~Sigh~

"Seems like there was some misunderstanding in communication," Lucius spoke.

As soon as he said this, the faces of all the mercenaries fell, and they felt like they were about to lose all of their fortunes at once.

"You did not call for us?" Ariana asked.

The guards who were at the entrance instantly became upon listening that it was not Lucius who had asked for their presence. 

"Oh no, it's not like that. While I did call for you, the nature of the job is rather different." Lucius answered.

"What kind of a job is it? Please tell us, we will do our best to complete it." Gellor said, urgency apparent in his eyes.

Lucius noted the tone of his voice and guessed that there was perhaps more to their visit than just the job. Finding it to be a bit intriguing, he waved to the guards.

"Let them in," Lucius said before entering with the horse.

~Phew~

Gellor and his comparison took a breath of relief and followed behind Lucius. They reached the entrance of the mansion where Lucius got down from his horse and let a servant take it away. 

"Come, let's talk inside," Lucius spoke and walked to the main hall.

Currently, the main hall was empty as Gabriel was out doing his work while Lita was doing the same. Both the husband and wife had been rendered busy with the tasks that had been raised due to Lucius's plans.

But it was not like they didn't want to do it or that they were reluctant. Rather, they were happy to do and were giving it their all. That was the main reason for their absence from the mansion for most of the day.

These days they would leave at around eight am in the morning and come back at dinner time directly. Lucius would talk to them in the morning about how their work was going and would work on his own stuff throughout the day, before meeting them again at night.

Such was the routine they had formed, and it was steadily progressing towards the path Lucius had chosen upon. 

Still, the servants were quick to notice that Lucius had arrived and brought him refreshments without asking, while one of the servants went to inform Kiana. The latter part was an order Kiana had given all the servants in relation to Lucius.

Even though Kiana was technically a maid herself, no servant in the family would dare to denigrate her for that. Even with her job as a maid, her status was far above them, and while they did not exactly know why, they knew better than to meddle with it.

Since both the Count and the Countess were in agreement, there was nothing they could say. In fact, if one day even Lucius decided to become a servant, they would not question it either and would just think it was his will.

Such was the training that they had received over the years.

"Come sit," Lucius asked them.

"Thank you, Young Lord Asher." Gellor spoke for him and his companions.

Sitting down on the soft couch, Lucius took a sip of the cool juice that had just been brought by the servants. The others also got their own individual glasses and drank apprehensively. But now that Lucius was looking at them, he realized there was one person missing.

"Wasn't there one more person in your group?" Lucius questioned.

"Yes… Finch." Gellor answered.

"Oh yeah, where is she?" Lucius asked, feeling curious.

"Umm… that is also one of the reasons why we came here today, Young Lord Asher," Gellor replied.

"Oh, is that so?" Lucius responded in a calm tone.

"We-we… we want jobs that can pay us a large amount of gold." Gellor let it out.

"Haha! Well, isn't that what any mercenary wants? Why is it that you all had to come to me personally?" Lucius questioned again, realizing that Kiana's invitation to them may have given them this excuse.

"Yes, you are right, Young Lord. But we need the gold for the treatment of Finch." Gellor revealed.

"Treatment? Why's that, is Finch injured or sick?" Lucius questioned.

"Yes… She's injured." Gellor replied.

"Is it from the mission last time? But from what I heard it was Ariana and Barty that got injured." Lucius asked further.

"No, they recovered after that. Finch got injured due to something else." Gellor spoke with slight hesitation.

"And what is that?" Lucius questioned, feeling a bit more stance now.

Gellor was now hesitating even more and didn't know if he should speak or not. But then Ariana put her hand on his back.

"Go ahead and tell him. We need to get her help somehow." Ariana said to him in a low voice.

Lucius narrowed his eyes at this interaction, but did not question it for now.

~Sigh~

Gellor let out a sigh of helplessness before lifting his head and looking straight at Lucius.

"Finch was injured due to an artifact," Gellor revealed.

Lucius simply tilted his head, gesturing him to continue.

"Young Lord Asher must know that if one uses an artifact once they have exhausted their Aether it can cause some injuries. And depending on the level of Artifact it was, the injuries could vary in the severity.

Finch was injured due to the forced usage of an Epic Ranked Artifact." Gellor explained.

"An Epic ranked Artifact?!" Lucius was shocked, to say the least.

Even for nobles, getting an epic ranked artifact was a tough task. In many cases, an Epic Ranked Artifact could be considered to even be more valuable than a person with an epic rank. The cause of this being that the person's lifespan was limited to less than a hundred years while an artifact could potentially last for thousands of years.

Many noble clans had heirlooms, which were nothing but artifacts that had been passed for many generations through their family. This was also one of the reasons why they even have epic ranked artifacts as buying a new one was immensely difficult.