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nI’m so excited as to what will come…

nFirst, I met up with a familiar face, the one kid who was part of the sword-wielding family, and I saw a few changes had been made to his appearance.

n“Oh, wow. Did you class up?” I smirked as that was the only way for him to change so drastically in such a short amount of time.

nRight now, he had long silver hair that was tied into a messy ponytail, his body seemed pretty toned, and his eyes were a dim metal-gray.

n“Indeed, but it was with the help of external items as well, which is why my eyes are this color. It’s a side effect of the XP boosting potion I took,” He muttered while stirring the creamer into his coffee.

n“Oh, get me one of those the next time we see each other. That seems nice to have,”

n“*sigh*… Dude, just get to the point. I got ** to do, and messing around with somebody like you is not optimal… Do you know how suspicious I am of you?”

n“I do, but anyway, I guess I’ll get to the point. So, I wanted to give you some information about the son’s family you had killed… I’m sure they already recognized the traces of sword magic on their corpses and have already caught onto you… Are you stressed? Scared?” I asked as I didn’t want to be working with a pussy that would lead to me getting caught.

n“I am not scared because we’re the stronger family. They might’ve had the chance of overpowering me earlier, but that was because they double-teamed me… Still won, though,”

nI chuckled a bit before sighing deeply…

n“So, would you like to buy the information from me? It isn’t cheap,” I asked the question I had been wanting to ask for a while.

n“*sigh*… How much is it? If it is above ten thousand gold, then I can’t buy it. That is way past my budget,” He replied.

n“Don’t worry. It’s not money. It’s a favor. I mean, you already owe me for helping you out earlier, so I guess I’ll be gaining another favor,” I smiled.

n“That’s not how this wor-“

n“Oh, is the Bonebloom family really that incompetent? Are you saying you could’ve taken care of that by yourself?” I asked, and the boy just grits his teeth as he tried to suppress his anger.

nThat’s right… that useless pride will be the death of you eventually, but I’ll make use of it until you aren’t worth anything.

n“Fine, I’ll buy it off of you for another favor. Though the first time, it was a large favor, this time, it is a small favor, so don’t get it mixed up. We could acquire this information if we wanted to,” He replied though it was obvious he was bluffing.

nI could tell he was bluffing because all you have to do is just a bit of digging on the internet, and you will find that his family, the Bonebloom family has a subsidiary that collects information from them.

nThis subsidiary isn’t that well known, but I was able to find out that they were on the brink of destruction due to the war.

nBeing a smaller family, and due to the struggle of power, they were destined to be absorbed and whether that be into the Bonebloom or some other family… I have no clue.

nI was indeed trying to kind of out bluff him, and it seems it worked since we shook on it, and I had even got audio evidence of this conversation.

n“Well, let me use my favors now,” I said, just as the boy was about to leave as he slammed down the now cold coffee.

n“Are you serious? You have the privilege of gaining a few favors from my family, and you want to use them right now? Okay… then tell me,”

nHis response and expression were confident and courageous… It almost touched my heart *sniff*.

nOkay, I’ll proceed with the plan.

n“First, I’ll use the smaller one. Tell me about the Meeting of Roses. I want to know more about it,” I said.

n“How… do you know about that? It’s supposed to be super-secret,” He replied.

n“I have my ways,” I said and gave him a large smile that sent a shiver down his spine.

n“What a bastard… *sigh* okay. So, it is essentially a meeting between a few of the large families that had been in an alliance for quite some time. The alliance slowly fell apart over a few years, so we have this meeting to rekindle our relationship by informing each other of different information, wait-“

n“Ah, now do you know what I want?” I asked, and the boy laughed so much that he almost began to cry.

n“Hehehe… You’re amusing. So, do you really want to use your big favor on that? Seems a bit like a waste,”

n“Oh, trust me… All I want is the information. I don’t care about any bull** alliance… That is going to fall apart anyway, right?”

n“Indeed. This war will be the breaking point, and I assume the eight families that come together will be split into two or three groups,”

n“Okay, well, just give me a time and date. I’ll be waiting,” I said while walking out of the empty coffee shop.

nThe boy just sat there, thinking to himself as he saw me leave him in the dimly lit room.

n…

nThe boy had given me a date, and the meeting was next month, so all I had to do now was continue to strengthen the relationship that I had with my few targets.

nThey were giving me bits of juicy information over time, and since they’re so easy to manipulate with their teenage mind, I’ll eventually have them dancing in the center of my palm.

nCy and I began to sleep at Aisa’s house, and it seems Findir took down the front of having parents here as he eventually just started sleeping over as well.

nCy was going to take a while to bring back up, so that was my objective this month as I waited for the meeting…

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