Eren sighed dramatically when he received Ivor's agreement.
He shook his head and approached Ivor. The butcher placed both his hands on Ivor's shoulders and patted them before speaking up in a wise scholarly voice.
"You know young man… the road to revenge will only take you downhill. Try to be as forgiving as I am. You will be much happier that way."
Kirin chuckled but controlled her laughter elegantly. To support her husband, she stood up and left the scene.
Cough! Cough! Cough!
Argo on the other hand was not as subtle as Kirin. He started coughing as if he was going to die from it. He got up and placed his right hand over his chest to calm himself down before speaking up.
"This… cough cough cough… Boss… I think my allergies are acting up. Must be some side effects of eating that guy Oliver. I… cough cough cough... I'mma just walk it off."
Argo disappeared from his seat as well, leaving Eren alone with Layla and Ivor. Layla stuck her tongue at Eren too, telling him that she couldn't be fooled by his fake wise-ass speech.
Ivor was no fool to notice the tell-tale signs of Eren's bullshittery. He swatted the butcher's hands off his shoulders before reconfirming his involvement in the graduation event.
Eren sighed dramatically as if he truly wanted to prevent Ivor from taking the path of revenge. He could only agree to Ivor's demands as if it was Ivor's idea to go with him all along.
Layla had to admit that Eren was a master manipulator. He defused a tense atmosphere and convinced Ivor to join his plans willingly. She could say that even her master did not have this art in her skillset.
Eliza was a monster of a ranker and a half-blood with one-in-million talent. But when it came to manipulating people according to one's will, Eren had her beat. She could only use threats as a driving force for her manipulation to work.
However, fear and other negative emotions were not very effective manipulation tactics in the long run. The real manipulation was when the subject got excited to do what you wanted them to do all along.
Ivor was Eren's contingency plan in case he had to run wild at the graduation event. He could pin things on the mysterious Osan Woods' Butcher who managed to sneak into the event.
Ivor also knew how Eren thought at this point. He knew that Eren never did things out of pure goodwill towards him.
Osan Jr. had come to realize that the devil he knew was better than the devil he didn't.
Upon receiving Ivor's affirmation, Eren looked at Layla and clapped his hands before speaking up.
"That settles it for all of us, Layla. I and Ivor will go to attend the graduation event that will be held in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, you move forward and settle in the city of Lancelot. See what can be done to advance our plans.
However, don't make any major moves until we arrive in the city of Lancelots. The graduation event shouldn't take more than a month or two. So keep that in mind before making your decision.
Layla pondered for a bit and carefully considered Eren's instructions before nodding. There was now a movement to release her Master from the shackles of her inevitable fate. And she couldn't help feeling excited about it.
Eren felt Layla's excitement and sighed. He only hoped that he didn't have to raze an entire city to the ground just to get his hands on a couple of resources he had technically no use for.
***
Messing up with an old monster like House Lancelot was not a small thing. In more ways than one, the repercussions of doing something like that and getting exposed were going to be more severe than offending House Slughorn.
Eren guessed that House Lancelot had at least one Sage stationed in its city. And the Lancelot guild itself had various high-ranking entities working under its name.
This was the so-called big leagues. And he had to deal with them while being nowhere near them. House Lancelot was bigger than his organization in terms of the average ranking status of the roster of rankers, political power, economical background, and all the other standards of measurement one could think of.
Eren had worked really hard during these years to get to where he was. All so that he could execute Eliza's plans the way he wanted and get Reen back. If he had only been interested in his personal growth, he would have done the majority of things the same way. However, he would have adopted a different approach to change the outcome. His desire to get Reen back made him take a lot of detours.
Eren grew at an unprecedented rate on both personal and organizational levels. His city was one of the rising wonders of the kingdom. The city's prosperity made a big splash in the minds of the masses. And Eren's growth potential made everyone he came into contact with nervous.
But his growth was still nothing in comparison to organizations like House Lancelot which were sitting on piles and piles of old money and resources. Taking things from them was akin to waking up a wild beast.
As if that was not enough, Eren must also worry about Demonmir and House Slughorn. Then there were organizations like Midnight Moon which were trying to encroach on everything he had built so far.
***
All these reasons made Layla really wonder why Eren cared so much about being graduated. Since he wasn't interested in working for the kingdom or getting employed by other organizations, he should have let go of obtaining a degree.
The guy had an entire city to himself. He didn't need anyone's support to survive in the kingdom anymore. He could get his hands on any ranking resource for his rank without signing contracts.
So there was only one way Eren would get motivated to participate in the graduation event.
"You want something out of that graduation event. Don't you?"
