I rode in the carriage and left them behind. It took me a few minutes before reaching the Marionette faction mansion a few blocks away from the colosseum where the recent challenges were taking place.

As I walked down from the carriage, I wandered my eyes to the white mansion with red roofs in front of me.

It's not as grandiose as Tanya has, but this one is still pretty big by a conventional standard.

I closed my eyes as the ray of the late noon touched my skin. As I walked towards the mansion, the sound of the people gathered at the huge open field in front of the mansion became more audible.

I shifted my eyes towards them and found countless people currently training as the recruits of the Marionette corps. All of them were standing straight with their hands on their back while raising their chins high. Most of them were men but I also saw women trainees blending into the group. In front of them was a man wearing a butler suit announcing something about the dangers of joining as mercenaries.

I mean, I agree. Being a mercenary is an extremely dangerous job to have.

From what I observed from their training program, at this hour, they were already almost done with their training for the day and about to wrap up, it's quite apparent from their appearance. All of the trainees were full of mud and leaves on their bodies. They were doing rough training in the training camp located in the nearby forest.

I already had seen the training camp once and oh boy, that place looks like a military training camp that's full of military obstacle courses.

They're doing serious shits in that place.

As I reached the roundabout in front of the mansion. Someone was already standing beside the circular grass patch at the center of the roundabout.

I stopped a meter from her and she bowed her head. Her silky smooth black hair swayed as she bent her waists towards me and flashed a graceful smile as she raised her head.

"Greetings, Mister Casimir."

I nodded. "Is Leal here?"

"Yes, Let me guide you to Master Leal." She walked towards the mansion and I followed her.

As we entered, we were greeted by the massive living room that had almost nothing in it.

The huge dark yellow painted living room with the black and white tiled floor only has some lamps on the wall with a single golden table with a flower vase beside the huge staircase covered in red carpet.

I've already seen it before so I'm already used to it, unlike Tanya whose mansion is full of ornaments in every corner, to the point that she has a huge portrait of herself hanging in her living room. Leal is more simple, but the golden handles of the staircase and even the golden housing of the lamps scattered throughout the room are more than enough proof of his wealth.

"Master Leal is currently in his office."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I see."

She guided me to one of the rooms on the second floor of the mansion and knocked on its door.

"Come in." It's Leal's voice.

Kuro opened the door for me and came in first to hold the door. As I went inside, I found Leal comfortably sitting on his office chair with his crossed feet over his wooden gray desk with his face directed to the ceiling. I couldn't see his eyes due to the reflection of the light on his reading glasses. His hand was over his chest while holding a paper while the other one was swaying in the air.

But the moment I entered, he pulled back his feet on the desk and raised his face on me, while removing the reading glasses on his face.

"Leal." I faced Kuro who was standing beside me to hold the door. "Thanks, Kuro."

"It's my pleasure." She bowed her head and closed the door to leave the 2 of us alone.

"I heard what happened earlier. Forgive me that such a thing has to happen under my guard."

"Yeah, things happened, we can't do anything about it, all we need to do is to make sure that it will never happen again." I sat on one of the black metal chairs in front of his desk. "That's why I am here."

He nodded. "I see. So you already have a solution in mind?"

"I have, but what I'm worried about is, if you have enough mercenaries for this. It's not your corps' main duty to work under me after all. Moreover, it may potentially affect your business so I'll let you think about it."

A puzzling smile emerged on his face. "Let me hear it and I'll decide."

"Then hear me out. Initially, I was planning to station one or 2 personnel at every entrance of the town, but I just thought it won't be enough to ensure the security of the town, especially when the problems are already inside our vicinity. So I came up with the idea of adding gate guards and at the same time, station wards in the nearby areas to observe the potential visitors, so we can identify if they are threats to this town, if they are and the wards couldn't just drive them off, at least, we can think of something to deal with them. Rather than just remedying the damages that they've done because they just came out of nowhere."

He nodded. "I see. So you want to assign some of our mercenaries outside the town to patrol the boundaries?"

"Yes, what do you think?"

He put his hand on his chin. "It is honestly a plausible idea, however, as of this moment, we are still short of trained mercenaries, as you can see, we are still struggling to provide enough security inside the town alone, if we station mercenaries outside, we have to sacrifice the quality of the already lacking security inside the town."

"Yeah, that also came to me."

He leaned toward me. "Regardless, just like what I said, your plan is plausible and I agree with it. We are here to serve, you are talking business, so who are we to reject it? How about this, we can send mercenaries on the boundaries, and to make up for the loss, we can station the trainees inside the town. It will benefit both parties, we can now secure the wider perimeter of our territory and the trainees can now start their job and earn a living from it while still in training, furthermore, the trainees don't have to worry about dangerous enemies because those potential threats have been already taken care of before they could even enter the town."

"That's a great idea."

He stood up and raised his index finger. "And besides, I suppose, the people of the Fang faction can act as voluntary securities for the ones who managed to enter the town and decided to cause any ruckus. From what I heard, my mercenaries didn't have to do anything about the incident earlier, the people of the Fang faction chased after the culprits and deal with them on their own and I'm not just referring to the members of Fang faction security personnel, I heard, even the construction employees and bystanders who witnessed the attack swarmed after them too."

Wow, I didn't know about that! All I know is Leo, Mehrad and the Marionette mercenaries chased after them, I didn't know that the entire faction joined as well!

I put my hand on my face. "Yeah, I just realized it earlier. For some reason, a bunch of them are starting to act like they're some kind of vigilantes who would trample anyone who dared to mess to that place."

Leal chuckled. "I wonder why? Maybe they've seen something worth devoting for."

Devoting my ass! I couldn't even comprehend what was running through their violent minds!

"Uh... yeah, I too am wondering what it is."