Chapter 101 - Letters From Julia

I had been about to answer Jeremiah with a nice and detailed explanation of what exactly coursework was, and what his would entail, when I was interrupted with a sound I had been hoping to hear from the moment I left Lofie again that morning.

I had expected it of course, since darkness had started to fall, and it should almost be time for my beautiful wives to start their shift at the bar.

I pulled out both of the notebooks that I had linked to those of my lovely wives from my storage, and found the one linked to Julia’s blinking. An indication that it had been her who had written to me.

Without caring where I was, or who was around, I immediately opened the notebook, a man can’t ignore a message from his wife after all.

***

My dearest husband, even though you have only been gone for not even a day your wives can’t help but miss your embrace already. We have neared the time of day where our shift at your bar is about to start, and I thought I would use this time to write to you.

Jason and the second group of mercenaries have returned with news of the approaching army, they also brought yet another group of refugees with them, which have also been given lodgings around the village.

Some of those refugees have also decided that they would like to train with us. The amount of elves that have decided to train with us, along with the news of the approaching danger has also caused a significant number of the villagers to decide that they would also like to train with us.

In total there are now over a hundred people training with us, of them, all of the elves have strong affinities with magic, as we expected. Of the first group that started nearly a week ago, most of them have at least reached a decent level of combat proficiency with magic.

Now for the news that Jason brought back, it seems that the army is making their way from the West of us, as they move they are conquering villages along the way. From what we could gather from the refugees, they do not give any chances of negotiation, either the village surrenders, or they completely destroy it. There are still two villages between us and the approaching army, which means that we have maybe a week before they are upon us.

Although I suspect they will be very surprised once they see that this is no village to conquer easily.

With all my love, Julia.

Oh right! Remember to buy some of those ledgers you have to buy as soon as possible.

Most of the preparation for your bank has been made, we also went ahead and purchased a piece of land for the building already. We just need you to send us all of the ledgers, and to program the cards we would need.

The contractors said that they would need about two weeks to complete the building.

***

While reading that letter from Julia, I couldn’t help a frown from slowly starting to spread over my face.

Those bastards were moving pretty fast after all, and it seemed that they were of the unforgivable sort as well.

"What’s wrong?" Erick asked, when he saw the frown that I was suddenly wearing. "Did something happen in the village?"

"Not yet," I answered. "But it seems we have about a week before the approaching army is there."

"A week," Erick mumbled. ’Although that’s not a long time, I do think that the fortifications you made should easily be able to repel an army of only two hundred."

"I believe so too," I nodded. "However, I don’t think I want to just repel them anymore."

"Why is that?" Erick asked.

Without answering him, I just showed him the letter.

He started reading the letter with a mocking smile, clearly intending to mock me about the first part.

But really even if he did, I wouldn’t have cared at all, I mean what man wouldn’t be proud of his wife loving him that much.

Although the mocking smile was quickly replaced by a frown, and then with a look of anger.

"It seems that those bastards don’t deserve us going easy on them." He finally muttered as he handed the book back to me. "What do you have planned?"

"We’ll talk about that later," I said. "I should probably write back first."

"What is that?" Jeremiah finally interrupted from the side pointing toward the book in my hand.

"Oh right," I said looking back at him again, honestly I had kind of forgotten he was there. "I guess you can call it a... long distance communication method."

"But I clearly saw you pull that out of a portal," Jeremiah said. "Which I assume was a storage spell."

"So how did you receive a letter in it if it never left your side?" He asked.

"Because I’ve linked each of these books to books that my wives have in their possession," I answered, resting my hands on the two books that lay in front of me. "So anything that is written in one book, immediately appears in the other."

"You?"

"How?"

"You can actually do that?" Jeremiah finally asked.

"Eventually you’ll get numb to any of the new things he simply does," Erick said, sipping on his ale again.

"I don’t know if that’s possible," Jeremiah mumbled. "You said something about an army approaching your village, where is this village anyway?"

"It’s a small border village in the elven lands," I answered.

"You should say it used to be a small border village in the elven lands," Erick smiled. "Daniel decided to build ramparts around it when he heard about the approaching army."

"And with the sudden influx of refugees, it’s actually grown quite a bit," he finished.

"You built ramparts around a small village?" Jeremiah asked.

"I had to protect the investments I’ve made in that village after all," I nodded.

"Investments?" Jeremiah asked.

"Oh right, you don’t know yet," I said, clearing my throat and sitting up straighter. "I’m a businessman, so of course I’ve started quite a few business endeavours in that village, endeavours that need to be protected."

"Businessman?" Jeremiah asked with raised brows.

"You’ll get used to him insisting that ’he’s just a businessman’ as well." Erick said.

"But that’s what I am!" I exclaimed.