The one who came to welcome Velian's group was none other than Julie herself. Velian knew Julius had a sister but after seeing her facial features, he could easily tell they were brother and sister.
"Princess, I assume I can call you princess Rapidclaw," Bowing his head a little Velian questioned showing his respect.
Julie felt starstruck by the man in front of him. Even in her whole life as a princess who encountered many nobles and princes from various kingdoms, she never encountered a beautiful man like Velian.
"Just- just call me Julie," She got tongue-tied a little from how nervous, she was.
This wasn't the first time, she was present for important meetings like this, but in the past, she always worked as the shadow of her brother so taking the lead now, felt a little hard for her.
"No way, I can't call a princess like you by her name, I guess, I'll address you as, Princess Julie,"
"Fine, we will be starting our meeting two hours from now, so you can rest for a little," Leaving that message with them, she asked a maid to show them their rooms.
Velian was surprised by how good they treated them, he expected these people to be rude and bash him from start to end but it looked like there were people that wanted to win his grace so their discussion would go smoothly.
"She doesn't look like the type to plan something devious like a trap, what do you think brother?" Delviny who carefully observed Julie said gaining her mother's attention.
"Well, she looks like a cute girl," Daphnia also joined the conversation.
"It's not hard for someone to act in front of us, so let's keep our guard up, I won't believe anyone in this kingdom until I step out of this land,"
It was impossible for Velian and the girls to get exhausted from a single trip. Since they had excess mana and physical strength unless they had to face something like a full-blown war, it was physically impossible for them to get exhausted.
After talking with each other for a few minutes, they suddenly heard a knock on their door. Velian responded to it after waiting for a few minutes.
"Everyone's ready to meet you, Princess asked me to accompany you," There were two guards outside the door who had swords on their hips.
It was supposed to intimidate Velian, but knowing that they were just B-ranked humans, Velian actually had nothing to care about because even if they took him by surprise, with the skills of Velian, it was impossible for them to harm him.
Walking through a hallway which looked much more sophisticated and beautiful than others, they reached a huge room, where more than ten people waiting for them.
The group of soldiers, Velian brought were also outside the door waiting for his arrival. To make things fair, none of them was allowed to bring weapons inside including the people from the kingdom but it was rather apparent that they had weapons ready in case of an emergency.
"Be careful, master," With the well wishes from his group, Velian went in under everyone's curious eyes and took his seat.
Daphnia and Delviny also did the same and sat beside Velian. The nobles and others were observing them with curious eyes as their eyes suddenly halted on Daphnia.
"Hoh~ looks like these people have a death wish, I hope you're not trying to trap me, otherwise things won't be good for you,"
He noticed their looks and glared at them while thinking of ways to kill them if they stare at her for another single second, but noticed the dissatisfied look of Velian and quickly coughed like they did nothing wrong.
"So you're the master, that messenger girl talked about," It was an old man who started the conversation without even waiting for others.
"Indeed, but I think it's a rather good contract assuming that if not for my interference, you will be facing the empire army,"
Hearing his words, they started talking among themselves. Julie was also there but she didn't look like she was having a good time. Julie was impatient to hear about her brother's state but she didn't know if it was okay to disturb everything and talk about it with Velian.
"And you claim that you have power and army to face against the empire which we couldn't even face,"
"Didn't you just wait for our kingdom soldiers to kill half of the empire's people and steal the win?"
Just like Velian expected, they didn't invite him to sign the contract and accept the deal, they wanted to negotiate as much as they can and if that doesn't work, they thought about threatening him.
They could threaten Velian's group since they were not from a kingdom or at least affiliated with any of the merchants or adventure guilds. They knew even if they kill Velian's group here, nobody will question them.
"Besides, you're the reason why we lost our contacts with the adventurer guild and lost our talented men,"
The atmosphere around the room got heated all of a sudden as all the nobles started to accuse Velian.
"Well, assuming all of them were true, it doesn't matter now, right? I have your prince as a hostage and all we just want is our freedom, is it bad to ask something like that?"
Delviny saw how different Velian acted. It was like he was really desperate for the freedom of the people of the kingdom.
'What's he planning?'
"Your kingdom is the reason why we starved, you people use us as convenient tools when we are useful and throw our lives like we don't mean anything to your kingdom,"
Julie carefully listened to his words. She was really conflicted to listen to her own citizens' struggle like this.
Being the sheltered princess she is, Julie had no idea about the outside world so she couldn't even see that Velian was acting, as she thought he was really sad and hurt.
"Is this really how my people see me and my brother?" Feeling uneasy Julie stood up from her seat with a determined face.
Follow current novels on (f)reew𝒆bnovel