Lord of Estaria

by K R Zax

  When we reached the old building, I noticed that something was different. Several windows on the first floor were covered with wood planks, and one part of the fence was broken.

  “Oh, it’s you, lord Alex.” Sister Arima showed herself on the front door, holding a short rod in her hand. “What brings you and your companions here today?”

  “Eh, I had some orcs and well...” What is this? She didn’t have a fetish for beating people, right?

  “My, how wonderful!” She then invited us inside and I saw a few more nuns waiting behind the door. Several of the older kids were also there, and when I looked through one of the windows in the back, I saw the others playing in the backyard cheerfully.

  “Was there some problem? Don’t tell me Talis did something.” Could it be that the girl was really a troublemaker?

  “No, it wasn’t Talis.” Sister Arima said as we walked to the backyard. A couple of tables were there since the weather got nicer, and the nuns could watch over the children while doing needlework. I sat down on one of the chairs after dumping a dozen orcs some distance away. Sister Arima brought two cups and a pot with tea.

  “Nice,” I complimented her as I watched my wives playing with the kids. “So, what happened?”

  “You see, a few days ago all the orphanages received donations from the Church, just like every year right before UsKriss.”

  Ah, the Easter celebration. It was a nice gesture to provide the kids with eggs and candies, and other stuff.

  “But just the night before the celebration, someone broke into the orphanage and raided everything. The chest with donations and even our supplies. I also heard that a couple of other orphanages were robbed as well.” The skin on her fingers got paler when she clenched her fists in frustration. “At least they didn’t take the eggs, so the children could enjoy UsKriss like other kids.”

  Fuck! What the actual fuck?! Stealing from the poor kids?

  “Do you know who did that?” I tried to stay composed, because it would be bad if Arima thought that I wanted to kill the trash. “Perhaps a local gang?”

  “There aren’t ‘local gangs’ in Tsarigrad. If there were, they would be executed or sold as slaves.” She sipped her tea and then said in a lowered voice: “But there are organizations. People working in the shadows and employing expendable thugs to achieve their goals. When the guards arrest someone, he has so little information that they cannot find who the higher-ups are. At least, that was what some of the guards told me.”

  Organizations. That thing can be troublesome to deal with. Where could a person even start? Those people could be living ordinary lives on the surface. A baker, adventurer, soldier or even a noble. Who could tell? The only thing is that they need to have a hideout, a place where they would craft their plans. Then again, it could be an inn, a normal house, etc.

  I can’t infiltrate some random place, hoping that I got it right. It would be a different story if I had people who were good at spying, and magic items to hear conversations…

  “No! Don’t! Aaaaa!” A little girl screamed while a boy chased her with a dead rat, dangling from his hand as he held it by the tail. Then Lina gave him an earful and tossed the animal away.

  “Everyone! Come here! I have candies!” I yelled, and the children rushed to the table. I gave a bag with sweets to every one of them. “Now, I can give you more sweets if you bring me dead rats and mice.”

  ***

  That night I was alone in my quarters. Lina and the other girls had some kind of ‘party’ in Lillian’s room. I am sure that they were just gossiping and talking some weird crap.

  It would be fine if it was only half of the girls or so. But all of them?! Did none of my wives had the heart to think of their husband? I don’t need much. A simple Blo*job would be fine.

  I swear.

  Anyway, I only hope they are not talking about children. The girls were really entertained when we were at the orphanage today. It would be bad if strange ideas took root in their lovely heads.

  Which brings me to my current job. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my newest minions.

  When I offered sweets to the children, they went out of the way to bring me as much dead rats and mice as they could find. Few of them even run to the slums and asked the kids there to find them a few corpses. And by the time I had to leave, there was already a line of kids and older people who wanted to sell me those. In the end, I gave five copper coins for a dead animal and rushed back to the palace.

  I had to use crystals filled with the life force of orcs, kobolds, and lizardman to turn them into zombies. Only that way I could have better control over the vermin. And they would be more powerful if I didn’t use their meager life force.

  *

  “I bought her flowers, and she still refused me! Can you believe that! Said she had someone else, but kept the flowers AND the present!” A drunk guy complained to his buddy in an inn somewhere in the city.

  “Shit, man. That’s life, you’ll find someone else.”

  *

  “Where did I put my book? I know, it was… Aha!” A man was looking under his bed, where a lot of different garbage could be found.

  *

  “Beautiful… Girl of my… Dreams… And then she… Blergh!” Another drunk guy was puking in an alley.

  *

  People walking on the streets, reading, cooking, training… I had almost 400 little spies watching them. Of course, any time that I found something ordinary, I would order my undead to look for someone else.

  This felt like a cable TV, only much better. I could switch my conscience from one zombie to another, and order them around.

  I almost felt like God. The ultimate voyeur.

  *

  “Yeah! Faster… Faster, I’m almost there! Ah!”

  *

  “Not now, the kids are still awake.” A woman giggled as a man slide his hand under her dress, then she grabbed his hand, pulling him aside. “Let’s go to the attic...”

  *

  “Wow!” A naked woman was surprised when a man threw her a gold coin. “Who was the victim this time?”

  “A merchant.” The man said while taking his clothes off. “The bastard didn’t even suspected a thing! Those idiots lost a wagon with goods and didn’t know it for days!”

  *

  This was interesting. A robber bragging about his deeds to a lover. Man, what’s up with these clichés?

  Never mind. I kept watching and listening, eager to see the whole play.

  I also wondered if there was a way to sell some kind of porn in this world. There aren’t such things as movies here, but I could always try with drawings.

  I could buy slaves to do the work and then sell that stuff for some money. I will have to think of every possible option.

  It was a sad thing that I didn’t have any popcorn, but I watch the show all the way till the end.

  When the guy left that place, I had three of my mice follow him. He choose only the less crowded streets, then entered another brothel and knock on a door.

  There were other suspicious guys gambling and drinking, but the guy only greeted them and walked to another room. There was a hidden door inside an unused fireplace, leading to a secret passage.

  After descending a few hundreds of steps, he arrived in front of yet another door. This time he knocked in a simple rhythm, and a small piece of wood slide aside on the wall on his right.

  That door was a fake, the real entrance was on the wall.

  *

  “Did you got the money?” A man with big muscles asked the guy when he entered the secret room. “We thought they got you, Ral. You should’ve been here an hour ago. Were you playing with a woman?”

  “Hey, I had to take care of some business. And what does it matter if it was a woman?” Ral said and took a bag from his coat, then hand it to the man. “Anyway, here’s the money. Twenty gold, I already took my cut.”

  “Nice,” the man weighted the bag in his hand. “But don’t go ahead o
f yourself. Only we can provide you with all the information and merchandise. Remember that. We think, and you do the job. And if you try to cross us, it will be your last.”

  Ral looked pissed, but he saw more people in the corners of the room, waiting patiently for a signal.

  “It’s alright.” Ral raised his hands. “You find me a job, or things to sell, and I get my cut. No more, no less.”

  “You can go now. We’ll contact you in a few days.”

  *

  When Ral left the room, I sent one mouse after him, and concentrated on the people in the room. During two hours, different individuals came to that place, left a sum of money, and walked away.

  This people were killing it! I could see how one of the guys wrote information in a book, and another one counted the contents of the bags before putting them in a metal chest.

  I recalled all of my undead spies and had them follow all the people who were coming and going from the room. Then I left several zombies to supervise the brothel from all sides.

  *

  “That’s it for tonight.” Muscle man said when a thug left the room. “Boryil, make a door.”

  “Yes,” a guy who was silent all the time, put his hands on a wall and a rectangle appeared on the wall, forming a doorway.

  Two guys took the metal chest between them and walked into the labyrinth. That is how those intersected hallways looked like. I think it was just another line of protection, in case someone finds the way to the room where they all were receiving the money.

  So Boryil was an Earth Mage, and his element must be at least B rank. I was sure of that because I watched him use his magic several more times until they reached an underground lobby.

  It looked like an underground art museum, and there were a lot of expensive decorations that clashed with the original bronze statues. This place could be easily confused with a noble’s house.

  While I wondered how there could be such a nice place underground, I saw a tunnel and railway tracks while the guys walked to the other side of the lobby. It appears that this was an old subway station.

  They walked into a tunnel and I saw a lot of doors left and right, and armed thugs guarding some of them.

  While one mouse went after the group, I sent the other to take a peek of every corner of that place. And man! When the mouse looked under a few doors, I could see that the interior was as big as a warehouse. And almost filled to the roof with all kinds of things.

  There were monster materials, weapons, ores, bundles of fabric and other things.

  As someone could expect from an organization that dared to work in the Empire’s capital.

  I only looked at three rooms and saw that they were packed with goods. They probably sold those on the black market. And they also could smuggle the merchandise out of the city and try to sell it somewhere else.

  The guys walked into a room where there were people counting money on a couple of tables. Far in the back was a wealthy dressed man, sitting on an extravagant chair. That thing almost looked like a throne with all of that gold and jewels inserted in the polished wood.

  A dog-kin woman was there as well. She probably was in her mid-twenties, sitting on the floor beside the man, while he caressed her long topaz hair. She wore revealing sexy clothes wrapped around her chest and waist, where she had a belt with a dagger on it.

  A wild, hot girl.

  There were also strong looking soldiers behind the boss and several mages in long robes. All of them seemed threatening, and they surveyed the other people with disgusted, smug expressions.

  “Is that all?” Their boss asked when the guys put the metal chest down, then another person started taking the bags out. “The peasants didn’t try to cheat you?”

  “Everything went well, my lord.” Muscle guy said respectfully. “They know what we would do to them if they try to cheat us.”

  “Good.” The boss said and then turned to the ones counting the money. “Hurry up! I want to know how much we earned today and then go home. I can’t spend a lot of time here, you know that.”

  “You heard the lord!” The dog-kin girl yelled while gripping the hilt of a dagger that she was carrying on her waist. “I’ll freaking stab you if you don’t hurry!”

  *

  I broke the connection with my mouse and took a sip of wine.

  There were only a dozen weak zombies in my Storage right now, so if I go to the forest and bring more, I could crash the organization tonight. And all that accumulated wealth would be mine according to the law.

  But should I?

  Marquess Alex Miller - that is my identity right now. I can’t act like a common adventurer in this kind of situation. I mean, I clearly could do it. But I may lose points with the Empire if I act on my own.

  If I were on the road, or somewhere outside, and I raided a bandit’s hideout. That would be one thing. This, however, is the capital, and the criminal organization seems to be led by a noble.

  Acting according to my status may even bring me more benefits in the long run. Wasting an opportunity like this one, only to earn some money, may eventually make me regret it.

  Chapter 9.

  It was almost midnight, but fortunately, there were always some guards patrolling the palace hallways. I had to walk for about two minutes before I found a couple of them.

  “Good evening Marquess Miller, do you need something?” One of the guards asked politely when I stopped in front of them.

  “Yes, I plan to attack a criminal hideout, and I need backup. Could you call someone who is in charge of the city’s security to help me out?”

  “Sir?” The guard seemed confused. Did he thought that I was playing a prank on him?

  “I am serious,” I told the guy and turn my back on them. “I will be in Princess Lillian’s room, so send them there.”

  Should I still call her a Princess, or Marchioness? While I contemplated what kind of title sounded best to introduce my wife with, I arrived in front of her room.

  When I opened the door, I saw that all the girls were still awake. Tea, cookies, pillows, nightgowns, and no lingerie. That is how the scene before my eyes looked like. A high school pajamas party.

  I know that I shouldn’t expect much from this age, but still, I am glad that they looked cute at least. Just imagine sitting there, looking at them while drinking some wine or ale.

  So relaxing.

  “Do you need something?” Lillian asked suspiciously. “Don’t tell me that you came to ask for some filthy service. My lord.”

  “I don’t mind!” Evrlir jumped from her pillow and was about to take her nightwear off, when another girl stopped her.

  “How can you be so cold to your husband?” I almost thought it would be a good idea to leave the criminals for a later time and have some fun with my lovely girls.

  Almost. Sigh. “I need your help. Get your equipment, because we’re raiding a criminal organization.”

  The girls looked at each other, and then Lillian stood up. The high schooler turned into a knight commander in less than a second.

  “Everyone, you heard what our husband said. Get ready and be back in fifteen.” Lillian then went to another room to put on her armor.

  “I would appreciate some privacy.” She told me when I went after her. Why the hell would I miss such an opportunity?

  “I just wanted to help,” I said innocently. “Putting on your armor can be difficult if you’re alone.”

  “I’m used to it. Besides, your lecherous gaze would just make it difficult for me to concentrate. And then… If someone caught us while… Uh!” She stumped her feet while blushing. “You see? I already have impure thoughts! You… You… Demon!”

  She shut the door, and I sat on one of the chairs, waiting for all of them to finish with their preparations.

  “Am I early?” Lina asked when she came back. She only had to put her Wyvern equipment, a jacket and shorts.

  “Come here.” I told her, and Lina sat on my lap. Finally, some quality time
with my kitty.

  “I’ve missed you.” I whispered and bite her cat ear softly. She then rubbed her cheek against mine as her body shook in pleasure.

  “I wanted to be with you tonight, but… I also wanted to get to know the other girls better.” She whispered while scratching the back of my neck with her little claws.

  “I get it.” My hand traveled slowly over her exposed thigh. “Are the other girls nice to you?” It surely would be troublesome if they bickered at one another. That would be a nightmare.