About a week had passed since the order to set up bounties and rewards had been given. A series of arrests had been made in succession that had led to the decrease in the crime rate of the city rather quickly.

Though it had also led to the overwhelming of the current prison system, but it was merely a temporary thing. 

Lucius, Gabriel, Lita and Kiana were sitting around on the table talking about the effects that had taken due to the changes they had made.

"The number of criminals currently in prison had increased to over four hundred. I don't think we will be able to hold much more without expanding the prison." Gabriel stated.

"I'm also worried that we won't be able to keep them for long seeing as the more criminals we have there for long periods, the more problems we would have in keeping them in line." Gabriel added.

Lucius header it and found it to be reasonable. This was a problem that was observed by a lot of places that had a high crime rate and low taxes such that they could not set up bigger prisons.

"But now that we have put them in prison, we can't just release them either, can we? It would just lead to them causing more crimes later, plus in the way they were arrested there is also a chance that they might try to take revenge on us." Lita voiced her concerns.

Lucius smiled as his time to speak had finally come.

"I've already thought of all this Father, mother. I know that just letting the criminals out in the society might not be the best choice as they will probably just end up going back to their old lives.

Instead of doing that, I have a different solution." Lucius spoke.

"Oh? And what's this solution that you have thought of?" Gabriel questioned.

"Re-education centers. The criminals will be sent there to train them and change their mindset. That way they will be far less likely to become criminals again and we may even have letterer productive members of the society." Lucius answered.

"And how will you be doing this?" Gabriel asked.

"For this, I would like father to give me free rein to set it up. I would like to undertake this personally." Lucius stated.

Gabriel furrowed his brows, as this was a rather large responsibility. Not only would it be difficult, but also dangerous on a certain level. While most of the criminals were petty ones, there were still a few dangerous ones among them.

Gabriel was worried about Lucius getting hurt due to that.

"I'll fully support young lord Asher in this, Count. You won't have to worry about it and I'll be assisting him too, with a few more servants." Kiana suddenly spoke.

Hearing the words of Kiana, Gabriel was a bit surprised, but after thinking for a bit, he nodded.

"Fine, if you want to do it, you can go ahead. But don't hesitate to contact me." Gabriel said.

"Yes! Be careful and don't let the criminals hurt you. Even if there will be other guards there, things can change very quickly." Lita said with concern.

"Don't worry mother, I'll be taking all precautions," Lucius said before looking at Kiana. "Besides… I don't think Kiana will let anything happen to me." He added.

"Of course. If anyone dares to harm the Young lord, they shall be executed without question." Kiana said with a spark of fury in her eyes.

Just imagining Lucius getting hurt was painful to her and she would be the worst nightmare of anyone that tried to do that.

***

After having convinced the parents, Lucius quickly set up his plan. He had already discussed some initial parts of it with Kiana and thus she had actually been busy in seating up some basic requirements of the Re-education Center.

The first thing they needed was manpower, which was easily solved with the help of certain servants from the mansion. These servants were handpicked by Kiana and were the most trustworthy, according to her.

In addition to this, several other acquaintances of Kiana that she knew outside of the mansion were also contacted. These people were either mercenaries, laborers or the common folk.

All of this was done before Lucius had even talked to Gabriel and Lita about the re-education centers. He did this so that they would be able to save as many time as they could and the process would be fast.

Besides, it was not like they had much time left either. It had already been ten days since the letter about the arbitrator had arrived and if they were unlucky, the man would arrive in the next four days.

And because of this, Lucius had decided to take a small risk and go ahead with the plan in the background without informing Gabriel and Lita. He had already learned how much liberty he could take with the two of them, and all of this was within the purview of his authority anyway.

Thus invitations were extended to the people Kiana had selected out of the mansion and several of them had responded to Kiana's call. The only thing was that they did not know what they were being called for. 

"Are they all ready?" Lucius asked Kiana as he got put on his brooch on the vest.

"Yes, they are all ready and waiting for you in the hall. They are all wondering what they are here for though," Kiana replied.

"Mmm… don't worry, I'll convince them all. And once that is done, the rest of it should be smooth sailing." Lucius said with confidence as he walked ahead.

Outside, a crowd of around fifty people was standing around. Some of them seemed a little lost while some of them were nervous. There were also some servants of the Inanis family mixed in them, that were talking and comforting them.

After all, this was a rather strange situation that they were in.

~step~step~step~

The sound of crisp footsteps pulled the attention of the crowd towards the small dais that had been set up.

"Ladies and Gentlemen… Welcome!" Lucius greeted with a smile.