Chapter 112: Daughter to Father
The office scented of old wood and herbal mix, the kind of scent you found when you walked into your grandparents’ house. It was a spacious office but nothing too grand or to be gawked at.
The floor was made of worn out wood that hinted it was well made and polished at some time in the past, but the wear and tear of time had caused it to change. It was the same as everything that was in this room. The shelves that stood against the wall had seen better days, the wood bending under the pressure of large books that had not been touched for years and artifacts that had for sure lost their value.
The table sat at the center. It was pretty empty for an office table. There were no documents and no files that needed to be taken care of. It was either the person that had this office was extremely efficient or had no work to be done at all.
On the chair in the room sat a round figure, an old man earlier over his sixties, dressed in overly pompous noble clothes that did not fit the state of this office at all. It was a sore thumb.
He had a bald head and a very crazy mustache. He looked at the table as if there was work to be done.
Knock knock.
The man looked at the door with a gaze that said he was not ready or willing to have any visitors. With reluctance, he responded.
"Come in," his voice gruff and rough.
The door swung open and standing outside was a young lady no more than twenty. She had beautiful black hair and a slender figure. She was dressed in a blouse, leather pants, and boots. A sword hung on her waist.
She looked at the man seated there with a certain type of disappointment that only came after years and years of resentment.
"I know you can see what is happening right now, Father. The town is being attacked and people are dying," she yelled the moment that she entered.
He looked at her with a lazy gaze. "What would you have me do then?" he asked.
"Be a leader for once in your life, Father. You are the baron and you are willing to allow all these people to die. You have no measures to stop what is happening, nor do you care for what they are going through.
All you do is suck up to those wealthy nobles that come to you. It’s weak and pathetic."
"Enough!" he thundered. "I’ll not have my own daughter speak to me in that way. I am your father and the baron here."
"Tch, if only you knew what those two titles meant," she replied.
He looked at her and anger formed in his eyes. He slammed the table and rose to his feet.
"What would you have me do? We barely have a hundred working guards in this town. After that royal knight came here and forced my hand to give him aid, we lost more than half, and a ton of adventurers have left because of the fact that it’s no longer safe.
My mind is rolling like some ball and seeking out solutions, but there are none." He took a big breath as if preparing to drop some news that was far too massive.
"It’s over, Lia. There is no saving this town. Even if I wrote a letter to the viscount or count, it would take at least a day to get to them and a day for them to send help. We would all be dead.
This whole farce that my father, your grandfather, handed to me in the name of baron, it ends now. I can’t help anyone or do anything.
Get ready. We are leaving the town to escape before the monsters get to us. I have enough saved up to ensure that we get a good life somewhere," he spoke as if it was a done deal and he knew that his daughter was going to come along with the plan.
Lia was seething, veins bulging all over her body, her face turned fiery red.
"You would stand there and tell me all this? That you plan to throw away everything that Grandfather has built?
I hate you, for being weak, for not knowing what to do to save your own people, for choosing to be a coward," she said and then looked at her father. She pulled her sword from the sheath and pointed it at him.
"Lia, what are you doing? Put your sword down. I am your father. Do you know you can be punished for this type of behavior? What would your mother say?"
When she heard the last question he asked, it was as if something snapped in her mind.
"Mother is dead. I, Lia Raven, place you, Ronal Raven, former Baron of Raven Town, under arrest for treason against the Kingdom of Vermillion, for abandoning your people when they needed you the most, for ruling with incompetence." She drew a deep breath after that.
"You’ll be detained until you face a fair trial. All your status as a noble will be stripped from you as of this moment.
I will advise that you act accordingly and allow me to detain you. Any struggle will be taken as assault to the arresting party and new baron of the town, which can cause your death."
Ronal froze when he heard everything that she said. Shock was written on his face. He never thought a day would come like this.
BAM!
He slammed his palm into the table with full force.
"LIA!"
His voice thundered. He tried to say more, but she moved.
She was faster than his eyes could follow. She came in with a body slam that checked him into the wall and then proceeded to drive her sword through his shoulder, out the back, and into the wall behind.
He screamed like a pig when he felt the pain. She looked him right in the eye with no remorse.
"Any struggle will be seen as assault," she reminded him.