As a way to relieve the accumulated stress, Priston Ballos, better known as the mayor of Solaris, was enjoying a good back massage done by his young maid.

In his youth, he was an exceptional warrior, who, though only a commoner without any support, had enough contributions to rise through the ranks of the army until he became a Knight.

He even received the title of Superior Warrior, which is surprising, since even with no knowledge of the spells, he managed to elevate a simple spell of body strengthening of attributeless magic to the peak.

And when he retired, he was decorated with several medals and the title of Baron along with a territory. Which is something incredible for a commoner, after all, he skipped the Baronet's rank and went straight to Baron's rank. Best of all, it was not an honorary title, so it could be passed on to his children.

But unfortunately, as he was previously just a commoner, he had no internal support among the nobles. Because of this, he ended up receiving Solaris, one of the worst territories in the kingdom. It's not that the lands were infertile or anything, it was just that the neighboring kingdoms, Edrorian and Tarodel are Poutis' great enemies. The alliance of these two kingdoms caused Poutis to suffer under an enormous pressure.

But they were not always allies, until recently, Edrorian and Tarodel were also enemies. Along with Prazar and Poutis, the four kingdoms always had skirmishes.

But that situation changed when the daughter of the king of Edrorian married the new king of Tarodel. This caused both kingdoms to form an alliance, and in a short half-year period, they took over half of Prazar's territory. After that, they took a break from the war, just enough to digest the conquered territory.

Trying to counterbalance this situation, Prazar and Poutis also started an alliance. But as the kingdoms were relatively distant from each other, it was not a favorable situation for both. It was almost certain that after conquering Prazar, Poutis would be the next target, and right now, the war was almost breaking out again. Edrorian intends to attack Poutis to give Tarodel enough time to conquer the remaining territory of Prazar

This left Priston in a pretty uncomfortable position, since he couldn't simply leave his territory when the enemy attacked. But this was becoming more and more difficult, after all, he was already an old man and no longer had as much power as before.

Putting aside thoughts about the war that was to come, he decided to enjoy the moment.

Sticking his hand under the young maid's dress, he stroked her delicate thighs, slowly climbing up her buttocks, Priston was getting excited. Sensing that this was possibly his last time with a woman before he died in the war, he moved his hand again, reaching into the maid's private parts.

The moment he felt the heat on his fingers, a knock came from the door.

"Damn, didn't I already tell you not to bother me?" Priston shouted.

"I'm sorry, My Lord, but someone is requesting an audience with you." The voice that came from the other side of the door said.

"Tell him to leave, I'm busy right now." Priston responded.

"But he seems like a nobleman, and he was also quite intimidating, I think if My Lord refuse, he can cause us problems." The voice said anxiously.

Taking a long breath, Priston said. "All right, take him to the waiting room, I'll get dressed to go find him."

After hearing Priston's words, the footsteps of the people behind the door could be heard moving away.

"Should I prepare tea for the guest?" The young maid asked.

"No, just let him wait while I get dressed." Receiving his clothes from the maid, he continued in an angry tone. "To dare to come to my mansion without an appointment, I must teach him a lesson."

***

After making the visitor wait for a few minutes, Priston ordered to call him to his office.

Not long after, a young man with curly hair and a Dogkin woman who was clearly older than he entered.

Although dissatisfied with the visit without an appointment, as mayor of the city and a nobleman, he still greeted them.

But something he never expected to happen, has happened.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Priston Ballos, my name is Sian de Castilho and this is my wife, Ophilia.” The young man said with a smile.

Despite maintaining a calm appearance on the outside, inside, Priston was almost having a heart attack.

'Shit shit shit, The Reaper is here!’

'Why is he here?! So many years of war and I'm going to die at the hands of this vile creature?'

Unaware of the mess he caused in Priston's mind, Sian continued. “I recently arrived at Solaris, and after looking at it for a while, I noticed an opportunity to open a business, so I wanted to know if there is land available to buy.”

'Wait, he is speaking politely, maybe it is not him. But just in case it is better not to annoy him.'

“S-So Your Lordship wants to settle in my humble town?” Despite trying to remain calm, knowing that he could disappear from the map at any moment, still terrified him.

As he proceeded nervously with the conversation, Priston realized that the young man in front of him quite resembled the person of the painting lady Charlotte had spread among the nobles and soldiers of the marquisate.

She warned that if she met this person, they should avoid him at any cost and contact her immediately. If that were not possible, try not to irritate him, otherwise a tragedy might happen.

At first, he hadn't recognized it because this young man usually wore a tattered cloth. But even without Charlotte's warning, he would not dare to oppose this young man, for his notorious fame was widely known among the nobles.

After discovering the young man's purpose, he went to ask the maid to bring tea and for the butler to prepare the paperwork.

When the tea was served, Priston invited them to drink it, but besides that he didn't say anything else, afraid of annoying the young man who was in front of him and being impaled by his famous spear. While he was practically immobile, Priston just prayed that his butler would finish completing the paperwork quickly.

When the butler returned, he quickly handed over the contracts to the young man. Even though he tried to remain calm with the help of his several years of war, his hand still trembled involuntarily.

‘Wait, he still didn’t do anything to me, if he wanted I would already be dead. I need to calm down.’

Waiting while Sian was reading the contract, Priston recalled that he had forgotten to tell the butler to put a below-normal price on the contract. He was afraid to lose his life to this young man if he thought the price was absurd.

Then he asked nervously. “Wh-What Your Lordship thinks of the price? I can make a readjustment if Your Lordship wishes.”

“No need, 36 gold coins it’s a good-”

*Cough Cough Cough*

As Priston was very focused on the young man in front of him, he had completely forgotten the woman, which caused him to be scared by the sudden cough. The scare was so great that he felt as if his heart was about to come out of his mouth and started to sweat involuntarily while his limbs stopped.

Seeing that the young man was anxious while comforting the woman, Priston tried to calm down.

'Damn, I almost shit myself. How did this woman choke out of nowhere? There’s no way anyone can be stupid enough to choke on their own saliva.’

'Besides, why is he accompanied by such an average woman?'

Looking at the interaction of the two, he realized that the young man seemed to care a lot about the woman.

'If I am not mistaken, he had said that this woman was his wife... Did this vile creature fall in love with this woman? Maybe that can explain why he’s so tame. ’

After the scare, the contract was concluded quickly, and seeing the information that the young man filled out, he had the final confirmation that he was really Sian.

After receiving the money, Priston was relieved, thinking that Sian would finally leave.

"With that, the contract is concluded." He said.

But contrary to his expectations, Sian started asking about taxes. Doing his best to answer his questions, Priston realized that he would have to return in the future to register for his inn.

Not wanting to meet him anytime soon, he convinced him to do one immediately.

After Sian left, as if he had just escaped death, Priston sank down on the couch relaxed while letting out a deep breath.

'I thought I was going to die.'

'I need to punish my guards, how can those imbeciles fail to recognize a national threat?'

After a brief moment of relief, he went to the desk drawer. After removing a small brown magic tool in the shape of a flattened circle with a blue magic stone in the center, he sat on the armchair.

This is a magical tool that serves for communication. It was given to him by Charlotte herself to be used in emergencies. Although communication was possible, it was not simultaneous. In addition to the fact that this tool uses up a lot of mana, it can just send a message and wait for a response.

When he activated the tool, it released a faint glow and shortly after, it started to blink, indicating that there was a message.

"What happened?" A voice came out of the tool.

Priston immediately sent a message about Sian's visit to Solaris.

Shortly after, a female voice came out. "Did he do anything bad in the town?"

For that question, Priston told her everything he knew.

After receiving a new message, he felt more relieved and leaned back in the armchair.