Chapter 503

Tom P.O.V.

“Did you know?” Warden Grievous asks me as he sits in front of my desk. It’s been barely two weeks since the schools have started practical teaching in craftsmen professions and the results were shocking.

“Not a clue.” I answer honestly. “Ajax was sure it would work but considering how quickly things worked out for him I was doubtful. He always worked hard but I always thought he was just very special, and he clearly is but if things continue like this there will be issues.” 

Initially schools were widely accepted with slight positivity from the populace. A place to send their kids where they’ll be warm and fed, if nothing else that took some pressure off the poorer families as they had less mouths to feed. 

Then the tanning incident happened and opinion was starting to shift towards more negative, school was simply something they were tolerating in exchange for the free food and babysitting. When news broke about the effort put into building a new school building and the arena public opinion was starting to turn against us. People thought we were wasting resources. 

Then it happened. It wasn’t all at once. A few kids each day. Two weeks in however and one in five kids had already gained a Common skill for one of the crafting professions. They thought they were being clever by keeping quiet about the gains their children made, thinking we would snatch them up. 

Over the course of the last five days almost all complaints about the school had magically vanished. Everyone had a child who earned a Skill or had good friends whose child had earned a Skill and shared the news with them. 

The problem was that now the school was already way too successful. There were ten kids who had earned more than one skill in the first two weeks and a single boy who had earned three. Ajax had always claimed that people had more potential than they realized but this was ridiculous. 

“If things keep going like this there will be accusations of treason coming.” Grievous said darkly. “Even worse is that I wouldn’t even be able to blame them for making the accusations even though I know for a fact you didn’t plan on this.” 

He wasn’t wrong. As soon as the first Skills were gained Ajax jumped on it and offered every single crafter we had teaching the option to extend their contract to twenty years in exchange for an upfront increase in their pay by one tenth and follow up increases of one twentieth every year after. Almost everybody agreed. 

On the surface Ajax’s school methodology might look easy to replicate but that was only true in a world where it hadn’t already happened. News would spread fast, crafters would know their worth and almost no noble Houses had mountains of gold ready to be deployed in such a long term investment as teaching their commoners.

Even worse with Ajax’s extended contracts he had essentially locked down the best teachers for the next twenty years. These were the ambitious Journeymen and low leveled masters in all the fields he could find. Everyone else would be getting in a bidding war to get enough teachers for their own territories now and they would be forced to start at a much higher rate to higher the masters to teach commoners basic principles.

“They might call it whatever they want, it will never stick.” I say confidently. “Ajax spent weeks in the capital wildly advertising what he was hiring people to do, and most nobles either mocked him for wasting money or praised and respected him for wasting money on commoners.” 

Ajax, Lexi and Xavier had all left to plant the special tree they brought back a few days ago. As soon as they return however and see the same results we are seeing Xavier will be writing a letter to his father and Ajax and Lexi will be doing the same thing for Anna and Benedict. It will doubtlessly take time for things to be confirmed but that just means the number of nobles that will be visiting us around the same time Princess Arianwyn Sylvian is here will increase drastically.

“Do you think your predecessor would be open to working for House Hearthbound for a while?” I knew I didn’t have much of a relationship with the previous Warden but I knew Grievous thought highly of him and he had held the position of Warden for a long time. This would make him an ideal person to act as leader and liaison between the Wardens of all the cities in our duchy to coordinate guard reaction to any sabotage we might suffer once news of our success breaks.

“Under normal circumstances, you’d have no chance.” Grievous didn’t mince words. “If you explain what is happening to him he might accept to do it for the sake of the people, but he’d be doing it to help, he’ll rather quit than follow orders he doesn’t agree with.” 

I knew he wasn’t lying, a big reason why the Warden had stepped down once Grievous was powerful enough to take up the mantle was because he was exhausted having to stand down in front of the obvious abuses of power from House Nestor.

“What about Lady Manashaper?” The Warden asked. “Will she be ready?” 

Lexi would be the primary target in a few months when nobles come to visit. She was not only part of the group that delved two thirds of the known dungeons but she was also the one closest to Ajax who nobody could challenge making her a target for foreign elven nobles with a grudge to settle. 

As for nobles from Gryndor who would be target House Hearthbound Lexi would still be the only viable target. The rest of us were all newly raised nobles, it would simply be seen as a shame for them to challenge any of us outside of Ajax. Challenging him would be an obvious disaster unless the person who issued the challenge was above level one hundred and thirty, that would defeat the entire point having someone possibly ten times Ajax’s age and more than double his level challenge him unprovoked would be the height of cowardice. This only left them with Lexi.

“She’ll be ready.” I nod confidently. 

Lexi has been spending hours every day training to better control her magic, her recently increased Stats as well as getting a handle on her recent Boon. I wasn’t worried about Lexi not being able to hold her own against anyone who might challenge her. What I was worried about was Lexi being pushed too far, not holding back well enough and seriously injuring if not outright killing the challenger.

“That’ll be good.” Grievous said with a smile. “The people will fill that fancy pit you’re building to support her.” 

Despite the amount of time Lexi spent training and helping us with management of the duchy she still made a point of appearing in public at least once a week to help the people of the duchy. Her first appearance had been at the quarry but since then she had also visited the schools to help with keeping them warm as well as traveling to another city in the duchy to cull a beast wave before it really got going. Despite being the only member of House Hearthbound who wasn’t born and raised here the people were starting to rally behind her. 

With that the Warden bid his farewells and left my office. I took a look at my desk and decided to postpone writing the offer for the Warden. Instead I turned my eye towards the documents I received from the Adventurer’s Guild, that was a whole different problem. 

With our House taking control of the dungeon we had started using a lot more of the delve spots, it still wasn’t so much to the point that we would crowd the dungeons in the same way the ones in the capital were with month long wait lists for a delve slot but people were complaining nonetheless. 

On top of that the amount of dungeon breaks happening was starting to increase as well and the staff was asking us to help reign in their more ambitious young delvers. News had quickly gotten out about how Ajax had gotten his start in this dungeon by pushing into the second floor at the age of fifteen and now inexperienced groups of adventurer’s with levels only in the low and mid forties were attempting to clear the second floor without forming larger parties of at least thirty people.

“It’s a good thing the people are starting to like us, because the adventurer’s are about to curse our names.” I chuckle to myself as I start drafting a few potential dungeon rules to help treat the symptoms until things calm down. “ I’ll also need to mention this to Grievous, adventurer’s complaining about us in the tavern will lead to a lot of fights, especially with the parents of kids who might have just happened to gain a skill that day.”