Proposal

Lola

His eyes fluttered open, and I nearly looked away, before smiling at his handsome face.

We had slept late, but I am used to waking up early. I also have the Rest Skill. I do not need as much rest as he does.

He deserves the rest, after what he pulled last night.

"Like what you see?" he asked while caressing my lips gently, which sent shivers of desire through my whole body.

"Yes, very much," I replied and leaned for a kiss. It was soft and gentle and sent butterflies through my stomach, as always.

I let go of the kiss and moved on top of him, wanting to go for another round, but he stopped me, which surprised me. He never seemed to control himself with me, but now he stopped me with his expression becoming serious.

"Marry me," he said.

It felt like lightning had crashed on me. The words froze my mind for a second. It was not something, I had expected to hear from him.

I like him and even love him. However, I never let my thoughts go in those directions. Knowing that direction always causes pain.

I looked at him and he was dead serious.

I would be lying to myself if I said his proposal didn't make me happy. It made me ecstatic, but it also filled my heart with unbearable pain.

I know what I am; a whore, this fact will never change, while he is a scion of a powerful merchant house and one of the heirs. The union is not possible.

It won't be fair to him, and I will not become a mistress.

"No," I said, and could see pain filling his eyes, but there was no surprise at my rejection.

"Is it because of the contract? I am sure, Remus will let you go," he said, and I shook my head.

"No, it is not a contract. It is our worlds," I replied with a small smile.

If I didn't have the baggage of the past, I would have accepted instantly. I would have done, if it were me two years ago; that me was selfish and impulsive, but current me love this man and marrying him, would be doing him a grave injustice.

It will ruin him. His family would never accept me; they would disown him, than accept a whore into family.

"Then why?" he asked, with pain dripping through every word.

The silly man understood I would reject the proposal, but didn't understand the reason. There are several, the first being him and the second me.

I don't want to marry. I had just taken a step toward becoming something more than a whore. I don't know what I want, but I know, I want to become something, reach the height where the whore does not feel an insult to me.

I am not ashamed of my past. It is what saved me from the worse fate, I would have suffered, but whenever I heard the word 'whore' it hurts me.

The day, it didn't. I will think about the marriage.

"Let's not ask why and enjoy ourselves. I have planned a lot of things for us," I said and slid down on his member slowly and closed my eyes to forget everything else other than his love and pleasure.

…

"They are fattening us," said Colonel Cardin.

"Letting us grow our army and population. So, when they attack this time, they will have a pretty good harvest," he added.

"It is one possibility," I replied, looking at intelligence files, which were telling us nothing. It had been four months since the first attack and two and a half months since the second and since then, there had been no movement from the undead.

"What else it could be? I have read what they have done on the island, and it is classic fattening," he asked.

Nobody said anything, but he is making a compelling point.

Every city in the region is investing in security. The population had stabilized and, in some places, growing. Undead like such things, especially trained and leveled armies, that they could turn.

"It would have helped us. If we had some concrete information," said Colonel Azalea. There is a clear frustration in her voice.

"Whatever their reason is, we need to be prepared," I said and turned to Colonel Cardin.

"How is the factory coming?" I asked.

"Great, in two days, another delivery of tools coming from Namdar. If we are lucky, it should be finished by the end of the month," he replied.

We are building a cannonball factory. We use a lot of cannonballs and while they are not expensive, at least the common ones, we use them in large amounts, and that costs a lot of money.

It is an expensive project, but it will serve well in the long term.

It is imperative that we have our defense production. We can't depend on others for our every defensive need.

The cannonball factory is the best choice to start, seeing we have the most important material.

It is available quite cheaply for us.

The energy crystals. We have a lot of them and the great thing about it, is that for the common cannonballs, we don't need to process them as long as they have a certain level of purity.

Thankfully, we have crystals of the required purity.

The meeting was over a few minutes later, and I went out to inaugurate the hospital, before going to the establishment to check the progress. It was ten minutes to five when I returned.

I have a meeting at five and important. I am going to do something that I had wanted to do in the past five months, but it was not the right time.

Today is the right time.

Click!

"Master Silver, Mr. Ashav is here for you." Said Jill. "Send him in," I replied and a second later, the door opened, and Ethan walked in.

"Lord Silver," he greeted. He is smiling charmingly as always, but there is sadness in it. I wanted to ask the reason but decided not to; it is not my business.

"Take a seat, Ethan," I said.

"So, have you brought it?" I asked. I am excited. Though more than me, the man behind me, I could feel his palpable excitement.

"I said yes to the messages, didn't I," he said and began taking out the stuff, or rather books. He placed four stacks of them, on my deck and three wooden boxes; seeing them my eyes couldn't help, but light up.

"Fourteen Grade I spells, eleven Grade II spells, eight Grade III spells, and five Grade IV spells." He said, looking at books, before turning to the boxes.

"The first box, had the potions, the second one had ink, and the third one, the other stuff in your list," he added.

I didn't check the stuff and looked at the man with a big smile.

"Thank you, Ethan," I said. He is the scion of a powerful house and one of his successors. I have him doing the deliveries like a common merchant. Even with emotion's essence, it is beneath him.

I know he is doing it to build the connection for future deals and has other priorities in the city, but I am grateful for him doing this and today, I am going to reward him for all the help he had provided.

"You don't have to thank me. You have paid for them," he replied.

I did, and quite handsomely, I might say.

These spells are damn expensive. I cry whenever I pay for them. They come from reputable sources, which makes them even more expensive. It is important for the spells to be from a reputable source, as the spells being the same are not the same.

Consider a classic fireball spell. If one buys from different sources, they will see the difference in spells.

Some are efficient, but some use too much mana. In the worse case, some drizzle out, before they even hit the target.

The spells from trusted sources are efficient as well as powerful. Not all mages are capable of making changes in the spells, and even that takes months and years and dangerous things, especially when done outside of the tower.

I paid a lot of money for these spells. Yes, money, I wouldn't use emotion essence for the things that could be brought with money; that would be idiotic, but emotion essence does make things smoother.

The spells of Grade IV and above are restricted, and the merchant state didn't easily permit to sell them. Especially to the citizens of the empire, the only reason I am getting them smoothly is because I am selling them the emotion essence.

Ina walked to him and put away the boxes and books, before placing a wooden box in front of him.

He was surprised to see a single wooden box as in the past two months, there had been five boxes, and a month before that was four, but now there is only one.

"I know, this month there would be less emotion essence since you are planting those magical plants, but still it is much less than I had expected," he said, looking at the wooden box.

I didn't say anything and watched him. He looked at it for a few seconds before taking out the white envelope on top of the box and opening it.

A surprise appeared on his face soon enough and he turned to me.

"The essences in the box would be far from enough to pay for the things you want in here," he said, as he placed the letter back in the envelope.

I didn't say anything and kept looking at him.

Click!

His eyes became hesitant, and he finally opened the box. Immediately, his eyes went round as the saucers were in shock.

In the box are tiny bottles of the emotion essence; like the emotion essence, I had sold him before, this is not mixed emotion essence. Here, the essence of every emotion is separate and pure.

Mostly importantly, it is Grade II.

He has helped me a lot. Now, I am helping him.

There is a vast difference between Grade I and Grade II emotions essences.

What I provide is also pure emotion essence, without the faintest contamination from other emotions, which is hard to see in emotion essence by Grade II legacy.

Grade III legacy could harvest as such, especially the old ones with experienced hosts, but they didn't. I mean, why would they, when they could harvest Grade III, which is even more expensive.

"I think, it would be enough to get me those things," I said, and he smiled brightly.

"Oh, definitely," he said.

There was silence for a couple of seconds as he admired those tiny bottles before he turned to me.

"Have you thought about what I had said last month?" he asked, and I sighed. "Ethan, I haven't even planted those plants yet," I said.

"I know, but my house is bugging me every day. We want those things, and we will pay any price for it," he said, and his eyes turned desperate.

House of Ashav deals with magical materials. They are one of the biggest in Oksall. So, it is no surprise, that they want the plants I am planning on planting.

He is one of the few people I had contacted, aside from the alchemists, before signing the contract.

It would help, the house of Ashav tremendously if they were able to get a deal with me about those plants.

"Tell them, that I won't be making any deal about till I have the harvest in my hand," I said. He isn't the only one, who has asked me about the deal; hundreds of alchemists and merchants have made the enquiries about it.

"Fine, I will tell that, but I hope, you will not forget me when the harvest came," he said.

"I will not," I replied.

A few minutes later, he left. The moment he did, Zela turned to Ina, who without saying anything, handed her the thick book.

"Finally. I had wanted this spell for a long time," said Zela, as she hugged the book, before turning to me.

"Thank you, Lord Silver," she thanked.

Every month, I am buying spells. It is costing me a lot, but I need it. Last time, we were lucky, that we had enough powerhouses and the only thing our High-Mages needed to do was defend.

The only High-Mage who killed the enemy was Valentina.

The next time, our mages won't be this lucky, they needed to be prepared with an arsenal of spells.

We have a big list of spells from Grade 1 to Grade 4. There are a thousand spells on the list, and we have only been able to get one hundred and sixty-two.

"I am glad, you liked the spell, Zela" I replied and focused on the work.

At six, I got out of my office and toward the conference room where Carla and others were waiting for me.

The proposals had got replies. Far more than we had thought.

I thought not many would want to bet such huge money which could be attacked by the undead, but it seemed like, I had underestimated the allure of the legacy.

The businesses from Namdar to merchant states want the space in the tower and are willing to pay a good price for it. Now we have to choose it and it is not going to be easy.

I know a lot of people who want the store. Many of them won't like the rejection, but I will do what is necessary.

It is my vision, that matters and nothing else.