Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 891: Return of the Gnomish Mountain of Gold

CH891 Return of the Gnomish Mountain of Gold

***

Alex returned to the Back Mountain Lodge hours later, close to nightfall, barely able to walk on his feet.

Jared had upped his thrashing with the looser conditions. So, the more Alex used spells in their sparring, the greater the pain Jared inflicted.

The Dark Knight even ‘allowed’ the youth to heal himself back to shape so they could continue for longer—much to Alex’s dismay.

It was one of the few times he regretted knowing healing spells.

Unfortunately, Alex couldn’t lose face by revealing he had been thrashed. Instead, he simply mentioned that he had been sparring with a Legend and was left physically and mentally drained.

His group of retainers and Silver Fangs of course assumed the Legend was Drake, since Jared’s ascension was still a hidden fact—made possible by the expansion and development of the Dark Knight’s concealment concept now that he had an understanding of Darkness Law.

Alex was met with a wave of admiration from his subordinates as he received healing and rejuvenation spells from Eleanore.

After being healed, Alex informed the group about his plans to meet the families of his fallen troops and commemorate with them.

And since the Silver Fangs were there, in the moment, Alex extended that to them as well. After all, all the soldiers who held the Silver Fang name had either died under his direct command or indirectly in his service.

The two groups readily accepted the offer. However, to Alex’s surprise, they shot down the part about personally going to visit the families of the deceased.

Instead, championed by his wives, the group decided that top officials within the units would visit the families, and then invite them over to Konradi for the domain funeral to honour them. It was then that Alex would get to meet the families and thank them for their family members’ service in person.

“You might mean well, but you are still a noble. There are protocols for doing things that you cannot or should not flout. It maintains your dignity as a Lord without compromising the honour you wish to give to the fallen troops,” Eleanore said.

She was an authority on the subject, being a daughter of the Imperial family and technically a high-ranking aristocrat herself. She was well-versed in the etiquettes of the nobility—those that could be changed or ignored, as well as those that mustn’t.

The matter was decided by the group, leaving Alex with little choice.

After all, the people involved—his retainers, the Fury soldiers who had now sworn fealty to him, as well as the Silver Fangs—were all unanimously united on the matter.

If the people he wanted to do it for were that adamant, Alex decided to defer to their judgement.

After that was decided, Alex held another round of discussions with Commander Conrad Horst and Deputy Commander Aldrich Jaeger about the future of the Silver Fangs.

The Silver Fangs left the City of Ashes the next day, all of them looking satisfied.

Alex and his wives also left the city for the DragonHold Enclave.

Another important person they had to meet was, after all, the DragonSlayer, Merlin Pendragon—or rather, the Ancient Dragon, Uthvaazgol.

The last year and a half had been a very bleak one for a certain Chief Financial Officer of the DragonHold Enclave, Baldrick Pinchcoin.

Perhaps after Earl Drake Fury, the gnomish CFO of the DragonHold Enclave was the most enraged about the plot to assassinate Alex Fury.

If not for an order that came down from Merlin Pendragon himself, Baldrick had planned to unilaterally make things difficult for everyone at the Enclave who had even the most remote connection to the Reicharts.

Money could bring any man or woman to their knees, and even the prestigious Grand Mages of the Enclave were no different.

The Enclave CFO essentially controlled the flow of funds and the cost of materials and services within the Enclave main spire. Even if he couldn’t directly attack a Grand Mage, he could certainly make things difficult for them financially.

However, due to Merlin’s orders, Pinchcoin could only make Alex’s absence felt by imposing a small 20% price hike on all goods bought by connected individuals from the Enclave, as well as a 20% increase in tax on all goods sold by them to or within the Enclave.

This essentially drove up the prices of goods and services for these affected people, costing them serious business.

Of course, no one dared blame Pinchcoin. Instead, for those in the know, the heat was directed at Erman, Otto and Alrich within their respective families and circles.

Depending on the individual affected, the three young masters actually covered the money lost by these affected people from their own pockets.

Due to this, unknowingly, Pinchcoin, single-handedly, with a few strokes of the pen and an order, had actually severely hampered the plans the three young masters had in the pipeline by indirectly reducing or stifling the funding they had to execute their plans.

Of course, Pinchcoin didn’t know any of this—thankfully so.

There were a lot of people who sweated profusely just imagining what the balding gnome would do if he knew, and the diplomatic incident it might cause.

Fortunately, for most of the Enclave, Baldrick Pinchcoin didn’t return to his old, extremely miserly self from a few years ago. This was because, even though Alex was gone (missing), the Golden Palace still remained.

And more importantly, the Golden Palace still continued to provide a source of funds that kept the Enclave afloat.

On this day, Baldrick Pinchcoin was going through financial records from the Golden Palace detailing revenue-sharing numbers—in particular, the revenue to be received by the Enclave from the palace that year.

These numbers were important for Pinchcoin to plan the Enclave’s budget for the next fiscal period.

The gnome pushed up his monocle and was in the process of going through the report one figure at a time when he suddenly felt his nose twitch.

Absorbed in the financial report, Pinchcoin ignored the sensation. But then, his nose began to twitch even more, to the extent that he smelled himself in a room by a mountain of gold, bringing him back to his senses.

‘This sensation…’ Pinchcoin’s eyes widened. ‘This is only one person who could… can it be?!’

Pinchcoin shot to his feet.

His eyes turned towards the Enclave main spire’s waystation, just in time to see a majestic wyvern belonging to the Golden Palace Merchant Company land at the station.

‘Coins… a mountain of coins…!’

Before Pinchcoin realised it, his feet had already carried his body into a sprint.

The mages of the tower were scared senseless upon seeing the terrifying gnome’s bloodshot, crazed eyes.

They quickly got out of the way, lest they draw the gnome’s attention.

Though they wondered what could have caused the Enclave CFO to behave like this, none of the mages who saw him had the courage to investigate it.

Pinchcoin arrived at the waystation at a sprinting speed that would put even an Elite warrior to shame.

Then, there it was… he laid eyes on the person.

‘Ah… he is here… my mountain of gold!’

Pinchcoin dashed forward, throwing himself at the new arrival.

Alex’s body suddenly shuddered as he felt an intense gaze land on him.

Before he could make sense of what was happening, he saw a diminutive figure charge and jump at him.

He had almost instinctively charged a spell in his hand when his Truth-Seeker eyes noticed the familiar figure and balding auburn hair.

‘Pinchcoin?’ he realised.

Unfortunately, it was too late to inform those around him that the jumping, crazed gnome wasn’t an enemy.

“Master!”

Bang!

Udara jumped forward and kicked Pinchcoin away.

The respectable CFO of the titan DragonHold Enclave was kicked away, tumbling and rolling across the ground.

***