Two weeks had passed since Lucas's meeting with Reznov. He had not heard from him since then, report from the guard told Lucas that Reznov was doing his daily life as usual. Lucas thought of the possibility that Reznov was not interested in building ships for him. Lucas paced back and forth inside his workroom as he thought of the other plans for acquiring shipbuilders. He had assigned a lot of work to Max and Lucas did not want to burden him with building ships. Besides that, his other reason for not using Max was he wanted to acquire skilled individuals to serve him and work for him.
William only gave Reznov’s name for recommendation to Lucas. However, there are multiple names of individuals who had the knowledge of shipbuilding gathered by William, but none of them had as much knowledge as Reznov. Lucas had begun to consider approaching the second-best person.
“Aghh!” screamed Lucas, frustrated. A lot was on his mind. He did not want to send the drones to see the monsters, because he did not know whether the monsters would come out and he feared the drones would be destroyed. Lucas wanted to investigate the monsters who kept the residents of this continent away from the ocean voyage.
Lucas was frustrated. He had limited resources and manpower at his disposal; he had only 5 crews. Overwork became a real threat to him and his crew. Back at the Galactic Empire, he commanded a squadron consisting of four recon ships and he could easily rotate those ships and the crew when he was given a long reconnaissance mission.
"I have been cooped in my room for the past few days. I need to move my body to clear my body," Lucas said to himself.
He decided to spar with the knights. He walked to the training ground and on the way there, he met Ella who was going in the opposite direction.
Ella greeted him. “My Lord, where are you going?”
“To the training ground. I need to clear my head.”
“I believe the training ground is occupied.”
“Occupied?”
“Yes, the knights are training their recruits. Have you not heard about it, yet?”
Lucas remembered that Asher had told him about the training of the recruits a week ago. “Right, I forgot about that. Well, I haven’t seen the recruits, I guess I’ll take a look.”
“I’ll follow you, my Lord.”
On their way to the training ground, Lucas and Ella saw a group of maids watching the recruit knights train. They giggled and laughed and were unaware of their surroundings, as Lucas and Ella walked toward them. The maids were immersed in watching the knight’s recruits.
“Slacking off, huh?” said Ella in a loud voice.
In an instant, the maids turned their faces toward the voice, Ella. “Ah!” shrieked one of the maids. “M-my Lord and Ella!”
Their expression turned frightened as if they were caught doing a crime. Ella was furious. “So this is where all of you guys gone, huh?”
“We are on a break, Ella!” said one of the maids, nervously.
“A break? I just came back from the laundry and they don’t have enough hands there, not to mention the hallways on the second floor haven’t been cleaned, yet!”
“Ella, just let them have fun,” Lucas said to Ella.
“No, my Lord. There is still work to be done and these girls are slacking off. No wonder we have been short-handed these past few days. Girls, we will talk later!” said Ella angrily.
The maids looked at Lucas with an expression pleading with him to help them. “Can you just, you know, let it go and tell them to get back to work?”
“NO! These girls served the Duchess of Novgorod, this kind of behaviour should not be tolerated.”—Ella turned to face Lucas—“I hope you don’t take pity on them, My Lord.”
“At least, let them off easy. They are your colleagues and this is the first time they have done this. Well, at least the first time they were caught.”
“Fine. All of you get back to work and I will keep this a secret from the head maid, but we will have to talk later!”
One of the maids then said, "What about you, Ella? Aren't you in a da—"
Before she could finish her speech, her friend put her hand on her mouth. Ella wondered what she was about to say.
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"We'll be going back to our duty!" Another maid said to Lucas and Ella.
Ella sighed as the maids ran back to return to their duty.
Lucas and Ella then arrived at the training ground. It was as Ella said, the recruits were training together with the knights. He watched the recruits having a mock fight between themselves. One mock fight took Lucas’s interest, 2 women were fighting against 5 people. One of the women used a sword and the other used magic to fight and support the other, the reason why they took his interest was that Lucas knew them. It was the twins, Tasya and Tanya.
Tasya and Tanya fought side by side against the 5 recruits. Tanya was fighting in the front against the opponents while Tasya supported her from just behind her with magic. One opponent swung her sword at Tanya, she swiftly parried the attack. Another opponent swung his swords at Tanya while she was occupied parrying the other. Tasya was quick to protect her twin, she blew him away.
The fight continues for a while.
“So, who took your fancy, Lord Lucas?” said Asher as he walked toward Lucas.
“Those twins," Lucas said as he pointed his finger at the twins.
“Tasya and Tanya… They are new to this city, found out about the recruitment and applied for it.”
“Your assessment, Captain?”
“They are amazing. The girl with the sword, Tanya, has great sword skill and stamina, and apparently, her injury heals fast, for some reason. The sister, Tasya, is a magic user, she can use a sword, but not as great as her sister.”
“Among their peers?”
“In the top 10,” said Asher, as the mock fight ended with the twin, coming out victoriously. It was a complete victory.
“Amazing. 2 against 5.”
“Those 5 are also top among their peers.”
“I see, the top 7 fighting each other… Asher.”
“Yes, my Lord?”
“You and 9 knights against the twin,” Lucas said as he turned to face Asher.
Asher was shocked. He chuckled. “You must jest, my Lord. As amazing as they are, the twin wouldn’t stand a chance against 10 of us.”
“What if you were wrong and I was right?”
“You’re confident in their ability?”
“Yes.”
“Are you perhaps thinking of making them the Duchess’s guards?”
“Well… perhaps.”
“My Lord, I already have the candidates for her guards, I'll give it to you later.”
“Are you afraid, Captain?”
“Afraid?”
“That recruit will beat you in a fight,” Lucas smirked.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Then, go. The drinks tonight will be on me, for all the knights if you win.”
Asher smiled. “I guess we will be having a party tonight.” Asher immediately ran to gather the knights.
Lucas saw Asher choose 9 other knights in the training ground and went to the twins. After a brief talk, the twins looked towards Lucas. They had surprised expressions when they saw Lucas there; Lucas then smiled politely at them.
“The Duchess’s guards?” scoffed Ella, who was standing behind him.
“Huh?”
“Surely, those girls won’t end up in your bed.”
Lucas turned to face Ella with a bewildered face. “I'm serious about having them guard my cousin.”
“Sure,” Ella said nonchalantly.
“Just for the record, you’re the only woman who has spent the night with me, since I came here.”
“That's what I'm having a hard time believing. Womanizers like you have only slept with me and haven't slept with other maids or women in this household. What are you even doing?!”
“I-i'm not the kind of person to force myself on others! And slept with different wom—"
A memory of his past came to his mind.
"Well... I did once have a period of sleeping with different women every week and day but that was a few years ago,“ Lucas continued.
“…” Ella said nothing, she moved her gaze to the mock fight. She had a slight smirk on his face. Lucas was still flustered by Ella's remarks. She was successful in teasing Lucas and his flustered face was a joy to her.
The mock fight between the twins and the knights began. The knight surrounded the twins in a circle. This time, both sisters wielded a sword. The knights stepped forward simultaneously, they had divided themselves into two groups of five. Each group fought one of the sisters. Asher was in the group against Tanya.
Some might say pitting the twin sisters against 10 knights is cruel, but for Lucas, it was an experiment to prove his hypothesis; whether the nanobots affected Tanya’s ability. In the Empire, the soldiers were injected with nanobots to boost both healing and fighting ability. It was one of the methods used to fight the swarm of endless mindless killers—the Roktarians.
As he watched the fight unfolding in front of him. Tanya fought better than the knights, although her fighting form was different from the knights. Lucas thought the difference in the fighting forms was due to the sisters' country of origin. The fact that Tanya was able to match with the knights' ability made Lucas suspicious of the people who were pursuing her. Whoever they were, they could not be hired bandits, if they were they must have been professional assassins with extensive resources and networks, or they were knights of the sisters' family who came to take them back.
On the other fight, Tasya was struggling. She was not proficient in swordsmanship, yet she was able to use her magic to help her make up the difference in skill between her and the knights. It was a sight to Lucas, using magic for sword fighting was unheard of in this world—according to the people close to him.
A magic user with great knowledge of magic applications foreign to this world knowledge, she was ahead of her time, Lucas thought.
When Lucas saw what Tasya was capable of, Lucas was impressed. A huge grin was seen on Lucas's face.
Ella took a glance at Lucas and saw his huge grin and was frightened. She wondered what he had in mind to grin like that.
The fight ended with the twin sisters came out victorious. An outcome Lucas had in mind. Lucas's frustration was gone when he saw the sisters fight with the knights.
Suddenly, William approached Lucas and said, “The man you were waiting for is here.”
Lucas nodded at William and left with him.