Ajax spent the rest of the day burning through his mana and stamina before heading back home and making the final preparations for his family. According to the chedual they were following they should arrive sometime towards tomorrow evening and Ajax was planning to head out early in the morning to meet them on the way and join them for the last leg of the journey.

While the training he didn’t didn’t take all that much focus Ajax was concentrated more on what his new noble title would bring with it. His original plan of getting a title just to offer his family noble protection wasn’t as well thought out as he had thought, had he been given a sizable monetary reward along with a Viscount title like he had expected quite a few things could have gone badly for him in the long term.

As for the king's plans for himself Ajax was a little at a loss. Even back on earth the plans of politicians involved hidden schemes, bribes and strongarm tactics, this made trying to figure out what the king was doing very difficult. As far as he could put together the king was definitely looking to influence him, that influence however wasn’t subtle it was given a parade and being announced at every step, all with one simple goal : to get Ajax invested in his kingdom.

His healthy sense of paranoia kept trying to figure out what other plans could the king have but as far as he could tell there were none. Putting that aside for the moment Ajax started things on the more immediately important aspects of his title. Now that he was going to become part of the nobility this opened a lot of doorways that he had personally shut off before.

Tradition and common sense in the kingdom dictated that no nobles were going to invest heavily into a commoner without them formally joining their family, as such Ajax had shut down all those who approached him in order to maintain his autonomy. With him becoming a noble now however those choices were open once again as nobles often invested heavily into smaller and weaker houses with just the promise of their house being owed a favour. Favours that sometimes weren’t called in for a few generations down the line.

As his mind ran with one idea after another Ajax hadn’t managed to fall asleep until well into the night. This resulted in him sleeping in and only waking up once the sun shone through the window on his face. Despite being beside schedule Ajax still took the time to clean and properly dress himself, after all it was the first time he would see his family in months.

With all the preparations made Ajax was finally walking towards the city gates and he broke off into a run once he got past. There was something relaxing about the high speed job lightly powered by [Mana Syphon] as he made his way down the main road.

It was only a little past noon when he caught sight of the long caravan and he picked up speed for a quick final sprint. It didn’t take him long to pick out his family's wagons as he made straight for them.

As he stopped off to the side of his parent’s wagon Ajax didn’t even get a chance to offer a greeting as a furry wall of shadow crashed into him. The first to pick on his presence was Fluffy ofcourse. Ajax hadn’t expected the shadow cat that had been the size of a large dog to now be the size of a horse and was pinned to the ground as Fluffy intimated how much she missed him by rubbing her face into his neck.

“What’s wrong with you girl?” Tom asked as he quickly followed after the shadow cat once she dashed and shadow jumped away. “Ajax, is that you under there?”

“Woah, you got big didn’t you?” Ajax said as he pumped [Mana Syphon] so that he could lift Fluffy off of him.

Once he got up into a sitting position he quickly pulled out a level sixty monster core and used that to bribe the feline to get off him. Despite the increase in size the cat was just as responsive to the cores as she had been the last time Ajax saw her giving him a chance to get to his feet.

“Ajax!” he didn’t even get a chance to dust himself off as his mother wrapped him up in a strong hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I thought I told you in my last letter that everything had been going just fine.” Ajax teased though he returned the hug with just as much strength.

All of Ajax’s family was quick to gather around him as they settled in the biggest wagon where they had space to catch up. Despite the warm greetings Ajax was quick to focus on the unplanned aspect of their quick relocation to the capital.

“I know the plan was for us only to follow you to the capital in a few years but we happened to have some good luck.” Judy said.

“I know.” Ajax said as he looked towards Silvia.

“You know already?” Tom, Kate, Judy and Alana were shocked as they had only learned the specifics of their mysterious benefactor after they had already started the trip.

“You could say that in a way I am the reason why it all happened so quickly.” Ajax said as he started his story of explaining the dynamic he had with his grandparents during his time in the city.

Everyone was quiet by the end of the explanation, most didn’t know what to think. On the one hand Elija and Aurora had gone out of their way to help Ajax as much as possible but on the other hand they are also the ones that sent Silvia away.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Tom asked, the ingrained instinct of a guard to get the opinion from the man most familiar with the situation.

“That choice isn’t up to me.” Ajax said as he shook his head. “I made that clear from the start. Mom and dad are the ones who get to make that choice, I’m just going to make sure they have all the options available.”

“It’s not really all that much of an option.” Sam said, though each word was like pulling teeth.

Despite their initial reaction to him Sam couldn’t say that there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t understand where Silvias parents were coming from when they didn’t want their daughter to marry a nobody blacksmith apprentice, not to mention all of the help they had offered to the rest of their family after they found out about the attack on their village. What really pushed him past the denial however was Ajax’s confirmation from the moment he got his truth telling skill.

“With a baby on the way even if we could buy ourselves out of the contracts that will have a rough time standing on our own two feet.” Ajax was shocked by the statement.

“I have another sibling on the way?” Ajax asked his mother, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me in the letter?”

“There’s no sibling on the way.” his mother denied it with a small smile.

“You’re going to be an uncle little brother.” Tom said with a wide proud grin.

Ajax found that he felt happy knowing he won’t be the youngest of his family any longer. With a grandson to focus on his mother wouldn’t be as focused on him anymore and he knew just how much she had worried when he was dungeon delving almost every week back in Lessis so someone else taking the spot as the youngest in the family was a good thing.

“You don’t actually have to worry all that much about our standing in the city.” Ajax said as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. “You see, I went ahead and made sure you had the leeway to make whatever choice you wanted, not the choice you felt you needed to make. Though I do admit I have found myself needing some help in that regard.”

As he said this Ajax slowly pulled out the king’s letter that marked him as a future baron and showed it to them all.

“What is this?” Judy said as she quickly but gently grabbed the solid parchment only to freeze as she got a couple of lines in.

The reaction was mirrored by everyone else as they all quickly gathered around to read the letter until it got so quiet the wheels turning on the road was the only sound you could hear. “Is this for real?” Kate was the one to break the silence.

“I mean it,” Ajax said with a small satisfied smirk. “I really do need help with designing a house sigil, considering that my title wasn’t earned by a feat on a battlefield. The king will take inspiration from the sigil when giving us our last names so it has to be good.”

The remaining few hours turned from a nice family reunion into a family interrogation as the they got every last detail out of Ajax about his discovery and how he understood the situation.