Chapter 165

A few days later, the basement of Astie’s mansion.

“Then let us begin the executive meeting.”

With that declaration opening the meeting, six people sat gathered around the round conference table.

“Let us look at today’s agenda first.”

Nordix, who looked over the agenda first,

“Let’s do whatever quickly and finish it. Because I can’t breathe in the same space as that bastard for even one more minute.”

Veil, growling while glaring at Tesetan across the diagonal.

“……”

Basto and Aleric, sitting calmly even in that situation.

“Ha.”

Tesetan, sighing as if this situation were absurd.

And lastly Tie, who was stuck close to the side of that Tesetan, was the main figure.

“Since there are more members now, it’s only right to increase the volume of conquest.”

Veil, who looked at Tie with dissatisfied eyes, spoke first.

Aleric answered immediately.

“Increasing the volume of conquest will not raise the magic stone harvest rate. Efficient conquest is what is important.”

“Why are you picking a fight right from the start? Aha, from the very first executive meeting, are you trying to establish discipline or something?”

“……This is a meeting. In a meeting, isn’t it natural for members to state their respective opinions. Do not act emotionally.”

“Wh-what? Hah! Emotionally?!”

As Veil sprang to his feet, Basto grabbed his arm and made him sit back down.

Letting out a sigh, Basto asked Aleric,

“Do you have some different thought already in mind regarding an efficient method of conquest.”

Aleric nodded.

“We divide the conquest teams into three. If they take turns going out for conquest, they should be able to build up stamina easily.”

Basto nodded.

“Good. Then we should think about how it would be best to distribute the personnel.”

“How about organizing the combat tendencies of the new members first.”

“Yes. The association summons day has been pushed far back, so there is immediate leeway as well……”

With Basto, Nordix, and Aleric at the center, the meeting proceeded quickly.

One hour later.

“Good. This should be enough, so let us slowly get up.”

Basto, having finished the meeting, rose from his seat.

As though he had been waiting, Tesetan followed and raised his body while thinking.

‘……For a whole hour.’

While the meeting was going on, the Necromancer King had not once rested from looking at her.

To the point that his left cheek, where the Necromancer King’s gaze had been stuck, felt numb.

Just as Tesetan was about to go up the stairs like a fugitive.

“Wait.”

Basto stopped him.

When he turned his head, he saw Basto’s blunt face.

“There is a place we will all go together in three days. Keep the time open, just in case.”

Tesetan’s brow furrowed.

A place they would all go together.

‘As expected, a strange group.’

It seemed Agabert went on some sort of excursion every week.

If not, there was hardly any occasion for mercenaries to gather and move around for something other than conquest.

‘Since it’s a mercenary company put together by an eccentric like the Necromancer King, how much more so.’

Tesetan gave a rough nod.

He had not the slightest desire to tag along to a bizarre gathering, but it was obvious what would happen if he said he would not go.

The member named Veil would raise hell, and the Necromancer King would become bothersome again.

“……”

Even now, the Necromancer King was looking at her with sparkling eyes.

Tesetan quickly turned his body away.

And he went rapidly up the stairs.

Aleric followed behind him too.

In the basement, with only Veil, Basto, Nordix, and Tie left.

Veil grumbled as if it were absurd.

“He doesn’t even ask where it is. Honestly, that’s why you shouldn’t take in beasts with black hair. If some guy who rolled in by chance becomes part of our mercenary company, does he even care what our mercenary company usually does.”

The place they were going three days later was none other than the Luminen estate.

In the meantime, Agabert had held gatherings that were not quite gatherings every week with House Luminen.

No matter what, since they had ended up in the same boat while avoiding the emperor’s and the Order’s eyes, they had needed to share at least what each side was doing every week.

Of course, after Tie obtained a communicator, they could exchange news through the communicator as well, but,

“Uhihi. If the Grand Commander finds out Tie gathered lots of members, she’ll say I did well. Right, Brother Veil?”

Since Tie liked the Grand Commander of Luminen and the three young masters so much, there was no helping it unless they went in person and met them.

“Like he’d say you did well. With the Grand Commander’s personality, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t shout asking where you picked up something this mannerless.”

“Brother Veil is seriously mean! Grand Commander won’t shout!”

“He does shout, you know? He only smiles gently at you. Do you know how strict he is with us. You little brat who doesn’t know anything.”

Veil pushed Tie’s forehead ever so, ever so slightly.

Tie let out an ehu, a sigh, and shook her head from side to side.

After that, time passed quickly.

Agabert efficiently utilized the increased members and began a new way of conquering magic stones.

And meanwhile, something very, very sad and vain happened to Tie.

“Sniff, sniffle……”

“Tie, I’m telling you not to cry. If Tie cries, then I keep tearing up too!”

Selina ended up leaving for the North Continent together with her parents.

Wiping away the tears that were dropping one after another, Tie hugged Selina.

Selina too sniffled and rubbed around her eyes.

“Selina, huong, you mustn’t forget Tie, okay? Promise…… sniff, uheong!”

“Why would I forget Tie! I’ll contact you even after I go to the North Continent, so make sure you check your communicator well!”

“Yup! I’ll take it with me even when I go to the bathroom and when I take a bath!”

“……You know you’re not supposed to drop it in water, right? If water gets into the core magic stone, it corrodes and breaks.”

Tie nodded with swollen eyes.

After letting out a sigh, Selina patted Tie on the back one last time.

And soon she walked out the entrance with steps that would not separate.

Tie stared outside at Selina growing farther away from the door while going hic, hic with hiccups.

Then, suddenly noticing that the muscles around her neck stung, she said with a tearful face,

“B-but Selina grew really fast……?”

When they first met, their eye level had not been very different.

Today, it felt like the height difference was so big her neck hurt.

At Tie’s words, Raul, who had been watching from a little distance away, stopped with a start.

He soon narrowed his eyes and looked at Selina leaving through the garden gate.

“……I don’t think it’s only that Miss Selina has grown a lot.”

She slowly shifted her gaze to Tie.

Tie, standing with a hand on the entrance, still barely had her head reaching the doorknob.

‘Strange. Wasn’t she like that around the time she first came to the mansion too?’

After thinking, she approached Tie.

And quietly looked down at the crown of Tie’s head.

Tie’s height still fell far short of even reaching Raul’s pelvis.

More precisely, to the spot where the long tassel attached to his scabbard barely brushed…….

Raul’s expression grew serious.

It was not his misconception.

‘She hasn’t grown at all compared to the last time we measured?’

The reason he remembered Tie’s height was thanks to the Grand Commander of Luminen.

When they had once gone to the Grand Commander’s house in the past, the Grand Commander had said to Tie, ‘It seems like you’ve grown a little taller.’

That day, when they returned to the base, Tie had become wildly excited and made a big fuss, telling the members to hurry up and measure her height.

Unable to bear it any longer, Raul had measured Tie’s height on behalf of everyone,

‘He was exactly this much even then.’

Tie’s height had been exactly around where Raul’s scabbard ornament ended.

Basto approached.

“What is it.”

Raul flinched in surprise, then quickly gauged Tie’s expression.

Then he took Basto and went up the stairs to stand on the second floor.

“It’s just that, I think the Commander’s growth seems to have stopped.”

Basto’s eyes grew wide.

“His growth has stopped?”

Raul gestured downward with his eyes.

Tie was still there, stuck before the entrance and sniffing.

“I noticed it when I saw Miss Selina. It seemed like the eye level of the two of them had suddenly become very different.”

Basto closed his mouth.

“Of course, it’s possible Miss Selina has grown a lot recently, but…… I think it’s more likely that the Commander did not grow……”

Basto blankly stared at Tie.

Lilia when she was four years old came to mind.

As Raul had said, at that age children had a way of shooting up even if you let your guard down for only a moment.

It had felt, by sense, like they grew about half a handspan in one year……

Basto’s gaze sank calmly.