The Reincarnator's Inauspicious Route to Finding Love-Chapter 63: A Father’s Helping Hand (1)

Asher walked down the long and extravagantly decorated hallway. Lined along the walls were a mixture of plotted plants and glass cases that held copies of signed treaties and other important documents that represented the Kingdom’s growth. The documents were a reminder for those who walk along this path of everything their Kingdom and their people had accomplished. Though, they were only copies. The originals were kept hidden in the King’s study in a place where only Asher, his aide, and the Queen Regent knew about.

Loyal retainers and Asher’s highly-skilled aide followed along behind him. In front of them and behind them were two of Asher’s guards– royal knights who were a part of his private order. The small, yet not-so-small, group was headed toward the large assembly room inside the Conference Hall.

The Conference Hall was a state building that was broken up into two wings and it was where members of the council and the royal family convened to discuss state matters. The building also played host to trials and other such matters. The area of the building he was in was where the assembly room was located and it was only accessible to a select few.

Edrick called out to him. "Sire." His aide handed him a paper with a graphic outline and bullet point notes. "It’s a revised copy of today’s topics."

"Thank you, Edrick." Asher took the paper from him and quickly scanned it over, committing its contents to memory. When he was done, he folded up the memo and placed it in his breast pocket behind the handkerchief that was nestled there. Even if the paper only held an outline of the day’s topics and nothing of substantial importance such as exact details behind those topics, it would still be best to keep the paper close instead of allowing it the chance to fall into the hands of others.

When they reached the room, the other council members were already there. The members of Asher’s retinue stayed outside the room since they weren’t permitted entry. The only one to follow him in was Edrick.

Everyone stood up and bowed to him when they saw him. "Greetings and may the blazing dragon be with you, your Majesty!"

Asher held up his hand to signal them to cease their greetings. "You may all be seated now." He then proceeded to take his seat at the head of the table and the rest followed suit. Edrick, being his aide, stood behind Asher’s chair with his hands placed behind his back.

"Let us hear news about the South first."

The kingdom was broken into four regions; the North, the South, the East, and the West. Three council members were in charge of overseeing each region. Their jobs were to keep in contact with the nobles, the merchants, and the City Guard of that region to find out any significant happenings and problems that may be occurring in that area.

"The farmlands located in the Goldberg March produced less crops than the previous harvest due to the decrease in rainfall these past few months."

"Decrease the amount of taxes due for those who live in and around the areas that have been affected by the decrease in rain until the next harvest season," came Asher’s reply. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The three council members responsible for the South continued on, only having a few topics that were in need of discussion. The next region up was the East.

"The Second son of Count Katz was promoted to the position of High Priest of the Third Temple."

The Katz’ were a strictly religious family that had close ties to the church and had been one of the longest surviving noble houses. Being a stickler of the church’s teachings, they would frequently donate money and sponsor local orphanages and hand out food and medical supplies to the poor and homeless once a month.

The current Count of House Katz was a stubborn old man in his seventies who had stopped participating in High Society. Even though he had practically secluded himself to his territory, he was refusing to pass his title on to his heir.

The next region up was the West, which was seeing an influx in crime rate. Asher decided to delegate some of the Eastern region’s City Guard and a few of the knights from his order to the region to help with patrols. He was only able to dispatch a few of them since the Capital was facing its own problems.

"If that is all from the West, then let us hear from the North next," Asher moved the discussion onwards.

"The first and most serious issue is the recent disappearances. There has been an increase of runaways and reports of missing persons among the lower class."

The number of runaways had nearly doubled from the previous year. Asher had previously discussed this with both Nathaniel and Mikyle at different times to judge their insight as a Crown Prince and as the leader of an organization that focused on information gathering.

"There have been whisperings of a secret auction, one that specializes in illegal goods," Asher informed them. Based on the looks on their faces, a few of the Council members had already been made aware of these whisperings. "It’s possible that our missing citizens may be linked to this illegal auction." His sons had guessed that this illicit auction may have ties in the slavetrade business, a business that had been abolished in their Kingdom. He assumed that his boys had made this assumption based on rumors and evidence, though he wasn’t sure how solid the evidence they found was.

It didn’t matter though. His question had only meant to be a simple test. He needed to test his sons every once in a while since Nathaniel was to rule over this kingdom in the future and Mikyle was to be his aide. He used to test Lior, but ever since his youngest had decided to marry into a foreign empire, Asher had decided to drop the random tests. It was the only kind thing he could do for Lior since he was sure that Duke Rosset would be holding his own tests once Lior safely arrived in the Tarragona Empire.

"Do you mean to say that this auction house and the recent disappearances are connected?!"

"If that’s true, does that mean that they are kidnapping people to sell them as slaves?!"

"Slavery is illegal! Which noble house would be foolish enough to purchase slaves?!"

"What if the auction house is transporting them to other nations? Slavery is only banned in our kingdom but the other nations still practice that barbaric act."

"Please, calm yourselves. His Majesty never claimed that the two were related. We are merely jumping to conclusions."

Asher gave a slight nod of thanks to Marquess Jameson even if he had slighted him with his words. Though I technically never did say the two of them had any correlation.

"Marquess Jameson is right. There is no need to panic." He motioned to Edrick who then took out a folder with neatly stacked papers inside of it from under his arm. Edrick then began passing out pages that had been clipped together. Each paper held detailed documentation of the location of the auction house, the prior goods it had sold off during previous auctions, a list of names that belonged to the auction house’s clientele, and a list of names that had matched the names of not those who were reported missing but of those who had been reported as runaways.

Upon learning that the number of runaways had increased, Asher had sent his private guard, The Dragon’s Pearls, to investigate the matter. He had found that the auction house had been targeting lower class commoners and had been abducting teenagers and young children who exhibited a strong Mana Capacity. The people from the auction house would then forge letters to make it appear that that child had run away to find a job, and in some cases, to look for better living conditions. The auction house would then invite a select few nobles from the Velron Kingdom, the Shigaron Kingdom, and two other neighboring Kingdoms to join in on the auction.

Asher was fine with sharing this information since none of the Council Members had any ties to anyone associated with the auction house. He also had everything in place to raid the auction house that very night.

And Mikyle believes he is the only one in this family who has built up a strong information network. I doubt he’s even realized that Henry and Meredith used to be my men.

"My word!" came the various gasps of disbelief. It was unthinkable that such a heinous crime had been committed from right underneath their noses.

"We must do something about this!"

"Having something like this happen in the capital– the heart of our kingdom– we must put a stop to it!"

Asher resisted the urge to scoff at their remarks. The capital, just like any other large city that saw a lot of trade in their kingdom, always had a high crime rate. Though this was the first time they had found evidence of slavetrade happening within their borders in twenty years.