"What opportunity?" asked the blue-haired girl sitting across from him.
"I think I know something about those revolutionaries. Quick, call Latrina over. We need to go to the garrison headquarters right now," Barnier said cautiously.
The next day, in the earl's mansion, Sean sat at the dining table for his daily meal as usual.
Ever since he became an earl, many formalities had grown stricter. Although he was in his own home, the servants still dared not overstep their bounds. No one in the household would sit and eat with him, so he almost always dined alone.
Originally, Sean had told old retainers like Luke and Calibo not to be too constrained, but the other servants remained strict, making the few of them too embarrassed to join him for meals.
He had given all his orders the day before, and now everything awaited responses from the Sky-Covering Wings and Alphonse.
Sean was confident the Sky-Covering Wings would send someone, but he wasn't sure about Alphonse. He had detailed the appearance of the Necronomicon in his letter; if they were truly interested, they should come.
But if they didn't, Sean could only hope that Freya would send people with ample magical knowledge—preferably not spies from the Grand Duke.
After the last incident, Sean discovered that even within the Sky-Covering Wings' headquarters, some had sided with the Grand Duke. The girl who used to bring him morning reports, acting close but with only average favorability, was one of the Grand Duke's people.
Because anything he told her alone, the Grand Duke also knew. Sean had mentioned this to Freya before, but she couldn't do much about it.
Even if that girl were removed, others would take her place—it was unavoidable. Almost every faction had its own intelligence department, long embedded within their rivals. Sean had wanted to set up one himself, but given Oroc City's current situation, it was difficult. Mainly because the Takoma incident had cost many high-level Order Keepers, and later, many others fled.
This left Oroc City newly built but without its own wizard corps or any special forces. Asking the Sky-Covering Wings to send people was also a way to borrow the witch corps' strength to bolster his own capabilities.
That was why Sean had instructed the Morgan family to lower housing prices—to attract more capable outsiders. Additionally, following Harry's advice, he kept introducing different policies to draw residents.
But the results were still modest.
According to historian Ross, a city needed one or two years of stability to develop; a few months of reform wouldn't yield much.
As Sean ate and pondered the city's future plans, Asrant approached.
"My lord, Miss Filo is here again."
"Ah, fine. Let her come," Sean said with some resignation.
Filo DiVara.
Ever since she heard about his attack, she had rushed over to check if he was injured, emphasizing that the DiVara family also had a formidable elite force ready to help capture the rebels.
The DiVara family was an old power in Oroc City, so they certainly had resources. To balance the two major commercial families, DiVara and Morgan, Sean had given each certain positions—not many, but important ones.
This way, the two families would keep an eye on each other and not cause trouble. Besides, he planned to support the Claude siblings as his commercial managers.
But this arrangement didn't seem to satisfy the DiVara family, who were closest to him. Filo still frequently visited his mansion.
Sometimes she talked about nothing, just strolling with him, or bought things to give him.
"Earl!"
Setting down his utensils, Sean heard Filo's voice approaching.
"Earl, still having breakfast?"
Filo lifted her large skirt as she entered, spotting Sean at the table.
"Miss DiVara, what brings you here today?"
"I was just passing by and thought I'd check on you," she said, a shy blush coloring the noble lady's cheeks.
Sean could see the motives behind these noblewomen's constant approaches—whether for their families or themselves, they all wanted more contact.
And he couldn't fault them for it; wanting a better life wasn't wrong.
Given his high status and unmarried state as an earl, local families naturally had marriage alliances in mind.
By now, Sean could understand why many nobles married young—living in such an environment, it was hard to avoid sparks flying, especially with these families being key in his territory.
"Any news on the rebels?" Filo asked, perhaps sensing Sean's silence, she started a topic herself.
"Not yet. They're smart—they didn't impulsively rescue their comrades but chose to hide," Sean said.
They had indeed hidden. Since yesterday morning, when Joseph publicly displayed the rebel corpses in Central Square, Sean had seen two red dots on the sand table once, then never again—as if they were deliberately lying low.
"What should we do? Should we send people to search too?"
"Joseph has already deployed a large garrison force; that's enough," Sean said.
He had considered some provocative moves, like publicly executing a few to force them out, but he didn't know the enemy's true strength. If they had a few level seven or eight fighters, he'd have no counter except summoning the Eye of Gehros.
So Sean preferred to first gauge their strength before striking decisively. Besides, the enemy called themselves the Revolutionary Army—it wasn't just these few people. An empire that had tried so hard to eliminate them couldn't be dealt with alone in a short time.
Killing these few might attract more and stronger ones, and right now, he lacked capable people. Begging for help was the only option.
He hated to admit it, but the nearest big city was Koga, and asking them for help was unlikely.
So he needed his own strength.
"Maybe we could hire mercenary groups to help."
"Harry and Luke have already posted tasks at the Mercenary Guild."
As they chatted, a guard entered and whispered a few words to Asrant.
Asrant hurried over to Sean.
"My lord, a mercenary group claims to know where the imperial rebels are, but they want to see you."