บท 111: Conversation
"You!", she exclaimed.
"What? Don't you think it would be fun?", Tanya clearly showed the attitude of her being in the right. Angering Lara even more.
"There is no way I will do that."
Tanya looked at her in astonishment, "Don't tell me you didn't have sex with him yet?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Hoho, you really didn't.", Tanya laughs loudly, startling the other customers of the cafe.
When the stares landed on the two of them Lara wished to be far away. Although she wasn't easily embarrassed, this just went too far.
"You! Shut up. How about you come over for dinner today?"
"Alright, alright. Don't get so riled up.", Tanya tried to calm her down. It was clear, that her friend was a bit sensitive, so she didn't push it. "Of course I will come over. After all its a good chance to meet my future husband.", she then agreed to the offer with a smile. Enjoying her friends' reaction to the words, future husband.
After she agreed, they continued to chat a bit more, until it was time for Lara to get back to work.
Meanwhile, Ivan had gone to school and after it finished he had then taken public transports to the palace. Now he stood in front of the grand entrance of the palace. Or to be precise he stood in front of one of the two entrances. Part of the palace was open for the public and was a popular visiting spot. So there were two entrances to the palace. One was for the general populace who just wanted to visit the public part of the palace, while the other was for these invited by the royal family.
Miranda had, of course, told him to come to the private entrance, which was closed and guarded by two guards. Ivan was unable to see through their strength, but he could feel a slight oppressive aura radiating from them, which made him certain that they were much stronger than himself.
When he came closer to the entrance, one of the guards looked at him, before once again staring into the distance. Just when he wanted to greet them, a smaller door opened and a young and beautiful maid stepped out. She then walked towards him and bowed.
"Welcome my Lord.", she greeted him with a silky voice, that managed to send shivers down his back. Something that had never happened before. *What the?* He didn't understand the reason for him shivering on hearing her voice, but he was sure that it wasn't because he found her attractive or sexy. It was more like fear? An instinctive form of fear that came from something deep within him.
His reaction didn't escape the maids' sharp eyes and a hint of surprise flashed through her eyes.
"The emperor awaits you.", she followed up her greeting. Before turning around and walking back into the palace. She completely ignored any reaction he had and her posture clearly showed that she expected him to follow him.
At first, Ivan was surprised at how arrogant she seemed, but when he saw the other servants respectfully greeting her, he realized that she should have a quite high standing. Which made it even more surprising that she had personally come to get him at the door.
After walking for a short time they arrived at another entrance which leads to a parking space. The maid went towards a white sports car and gestured to him to get in. After he had sat down on the passenger seat, she explained, "While the official parts of the palace are one giant building, nowadays the royal family prefers to live in separate villas. It has been proven to be more comfortable and reduce infighting."
She drove fast and soon they had arrived at a villa which was very similar to Lara's. It seemed like her villa was build with this one as the model. The maid parked the car in a parking spot in front of the villa and alighted from the car.
"His Highness is waiting for you in his study." She then leads him to the mentioned study. After knocking on the door a deep voice told them to come in.
When Ivan entered the room he saw Joseph sitting behind a large desk. His expression was neither cold nor warm. Which was much better than he had feared. Of course, that was only the case if he wasn't the type to get a colder expression the angrier he got.
"Sit down.", he ordered him and then told the maid, "Susan please get us some tea."
"Yes, My lord.", the maid, Susan, responded and left the room.
"Miranda told me about how you and my daughter met again.", Joseph started the conversation. "But since I only have met you that one time at my brothers home, I wanted to meet you again, so I can get a better picture of you. So tell me how are you and my daughter doing at the moment?"
When Ivan heard the question he thought back at what had happened yesterday night. But there was no way that he could tell him about that.
"Not bad I think. We have gotten a lot closer than when we first met."
"Mm, I saw the picture of you playing together."
"Yes, that was the first time we really played together."
"That's good.
Although I'm angry at what you did before your reset, there is nothing I can change, so hearing that you and Lara get along just fine is a relief. But if you ever hurt her again, I will make you pay.", he warned him in a stern voice while letting out a bit of his aura. Even just this bit of aura made Ivan shudder in fright.
"I won't.", he hurriedly promised, meaning it. He too didn't want her to be hurt.
"Well, now that this is decided, there are a few things I have to tell you. Some have to do with Lara, while others have to do with you being married to someone of the Von Berg family.", he took a sip of tea, that Susan had delivered without Ivan even realizing she had entered the room.
"What do you know about Lara's work?"
"Not much, I only know that she is the CEO of some company."
"She not only is the CEO, but she is also the owner. Back then after she got pregnant with Jane, she decided to retire as an adventurer and instead go into business, so she could have more time with her child. Although she said that, I think the real reason was that she feared going out on an adventure again. But there was nothing I could do about that, so I gave her one of our family companies to manage. To motivate her to work on conversing with others and especially men, I then made her the offer that she could get shares in the company as long as she reaches certain targets.
To my surprise, it didn't even take her three years to fulfill all the targets and become the largest shareholder.
Are you wondering why I'm telling you this?"
Ivan nodded as a response.
"The reason for that is an old rule. Family heads have to know about any property of their members that has a certain value. This rule isn't a System rule but one of many that the main family heads have decided a long time ago."
After finishing his explanation he slid a thin booklet towards Ivan.
"Here. In this, all the rules are listed. Read it carefully."
Seeing this booklet Ivan was surprised. He hadn't found any information about any rules for family heads before. Or to be honest many information about families at all. Seeing that Joseph seemed to have some information he took the opportunity to ask some questions.
"Could you tell me why there is no information about families available?"
Joseph seemed to have anticipated the question since he readily answered, "Of course. But let me ask you first. Do you think it easy to become a family head?"
"It isn't?", he was surprised. For him, he had become the family head as soon as he had accepted Lara and Jane. There was no difficulty at all.
"It isn't. There are currently only three known ways of becoming a family head. The most common one is to be accepted as a subfamily by a family. Since the family which takes in the subfamily has to pay, this is usually only done if there has been done a meticulous deed.
The next one is to split from a family. But there is a long list of conditions that have to be fulfilled before the new part is accepted as a family. That's why this is seldom done.
And finally, there is your case. Well not exactly your case, but something similar. When a person either doesn't have parents or is the first one in one's lineage that awakens a bloodline of a high enough grade, then one can found a family."
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