As Vicente left, the rest of his men, who were on duty to help the group in case of need, arrived at Zander's tavern.
There, they quickly picked up the two injured men and took them to a local medical clinic.
In the meantime, no further trouble occurred. Several of the spectators from the earlier "show" had left, and the pace in the tavern had returned to normal.
Meanwhile, Jax's emissaries had already discovered that Brody had been taken by someone behind the group responsible for the men guarding Zander's tavern.
...
"Damn it! Who do these brats think they are?" Jax exclaimed as one of his men, the one who told him what had just happened.
Not only had he been humiliated by an Intermediate Apprentice and forced to retreat, but now his nephew was in the hands of his enemies. If he acted against the people in that tavern, he would have to explain Brody's death to his older sister!
As he watched her son almost explode with rage, an old woman with white hair and an orange gem on her forehead said in a low voice. "Jax, you have to handle this."
"I know, mama. I'm gonna fix it! I'm going to get those bastards and torture them for this!" Jax growled as his little brother stood next to their mother, very upset about the whole thing.
"First, you need to think straight, Jax." The old woman said with a sigh.
Unfortunately, the man had inherited his father's intelligence. In fact, half the family had inherited the aggressiveness of the patriarch of this family.
Maybe things would be better for the Peters family if they were more like her.
But unable to do much about her family members' genes, Amina could only do damage control to keep her family's best hope alive.
"This tavern can't afford to hire its own guards. They must have hired some upstart mercenary group. So go to the mercenary guild and look for information about them. I believe we will find the group behind little Brody's kidnapping." She instructed, thinking about targeting the right people.
If they went after River and Zander, they would only incite the men behind the guards in the tavern to do the worst to Brody.
But by going after the real people responsible for all of this, they could find ways to resolve this situation.
Her youngest son agreed as he stood up. "I'll take care of it, mama. If all goes well, we can have Brody back by the end of the night."
"Hmm, you do that." She looked at the level 1 Acolyte, the most like her in the whole family.
She looked at Jax and said, "You must get little Brody back alive, no matter what. Without him, we'll always be lowly miners. But if he has a chance to grow, we can eventually raise the family's importance."
"I know. I'll do my best." Jax replied, knowing Broly's importance.
The Peters family was in the mining business. They ran a small mine near Millfall, working for a noble family that owned the area.
But even though they didn't own their land, this family had a lot of potentials to work in the area. Not every noble family exploited the labor of others without giving opportunities and rewards to their contractors.
Like this family, some workers had opportunities to grow and become rich if they provided quality services.
In this case, if they improved their results, they would receive larger and larger shares of what they produced in their mines.
It would not be impossible for them to build their own mining business and even become nobles one day due to the power they could have through their success!
But to do that, they needed someone talented who could use the family's spells to the fullest, increase production, and more. To do that, this one had to be talented enough to get stronger without the family having to go bankrupt to raise them!
Magicians had no limit to their level. One would go as far as one could, given their abilities, luck, etc.
But some produced results with little investment, and others needed rivers of resources to grow.
In the Peters family, most people fell into the second case, and it would be impossible for the family to produce a single Mage, even considering all they produced.
But Brody was different. With him, the matriarch hoped her family would finally raise someone capable of being more than an Acolyte!
Knowing the importance of his nephew, Jax would soon leave the day-to-day matters he was dealing with to solve the situation of the arrogant blue-haired young man.
...
Late at night in Millfall, Jax's younger brother returned from his hours of searching the local mercenary guild.
Meeting his worried sister, mother, and Jax, he brought better news to ease the family's tensions.
"I managed to find out the group behind these people! They are a newly formed group based in an estate..." He quickly revealed the information he had gathered at the guild, talking about the Fuller family's headquarters.
In the Seidel Kingdom, one could not have a large group because it was against royal laws.
However, there were exceptions. For example, a group of mercenaries was not considered an unauthorized army but rather a group of people acting together.
Mercenary groups in the Seidel Kingdom could exist and have up to 10 members and could operate in the cities and lands of the kingdom.
Vicente had created the mercenary group behind the men who guarded the two taverns he protected to protect his group legally.
This served to draw the attention of offended potential enemies away from his group's customers but also to keep the royal forces from suspecting that these people were part of an unauthorized army.
As they figured out where to find their enemies, the core of this family soon discussed how to deal with these bold people who dared to threaten them even without Acolytes at their side.
While they were discussing it in Jax's office on the house's second floor, someone dressed in black landed on the roof.
As he lay on the roof of that house, he closed his eyes and made a Red Pentagram appear in one of his hands, feeling what metals were there.
'Hmm, there are some coins here.' He felt a great weight on his conscience as he noticed something underground in this property.
He stopped using his abilities when he realized where he should go and opened his eyes again, looking at the street next to the house.
He nodded in the direction of a tree, and soon after, he entered the chimney of that house!
