"Lords of the dragon kin, here are the supplies you requested."

Dressed in a tailcoat and wearing a monocle, the butler gestured for a horde of panting servants to bring in barrel after barrel of drinks and food.

"Hmph, you think we're short on provisions?"

Milmos sneered as he lumbered forward, his deformed demonic appearance startling the humans.

But the butler was a close aide of Marquis Moran and well aware of the current situation. He quickly regained his composure and smiled, "Of course, the entire Erl Kingdom survives on the magnanimous provisions of the great holy dragon. Such mundane rations must seem unworthy to you lords."

He signaled the servants to bring in bundled ropes, sailcloth, and other supplies. "Please let me know if you require anything else. We aim only to satisfy you."

The butler smiled obsequiously at the dragon kin gathered before him, prompting Milmos to glance back at Alvis questioningly.

"People. We need sailors," Alvis stepped forward, unfurling a parchment covered in complex draconic runes with flame and avian patterns at the bottom. "It's written clearly here," he stated definitively.

The butler paled. "Forgive me, but may I ask who you are?"

"Me? I'm a special advisor who accompanies Raphael, providing it counsel. It's natural you haven't seen me before." Alvis looked to Milmos, who grudgingly nodded confirmation.

The surrounding dragon kin watched hungrily like wild beasts about to riot, bloodlust wafting from them. The pressure made the butler sweat as his burly servants rushed to finish unloading and scurried back inside, leaving just a few trembling assistants cowering behind him.

"M-might I have permission to inform my master?" the butler stammered, seeking an exit.

"No need, we'll find him ourselves!"

With a sweep of Alvis' hand, Raphael's dragon kin poured through the open doors. The ashen-faced butler didn't dare impede the fearsome creatures, giving Alvis a baffled, terrified look.

"Shall we?" Alvis clapped the butler's shoulder. "Lead us to your master so I can apologize in person."

Milmos and the remaining Ceda wyrms advanced menacingly. With no choice, the butler led them towards Amelia's manor.

After twenty minutes, just before reaching their destination, an energy blast laced with iron shards exploded in front of the procession! The compacted dirt path ruptured in a large crater as high-velocity debris embedded itself in the surrounding trees.

Any of those deadly slivers piercing flesh would cause unimaginable agony.

"Fall back! Don't go any further!" A voice came from above.

Alvis scanned the inky treeline but saw no sign of their ambusher in the night.

"Probably three ambush points with two or three men each," he estimated. The small woods and modified civilian bowgun's range of forty meters meant triple coverage of the area sufficed without wasting manpower.

"Find some companions to use snake-eye spells and smoke them out, but don't kill anyone," Alvis muttered to an accompanying blood wyvern, whose translucent form dissipated in a breeze.

The other dragon kin readied themselves for battle, furious that humans would dare threaten the great crimson dragon's progeny with such outrageous insults!

"Interior Minister, we're prepared," the kobolds and rat dragons from Pillar Mountain reported to Milmos.

"This—" Milmos was rattled by the attack but still saw the bigger picture. A bloody conflict would be disastrous, and having to answer to Raphael for casualties was bad enough without irrevocably alienating the aristocracy while facing external threats.

"Don't act reckless!" he barked. "We came to conscript resources for our master, not fight! We have no combat readiness! What if we lose?"

A rat dragon warrior protested, "You think we'd lose? Could the defeated enemies of our master overcome his most loyal elite warriors?"

A kobold jeered, "Exactly! Just storm in; why bother with all this?"

Milmos shouted in his heart, "Fool! You're not in my position. What do you know?"

They failed to grasp the myriad reasons full-scale battle with humans was impossible. Whether as auxiliaries or eventual rulers, the aristocracy remained indispensable.

But these fanatic red dragon kin, like their violent master, understood only overwhelming force. Milmos had to keep reining them in.

"You wouldn't be siding with the humans for your own interests, would you?" a kobold taunted darkly, infuriating Milmos.

The Ceda wyrms watched the red dragon kins' infighting with amusement. "See, I told you that red dragon has no class. Its bloodline are such uncouth louts—no wonder Lady Nana scorns it."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Though their mocking whispers carried, the engrossed dragon kin didn't hear.

"Of course we must punish the humans! Where's our honor otherwise? Our master's authority?"

"We rat dragons have liaison orbs from our lord. I'll petition it directly and see what it says."

Against Milmos' vehement orders, the increasingly defiant dragon kins drew their orbs to contact Raphael.

"No!" Alvis and Milmos shouted in unison.

Sounds of skirmishing arose from the nearby trees, momentarily distracting the group.

A whistling wind accompanied the thunderous crash of falling trees, followed by energy blasts streaking skyward and bursting like fireworks illuminating the night.

A dozen blood wyverns then soared out, clutching seven humans and seven bowguns tightly in their spiked ribcages.

Thump!

They unceremoniously dumped their captives on the ground. The crimson dragon kin immediately moved to finish them off.

"Are they just unconscious?" Alvis asked.

"We used invisibility spells to get close, then struck simultaneously. They barely resisted before we knocked them all out."

"Good, and the weapons are secured. I taught you how to use them, right?" He eyed the rat dragons. "As for the prisoners, bring them to the manor. Old man, keep leading the way!"

Alvis shoved the butler, who had seen his seemingly cold-blooded guards easily captured. Terror gripped him as he stumbled and fell from the push, but he quickly brushed himself off and continued guiding them.

With the blood wyverns taking point, they easily rooted out remaining ambushers, their invisibility and thermal vision coupled with mobility making them nighttime killers akin to phantoms sweeping all before them.

By the time they reached the heavily fortified Amelia estate, nineteen guards - a full fifth of her forces - had been captured.

The guards had spotted the approaching dragon kin but didn't panic, deploying in scattered positions with bowguns and crystal rifles trained on the intruders.

"Hold your ground!" A command stayed the dragon kins readying to charge.

"Our strength should be saved for true enemies, not wasted on allies!" Alvis shouted.

The rat dragons had received his martial training, obeying orders instinctively. The Pillar Mountain combat kobolds under rat dragons' tutelage behaved likewise.

They suppressed their impulses, but with supreme effort, for no human had ever dared face them fearlessly before.

"There will be plenty of humans to slaughter later who don't cower. Now is not the time," Alvis muttered a quiet order. He then seized the butler and shoved him forward, hands raised in a pacifying gesture as he advanced alone.

The aristocratic guards had strict orders against killing, only intimidation. So they held fire but watched Alvis and the butler approach warily.

"Mind giving this old fellow passage to make his report? Surely you recognize the staff," Alvis smiled affably, unfazed by the dozens of urallium arms leveled at him.

Recognizing the panicked, pleading butler as Moran's man, the guards parted to admit him but quickly closed ranks to block Alvis from following inside.

"You are admirably diligent, more so than I ever was guarding noble estates, I must admit," Alvis remarked, recalling his own stint as a Deluca family guard.

The sentries remained stoic, not even their trigger fingers twitching as their unblinking eyes stared like statues.

After about ten minutes - likely spent conferring upstairs - the main doors finally opened. An impeccably dressed gentleman in formal tails with a top hat and boutonniere appeared, looking only in his early forties.

Marquis Moran approached with the poise of attending a royal gala, regarding Alvis with studied geniality. "Let's not greet our guests with such hostile displays."

He chided the guards, who promptly dispersed from their defensive stances around the estate.

"Good evening sir, I am Thurio Gilbert de Moran. And you would be?"

Alvis met the marquis' penetrating gaze. "Alvis Deluca."

"Deluca? Ah yes, the plutocratic dynasty of the Natterian Empire, tycoons of the beast and familiars trade. I've heard you capture over 300,000 magical beasts annually in the Karuk Forests and Disputed Plains alone, averaging three imperial golden eagles profit per head. With the morey-to-eagle conversion of 15-to-1, that's 1.35 million moreys."

Moran affected modesty. "Quite staggering when you consider the total annual profits of we twelve noble merchant houses only slightly exceed that sum. And that's just your family's beast trading, before other revenues from corporate acquisitions, underground arenas, gouging the peasantry, military dragon orders, zoos, and so on. A billion moreys annually is doubtlessly an underestimate, enough to lavishly indulge every landed property's stipends."

Alvis chuckled, interrupting Moran's long-winded boasts. "Enough of the posturing. You should have realized I'm not from the main line when you heard my name lacks the 'de' prefix. That vaunted wealth has nothing to do with me."

Downstream on the eastern banks of the Mordon River lay the Karuk region, while the ancient Midgaardian cultural hearth - the human birthplace - rested on the west.

"De" denoted Natterian nobility, from the royal family down to landed knights. Only those listed in the Peerage Rolls could pass that honorific to legitimate descendants.

Though Morey fell in Karuk territory, it had formerly been a Natterian ducal holding. Naturally, its ennobled dukes reported to the imperial Rolls, sharing noble naming conventions.

Moran nodded, realizing his visitor wasn't some imperial envoy, but rather someone who had struck a deal with the crimson dragon, abandoning the twelve nobles family.

As long as no outside powers intervened, that was manageable.

"First, my apologies. Upon hearing distinguished guests arrived, I hurriedly had my staff find suitable formal attire, delaying your reception at bowgun-point."

"Think nothing of it," Alvis waved it off. "I've been threatened directly by your worst nightmare - Raphael. It dispatched my entire guard in just a few moves. This was a mere trifle."

Moran's expression darkened as he realized this was no ordinary man before him.

He had expected to meet that monster Milmos, not a human.

After probing Alvis' identity, Moran suddenly recalled last year's missing Deluca expedition party.

"You're - the one listed as missing? You encountered the crimson dragon and now serve it to live? Indirectly leading to Oakenburg's destruction?"

He quickly pieced the circumstances together.

"You could say that, but - the rest didn't make it. I'm the sole survivor," Alvis nodded, openly admitting his allegiance to Raphael's faction.

"Let me get to the point since we'll have ample time together later. I only recently returned from abroad and, for certain reasons, this is my only foothold. I don't want to see this fledgling regime crushed by foreign powers, as I don't relish being a drifter again."

"However, I'm not one to rely on others. So I leveraged my old Draconic connections to orchestrate this situation. My goal isn't as simple as usurping your power - with Raphael's influence, such schemes are futile. No, my true aim…" Alvis paused meaningfully.

"As the aristocratic leadership, you must understand the unspoken rules and bottom lines we're all upholding. I haven't killed any of your enforcers, staff or guards. And you haven't ordered all-out efforts to impede our advance, correct?"

At the words "bottom line," Moran recalled Muller's ominous parting warning.

"He meant - ah, I see! Of course, how didn't I realize sooner!" The marquis nodded in dawning comprehension, eyeing the stranger as one would a monster.

"I understand now. But I won't capitulate easily. You'll need to show more of your hand. Don't forget, the elite mercenary companies aiding Erl came at our behest!"