The land breeze blew in the night. A crow, flying against the wind, was heading towards a walled estate. It perched on the third floor balcony ledge. A well-dressed human, with a glass of wine in his hand, was waiting for it.

  “Well, well. Reliable as always my little bird of death.” The man grabbed a bowl of nuts and fed them to the crow. While the crow ate the nuts, he took a parchment of paper that was tied to the crow’s feet.

  Reading the contents of the paper, the man started humming. Business was going well. That man was Baron Gano Jarvi Macriss. A prominent Baron in the city of Hazen, who owned one third of southern Hazen— and the entire crime ring of southern Hazen. The man was one of the biggest crimelords in all of Hazen.

  Cling Cling

  His room’s bell rang. It was a sign that his butler was calling for him. Baron Gano finished the wine in his glass and headed towards his bedroom door, the crow, seeing the man walking away, left the half-finished bowl of nuts and perched on the man’s shoulder.

  “Aren’t you a cute crow? Don’t want to leave me alone huh,” Baron Gano petted the crow. He was quite fond of the intelligent corvus.

  Baron Gano opened the door to his room, in front of the door, his knight, a man clad in black armor, was waiting for him. “Baron, your guests have been waiting for you.”

  “Perfect. Let’s go and meet them, Jan.” Baron Gano and his trusty knight, Jan, walked towards the guest room. His manor was fancy, full of ill-begotten gains. Baron Gano’s criminal syndicate was so profitable and powerful that all the local nobles knew about it, but did not dare to utter a word about it. Once, he was worried that the Hazen Family would purge him. But they did not do anything at all—they let him be, they let him grow. Now he believed that it was only a matter of time before he became the true master of Hazen. And today’s meeting with his guests was part of that goal.

  “Gentlemen, sorry to make you wait.” Baron Gano entered the guest room brazenly, not a hint of fear in his step.

  In the room, two figures were seated. One was Lorca, a two-meter-tall lion-headed Leonid, a race of demi-humans with the face of a big cat. They came from the southern continent, Hygali. Legend said that their ancestors fucked a Cat-deity, and from their union, came the Leonid.

  The other figure was a hooded undead. It was Carven, or his proxy to be exact. The coward did not dare to leave the safety of his underground lair, he used long range magic to control a ghoul and used it as his representative. Baron Gano’s biggest concern about hosting Carven was how his servants would deal with the smell later.

  “You’re late.” Complained Lorca. He had been waiting for minutes, and those were minutes too long for an impatient man like him. Meanwhile, Carven was just silent. He did not care how long he had to wait. His real body was busy experimenting in his lair. He could wait for a week and it wouldn’t affect him at all.

  “Sorry, gentlemen. I had some business to attend to.” Baron Gano said with a smile. He did not really care about the opinions of the other crimelords; after all, he was the most powerful man in Hazen. Baron Gano was about to seat himself when he realized that one of his guests was missing, “I can see that Rex was not here. I’m guessing he has no intention of working together.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Just ignore that fucker. He thinks he is hot shit.” Complained Lorca, ironically. To Baron Gano and even Carven, Lorca and Rex were similar. Two hotheads whose first instinct to any problem was violence. However, they had to admit, Lorca was more cooperative than Rex.

  “Well then, Gentlemen, let’s just ignore Rex and get to the point. Tonight, we’re gonna discuss how we’re gonna work together on the investigation on who killed our good friend, Krieg…but more importantly, we’re gonna talk about how we will split up his territory among us. Rex excluded.”

  The three greedy scums started talking and discussing how they’ll make each other richer…

  … and the crow watched them intently.

  ********

  Lady Beaugard was bored out of her mind. She had been lounging around on her balcony for a while now. She just finished her etiquette lesson, no tea party being scheduled, and her personal knight, Dame Lia was busy, so she could not go to the city and do her charity work.

  She could not bother her father and eldest brother, they were busy fighting paperworks. She did not want to talk to her mother, they recently had a fight… and she lost. She decided that she would not talk to her mother for at least three days. While she was wondering what to do, she saw two people who she had not seen for a while.

  “Brother Kylan. Brother Irvin.”

  She saw the two of them entering the estate together side-by-side, which was rare. Without a moment's hesitation, Beaugard jumped out of her stupor and immediately rushed downstairs to meet her brothers.

  “My lady, slow down.”

  All the maids and guards who saw her told her to slow down, worried that the precious young lady of House Hazen would injure herself from falling down. However, she ignored all of their worries, instead hastened her steps.

  “Brother!!!”

  As soon as she saw them in the front lobby, she jumped towards their embrace. Kylan already expected her rowdy little sister to do so, he caught her gently, ensuring she would not hurt herself. Meanwhile Irvin dodged her little sister, he knew Kylan got her and he did not want to be tackled by Beaugard.

  “He he, it’s been awhile since you came home, Brother Kylan. And you too, Irvin. I haven’t seen you for months.” Ever since Irvin entered the mage tower, he came home less and less, burying himself in the study of magic and his research.

  “Unlike you, Bea, your esteemed brother is super busy. The world requires a genius such as I to function properly.” Teased Irvin. He knew Beaugard also wanted to be more involved in the family business, but their mother prevented her from doing so. He used to be in that position as the youngest, and as soon as Beaugard was born, she replaced him from the position of being an over-protected child by their mother.

  “Ugh, shut up, Irvin. I got things to do too.” Beaugard tried to punch Irvin, but he masterfully dodged his sister’s weak and telegraphed punch. Giving up, Beaugard turned her focus to Kylan instead, “Say, Brother Kylan, how’s your case going? I can offer you my expertise if you need it.”

  Kylan knew his sister’s game. She wanted to help with his job, however, he did not want her help because their mother would give him hell if he did accept her help. So he planned to reject Beaugard’s offer softly… but then he remembered, “You know what, Bea, I might actually need your expertise.”

  “Eh, for real.” Beaugard was surprised that her brother was willing to accept her help. Normally everyone in the family played coy with her whenever she wanted to help them. This was an opportunity she could not let go, an opportunity to be useful to the family, “Of course, Brother. What do you need help with? Paperwork? Investigation? Fighting bandits? I’m ready for anything.”

  “Calm down, idiot.” Irvin chopped Beaugard’s head to calm her down. Beaugard became enraged and tried to attack Irvin, but Irvin effortlessly held her back with one arm. “We might need your help, but we need to discuss it with father and uncle first.”

  “Eh, even you need my help Irvin? What kind of help do you guys actually need?”

  Kylan and Irvin agreed that there was no one better in the family to help them handle this, no one in the family who interacted with Hazen’s orphans and urchins more than her.

  “It’s … children related, Bea.”

  **********

  The crow watched from afar. Perched on a tree inside the Hazen’s estate garden.

  It enjoyed the harmony and love the Hazen’s siblings showed to each other.

  It could only hope that it would last.

  It hoped that they did not dig too far …

  And met a gruesome fate in the hands of Regulus.