If I wanted to liquidate every asset we got from this clash I could easily double this amount, but as I decided to start my own little nation in the form of this settlement, I had a need for them.
However, the biggest gain I received from this invasion was most certainly the manpower. While the 800 or so soldiers were admirable, the real win was Blackjack and Kai’s six slaves. Blackjack alone should be worth around 50 gold, but it was hard to guess his real value because not many people were insane enough to sell such high-level combatants, thus there was not much of a market record I could reference when estimating his worth.
The six women would be worth less individually, but together they should be worth around 100 golds at least. The tanned redhead mage was about equal with the level 24 Selene, so she should be at least level 20. The Healer was probably the most valuable of them all, at least if Seraphiel manages to bring her back to a non-vegetative state due to Blossom’s ‘Blossom spared her life like Master ordered!’ mauling session which saw the blonde healer be a single hair width’s away from death.
My [Subjugation] was low on capacity so they would have to wait a few days sadly until I got to them, but their subjugation was definitely high on my to-do list.
As for the name of the nation? It was a work in progress. It would not be ‘Ascendants’ as that was the name of my faction, which would be a separate entity. Only my mighty subordinates would be Ascendants, thus for now we only had a few members.
It was time I gave a friendly visit to the Blackthorn family. I gathered numerous accounts from the defeated soldiers, according to them no one should be on Blackjack’s level in their service, not even close. Kai was recently hired by them, and I seriously doubted that they could hire another Mithril-level adventurer team.
More and more people trickled in through my gate, it was funny seeing their visages go from terrified beyond reason to childlike glee.
Sadly I couldn’t summon multiple [Warp Gates] and it was not wide enough to support two-way continuous traffic, meaning if two people tried to pass from each end at the same time, they would bump their heads together. To combat this limitation we will have to set up a traffic coordinator. Honestly, I didn’t feel like dealing with any of this mundane stuff and I was very eager to bash in some Blackthorn skulls so I walked back through my gate and put my hand on Ayame’s delicate shoulders.
“As my second in command, this will be your first real test. See the settling of affairs to the best of your abilities, I trust you, my beautiful samurai.”
“…” She eyed me for a moment while staring deep into my soul. “I have no problems with it, but it’s very obvious that you just want to leave all the boring administrative issues to me.”
“That’s an outrageous lie, a horribly unjust claim against my fair character. As a woman who was brought up to be a future duchess, you’re the best candidate for the job. I believe no one could do it better than you. As simple as that.”
She continued staring into my eyes for a few extra seconds before bursting out into a cute giggle. “Hehehe… I knew that this was exactly what I signed up for when I accepted the rank, so go, Quin, have fun.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. No grumbling, no dissing, no arguments. What a lovely occurrence. I had to give her lush hair good, loving kiss on the top of her head from the joy I felt.
“Alright. I’ll leave most of the Ascendants with you, and I’ll keep the gate open at all times.”
She nodded at my words and moved to take control of the situation. There was a lot to do, and we wanted to be done as soon as possible before the world could get news of the events that went down here.
I elected to take Blossom, Selene, Lyra, and Cedric with me. We would form a good enough team. Blossom was paramount to sniff out traps and to track down any would-be escapists. Selene was more or less useless here because if she started blasting a lot of my new subjects would get burned alive. Lyra because I wanted to see more of our newest tanker and Cedric because he would fill the melee DPS role the best now that Ayame was doing other duties.
I left my girls here because I wanted them to experience leadership. As my most trusted allies, there might come a time in the future when I will leave them with teams of their own to accomplish objectives. And, more importantly, if I were going to be making my own nation they would be something like queens, thus people would be looking at them for guidance. Yes, giving them the opportunity to grow in this aspect of life was the correct choice.
My beloved dog-girl was beyond hopeless in this area so even if I left her here to help Ayame out, she would not gain any useful experience, therefore she was not missing out by coming with me.
I had to be a bit sparing with my mana because the more the gate was left open the more my mana reserves were drained, but I could do it for three days thanks to my gorgeous plump alchemist’s vials. Each time you drank a potion before giving your body the proper time needed to rest, the next intake of the same substance would lose a great deal of effectiveness, so it was not like I could chug potions and be at full mana forever, but thanks to my Primordial Villain class’ giant attribute boosts, I could manage three days. If push came to shove and I had to cast many spells, I could just close to gate and focus on my fights.
Anyhow, it was time to give the Blackthorns a long overdue friendly visit.