Shopping with Suzanna was not tiring. She did not have strong desire to buy things. Even if she saw something interesting, she would just look at it and continue walking. If it had been Niya walking for so long with Anfey, she would have carried a lot of shopping bags with her and walk very slowly with those bags.
Anfey looked up at the sun to tell the time. He now had better understanding how big Violet City was. He had walked around the city with purpose and plans. He only walked half of the city so far in a half day. He wanted to see more but he needed to leave tomorrow.
"Master?" A surprised and excited call arose.
Anfey turned around to look. He asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"
"My family lives here." A smiling girl walked over. "Master, Suzanna, why are you guys here?"
"Doris, don’t you know?" Suzanna asked.
"What don’t I know about?" Doris asked.
"This city is his estate now." Suzanna glanced at Anfey. "Where could we go if we did not come here?"
"Oh, my god." Doris stared, her eyes wide. "I only heard he became an earl of the empire. No one told me about his estate."
"Everybody in the city knew Anfey had come. Didn’t your parents know about it? Didn’t they tell you?" Suzanna asked.
"Don’t’ even mention them," Doris said bitterly. "I was so worried about them. That is why I rushed back to check on them. I already got into a fight with them after just talking to them for a little bit."
"What did you argue about?" Suzanna asked.
"Nothing." Doris did not want to talk about her family issues. She turned to look at Anfey. "Master, Congratulations. I did not know I would be your citizen so soon."
"Call me by my name, okay, just as you did in the academy. " Anfey could not help shaking his head.
"Call you by your name? I do not dare." Doris smiled.
"It is not important whether you dare to call by name or not. You just made me so uncomfortable when you called me master," Anfey said.
"There will be many people calling you master in the future. You need to get used to it. How about I help you out? I am going to call you master right now." Doris joked about it, but she looked perplexed. Life was just so unexpected. The time she and Anfey chatted and laughed at the academy seemed like just yesterday. Time had past so fast. Anfey had developed with amazing speed. He now had become a big wig in the empire, while she was still no different than she had been. In fact, the title of "earl" was nothing fancy. There were a lot of earls in the empire. Some of them were even poor. Possessing the ownership of a city meant Anfey had a lot of real power. Power was way better than titles. There was a big difference between possessing a title and power.
"If you really want to help me, you gotta listen to me," Anfey said. His eyes were innocent and warm. Maybe only when a person had endured a lot of lonely moments could he appreciate more the bonds between people. No matter how far Anfey travelled, how high a position he attained, he would never forget a nice girl who helped pick out the right magic book for him in that library. It was not a big deal for Doris, but Anfey felt Doris had helped him a lot.
"Stop! We are old friends. Calling him master just makes us feel weird," Suzanna said.
Doris got caught by Anfey when she looked at him. She immediately looked away. "Ok, ok, my bad, ok? How about me taking you guys out for dinner to make it up to you. Suzanna, what do you want to have? Tell me, don’t try to save me money."
"Where should we go?" Suzanna thought about it and said, "How about Garden Hotel? Urter said their chef is the best."
"I cannot afford Garden Hotel." Doris could not help sticking her tongue out.
"Hmm, it does not look like you really want to make up for it, does it?" Suzanna said.
"I am not like you, having a good man to rely on. I have to join a mercenary group to make money, otherwise I would be starving," Doris said.
"What are you talking about?" Suzanna blushed and posed to hit Doris. Doris ran to the other side of Anfey with naughty smiles.
"Doris, if you still want to be a mercenary, why don’t you join my mercenary group?" Anfey asked quietly.
"Sure." Doris nodded without any hesitation. Doris’s strength was that she was not pretentious. Her sincerity had caused her to fall into a wolfman’s traps. If Doris had pretentiously turned Anfey’s suggestion down, it would only make Anfey and Suzanna feel even more awkward about their relationship with Doris than calling Anfey master.
Anfey smiled. "Doris, did you tell Christian you left?"
"If I had told him I was leaving, he would not have let me go. He said he would have someone to escort me after we reached to Blackania City, but I could not wait that long. I ran away from him."
"You got yourself in danger by being alone and you still have not learned from it. You cannot run around by yourself," Anfey said.
Doris looked a little weird after Anfey gave her a lesson. She murmured after being quiet for a while, "I just became one of your people and you have already scolded me."
"What do you mean by becoming one of my people?" Anfey did not know if he should laugh or cry.
Suzanna could not keep from laughing on the side. This time it was Doris’s turn to blush. "I mean to join your mercenary group. What are you laughing about? I hate you."
"I cannot laugh? Mind your own business." Suzanna laughed even harder.
"I have never seen a couple like you." Doris looked upset.
The smile froze on Anfey’s face. He saw a few patrolmen rushing towards the street ahead of them. "What happened?" Anfey asked.
"Let’s go over there and check it out." Suzanna saw those patrolmen too.
"Let’s go," Anfey said.
"Should I come too?" Doris asked.
"Don’t come with us, just in case something happens. Hide somewhere so you can help us when we need it," Anfey said.
"Got it," Doris said.
Anfey and Suzanna walked fast to the street. They looked to the north, but there did not seem to be anything happening there. They could even see the city gate in the distance. The patrols were still running forward. They looked like they were running to the gate. Anfey heard more people running behind him. He saw a few more patrolmen running over. Anfey recognized the patrol running in the front. It was Iliverny.
"What happened up there?" Anfey asked worriedly. Violet City was his place. No matter what happened, Anfey felt it was his business. Anfey could not help but get worried.
"Master!" Iliverny looked happy to see him. "I finally found you. The mayor is going crazy looking for you."
"What exactly happened?" Anfey asked.
"Master. There are troops coming to our city. They came from Blackania City." Iliverny stopped next to Anfey. He turned around and yelled at the other officers: "You guys go back to tell the mayor we have found Anfey."
"What happened?" Anfey asked.
Those patrolmen turned around and ran. Iliverny turned around and smiled bitterly. What could they do? They had to run with two legs when their boss gave an order with two lips.
"Master, should we go out to welcome them?" Iliverny asked.
"What did Urter say?" Anfey asked.
"I do not know. The mayor did not tell us," Iliverny said.
"Maybe we can wait here for a little bit." Anfey scanned around. Many civilians noticed something unusual as well. They gathered in front of their houses to watch. Doris hid one the corner of the street in a distance. She looked nervous. In fact, Anfey did not expect Doris to help if anything happened. He asked Doris to stay behind because he did not want her to get hurt. If there were something Suzanna could not handle, Doris definitely would not help either.
After waiting for a while, three horses ran over in a fast speed. They were Urter, Black Eleven and Apa. When they rushed close to Anfey, Urter jumped off the horse and waved the patrols nearby to move to the side. He walked up to Anfey and whispered, "Master, the troops from Blackania came this way, but we were not notified."
"I already knew about," Anfey said.
"I think the stuff I sent them has caught their attention, so they sent people to check it. Huh, I wanted to ask Aroben first, but he did not get to sleep until this morning. While this was going on, he was knocked out and could not wake up," Iliverney said.
"Nothing big. We do not have to bother him." Anfey smiled. "Urter, what do you mean? Having a welcome ceremony for them?"
"Master, even if it is superficial, we still have to do it in case they picked on us for that." Urter thought a little bit and said, "But we do not know who are coming so it would be hard to plan ahead. Master, if you go out to welcome them while the person sent by Blackalair City was not someone important, you would become a joke."
"Then let me be a joke," Anfey said in a low voice. "Let’s go out to see."
"Yes." Urter turned around to look for a little while and frowned. "It’s weird."
"Why?" Anfey said.
"After I knew troops from Blackania had come, I sent people to see how Marqius Djoser would respond. If Marquis Djoser was prepared, it meant this must have something to do with him. If Marquis Djoser did not know anything about it, then we have the advantage. It has been a long time, and they should be back to report to me."
"Don’t worry," Apa suddenly responded. "They should be fine." Apa seemed to be always confident. That was because he had the supreme ruler of Maho Empire behind him. He also had a secret order from Yolanthe. If he showed his real identity, even the military general could not ignore his opinions.