Chapter 118 - Slacking Off Finally? (Patreon)

"It seems that you have made a new, comfortable life for yourself, Albus, now that you have an entire army of employees to do your job."

Valkorion said as he entered the office of his friend, whom he saw drinking some kind of alcohol and reading a book.

Somewhat contradictory to the image when one thought about all of the employees of the Ferros Chamber of Commerce who were working so hard, as if their very own lives depended on it.

Well, he could understand the sentiment, why work hard, when someone else would do all of the work in your place, and do it probably even better than you in the first place. Albus Ferros was here only to make the most critical decisions and confirm some other decisions that his subordinate had made.

He wasn't here to do the menial jobs, now that the business of the shop, due to the goblinoids, was booming, and the Clan Ferros was obviously going to capitalize on that situation. 

"Well, I have people for that... and even then, the amount of paperwork that they are bringing to me every day is staggering and annoying at the same time."

Albus frowned as he looked at Valkorion, noticing the small Drake Hatchling that was eying him, as the small lizard noticed that Albus was looking at him and bared his teeth and claws. 

Clearly challenging the human to do something and assuming superiority over the human. Even Valkorion found such behavior rather entertaining, because the little guy didn't really know fear.

Or self-preservation.

Who knew which of the two?

"So why did you come to see me? I doubt that it's just out of the goodness of your heart... did my cousin send you?"

Albus Ferros rather nervously asked as he mentioned his cousin, because he suspected that his cousin had sent Valkorion to check on him to ensure that he was doing his job and not lazing around.

"No. However, I need to relay the information from General Belaerys from the Legion in the Cartahrys that they need more supplies. The same order, but multiply it twice. At the same time, report to Camille that General Belaerys agreed to help the Trifarian Mercenary Company in their quest against the bandits and brigands backed by the Arvinos, and he also agreed to pass the information about their connection to the Sons of the Harpy to the Council and let them investigate it."

Valkorion wasn't really here to check on Albus and what he was doing or anything.

He came here just to report the information that he learned from General Aenar Belaerys and place the order for more military supplies for the Legions in the Cartharys. Albus Ferros listened to everything that Valkorion spoke with keen ears, because he knew that these were very important things that concerned the Clan Ferros.

Even though he was deeply interested in politics and other aspects of the Clan, like his cousin Camille Ferros, who was already ruling the Clan as the Heiress Apparent, as her father, the current Patriarch of the Clan Ferros, was leaving more and more competencies to her.

"I will relay the information back to the Clan's Headquarters. It seemed that this time, it was a great victory for us."

Albus Ferros said with a sigh because it seemed that on this one, the Clan Ferros won a lot.

The Arvinos Clan was their greatest rival in the past years, and if their connection with the Sons of the Harpy became public knowledge, acknowledged by the Freehold's Council, then it would be the downfall of the entire Arvinos, and they would most probably be exterminated by the Valyrian Freehold.

"Well, now, if you excuse me, it seems that I need to return to the job and prepare a huge order for the weapon and other war material to the Legion, which would require another logical miracle."

It wasn't just Cartharys, but the Ferros Chamber of Commerce was now supplying weapons to all surrounding cities and towns within the vicinity of the Painted Mountains. At the same time, they were also sending a lot of war material to the various villages that were in the area, which needed weapons and potions to defend against the goblinoid raids.

So, placing another extraordinarily large order on the weapons and war supplies would be stretching out the logistics of the Ferros Chamber of Commerce a bit.

"I also forgot to mention, that General Belaerys told me that they would provide security for the convoy."

Even though the Valyrian Freehold was huge and the Valyrian Legions were evenly spread across the entire territory of the Freehold, bandit attacks or attacks of the various monsters or Extraordinary Creatures still happened from time to time.

Transporting large amounts of cargo from one point to another through land always carries a huge amount of risk.

That was the reason why the Chambers of Commerce or merchants in general were always hiring protection detail from the ranks of the Sellswords, Mercenary Companies, Adventurers, Independent Beyonders, or from their own armed forces if they had any.

"That's rather surprisingly good news and not something that I would expect from the General... maybe they really need the supplies so much..."

On average, this could be considered as highly unusual behavior from the Valyrian Legions, as they scarcely provided protection detail for the supplies that they were buying unless under specific conditions.

Even though Valkorion found this rather ineffective, because they were not even providing protection to their own war materials, he understood that the Dragonlords were most probably too confident in the capabilities of their Dragons and fearful of keeping their supply lines undisturbed and safe.

It was part of their inherent arrogance and also due to the very high independence of individual Generals in charge of the concrete Legions.

When one looked at the internal functioning of the Valyrian Freehold, it became very clear that the Freehold was just a somewhat stable/unstable confederation of the Dragonlord Family and their territories that either worked together or not.

Though if there was some outside threat to the Freehold, like the Evil Gods, Cultists like the Cult of the Damned, or the possible Deadric Incursion, the Freehold was internally unified, and they would really work like one nation.

Yet...

In many different situations, they were highly independent, and everyone would mostly only care for themselves and not for the wider picture or the Valyrian Freehold as a whole.

Valkorion knew if not for the Triarchy, then the Freehold would have already fallen apart long ago to the infighting, as it was not only the infighting of the Dragonlord Families, but also that of the differences between the Beyonder Organizations native to the Valyrian Freehold, some religions, and also more powerful Noble Valyrian Houses.

The centralization of the government in the Freehold was something around zero, and the Valyrians were highly independent, as there was barely a codified Law Code for the entire Freehold due to the highly independent territories of the Dragonlord Families.

Indeed, it was a weird state that wouldn't have really existed without their personal power or Dragons, because it would have already been destroyed by the outside enemies, or the enemies within, or due to the infighting.