Lord Malan finally saw the dark side of Ghost. The usual cool smile disappeared and was replaced with a cold murderous look. Even he felt slightly nervous after hearing about the poison in Ghost's hands.
"Use this to kill your brother" Michael handed over the poison to Lord Malan.
Lord Malan took a long sniff yet he could smell nothing. It was no different than water.
"As you said earlier, I do have ambitions and I like House Bradley to be my ally. After killing your brother, you and I know that it'd take even more cleaning in the house before stabilizing the family. I'll help any way I can to strengthen your position as the house leader"
"In other words, we'll supply you with this poison to take care of the vultures and anyone who opposes you in House Bradley," Gaya said. Lord Malan knew that he had to kill more people after killing his own brother. Until now, he was trying to be ignorant of the fact but these two youngsters reminded him.
Michael now took the upper hand in the negotiation. Lord Malan was desperate enough to ask his help to kill his own brother, how could Michael not use this opportunity to establish a connection with House Bradley?
If he could get his arms around the leader himself, House Bradley would be as good as his own. At this time, he would help do their dirty work, in the future, however, they would be the ones doing his dirty work.
"In return, I want House Bradley to provide me the security service for all my future business empires"
"What's your current price? 25% in profits? We'll give you 10%" Gaya finished Michael's sentence. Malan very well knew that the moment he revealed his desperation, they gained the upper hand. Yet, this deal did sound like a good one to regain House Bradley's power. He heard about the Majestic and the restaurant Ghost was building; it didn't take a genius to realize the revenue of fifty Majestic stores. If House Bradley were to protect everything Ghost builds,10% of the profits would be in millions per month. Just imagining it tempted Malan, overcoming the reluctance of killing many people on his way to the throne.
"Don't you have a single problem with my plan?" Lord Malan couldn't help asking. The last time he saw Ghost, he was with Nathen and they seemed like good friends.
"If you're asking me if I have a problem with killing Nathen's father, I don't. You approached me with a good deal and I took it, it's how this world works Lord Malan. We have to grab the opportunities that come in our way because they don't come often"
*************************************
Finally, Michael left the House Bradley compound leaving Malan with the poison to kill his brother. How he poisons his brother didn't bother Michael.
"So what happens to your no killing innocent rule?" while walking through the snow-covered street, Gaya asked.
"Do you really think Malan's brother is innocent? Besides, even if he is, we cannot conquer this world without directly or indirectly killing a few innocents. I'm not stupid or naive to think we can get everything we want without sacrificing a few innocents or bending some of our moral codes"
His words made Gaya arch her brows. She gently placed her hand on his shoulder,
"You are playing Lucifer, human, you're not him. Don't become the evil dark lord that the guardians claiming you will be"
"I know but there will always be dark before dawn" the more Michael moved forward with his plans to conquer this world, the more blurry the lines between good and bad become.
Soon, they found a dark alley to change their faces and clothes to become completely new persons before leaving for the Southern Continent.
"Where to?" Michael asked. He now looked like an average-looking youngster with shoulder-length raven black hair. As the majority of the youngsters in this world, he sported the clean-shaven look instead of his current stubble beard look. His grey long-sleeved, leather jacket covered him too well below his knees and was half buttoned up slightly off-center. The sleeves of his jacket were quite narrow and reached down to well below his hands, they were decorated with a decorative band almost at the edges.
The jacket had a wide v-neck which revealed part of the stylish black shirt worn below it and was worn with a dark rope belt, which was held together by a big belt buckle. The rope belt was mostly decorative but did serve its purpose
His black pants were simple and quite narrow and reached down to his soft leather boots. The boots were made from pretty unusual leather but were otherwise an ordinary design.
Gaya on the other hand changed her hair from golden to dark brown and put the hair into a long ponytail instead of letting her hair free as she usually did. She wore the exact same clothes as Michael except she wore a breasts holder underneath her shirt.
"To Kingdom Dradel"
As she said, they took off from Icefair towards Kingdom Dradel. Regardless of night and day, they continuously fly towards Kingdom Dradel, taking only a few breaks for Gaya to munch on the food she brought. She was a girl who would share everything with Michael except her biscuits. However, Michael would steal some of her biscuits just to make her mad which would eventually lead him to taste her cherry lips in the mid-air.
It took them two weeks to reach the capital of Dradel. The city immediately reminded Michael of the city of Venice.
"Welcome to Bay City," Gaya said, looking at the city on the horizon. Michael could see depots, huge ships that he only saw in fantasy movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, and buildings built-in water. Except for huge sail ships, the city completely resembled Venice to him.
He couldn't see a city wall around the city nor any guards.
"What are looking at? Bay City has no entree fees, fuckers milk the people by other taxes like a trading tax" they descended to the streets on the water.
The people seemed like they were accustomed to seeing new faces every single day. The women carried baskets filled with freshly baked bread while most of the men near the depot worked various chores. Occasionally, Michael could see fancy carriages strolling towards the harbor area. However, his eyes were focused on the gigantic man of war at the harbor. The ship had three masts, each with three to four sails. The man of war was 60 meters long and almost had 130 guns: four at the bow, eight at the stern, and the rest in each broadside
"How much would that cost us?"
She was familiar with his desire to buy fancy things like this.
"100 million gold coins minimum. I'll add that to the list you want to buy" she chuckled, punching him on the shoulder. Although she wouldn't be able to get him a man of warship for 100 million gold coins without him knowing, she would definitely gift him with something just as awesome as a man of warship.
"I want a fleet of man o warships' ' After hearing his desire to buy a bunch of islands to enjoy his weekends, this didn't surprise Gaya very much.
He began to walk towards the harbor taking his gaze away from the man of war on the horizon.
[Upgrade your Inventor trait to Star level 6 and the host will be able to build ships that makes this man of war looks like a fishing boat]
The system's voice made him halt his steps.
"Why are you smiling?" Gaya noticed the sudden wide grin on his face,
"We should find ourselves a loyal 5-star Blacksmith"
"Didn't you say Jack could become a blacksmith? He's loyal, why don't we kidnap him and make him work for us, I mean the other us?" She wanted to kidnap Jack to Abyssal but Michael knew this was not the right time to make a move on Jack. First, he wanted to see what it was like to be in the Southern Continent. If lady luck was on his side, he might be able to bring an army of Gladiators to Abyssal.
"We can talk about that after we came back from Southern Continent"
"What do you think we'll find in Kingdom Gisal?" Kingdom Gisal was the place the system showed him to go to find the source of Nightcrawler's artifact.
"I don't know but we'll find out soon enough," he said, walking through the crowd in the depot area. Soon after they crossed the depot area, they entered the harbor area where he saw ships of all sizes docked.
For the first time, he noticed groups of soldiers in metal armors at the far side of the harbor. On their side of the harbor, all the ships docked in were military ships that had cannons, mortars, and a few weapons Michael had no idea about.
"Ships to Kingdom Bredia!"
"We have ships going to the Ozer Continent, come to me to buy your tickets!"
"Three places available on a ship to the Southern continent!"
Michael turned his gaze away from the military harbor side to see a group of youngsters shouting at the crowd in front of them as loud as they could.
"What are we waiting for? let's go"