Dear Broom Knight

"Yager, can't you be reasonable?" Count Montes implored, with earnest sincerity, "In our own home, whatever happens is our own business. Outsiders can discuss it in private, but they can't bring it out into the open."

He touched his bruised face, a bitter expression on his face: "It's not like we're sparring for the first time. For the people of the territory, it's just a joke from years ago becoming a reality."

"But, putting these things under the noses of those people in the capital… Do you really think you can handle Countess Gezar asking you, in person, at a palace banquet, who won between you and me?

Even if you don't consider our reputations, you have to think about Laurie!

Laurie! You shut up!"

Laurie, who was about to say he didn't care, sullenly closed his mouth… His past mischievousness was clearly having adverse effects at this moment.

But Count Montes was also met with an overwhelming barrage in response to this reprimand.

"You good-for-nothing old man!" Lady Yagris instantly flew into a rage. "We mother and son haven't even left yet! How dare you speak to my Laurie like that!

What?

Is my son nothing to do with you?"

Count Montes replied with unusual calmness: "Yager, don't think you can make Laurie completely a Gezar by using this method. It's impossible."

"Heh~ Do you take me for you? When have I ever considered the Gezar family to be my family?

In my heart, Laurie's own interests always come first!" Lady Yagris gave a cold laugh. "If you want to win back Laurie's heart, then bring out something real!

You think you can just use sweet talk to make my son, Yagris' son, give up his own interests to work for you?

Don't even dream of it!"

These two each had their own agendas, which wasn't entirely incomprehensible, but… Laurie tilted his head, asking with a subtle expression: "Why do you all have more confidence in me than I do?

Being a mage requires brains, you know!"

Count Montes gave Laurie a strange look: "So, all that time you spent flipping through those books, you really were just flipping through them?

I remember you looked at books on magic!

"If I looked at any books, it must have been because the cover was pretty, or the illustrations inside were interesting," Laurie replied matter-of-factly. "Who would have such a heartless demand of an eight-year-old child?

To make me both work hard at cultivation and study diligently… Does the Montes family have that kind of talent?

"Perhaps, the Gezar family does?" Count Montes replied with particular seriousness.

However, his disguised flattery only earned him a sneer from his wife: "Ha~ What nonsense are you talking about?

Serious?"

Count Montes also felt that his statement was a bit far-fetched… Just like he once thought his eldest son's maternal grandfather was a fool, clearly situated in the central area of the Northern Kingdom, with a good position and abundant resources, yet still getting involved in the struggles between the princes that didn't even involve the right to inherit the throne, Count Gezar was obviously even more foolish.

At least his eldest son's maternal grandfather could say he was dragged down because the mines were almost exhausted, and the family's resources were insufficient, making them poorer and poorer.

But the Gezar family's mines could still be mined for two or three hundred years!

The reason why Yagris's biological father was forced to 'degenerate' was precisely because he, being a direct descendant, also had the right to share in the mining profits!

Then he 'degenerated' to the point of owing a large debt, and had to sell this profit-sharing right to the patriarch, his own elder brother… If you wanted to sell this kind of family mining profit-sharing right, you had to sell it to a family member, and the first person you would ask would naturally be the patriarch.

However, although Gezar was both bad and unscrupulous, he really didn't have much brains, so greedy that most decent nobles looked down on him.

Isn't it obvious that his two sons can't marry daughters from great noble families!

How amusing, doesn't he know what he did? Yet he dares to have two sons.

As for their Montes family, one could tell at a glance what kind of attribute they had from the dragon-veined rhinoceros on their family crest.

And like him and Yagris, who only have occasional disagreements, but have always had a way to resolve them… no matter what that method is, and neither of them has other lovers, and the children don't hate each other to death, then the two of them are close and intimate lovers.

As for the so-called 'in the open', it actually refers to exposing things to people outside one's own camp.

Therefore, in Count Montes' territory, even if he and Yagris spar every day, that is not 'in the open'.

Even if the visitors from the Noble Affairs Office clearly see the injury on his face, and hear what just happened from the excited exchanges of the territory's people, as long as he and Yagris don't put on another show in front of these visitors, then they have to pretend to 'not know' in public.

Although Count Montes used to disdain these cumbersome rules, he is now very grateful for their existence.

He absolutely cannot watch Yagris become too 'impulsive'.

Even if Count Montes was more than half sure that Yagris wouldn't let their marital relationship go bankrupt 'in the open' for Laurie's sake, he also knew that if his attitude was ambiguous and he didn't reveal anything, then that more than half would inevitably disappear completely.

His wife, who could quickly switch from a noble lady to a commander of a ten-thousand-man army, was definitely not the kind of little girl who would let him get away with it.

Therefore, he could only, in a row of excited eyes, under the contempt of his own son who thought 'you're so stupid', earnestly express his attitude to Yagris.

Yagris did indeed calm down a little because of his attitude, but she was still very firm: "I can wait until those people enter the castle and formally announce Laurie's letter of nobility before letting Laurie move to the Gezar barony.

This is my biggest concession!

Anything else, and you can forget it!"

She touched her silly, innocent son's forehead, and said with a serious face: "I will absolutely not accept your sudden, foolish idea of wanting to get closer to any brotherly affection!"