Kukenan Plateau. White Raven city.
Agatha's office.
"Where the fuck were you?"
Agatha asked with visible anger on her face. Eren had tried to get handsy with the half-blood manager of his. But she slapped his hands before making him sit in front of her.
Eren chuckled and tapped the gingers on Agatha's work desk before responding.
"Hehe. I was looking for a place for both of us to unwind. And I finally found a suitable location."
Eren came up with a unique blend of bullshittery.
"You've been working too much, Miss manager. So I thought you could use a place like this. I came back as soon as I could after finding something interesting.
I'll take you there when we get time. It'll be fun."
Eren said with a genuine smile on his face. If Tumko was here with his mentalist-class spells, he would find it difficult to say if Eren was lying or not.
Agatha wanted to argue some more. But there was a part of her that was delighted after hearing Eren's reply. Her anger was subdued a bit as a result. She started looking at Eren with less-troubled expressions.
Agatha froze in the rapid-fire round she had created for Eren who had decided to pop in front of her like a wild mushroom. There was someone else who used that chance to reveal herself.
"Lord Husband, why are you missing her when she's in front of you?"
Kirin appeared all of a sudden and asked Eren about the kingdom. One could say that her speech was almost indistinguishable from what was considered normal.
She had turned invisible with her spatial bending powers before Eren entered his city. It wasn't that Eren wanted her to turn this way. But it was something she would do on her own.
Only highly capable C-Rank entities or above would be able to sense her presence when she was hiding in plain sight. Therefore, Agatha was shocked to the core seeing a beautiful elf suddenly appearing beside Eren's seat. She was only calmed after seeing Eren's nonchalant reactions.
Eren frowned when he listened to Kirin's words. He pulled her and made her sit beside him before explaining that there were two meanings of the same word 'miss'.
Agatha found it odd that Eren was taking elementary language lessons of a fully grown elf. And he seemed pretty experienced at it. As if he had done this before. She found it even odder that this new girl was a Rank-C existence.
Then something even more profound and shocking came to her mind as a result of Kirin's way of addressing Eren.
"Lord… Lord Husband? What the fuck does that mean? When? Where?"
Agatha asked with a cocktail of emotions churning inside her heart. Eren, who was busy discussing a few more details with Kirin, found it tiring that he was having multiple conversations at once.
"Kirin darling, if you have any doubts, note them down and ask me at the end of the day. I'll be sure to clear them all."
Kirin nodded at Eren's suggestion, receiving a head pat from him in response. The latter then focused his gaze on an angry-looking Agatha. He shrugged his shoulders before responding.
"I don't know when I got married, Miss Manager. That custom came from where this lass is, and I became a part of it both intentionally and accidentally.
It's complicated.
I can't exactly renege out of this thing, you know. Not after killing her father. She'd be with me now."
Eren said matter-of-factly to Agatha. The latter's anger and shock turned into bewilderment when she heard Eren speak. She looked at Kirin with the same expression before asking her.
"Did… did he really kill your father?"
"Yes," Kirin replied with a nod and neutral tone.
"And you are still with him? Married to him by some custom?" Agatha asked to confirm.
It was Kirin's turn to look at her with a puzzlement of her own before replying.
"Um… yes. We take our customs very seriously."
"Unbelievable…" Agatha could only sum up her emotions with one word. Kirin didn't look like she had been forced into following such customs. Her expression changed to suspicion when she turned her gaze back to Eren.
"I have never heard such elf customs before."
Eren raised his hands in an "I am just as clueless as you are" manner before asking her the main question.
"How is our city doing financially these days? I see that it's bustling with a lot of new shops, new things added into the mix along with an ever-increasing population. But everything would be a waste if we were not earning a substantial amount of pure profit."
Agatha looked at Eren keenly for a while after hearing the question. There were so many questions she had herself that she wanted to ask him. But for now, she needed to put them on hold.
She adjusted her hair before replying.
"Hmph. We are doing better than initially estimated, Mr. "Lord Husband!"
We made about 50 thousand Extols in purple profits yesterday. But since we are investing in our guild members, a fixed amount of that sum will be used for them.
Our tri-party deal with House Derringer and House Montmorency is also proceeding well. Our profits are bound to increase in the future. But that is when we are clear of our debts.
Still, 50 thousand Extols is not a small sum. Heh! It's almost the same amount you spent on a date with Altashia. That was one hell of an "investment" you made there, "Lord Husband."
Agatha said, her voice still coated in a bit of tantrum. Eren didn't mind being called Lord Husband by Agatha even though she had called him that way to taunt him. But he was surprised she knew about his dating activities with Altashia.
"Hm? How did you…"
Agatha produced an array disk that contained a spectral certificate before Eren could form his question. It stated that the loan on Eren's head had been cleared off.
"This is the first thing I did when we started earning, clearing your debt. I had been to the city of New Beginnings to do just that. Imagine my surprise when I learned that your "investment" turned out to be made for this preposterous reason.
We were already struggling at that time. You barely spent any money on me. And you went out of your way for that damn girl.
Where are your work ethics now, Lord Husband?"
