Chapter 844: Grabbing Him By The Balls
Cassius had known from the very beginning that the mines would need some level of assistance.
But to hear Julie say that the very same commander who they had just spent the last hour describing as a living legend needed help?
That was rather surprising.
He reached for the letter, the parchment unfolding in his hands, and immediately, Cassius found himself pleasantly surprised.
Not by the message itself, but by the handwriting.
It was beautiful.
Elegant, flowing script danced across the page—each letter formed with the kind of refined grace.
Cassius ran his fingers over the ink, genuinely impressed.
"This handwriting...it looks like something a princess would produce in a palace study. Not a battle-hardened general who commands a thousand warriors."
"Surprising, isn’t it?" Julie settled herself into the chair across from his desk while Skadi, never one to miss an opportunity, promptly reclaimed her position on Cassius’s lap.
"The first time I saw her write, I couldn’t believe it either. You’d expect someone like her to have crude, blocky letters—practical and blunt. But no. She writes like she was trained in a royal court."
"Which she technically was." Aisha added, perching on the arm of the sofa. "Your mother made sure of that."
Cassius nodded and turned his attention to the letter’s contents.
"So, what exactly is going on?"
Julie leaned forward, her expression growing serious.
"Recently, there’s been a surge of Mana Fiends inside and around the mines."
Cassius looked up from the letter, his brow furrowing. "Mana Fiends? What are those?"
He had heard about monsters, demons, and all sorts of different creatures that roamed the world.
Adventurers made a living hunting them, using their body parts as materials and resources.
Merchants always had to hire guards to protect their caravans from attacks. But he had never come across the term "Mana Fiends" before.
Aisha leaned back in her chair, resting her hands on the desk.
"Mana Fiends are exactly what the name suggests—creatures that are born out of pure mana."
She paused, organizing her thoughts.
"Normal beasts and monsters are just like any animal out there. They breed with one another, push out babies, and those babies grow up and breed again."
"Slowly, the population increases. They go through the natural cycle of life, just like any other creature."
Her expression grew more serious.
"But Mana Fiends? They’re different. They don’t reproduce. They manifest."
She tapped her finger against the desk in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
"When mana accumulates in one place without being used or cycled, it becomes stagnant."
"Stagnant mana isn’t just useless—it becomes corrupted."
"And when that corruption reaches a critical concentration..." Her tapping stopped. "It produces something called a mana seed. And from that seed, a fiend is born spontaneously out of nothing."
"They just appear, Master!" Skadi snarled softly from Cassius’s lap, her nose wrinkling with undisguised distaste. "No warning, no source."
"As long as there’s enough stagnant mana in an area, they can spawn from thin air. I hate them!"
Julie nodded grimly. "Normal locations without concentrated mana are perfectly safe. This part of the Holyfield estate—"
She gestured toward the window, where the afternoon sun painted golden light across the sprawling, beautiful fields beyond.
"—is quite secure. The mana here is evenly distributed, with no dangerous hotspots."
"We also conduct routine inspections to ensure no stagnant mana accumulates. And if any is found, we dispatch mages and Church officials with holy magic to purify it immediately."
She sighed, a shadow of gloom crossing her face.
"But the Holy Field mines are a completely different beast. The entire subterranean network is saturated with immense deposits of raw aether, the supreme source of mana on this entire continent."
"In an environment like that, Mana Fiends spawning is a daily occurrence."
Skadi snuggled closer into Cassius’s chest, shivering slightly.
"Normally, even a heavy hotspot only spawns one or two at a time. But over at the mines? All those giant aether crystals build up so much scary energy that the deep shafts are practically infested!"
"And they’re hideous, Master!"
"They have these glowing, unnatural blue patterns burning through their hides. You can tell what they are the second you look at them."
Cassius’s gaze darkened as he absently stroked Skadi’s soft tail, working through the implications.
"So what you’re saying is...there’s been a massive spike in their spawn rate?"
"Exactly." Julie nodded solemnly. "Up until now, Big Sis Ragnora and her garrison had the situation completely under control."
"They were so efficient they could practically predict where the mana was stagnating, setting up kill-zones the second a fiend materialized."
A look of admiration appeared before it dissipated into a frown.
"But this recent surge is unprecedented. They’re spawning faster than her soldiers can clear them out. They’re drowning in them."
She caught the sudden tension in Cassius’s shoulders and quickly raised a hand to soothe him.
"Don’t worry—it hasn’t collapsed into an absolute disaster just yet."
Cassius felt a small measure of relief.
The last thing he wanted was for anything to happen to the people who provided the wealth that funded his entire lifestyle. And especially not to his so-called aunt, who he had just learned about.
"To be clear." Julie added quickly. "Big Sis Ragnora herself says in that letter that she still has things under control. But it’s becoming more difficult by the day, and the projections suggest it could get significantly worse in the near future."
A shadow fell over the room. Even the sunlight streaming through the windows seemed dimmer.
"That’s why she’s requesting reinforcements from the Holy Guard."
Aisha concluded, meeting Cassius’s eyes with a knowing look.
"She wants additional soldiers to help manage the situation and keep it contained. Even though they can handle it alone for now, she wants a safety buffer. She doesn’t want any unnecessary casualties."
Skadi chimed in from her perch. "But that’s not all, Master! She also wants someone to help investigate what’s actually causing this surge!"
Julie leaned back, crossing her arms.
"Big Sis is an extraordinary warrior—perhaps the greatest physical combatant alive. But when it comes to mana itself, she’s...limited. She doesn’t wield spells. She fights purely through physical ability and the blessing carried in her bloodline."
Blessing of her bloodline.
What kind of blessing could make someone strong enough to punch dragons?
"So." Aisha sighed heavily. "She doesn’t have the knowledge to diagnose a corrupted mana leyline. Even her resident mages are stumped."
"She needs an expert to pinpoint the source of the stagnant build-up and destroy it at the root."
Skadi twisted in Cassius’s lap, looking up at him with a pout.
"But we can’t go right now, Master! We’re already stretched thin here. If even one of our knights leaves their post, it creates a gap in our defensive network!"
"She’s right." Julie admitted, frustration creeping into her voice. "We’ve established a perfect defensive formation. Bandits can’t break through, and even if they did, we can respond immediately."
"But if we pull soldiers out, even a handful, the entire operation could be compromised. We’d be inviting casualties."
Cassius, who had been absently sniffing Skadi’s tail and wondering why it smelled faintly of jasmine, looked up with a practical suggestion.
"Why don’t we just hire high-ranking adventurers? Offer them a fraction of the raw aether ore they clear out."
He chuckled like it was the perfect idea.
"With how insanely valuable aether is, half the mercs on the continent would line up just to crack open a single vein."
Julie slouched back into her chair with a groan of frustration.
"If only it were that simple. The Holy Field mines are a tightly guarded secret. We can’t just throw the doors open to desperate mercenaries."
"What if a rival house sends infiltrators disguised as adventurers? A single deliberate collapse in a primary shaft could destroy decades of mining infrastructure."
She rubbed her temples, looking genuinely stressed.
"The risk of sabotage is far too high. Monitoring a hundred unscreened mercenaries would take more effort than fighting the fiends ourselves."
"That’s exactly why she’s calling for us." Aisha said. "We’re the only ones she can trust without reservation. But..."
She looked at Cassius helplessly.
"We’re currently occupied. We’re in a genuine dilemma. "Not to mention, the Holy Guard also can’t hire adventures who know nothing about our formations as well."
Cassius frowned, his mind working through the problem.
He needed trusted soldiers who could be deployed immediately.
He also needed someone knowledgeable about mana who could investigate the root cause of the surge and eliminate it.
But that was difficult.
The two primary military forces in the Holyfield estate were the Holy Guard and the Blood and Iron Brigade.
Both were currently stretched to their limits. Auxiliary soldiers existed, certainly—plenty of them—but they lacked the discipline and loyalty of the main forces.
They could be bribed. Compromised. They couldn’t be fully trusted.
If this situation continued unchecked, more Mana Fiends would spawn. The problem would compound. Disaster would follow.
Just as he was about to start brainstorming alternative solutions, Julie’s stressed expression melted away, replaced by a slow, calculating smile.
She looked at Cassius with a pair of approving, gleaming eyes.
"Or at least...it was a dilemma."
Julie said smoothly, pointing a manicured finger directly at his chest.
"Until we remembered we have you."
He blinked, pointing at himself. "Me?"
Aisha mirrored Julie’s smile, her earlier gloom evaporating.
"You’re the perfect solution, Cassius! After all, you’re practically a one-man army. Sending you alone would be equivalent to sending a thousand soldiers."
A warm flush of pride swelled in Cassius’s chest. Aisha noticed his reaction and found it utterly endearing, her smile softening at the edges.
"But that’s not all." She continued, her eyes bright. "You also possess extensive knowledge of mana. Your theoretical understanding rivals any archmage’s. Honestly, if you could actually wield mana yourself, you’d already be a Supreme Mage."
"You’re better than sending any of us, Master!" Skadi bounced excitedly on his lap. "As long as you’re there, you can solve any problem!"
"All you’d have to do is throw a punch—" She demonstrated with an enthusiastic swing. "—and bam! Another punch—" She swung again. "—and boom! All the Mana Fiends would be gone!"
She reached up and rubbed his head affectionately.
"And you can use that brilliant mind of yours to figure out whatever’s causing the surge and clear it up too!"
She burrowed into his embrace with absolute, unshakeable faith.
Cassius let out a helpless laugh, stroking Skadi’s back as he looked at Julie.
"So let me get this straight." Cassius said dryly. You want me, the Young Master of this household, the man you supposedly serve..."
"...to travel to a territory crawling with chaos and monsters, surrounded by barren mountains without a trace of color or comfort..."
"...to solve a problem that you are supposed to handle? The very reason I pay you?"
Julie’s eyes glittered with smug amusement.
"Of course, Cassius." She folded her arms, her posture radiating confidence. "It’s simply a routine patrol, after all. The Holyfield mines aren’t exactly far—barely two days’ travel north."
"It’s not as if you can’t manage that much."
Cassius leaned back, pulling Skadi tighter against him in a protective embrace.
"And what if I refuse?"
He adopted an exaggeratedly haughty tone, chin lifted with aristocratic arrogance.
"What if I say that I already provide you and the other knights with more than sufficient wages to deal with this problem yourselves?"
"A nobleman of my stature shouldn’t dirty his hands with such mundane affairs. Surely you understand that."
Julie’s smirk sharpened. She leaned forward, her eyes glinting with the confidence of someone holding a winning hand.
"Oh no, Cassius. You’ll most definitely go."
Cassius matched her lean, their faces now closer across the desk. "And why, exactly, is that?"
"Firstly." She said, ticking off one finger. "If something happens to those mines, all those lovely funds and riches you enjoy so much will evaporate."
Cassius’s expression stiffened.
"The same wages you pay us? Gone. The Holy Guard would have to seek employment under other noble houses just to survive."
His face soured even further.
Skadi giggled at his reaction.
"Secondly." Julie continued, her smile turning positively menacing, a cold gleam entering her eyes. "If you refuse to go...you won’t be permitted to lay a single finger on any of our bodies."
"You can basically say bye-bye to putting that massive thing in your pants inside of us."