear this thing around my neck, even when we are around the house…”

The necklace that he was given by his gnome boss back in Edelgard was constantly around his neck. Even during his sleep, he kept it there out of fear that someone would examine his status and find out that he had a last name. Instead of pronouncing his real name, he removed the trinket from around his neck and placed it on the table.

“Go ahead, examine my status, those glasses should be powerful enough.”

Elodia looked at the item that was always around Roland’s neck. It wasn’t a secret that he was hiding something and she somewhat learned to ignore this part of him, but the curiosity never did die down.

Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell Roland to just put it back on if he didn’t feel comfortable with it. He on the other hand just looked at her very seriously, it was clear that he wanted her to proceed. It wasn’t like she wasn’t interested either, there had been many times that she questioned his origins but as she had somewhat of a past herself, she didn’t ask.

With the help of her glasses, she looked at him and used a pinch of mana to activate their effect. They momentarily started to glow with a blue hue as they presented the stats to her. Finally, she was able to see his full status screen and instantly she realized that the man that she used to call Wayland, wasn’t Wayland at all.

“Roland?”

“Yes, that’s my real name but I’m sure that you noticed…”