Armand and Elena led Count Verit to Armand's private studio.

Taking into account that Lynette came from the capital and might she have knowledge about it that could be useful, Armand felt it was a good idea she stays present, which is why Elena called her.

Count Verit was surprising to knowing that someone from Lilstar family was beside Elena, but with everything he had seen until now, it was a simple topic to digest for him. A wall much more imposing than the capital wall and a palace much more beautiful than the king's palace? And all this in a place that was supposed to be just a bunch of forgotten ruins. What else could be more surprising than this?

"My father did not exaggerate, but you are even more beautiful than he said. Baroness, wouldn't you be interested in becoming my wife?"

“¡Erick!”

"Father, you can't blame me for at least trying"

Erick shrugged his shoulders as his father let out a long sigh full of exasperation. Would his son ever mature?

The first to react to the proposal of Count Verit's son was Lynette, who showed an angry expression as she clung to Elena's arm.

As for Armand, he was not surprised, his daughter was too beautiful, so naturally, every man would be interested in her. Although regarding Erick, even if this young man did not seem a bad man, it was clear to Armand that he was too immature young man, so he did not meet his expectations even to consider him as a suitable candidate. For Elena, Armand wished someone who could protect her and help her in whatever she wanted to do, no matter if this was a nobleman or not, because for Armand, the greatest requirement, and perhaps the most important one, was that Elena to be in love and be reciprocated. Elena who had grown up without receiving love from her father, who had lost her mother, who had been attacked by her own brother and she was now a tool for the royal court, Armand wished that his daughter could at least had the joy of loving and being loved.

Elena only smiled. From all the men who had proposed to her so far, Erick was the only one in whose eyes she had not seen lust.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in finding a husband, I have too much on my plate to even think about it"

Erick could only let out a faint sigh, it's not as if he expected an affirmative answer, but as he had told his father, he should at least try. Who wouldn't try even if know that he would be rejected? Elena Izana was a beautiful woman, and what was perhaps her only drawback was that she didn't seem fragile at all and had a strong personality. Elena seemed to be the class of woman whose heart would not be disturbed by promises of power, by the good look of a suitor or by his strength, let alone by empty gifts. Considering Elena had forced her way into Lutrel Palace to see her father, and not forgetting her outstanding participation during the battle, Erick was sure this beautiful woman would choose of her own free will the man she would love, and although that man would be very lucky, somehow Erick could also pity him a little, that lucky man would be totally dominated by Elena's character and beauty. However, that was a price worth paying to be at the side of this beautiful woman, at least from Erick's point of view.

"I apologize for my son's recklessness.”

Count Verit bowed his head slightly in apology while with his left hand he forced Erick to do the same.

After that, Count Verit related what he knew about the situation in the kingdom's capital.

From the moment the Count heard about the reward given to Elena by the royal court, he could sense that there was something strange about it at considering that the outcome desired by the court and the king was an overwhelming defeat, so he set out to investigate.

Despite being only a rural nobleman, Count Verit had quite a few contacts among the merchants from the kingdom because his territory represented a safe route through which to travel. By using these contacts who held business with nobles throughout the kingdom and even between neighboring kingdoms, Count Verit could get valuable information.

The Count's investigation led him initially to Count Redin´s tragedy, the father of Erin and Teo, and later he discovered the plans that the royal court seemed to have for Elena.

While continuing to investigate the matter, Count Verit heard Marquis Lutrel was trying to intervene in the royal court's plans, and so he discovered Elena was Armand's daughter, and by the time he could finally locate Elena, she seemed work on consolidating her position in Izana, so the Count focused on continuing investigate to reach the bottom of this whole conspiracy.

What Count Verit discovered was something that Armand already sensed. Within the royal court, there was a faction that possessed great political weight and that was behind everything that happened. The person who heads this faction is Archduke Francis Eis Varest, the king's younger brother.

Hear this name made Armand lose his breath. He finally understood why his attempts to meet with the king were completely failed.

With Dukes Muspell and Olson supporting the Archduke, his faction virtually took full control of the royal court. As for the king, with his younger brother persuading him to seek war, he too could be part of that powerful faction. However, Count Verit believes that the king seems to be unaware of his younger brother's questionable actions to provoking war.

To the surprise of Elena and Armand, Count Verit even discovered the motivation behind all this, apparently, conquest is not the Archduke's goal, what he seeks is to take control of a magical dungeon within Sadora's territory, a magical dungeon inside which was found a crystal sarcophagus inside which a god supposedly sleep.

Hear this caused Elena's body to tense up for two seconds. Would that be possible? With this thought in mind, Elena asked Count Verit for more details about this supposed sarcophagus containing a sleeping god. Unfortunately for Elena, Count Verit did not know more about the subject. Apparently, this discovery was even a secret among the high spheres of power in Sadora.

However, Count Verit found out something disturbing. The problem of the border tariffs that led to that battle was caused by the Archduke. He seems to have bribed several nobles in Sadora to make this happen. Count Verit is sure that it is only a matter of time before some Sadorian nobleman crosses the border leading an army in search of Elena's head, not for some kind of revenge, but for a good deal of gold that would come out of the pockets of the Varest´s kingdom itself.

Lynette was terribly outraged; she would never have imagined that the royal court was planning to sacrifice her beloved Elena. Lynette even proposed to talk to her father, to use the influence of her family. However, Count Verit suggested that she not do so. Even if the court could not force the Lilstars to do something they did not want to do, the court would not allow the Lilstars to get in its way either. In the worst scenario, the Archduke would pressure the king to send the Balzans to crush the Lilstars and turn them into slaves, something like this could even turn out to be a huge benefit for the royal family as the Lilstars would be forced to continue working free for the kingdom for the rest of their lives.

Elena thanked Lynette with a kiss on the cheek for going as far as trying to involve her family for her sake, but she asked her not to do so based on Count Verit´s words. Lynette simply could not deny Elena's request, and from being very indignant, she turned into a kitten who seemed tempted to climb into Elena's lap to be pampered.

"Count, haven't you exposed your family too much by investigating all this?"

Armand was grateful for how far Count Verit had reach for Elena's sake.

"My only family is this silly son of mine, so we just have to take care of each other"

Erick only smiled at his father's words; he fully supported his father's actions.

"Those who are truly in danger are you, I think your best option is to flee to distant lands"

Elena shook her head at the Count's suggestion.

"Izana is already my home, and I plan to defend it, it's something I've been preparing for since the moment I got here”

Count Verit could only nod in agreement with Elena's determination; one only had to look at the current state of this supposedly ruined city to see the effort she had put into this place. The Count could not even imagine how Elena had built all this in such a short time; the only thing clear was that she seemed confident that she could deal with the royal court's conspiracy.

"In that case, I don't have many men, but you can count on every one of them"

Elena and Armand smiled in response to Count Verit's unconditional support.

"Count, actually, there's a different matter on which I'd like to ask for your help”

"What is the about? You may be sure I will do my best to help you, Lady Elena"

"I need you to help me get full body armors and magic cores of the highest quality..."

The production of steel soldiers and Izana Knights was stagnant, this because the full-body armors had been totally exhausted in Dur, Lendolf, and Lutrel. Elena's suppliers had exhausted the armors of the neighboring cities to fill her orders. Frank, the owner of Lendolf's weapon shop, was still looking for armors to fulfill his part of the deal with Elena.

The reason for the shortage of full-body armors was simple to understand; to make a single full-armor took many months, and there was not much demand for it in the market because of its high price, so, many of the armors Elena had used to create the steel soldiers and the Izana Knights could be several hundred years old.

As for magic cores, it was no less complicated to get S, SS, and SS+ cores.

Therefore, Elena needed to expand her search for armors to the entire kingdom, and someone that had successfully uncovered the present conspiracy involving the royal court so thoroughly should be able to assist her in this endeavor.

Although Count Verit did not understand from where Elena planned to get the men needed to wear these armors she searches, he agreed to help without hesitation.

At considering that every minute was valuable, Count Verit left immediately to proceed with Elena's request as soon as possible.

"This is more complicated than I had imagined”

Armand exclaimed this as he and Elena watched Count Verit go away over the sky in his wyvern.

"Father, for now, there are two things we must do; establish that warp towards Lutrel, which we could end up using ourselves in the worst scenario"

"That's right, what's the second thing?"

"Create a magic barrier that prevents anyone to entering Izana from air"

Armand lost his breath hearing that. While such a thing was not impossible, the complexity, materials, and knowledge to make such a thing possibly made that only a few kingdoms created a magical barrier, but only over high-profile locations such as their royal palaces. As for protecting an entire city, this was something that only the elves could do, their three city-states being impregnable because of these magical barriers protecting it.

"Can you do something like that?"

"Not directly, but by using an SS-core I can create someone who does"

"Is it another... homunculus?"

Elena could see her father's face showing embarrassment. No doubt he was not too keen on the possibility of being forced to offer his seed once again.

"It was necessary that Bela could learn the spell to turn iron into mytril on the innate manner, but for this new purpose, what I will create is more similar to Necro"

Armand let out a slight sigh of relief, an action that brought a faint smile to Elena's lips.