Chapter 192 (1): Once This Lord Reports to Her Majesty, You Will Be Punished for the Crime of Contempt
November twenty-fourth.
Cathedral Train Station.
In the departure hall, the investigation team, consisting of a couple of dozen people, prepared to board the train with their luggage. Wayne was their leader, and Mona was his secretary. The rest of the members were from the investigation division of the Ministry of Magic.
Although it was known as a subordinate division under the ministry, it was in reality a group of contractors working for the ministry while receiving a salary from Auston, not part of the organization in an official capacity.
As the heir of the Lando family, Wayne was effectively their boss.
The members each had a different role to play, including accountants and other administrative positions, armed bodyguards, and mages Auston had paid to train. It sounded like a feudal lord’s private army.
Of course, it wasn’t that since times were different, and the country had transitioned into a constitutional monarchy. There was no feudal lord or powerful clans[1], and no one would be considered as owning a private army. Auston called them employees of his security company instead.
Each Tulip Family had hired temporary contractors like the Lando family; only their specialties differed depending on the field the family concentrated on, for flexibility’s sake!
The Collins family, specializing in magic, had Yvette teaching students as a legendary mage, and her students went on to train more mages.
The Fleming family, a military family, had their generals recruit and promote talented people, who would thus devote their all to their benefactors to pay them back.
The Julian family, selling tobacco and lottery, was as influential in the business world as the Lando family. There was thus no shortage of people with vested interests who would support the Julians for their own benefits.
Each Tulip Family had created an ecosystem—or a complex web of interest groups. In this changing time, these ecosystems embodied not the establishment but the rising democracy, overturning the rule of the nobility. They kept abreast with the times and rode the trends rather than going against them.