Lord Hendrik was in a good mood.

It had been months since his nephew had legally handed over control of his estate to him.

His nephew had gone travelling to learn new things and see the wider world.

A thing that any young noble would do, nothing to cause any suspicion.

Since then, he had been able to use that wealth and begin making more for his nephew's return.

He would have to wait a couple months more to suddenly receive terrible news of his nephew's unfortunate death in Suldar.

But he was prepared for that already, he'd had the letter penned and had even had one of his men travel to that desert wasteland of a city to send it back to him.

None would be able to deny it's authenticity.

That little replacement rat was already a corpse in the ground.

Lord Hendrik remembered watching the boy being roughly used by his men one final time before they had cut his throat and thrown him into the hole.

It had been very satisfying.

Not just for the pleasure of watching the filth suffer through it, the men had certainly gone above and beyond their usual treatment knowing that they wouldn't need the rat to live afterwards.

It had also been just as satisfying to finally being rid of the replacement after all those years.

Now that he had what was rightfully his, he had been free to start crushing his opposition and building up his own interests.

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He had only just begun in earnest but things were moving in the right direction now.

His mood was good because just today he had crushed several small and independent shop owners. Once he had cleared out enough of them, gotten rid of the filth, he could move his own people into places he decided he wanted them.

It was a thrill that the common filth couldn't understand or appreciate, to move the masses around like pieces.

The moves too subtle for their animal-like minds to understand or even notice, small moves that had big impacts.

Once he had a firm hand on the city, he could begin cleaning up the nobility next.

Too many of them had bred with the lower or foreign filth and muddied their bloodlines, he'd start with the least of them, the minor nobles and then work his way up the ranks.

Maybe he would even get rid of that soft and foolish weakling who called himself their king.

Though maybe he wouldn't have to actually remove him in the end, but he would have control of this place eventually.

Publicly or not, he would rule here there were none who could stop him, none who were intelligent enough to notice any of his movements.

His masterful performance of the grief he would display publicly was already firmly in his mind, it was a flawless performance and over something he truly cared nothing about.

They would never see anything he didn't want them to, never suspect him until it was too late.

Lord Hendrik sent for another one of the girls.