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After the meeting was over, many of the officers who were landowners scattered away back to their homes. They needed to attend to matters of the members under their care as well as distribute the spoils of war we were able to obtain.

That meant that the higher position you were in, the more things you had to distribute. Katalina also didn’t want to separate with me at all but knew it would be a problem so she said ‘I’ll be back’, just like a certain movie quote that’s popular, and went back to Liverpool to take care of her business.

The interior of the inner castle of London that was bustling with people just moments ago suddenly became completely empty. Technically, the only actual members of the Camelot kingdom were only me and Jasmine. Though Katalina and Esther served the Camelot alliance, it wasn’t like they were actual members of the Camelot guild itself.

But Jasmine wasn’t present at the castle within the London city as well. Saying that after becoming the Grand Smith, she now had a mountain of recipes that she can make use of, and wasn’t willing to leave her home which served as her workshop as well.

“I guess the only user here is me.”

There were definitely people around here, but it was just the guardsmen that are all NPCs. Honestly, considering that this is the headquarter of the guild that controls the nation, it looked pathetic and empty.

At this point, how would this differ from the castle in the sky? I began to earnestly think whether I should just increase the amount of security at this point. Then I realized that there was a guest that wasn’t invited to this place, to which I turned my head around to the hidden figure and opened my mouth.

“I’m not sure who you are, but you should come out and reveal yourself now.”

Even though I was distracted by other thoughts, it was impossible to avoid my detective senses unless they were equally high level as me. Especially in this wide-open area like the royal palace.

“Just as I thought, the only person that could see me was Miss Artoria. Or should I say, the Queen?”

Though she was playful, Tiara was nevertheless always trying her best to one day find a chance to land a fatal attack on me. As a mercenary that proudly stated that her dream is to one day stab her Nightmare dagger into my heart, I responded by saying that she can go ahead and try whenever she feels that she has the ability to do so.

In any case, if we are to keep interacting with each other in various ways then she’ll eventually grow fond of me, and I knew that there would be a higher probability that she would accept my attempt to ask her to join our guild at that point.

“Are you here to collect the payment for the contract?”

Thinking about it, the contract that I had made up with her back during the Edinburgh siege was going to expire today, so I asked her about it.

“Of course, that is also one of the reasons that I’ve come to you today but unfortunately I had failed my real objective in coming here.”
“Hmm. So just as I thought, your objective was to stab me.”
“You are quite educated, it seems.”
“It seems that you are not, Miss Tiara.”
“Ugh!”

Seeing her slightly enraged by my insult, she looked quite charming though in a different way than Katalina. You could say while Katalina has a thorny yet cute kind of image, Tiara on the other hand has a cold yet unexpectedly simple-minded charm.

“I’m just guessing, but with the server unification and practical end of all internal conflicts within guilds leading to a naturally lower amount of disputes, I’m sure that your reliable source of experience points has now diminished quite a bit, Miss Tiara.”
“I’ll decide how to move on and earn my living myself, so please stop pushing your nose into my business.”
“But from now on I will be battling against other nations after the unification of the server which leads to a steady increase of my experience points, and since you do not belong to any guilds, Miss Tiara, you’d just have to struggle to try to level up by killing monsters instead. The gap between our levels will keep increasing as time goes on, and you’ll end up just sighing deeply as time goes on and the gap becomes bigger.”
“… Hmm.”

It was clear that she was shaken by my comment. Honestly, what I said was the truth anyway so there was no avoiding that. If Tiara’s objective is to take my head, she’ll definitely have to participate in the war between nations, and she could take out high ranked users of other nations of which they have relatively lower levels than us allowing Tiara to reliably build up her experience points at a pace that she can at least keep up with mine.

“I also believe that in order to satisfy your parents’ greed which has been increasing even more these days, you’ll need a steady source of gold as well. On top of that, I also know that for you to secure the rights to managements for that certain clothing company that you are eyeing, you need at least 15% in total stocks as well.”
“Looks like you did a background check on me.”

Tiara’s expression grew cold. It’s obvious that the person who had their background checked wouldn’t be feeling good about it. I would have also felt disgusted if I had my background checked as well, but my point was that I did not check Tiara’s background with the intention to harm her.

“Please just take it as me being that interested in you, Miss Tiara.”
“In me?”

Her cold expression changed in a vague way as she kept her gaze on me. For a second I thought she had a blush on her cheeks, but when I looked closer it didn’t seem to be the case.

“But in any case, you are the only user in the entirety of the Blue Sky server that managed to land an attack on me after all.”
“Is that so…”

It was for a split second, but I did see that a smile had passed her lips. She was definitely feeling good about it. She honestly deserved to feel so, since back in the past when I was in Korea, I was on equal footing with high-ranked users even when my level was lower than them.

Though it always ended up in a draw due to their superiority in equipment and levels, in the current situation I don’t believe that I would be at a disadvantage to anyone in the game in terms of 1v1. So to have landed an attack on someone like me was something that anyone would be proud of.

“Therefore, I wish to bring up the offer to you again. How about you join the Camelot alliance?”

Though I had been rejected twice already, just like how Liu Bei asked Zhugeliang three times to get him to accept in joining him in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I felt that I should give it three goes at least. Of course, it wasn’t like Tiara was a strategist or anything, but she was definitely a person of talent. And though this doesn’t matter as much, there’s also the fact that she is a beauty to behold.

It was human nature that even if what they wished for was completely impossible to obtain, they still like being able to look at such beauty from time to time. I didn’t have any intention to suppress that human nature of mine.

“You brought up a very good offer for entry. A very charming offer indeed. But once I join the guild, I will no longer be able to attempt to kill you which was my main objective all along. You do know that, right?”

Tiara was certainly right about that. Obviously, guild members that belong to the same guild cannot kill each other.

“You are right about that, Miss Tiara. But do you truly wish to kill me that much?”

I attempted the first level in persuading, which was by pleading to the person first. Of course, it’s not like it was a real skill in the game that I was using, I’m just referencing the acting skill that I use whenever I have a heated discussion against Katalina in the past.

I remember that I actually had carefully persuaded Katalina before and blocked her tricky way with words.

“Yeah.”

Damn it. I guess this persuasion method only works against Katalina. I was willing to endure the disgrace I would feel by initiating this skill yet what she gave me was an insult instead…

I felt that I needed to change my plans for this.

“Hmm. Then let’s do this. You will join the guild, but you can also withdraw from the guild whenever you want.”
“Whenever?”
“Of course, not exactly whenever. Since if I were to be engaged against a powerful enemy and you suddenly say you want to cancel the contract and stab the Nightmare dagger in my back, I wouldn’t have any other choice but to die there.”
“That was what I was aiming for, though…”

Heh, I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trap like that.

“So what I mean is that you’d be able to withdraw after a mutual agreement and complete understanding of what you could gain and lose from the withdrawal.”
“Hmm… That would ensure the safety that neither of us could betray each other at any point in the future.”
“That’s correct.”
“But for a contract like that, we would need to both sign a proper contract.”
“Of course.”

I quickly pulled out a document that I had already prepared in my inventory and tossed it over to Tiara.

“Looks like you came prepared.”
“I told you, I have quite a big interest in you, Miss Tiara.”

Tiara nodded as if she understood what I meant. She then began to read over the contents of the contract. It probably is because she was trying to make sure there’s no weird clause hidden amongst the contract writing. Since the commissions of assassinations that she often received were done through contracts, it was obvious that she would be careful in reading those kinds of things.

But I had no intention to trick Tiara into agreeing to something she doesn’t want with simple wordplay.

“And what is this clause? It says ‘If you do not wish for your parents to turn hostile against you, you will never be able to break this contract.’, what do you mean by that?”
“It’s just as it says. Since I am investing my resources into you, I believe that you should concede that much at least to me. There’s no way that I would do such a thing that would cause your parents to harm you, right?”

Of course, together with the background check of Tiara, I had already finished making a deal together with Tiara’s parents with the help of a large sum of money, and had already matched our story together.

The problem is whether Tiara will fall for this bait or not, and since I think she has a simple-minded personality, there was at least a 50% probability that it would succeed. Though there definitely is a large probability that it could fail as well, if she does bite on the bait, then… Heh.

“Well, they do say that blood is thicker than water.”

‘Yes!’

I was finally able to land the huge fish I was trying to reel in. After signing the contract, she tossed the other half of the contract to me. Snatching the contract flying towards me with ease, I smiled with triumph as I carefully stored it in my inventory.

This was no different than now having a huge wild savage beast locked with a bridle that I control.

“For some reason, I feel like I made a huge mistake.”

Looking at Tiara who tilted her head feeling uneasy about the contract, I patted her back and told her that it’s just her imagination.

As I was able to successfully catch her¹ and bring her to my side, I went ahead and paid off the lump sum of money with a smile on my face. Though it did cost me 70,000,000 gold in total for it, I clearly saw just how effective of a tool she could be, so I felt that it wasn’t a waste at all.

“Now, what should I do?”

Since I finally accomplished what I dreamed of for so long, I tried to look for any job I needed to do with a light heart on my chest. Then the thought of needing to pay for the development expenses of the territory came into my mind. I’ve announced proudly that I was going to use my own private funds to pay for that expenditure, didn’t I? In order to carry out that promise, I felt that I needed to manage London city at least once.

Just like it was back in the Castle in the sky, all the control over regulations and rules over the city of London was located right at the lord’s home office.

I knew from information that I heard from various sources that you didn’t even need to turn on any particular device or anything, you simply needed to sit in front of the table at the lord’s home office, which would produce a system window that you can control all settings from. Thinking about it now, I never had any experience in managing a territory.

Though I was able to win and gain territory in the past, it was stolen before I could even manage it properly so I didn’t have any time to actually manage it myself. I was so busy trying to earn a living as well, so I felt that I didn’t need to particularly worry about such a small territory that would produce only a little amount of tax revenue over time.

Leaving the royal palace of which even Tiara had already left, I went straight to the lord’s home office. It was definitely larger and more grand than other lord’s home offices located in Liverpool or elsewhere, but for some reason, I felt that it was missing quite a lot.

“Then again, it’s the first time that this city is being managed by a user…”

Thinking about it, I was the very first owner and the lord of London city as opposed to cities and territories elsewhere. And I was also its very first manager, isn’t that right? It really made me feel that this was quite a special event.

“Alright, since I’m going to manage you, I might as well make you the best city in the world!”

I boosted my desire to do my best for just a simple reason.²

1. Congrats you captured a level 66 savage tiara!
2. Robinxen: Simple humans be simple!