Chapter 519: Unexpected Offer

Freya POVShe chuckled with amusement when the displays above the arena showed the end of the fight between Julius and Valis’s newest disciple. The old crackpot had surprisingly gone with a totally different disciple from his last one. Way less violent and way more calm.

It was a total contrast to Valis himself.

The older man wasn’t as wild as he used to be. She had seen some of it herself, but apparently, he had been terrible in the past. She heard stories from Galten and other older mentors she had met over the years. Apparently, Valis had been a vicious demon who liked nothing more than blowing stuff up.

He solved every issue with the same method. Overwhelming power, and if that didn’t work, then he would use his next strategy—even more power.

Valis’s brazen actions had created more than a few issues with various countries and organizations over the past several decades. People often didn’t take it kindly when a Tier 6 archmage blew up half a city just to kill a few monsters.

Especially when that person was skilled enough to avoid such things.

It was only because Valis made sure to limit actual human casualties that he was saved from being hunted down by other Tier 6s. He had quite an honorable set of morals if you looked at it from a particular perspective.

For example, he always made sure to save people; it was one of his main priorities, right up there with blowing stuff up. However, he didn’t give a shit about buildings or structures either. He would blow those things up in a heartbeat if it meant he could use a flashy skill.

She had actually been there when he had teleported over a thousand people with an overly complex spell to safety so that he could use an explosive spell that destroyed everything within half a mile. The townspeople were happy that they survived, but they didn’t care for the excessive explosion that followed.

They were even angry enough to complain to the man afterwards.

Freya rarely saw anyone below Tier 5 actually voice complaints to a Tier 6. Typically, they were scared that they would be wiped out or erased from existence. Yet, Valis didn’t do that.

It wasn’t to say that he was very sorry for what he did. Valis barely listened to their complaints and really only cared about practicing his explosion spell.

Although, to the archmage’s credit, he had helped with the cleanup afterwards. He even set up some powerful wards and enchantments around the town as a way to . But Freya suspected it was to train some of his skills rather than from the kindness of his heart.

Still, it would have been a little heartwarming if not for Freya overhearing him mutter something about how there should have been more enchantments and protections in the first place. She almost attacked the man for his audacity.

He honestly thought that the town would have enough protections installed that it could ward off a fully powered spell by a Tier 6 mage. How he came to this conclusion, Freya had no idea.

The man was an idiot and would essentially be a psychopath if he had just one or two more screws loose.

Thankfully, this attitude had slowly transformed over the years. She suspected it had something to do with the death of Valis’s old disciple. His name had been Abrel if Freya recalled correctly.

Abrel had died while protecting a large town from a monster flood.

It had been a bleak fight in the first place. Most of the region’s fighting power had been occupied elsewhere. They weren’t able to protect everywhere at once, but the young man had been out training on his own and decided to help out a town being overrun by a horde of strong monsters.

While Abrel had inherited his master’s bullheaded attitude, he also inherited his master’s strength and heroic spirit.

He singlehandedly defended the town and defeated countless monsters for almost an entire day without rest. Unfortunately, by the time reinforcements arrived, Abrel was already dead; the only thing that kept him going was his stubborn spirit.

Powerful healers tried to save him, but the damage he had sustained had been too much. Not to mention the damage caused to his soul for overdrawing his strength for such a long period.

He was gone, but he had left a lasting memory of courage and sacrifice. The town that had survived thanks to his efforts had decided to rename itself in honor of Abrel.

Valis had been changed ever since then. He hadn’t caused many huge issues, and looking at the disciple, she had an idea of why that might be.

Riven was very different from his master in that he had multiple techniques to handle any problem. Each of them was powerful as well. Four perfect affinities and an unknown number of exceptional affinities were a generational talent, especially for someone with the predisposition of a mage.

The only person she had seen with a similar level of mana control for his tier was someone like Julius, who was not someone to compare to a Tier 3. She had already begun to think of him as a Tier 4. He basically met all the standard requirements of a normal Tier 4. The main thing that he was missing was the actual label.

However, it was nice to see him struggle a little bit against someone around his own age and tier. She felt like Julius sometimes didn’t perceive Tier 3s as a threat. While he had reason to believe that, she didn’t want him to learn that type of mindset.

Once you started to believe that someone’s tier was an actual indicator of strength, that's when you got into trouble. She had met plenty of unique monsters who had the strength of a tier or sometimes even two tiers above it.

One of the most difficult fights in her life had been against a unique Tier 4 monster. Even with Cain at her side and both of them being at Tier 5, the two of them struggled to fight the unique monster.

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They were actually forced to retreat the first time around. It wasn’t like they were newly advanced Tier 5s either. Cain was at the very peak of Tier 5, while she was pretty close to it.

That only made it even more embarrassing when they had to run away. Thankfully, the second time around had gone a little better, and they finally managed to strike down the beast.

However, not without severe costs.

Cain had lost both arms and sustained pretty bad damage to his mind. Freya hadn’t been able to heal him either. Even after death, the mana from the monster prevented her healing skill from working in Cain’s body. It worked fine for her and her injuries, but Cain was forced to go armless and be half-brain-dead for the next several months until she found a way to heal her husband.

In a lot of ways, Julius reminded her of that same monster.

That was why she wasn’t surprised when he finally figured out a way to get past all of Valis’s disciples' tricks.

However, the crowd thought otherwise. In their eyes, they had just seen one of the most promising and biggest favorites to win the tournament lose to a boy a few years his junior. Julius had garnered some attention during the first stage, but this was totally different. She suspected that he would be receiving much more attention in the coming days.

She smiled when she saw her husband jumping up and down like a child. He blended in perfectly with the crowd, running around and celebrating with random people he had never met before. In their shared excitement, they had practically become family for the next couple of hours.

She could only shake her head when he finally finished high-fiving a group of guys and even downed a beer when pressured by them.

Cain would always be Cain, and there was nothing more she could have wanted from her husband than for him to be himself.

However, as she was lovingly looking at her husband, she felt something, or rather someone, enter her domain. Her domain was more subtle than most other people’s, which was why she was able to keep it deployed at practically all times.

“Hello, Freya, or would you prefer it if I call you the Saint of Winter?” A younger-looking man asked her with amusement tinting his voice.

“Just Freya is fine with me. I am not one for titles,” she said uncaringly, not even bothering to look at the man. He was Tier 5, and while she had just internally scolded Julius for judging people by their tier, she also didn’t see the threat this person posed.

Just from his aura, she could tell that he was not a real fighter. Most likely, they were some kind of rich person who consumed a lot of treasures or had other forms of aid. However, it wasn’t like it was a crime to approach someone, even if they clearly had an agenda. She was curious what they were here for.

Most people didn’t even know that she and her husband were in the Capital. Only a few people were privy to that information. Perhaps someone had recognized Cain during his excitement.

“My name is Wesley and I am honored to meet you,” the man said with a short bow.

She recognized that name, and she already had an idea why he was here. Wesley Greyson was essentially the Duke of House Greyson at this point. While his father was still technically the title holder, it was well known that Dolan had no interest in politics and had been wanting to hand off the responsibility for years.

Unfortunately, his son seemed to differ and had an attraction to politics. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here.

“Wesley Greyson, I presume?” She asked to make sure.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Freya finally took a moment to examine the man more closely. He was traditionally handsome with slicked-back black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He also had a bright smile that naturally drew your attention. She would not be surprised if he had multiple social skills or some kind of aura that helped him appear more trustworthy.

It was safe to say that she already didn’t like him.

“Why are you here?” She asked, not showing an ounce of emotion.

“I think you have an idea why I am here,” Wesley said, meeting her eyes without so much as a twitch.

“What do you want with Julius?” She asked, extending her aura slightly, making sure that he felt it.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Hard to believe after all the things you have already done,” she said with a pointed glare.

He raised his hands. “I admit we might have interfered a little bit, but that is completely on Clan Genshen. They asked for my help and I reluctantly agreed.”

“Oh? So your only involvement is because of Clan Genshen?” She asked for clarification, waiting to see if he lied to her. He hadn’t so far, but she was pretty sure that he had some kind of skill that would help him hide it if he wanted to lie.

That was why she hated dealing with nobles and their politics. They didn’t have normal skill sets that helped with combat. Instead, many of them chose to go down other routes. They had similar skills to those that merchants often used.

Speech-related skills were common, too, but she suspected that Wesley was smart enough to know that it would be a bad idea to use them on Freya.

“Yes, House Greyson has no reason to offend Julius.”

She didn’t detect any falsehoods. That was a concern.

“You mean not anymore, now that you know he’s my disciple, right?” Cain’s voice suddenly loomed over them.

Wesley tried to hide it, but she could tell that he was much more nervous with Cain than she was with her. For good reason, too, Cain was always unpredictable. It was on purpose as well. He always made sure to be as unpredictable with nobles as possible. It worked very well for him for the past several years.

Wesley nodded reluctantly. “There is some truth to that. When I got word that young Julius was seen with you two, I immediately knew it would be a bad idea to do anything else to him. I told Clan Genshen that we would not help him if they asked for any more favors against Julius.”

“So what? You are here to… apologize?” Cain asked with a frown. “There must be another reason why you are here. Otherwise, I don’t think you would be here in person and would have sent a representative from your house.”

Wesley nodded. “Yes, I came to you two today to apologize for any offenses House Greyson might have caused you two—”

“Julius as well,” Freya reminded with a glare.

Wesley bowed to them. “Yes, and most importantly, Julius as well. But also because I have something I wanted to offer you two.”

Freya observed when Wesley removed a package from his storage ring and offered it to her. He also handed her a small letter to accompany it.

“The letter describes everything about the offer, and the package is just a gift for the inconvenience my house’s associates might have caused you.”

“What is the offer?” Cain asked, not bothering to open the letter, and asked the noble directly.

Wesley bowed once more. “The letter will be able to describe better than I can. I will say that several other Tier 6s have already accepted the offer. But if you have any questions, there is a small communication token inside the package, too. Use that to contact me if you wish to have some questions answered or if you wish to accept the offer.”

After he said that, Freya watched as Wesley got up and dipped his head low, before leaving as quietly as he had come.

Nobody in the crowd seemed to have taken notice of him the entire time.

“What do you think?” Cain asked her once he was gone.

“I think I am starting to hate nobles even more than I already did,” she said with a grimace.

“Yeah, maybe I should have slapped his head off.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” she said with a sigh.

“Fine, but you gotta admit that would probably feel amazing,” Cain stated with a grin.

She couldn’t help but smile alongside when she imagined that scenario. “Yeah, it probably would.”