Herald of Steel



Once the carriage halted and was parked, Alexander quickly followed Cambyses to step out of the vehicle, eager to see his new, sweet home.

This would after all be his place of abode for the time being.

And as he laid eyes upon it, he found it was of a similar design to the one Nanazin and the others were staying in, the typical bungalow-styled two-storied building made of stone and wood.

It seemed in this infantile era of architecture, it was customary to follow a standard design.

Hence many of the noble houses looked quite similar.

But of course, not all were like that.

And even for those that were, the nobles, being people with strong personal identities worked hard to add their personal touches to each of them, making each a little bit unique.

But Alexander did not have the time to try and discern any uniqueness with the place, for as soon as descended off the vehicle, he was quickly distracted by the greeting of his three women, who had been standing outside the large wooden gate for him all this time, as they enthusiastically cheered,

"Ahh, master! Welcome."

"Welcome Your Holiness."

"What took you so long? We were waiting so long!"

As one could easily guess, these sayings were from Gelene, Ophenia, and Mean respectively, the last one being one of slight annoyance, but even more worry.

"Haha, sorry, sorry. We got caught up in meeting everyone. It's good to see all of you are safe." And to make up for the delay, Alexander was one to quickly apologize and then proceeded to even give the spicy, petite girl a large hug to placate her, and then not to leave the other two out, followed it with Ophenia and Gelene too.

"We are very happy to see you safe too my lord. We hope your journey has been fruitful," During the hug Opehnia let a sigh of relief as she said so, feeling a great weight being lifted off her as Alexander's wide chest encompassed her body,

And this was a similar feeling Gelene experienced who too said similar words of welcome.

And after this greeting was finally concluded, the small group decided it was time to get out of the cold, and so quickly made it into the houses, crossing the small outer walkway in a short time.

The distance from the outer gate to the porch was a short distance, with a small, dead due to lack of care, garden on either side, the design being quite similar to his late manor, though nothing could compare with the scale or grandees.

"It feels like the good, old times. Back to being peasants, hahaha," And seeing this, Alexander could not help but joke as such, suddenly feeling this bungalow which would have seemed huge to him even in his previous life with its multiple bedrooms, now suddenly felt kind of small.

It seemed that living in that huge manor for a year had changed his taste, similar to how one might feel after moving to a condo after living in Versailles or Buckingham Palace.

Though a condo was also certainly a very luxurious piece of property, but it could never hold a candle to those titans.

And as Alexander realized this, he also firsthand understood that the words big and small were really subjective.

Even this huge bungalow now seemed small to him, how time changes things.

As for the women around him who heard his crude joke, they could only lightly smirk, feeling Alexander was exaggerating.

While the freest of the bunch, Mean, quickly tugged at Alexander's sleeves and fearfully urged,

"I quite like it here. We can live here comfortably. So there is no need to rebuild the manor is there?"

Her eyes seemed to swim in worry and reluctance as she said this, even suggesting

"We could even let the workshop workers live there, right?"

And it did not take a genius to figure out where Mean was coming from.

The recent attack had really scared the petite girl and she much preferred that they stayed here, far away from the frontlines, than try and live in opulent luxury along the borders.

Living as a peasant perfectly suited Mean when the alternative might be dying as a noble.

Not to mention Alexander was clearly exaggerating the rough state of their abode, as this house, being a noble's vacation house was certainly still an opulent property housing the highest levels of decadence.

As for Alexander, sensing the concern in Mean's voice, he quickly patted the short girl's head to calm her, and said,

"Don't worry. What happened this time will not happen ever again. I promise you. I will not allow it," Alexander sounded extremely steely in his voice, one which helped to reassure Mean, who then silently nodded and hummed, "Mmmnn."

And Cambyses too stepped up from the side to add,

"Besides Mean, it will take some to rebuild the manor. So rest assured we will not be returning there in the short time."

Cambyses was aware that the destruction of the manor and the dead bodies of the servants had cast a shadow on the petite girl as Mean knew and interacted with almost all of them daily.

So to lose so many of them in one single night had certainly hurt the girl very much.

And it took a lot of strength on Mean's part not to just break down into sobs especially when she remembered all the dead women and children.

Her only reason being that her mistress still needed her.

But now that the danger had passed and they were safe, all the suppressed emotions were starting to bubble up.

And knowing this Cambyses and Alexander tried to soothe Mean as much as possible.

And it was with these thoughts the group finally made it past the heavy oak front door as Cambyses invited him in with a gesture, "Welcome!"

Thus Alexander entered the house without further ado, and first and foremost found it to be very brightly lit, with lit candle stands placed all around the walls, while a few chandeliers hung above the outer hallway, working together to drive away all the dark gloominess as well as heating up the place a bit.

But the real warmth of course came from a giant hearth burning right at the heart of the room, one into which log after log was being fed by an attending slave.

Entering from the cold outside, Alexander's body rejoiced at feeling this warmth as he felt energized, while his eyes recognized the man attending the hearth.

"Welcome back, master," And sensing the group enter, this black slave naturally turned around and instantly recognizing Alexander, quickly bowed.

"Mo! It's good to see you alive. I was worried," While Alexander cheerfully greeted back.

He was glad some of the servants had managed to make it out of this predicament alive.

"Yes, all by the grace of the gods and work of Mistress. I was captured when the manor was taken, but the mistress rescued us all. Thank you" The tall, lanky man diligently performed a second bow.

And between the time this small conversation occurred, Alexander felt quite a few pairs of curious eyes quickly fall on him, as his presence was finally noticed by the numerous maids present there.

They all seemed to have been hard at work trying to make the house as presentable as possible for Alexander, hurriedly cleaning, dusting, and even rearranging some of the furniture for his convenience.

"Welcome, master!" And like Mo, upon seeing him, these women greeted him on his return with a chorus, the group consisting of a few young girls that Alexander found somewhat attractive to women reaching ripe old ages.

"Mmm, it's nice to see all of you are well too. I'm glad," And seeing these familiar faces, Alexander put out a pleased smile too, before letting them get back to their work.

And as they went about their way, seeing the women still active this late, Alexander was a bit surprised.

Remember this was ancient times when almost all work stopped when the sun went down.

So seeing the hustle and bustle persist well into the night, he posed to Gelene,

"How come they are so late in getting the house ready? I thought they should have been done long ago!"

But Gelene was unable to answer this, for she replied, "I'm sorry master. I was out helping Lady Nanazin prepare her house. And arrived only some time earlier."

"It was sister Tayin and sister Mean who was in charge of managing this one."

And so as all the eyes shifted to those two, it was Ophenia who chimed up to inform Alexander,

"Master, I'm afraid it is not so simple."

"Remember, you only came at around midday, so we already started quite late."

"In addition, many of the slaves and servants we had are injured or dead, or are simply missing, ran away when the manor was attacked, *sigh*." Ophenia shook her head a bit, before continuing,

"Anyway, because of all this, we are quite shorthanded at the moment."

"In fact, it took us a while to even gather everyone here."

"And if that was not enough, we then also had to send some of them to help Her Highness Nanazin get her house ready too."

"All this ate up too much time which is why we are a bit behind." Ophenia gave a detailed explanation of the current circumstances, before putting on a large smile and reassuring,

"But don't worry master, we have the food hot and ready."