As the next day arrived after Marcus and Lilia had returned home, Marcus was seeing Lilia off at the gate as she had to go back to school today, since she had already missed a bit more than two months for their dungeon training expedition.
"Make sure to come and visit on your next day off okay." Marcus said as he gave a farewell hug to his little sister.
"Of course, and when I can, I will come and root for you in the kingdom's tournament." Lilia said, as she left Marcus' embrace.
Lilia then got onto the carriage that Clara had purchased some time back, along with her personal maid Riley and two of the guards that Clara had hired.
With the disappearance of two of his maids Marcus was not going to take things lightly, so he had upped the security for Lilia by sending two of the guards with her.
Naturally she also had Aurelia and Zareen who were level twenty-eight and twenty-seven with her, so she should be safe against most threats.
Waving goodbye Marcus watched Lilia leave, heading back towards the kingdom's royal academy.
'Now I need to contact Aria and hope she can help.'
Marcus really did not want to bother someone of such a high station with his problem, but he had no leads to go on and it was not like he was some type of detective, so with the trail already three weeks cold, it would take him a miracle to actually fine anything on his own.
Sitting down in the library Marcus pulled himself up to the nice wooden desk and pulled out a few sheets of paper and began writing.
He needed to word this letter perfectly since he was asking a huge favor of someone that he really only barely knew, but she did seem to like him well enough.
After struggling to write a letter that was both informative but did not seem too pushy in his request, over two hours had passed, and Marcus wondered where the time had gone.
However, as he was about to exit the room and have the letter delivered, Clara came into the room while huffing and puffing, obviously having run here at top speed. And in her hands seemed to be a package and a letter.
"Lady Irene these came for you just a few minutes ago, and the letter says it is from Grace and Jenna, but it is definitely not their handwriting, I believe it is from the abductors."
With a grave expression Marcus walked over to Clara and took the package and letter before saying, "Thank you for brining these to me. I will look them over and after that I will decide on what are next move is."
Nodding her head Clara left this in Marcus' capable hands knowing that he would be better suited for coming up with a solution than she would.
Placing the package and letter down on his desk, Marcus looked at them seriously for a few moments to make sure they were not trapped before first opening up the letter.
Reading its contents Marcus started to become infuriated by what it said, and he swore that as soon as he found the people responsible, he would kill them in a way befitting their crimes.
'Dear Lady Irene Geist,
I am writing this letter to inform you that my associates and I are currently taking care of two of your maids. We have been trying to get in contact with you for months now, but you have rebuffed all of our advances, so we have invited your maids to stay with us in hopes that you might visit them. Of course, we have made sure that they have stayed in mostly good health but each of them did have an accident in the kitchen. Now onto the business. We are still hoping to make proper business ties with you so we would like to hold a meeting to discuss our future ventures. Now you did also assault and humiliate one of our valued members so we will be looking for compensation there, but after that we can let bygones be bygones. Now if you agree to a meeting with us, please send a letter to the address listed on the back of this letter and then we will get in contact with you about when and where to meet. Also, if you try to involve the authorities in any way we will know, and then we cannot guarantee that your servants will not have any more kitchen accidents.
Sincerely,
The expansive cold.'
After finishing reading the letter multiple time Marcus finally turned towards the package and had a sinking feeling he knew what was in there.
Taking out a knife Marcus opened up the package and the scent of blood immediately assaulted him.
Looking inside Marcus saw two hands one left and one right, one from both Grace and Jenna.
Seething with anger Marcus wanted to go out and start blowing things up, but he knew he needed to calm down and think rationally.
These people wanted something from him, and he could tell that from the color of the hands and the blood coming off of them that they had been severed recently meaning that Grace and Jenna were probably still alive.
And Marcus had found out one other thing from the letter, he now knew who had abducted Grace and Jenna.
He had seen the ending that had been left before in some of the letters he had found in Viscount Paulsen's room that were with the criminal organization calling itself Permafrost.
'I was hoping to never have to deal with people like this directly, but it looks like they want to pick a fight with me.'
Calming his rage down Marcus switched tactics from asking for help from the grand archmage to agreeing to the meeting.
All he needed to do was attend the meeting and devour the soul of the highest-ranking person and he was likely to find where Grace and Jenna were being held.
He of course felt bad that they had suffered because this organization had their sights set on him, but as long as they were not dead, he could restore their lost hands or any other physical injuries.
'Now time to get things going.'
Marcus quickly wrote up a letter agreeing to meet with them and in it he made sure to sound as docile and compliant as he could be.
Once that was done, he told the entire staff that he was going out to personally deliver his letter to the grand archmage.
Naturally all of them tried to get Marcus to take some of the guards with him but he refused saying he would be fine.
Going to the address that was listed on the back of the letter Marcus made his way back into the outer city and found that it was a small bakery.
He then followed the directions and placed it in the bottom box of a stack in the alley next to the building.
With that done Marcus began the trip back to his estate not wanting to stick around since he felt like he was being watched.
'I am still not sure why they are after me so vehemently, but I doubt that it is because they found out I killed Poulsen. I suppose that the most likely option is for my skill in forging otherwise I cannot garner what they could want.'
Getting back to his mansion Marcus waited patiently through the night and the next day throwing himself into work making a number of mithril weapons he planned to sell once this crisis was over.
Then finally as the sun was setting Clara came with another letter for Marcus with a serious expression on her face.
"Lady Irene, I believe that this letter is from the same person that sent the letter yesterday."
Putting down his hammer Marcus, walked over to Clara, took the letter, and read its contents.
'Dear Lady Irene Geist,
We are most please that you have agreed to our meeting and have not taken any action to find or obstruct us. As promised, we have set up a meeting place where we can discuss our business. The address is on the back and once there someone will guide you to our meeting place. Of course, we will know if you try to bring any outside help so, please come alone. Also empty your item box before coming, we will be checking to make sure that it is empty before taking you to the meeting place. Note that not complying with any of these requests will mean the likelihood of your maids having another accident will increase. The meeting will be held tomorrow after the sun sets, and we are anxiously awaiting you."
Sincerely,
The expansive cold.
After reading this letter Marcus felt like things were going just as planned. As long as no one incredibly strong was at this meeting he could just wipe them all out and find the location of his abducted maids.
'They are going to regret harming my maids and making trouble for me.'
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