Chapter 217 - Again (5)

As soon as Kate and Natalie left to work the next day, Billy saw a group of people wearing maid and butlers clothes arriving. Billy facepalmed since he assumed Jean would hire normal people… they weren't nobles. They didn't have the money to pay such a large group of high-class employees. Besides, Billy would feel weird giving orders to such a group. Nevertheless, he went to receive them, and a man stepped forward while the others bowed.

"Nice to meet you, sir," A butler in his fifties said. "My name is Valentin and I am the head butler of this staff."

"It is nice to meet you, Valentin," Billy said. "My name is Billy."

"Yes, Master Billy," Valentin said and bowed slightly.

"You can skip the master thing," Billy said. "Anyway, how much do I have to pay you guys?"

In the end, Billy already had some monthly bills… somehow, he had to pay one gold coin for the whole staff every month… That was without counting the money that they would have to spend to take care of the house, regarding cleaning, food, and other miscellaneous things.

"Jean probably thinks that when I take a dump, some gold coins fall with it… wait, maybe I can turn stone into gold, and break the monetary system of this world," Billy thought.

Putting that crazy idea aside, Billy had to find a way to make money selling the Edish fruits was out of the question, and while his future wives would earn two gold coins per month, he had to take care of that issue as well.

"Welcome to the life of the head of a house, Billy," Billy muttered.

While he had to spend a fortune every month, at least he had people to take care of minor tasks now. Since he can make iron now, he probably can make some money easier. Most equipment didn't weigh that much, and with the mana Billy recovered in one hour, he could easily make a full set of armor.

"Let's forget about that and focus on the preparations to the next war," Billy thought.

Tamer's Whip

Domination Lv 01: after causing damage to an animal or monster, it will grant you full control over them.

The beast will only obey the owner of the whip until the whip is destroyed.

Durability: 20/20

While no one was looking, Billy got one of the tamer's whip when he was burying them. In any case, now he learned the weakness of their power. However, it wasn't that simple. Taking their weapons will be difficult since they never fight on the frontlines, and they have crossbows. Perhaps they even have more secrets than that. Only fools would trust in their long-ranged skills and not have countermeasures when the enemies get close.

"Destroying or taking their whips probably is impossible, but stopping them from using isn't… fire magic can do the trick," Billy nodded to himself.

Unfortunately, teaching everyone fire magic probably wasn't an option. Making bows and arrows that could fire those won't do it either. Billy would have to make thousands of them.

"Well, let's train until I have a good idea," Billy said.

Since earth magic could make Billy learn Earth Transformation after reaching a certain level, Billy decided to train his other elemental Manipulations. Still, it wasn't that efficient outside dungeons. Not even compared to his power to make everything level up. Still, he trained those skills diligently since he already knew the level they had to reach.

As soon as Kate and Natalie returned when the sun was about to set, Billy went to welcome them. While they seemed a bit tired, Kate looked pretty satisfied. As for Natalie, she seemed quite tense since she was forced to stay on her toes for quite a while in order to avoid problems. Being a battle instructor wasn't easy, and since it was something that they had to do during the whole day, it was more than a little bit exhausting.

"I already asked how things were with Alexander, so I can guess a little bit, but how was your day?" Billy asked while frowning and watching the food being served by the maids.

"It was tiresome," Natalie replied.

"I thought that it was pretty fun," Kate said. "The kids sure are eager to learn a lot from us and even though we aren't from here, they seem to have a lot of respect for us."

Adding to the work, Kate and Natalie seemed a bit uncomfortable in being treated like nobles. It was no surprise… in any case, Billy decided that it would be better to wait for a few weeks to see if that kind of lifestyle would work.

After a while, they didn't feel that uncomfortable while seeing Valentin and his coworkers pretty much all the time. Regarding work, Kate and Natalie apparently had grown used to it. Billy thought that Natalie wouldn't even last one week… When he mentioned that, she looked a bit offended, but then she explained how she was managing to do that.

"I just recalled how patient you were when you were teaching us new things, then I realized that it would be unreasonable to expect things even beyond us from others," Natalie said.

Billy nodded, impressed. That was a clear sign that Natalie was becoming a reasonable adult. Maybe Billy underestimated his friends a little bit because he was older. Since he always saw them acting like kids, he didn't expect that they would change much over the years. He was the weird one there…

While Billy was thinking about that, he and his friends were summoned to Jean's residence in that city. Although they had been officially invited for dinner, they all knew that Jean wouldn't invite them just for that. He has been respecting their busy life, after all.

"What do you think this is all about, Billy?" Alexander asked while don't hide his discomfort regarding those formal clothes that they kind of were forced to wear to visit the head of the state.