“We are going off track. Let’s go back to the deal.”
The old man said as he looked at Sam’s intriguing expression.
“Well, I told my price. You didn’t really offer a counter.”
“Mingiv’s properties are out of the question and I highly doubt you can even swallow all of them yourself.”
“Oh, no. They are not for them. I have zero interest in taking over your clan’s properties. I have plenty of my own. They are for Grivon mostly and some for Giyon.”
“You are doing their business now?”
“Just helping a bit. It was not really necessary to go after your grand sons’ properties. It is just that this way it is easier for me.
You still didn’t give me the counteroffer by the way.”
“Malgav’s properties and one city that is under my command.”
“Oh, the whole city?”
“Yes, the whole city. You can take the taxes directly and you need to pay the employees of the city yourself. You can use the Gaja clan tag directly, but you don’t have to pay any fee for that.”
“How big is the city?”
“Three fourth of the city we are currently in.”
“Okay here is my counter offer. Malgav’s properties, the city and five spirit stone mines.”
“Deal.”
They shook their hands and Sam took out a scroll and a special medicine vial.
“Tell them to use the medicine on the spine with the help of the injector. It helps with strengthening the spine without breaking or stiffening it.
The rest of the treatment plan is in this scroll. He would be fine in three days.”
“That is it?”
“Yes.”
“I will inform you after I finish the preparations for the transfer. It would help if you give me the details on what property should go to who beforehand.”
“I will send in the details. Don’t worry.”
With that Sam left with a smile on his face.
He has a feeling that the old man is definitely not one that is behind this. With the understanding that he has over Sam, it would be pretty idiotic of him to take this approach.
As for the possibility of Mingiv or his father trying to do this? From the information that Giyon has on them which was pretty accurate until now, they don’t have enough authority to stop the Investigative department for this long.
It is because the faction Mingiv belonged to mostly has influence over the enforcement department. They are like two different boats and very few people are travelling on both of them at the same time.
Luckily, Mingiv and his father are not part of this few.
By the time he came back, Giyon and Grivon are already back from meeting their suspects.
“So, how did it go?”
“Grand Elder Pon is not behind this.”
“Core Elder I met is also not behind this. He has his own problems actually and in fact, he wants to meet with you.” Giyon added.
Sam was a bit perplexed and looking at his expression, Giyon chuckled and said.
“His wife is pregnant and she is due for birth. But there seemed to be some serious complications, healers have been delaying her birth for quite a while. So, he wants your opinion on it. And that is also the reason, he doesn’t have any time to mess with you now.”
“I am not a midwife and I definitely not very experienced in delivering babies. What does he need me for?”
“It is actually a pretty intriguing situation. I am pretty sure you would be excited. I will tell you after we are done with our current meeting.”
“Alright.”
Then both of them turned to Grivon who appeared to be a bit nervous.
“What happened?”
“Nothing much. I am a bit nervous because you are so sure about your findings, but I am not.”
“We will see what it is. Was he suspicious?”
“Yes, he is. He has been asking about Dawn so much since I met him. I talked business only for a few minutes, he kept on asking how Sam reacted and what kind of person Sam actually is and all the stuff.”
“Really? What else?”
“He asked, what Sam is going to do about the fact that the clan did him dirty like this.”
Giyon and Sam exchanged glances.
“How was his expression when he said that?”
Grivon felt conflicted. Sam then suggested something else.
“Let’s go to the simulator. I think you can project the conversation.”
Grivon sighed in relief and they projected the whole conversation. When they are done, all three of them came to a conclusion. This guy is the most suspicious of all.
His questions are completely veiled with an intention to get more information about Sam and Giyon than even Grivon himself.
After that, they started going into more details about this guy and noticed something that could be useful for them.
For the past few days, he has been meeting a woman who visited the Gaja clan as a guest. That woman is actually the sister of another woman who newly got married to an official within the Investigations department of the Gaja clan.
Even though this connection is a bit far-fetched. This guy checked out all the boxes.
Giyon immediately went to activate the next step of the plan. She activated some of the dormant spies in the clan to get the first hand information.
These spies are something that she placed a long time ago. They are in so deep that they changed ranks in the past five years and are in various positions within various departments.
Sam doesn’t exactly know how long Giyon is doing this and how deep her network goes, but he must say that she might be the most resourceful person that belonged to a younger generation in an organization like this.
The spies acted quickly and the suspects are once again marked. Even though Grand Elder Pon and the other person was cleared, they were also under a bit of surveillance.
For the rest of the day, they didn’t have anything noteworthy.
The clan also didn’t do anything regarding Dawn. Except for the investigation department rapidly searching everywhere, nothing else happened.
But the next day, Sam ordered the next step of the plan. There was an attack on some of the businesses directly under the Gaja clan.
The businesses are within the city. One of them is an inn, another one is a restaurant and the final one is a weapon shop.
All three places are attacked simultaneously and not a single thing was spared from the shops except for the staff.
Along with the attacks, a letter came.
“Your clan cannot catch us. Your investigation is running in circles. You better pay the ransom we asked before we do something else that you might regret.
This time we made sure that your subordinates didn’t die. Next time, we might not do that.”
And the letter is not actually just sent to Clan’s leader. A copy of that was sent to every elder that had a subordinate or a child missing.
Not a single person was left out. This raised much more commotion. They all stormed the investigation building and didn’t budge until the Clan’s leader came there to calm them down.
After that was done, the leader went back to his office and started brainstorming with the Grand Elders.
“What should we do? If the offspring of this many people die at the same time, it would be detrimental for the next few years.
But we cannot even pay the ransom. That is way too big.”
“We just have to buy some time.”
Grand Elder Pon said calmly.
Everyone waited for him to continue.
“We can open negotiations and delay them for a bit. We need to show that we are willing to pay the ransom but not that much.”
“We also need to find out how they knew our investigation process. Also, why did the investigation seem too rapid and chaotic, but there are no results since yesterday?” Grivon’s grand father spoke up.
“I called the investigation officer, you can ask him yourself.” The clan’s leader replied.
As soon as he did that, an attendant came reporting the arrival of the investigator.
The grand elder looked at him coldly and asked the same question once again.
“My superior officer told me to explore all the possibilities on the trials leading the missing people to Grivon and Giyon’s businesses. So, yesterday, the whole department is focused on eliminating all the false trials instead of opening new ones.”
“What kind of useless investigation is this? Do you think you are investigating some age-old cold case? There are several kids that had their lives at risk. Go back and investigate it properly. I want you to find out at least one possible suspect that is linked to Dawn and the disappearance of the kids.
Otherwise, you will be demoted to the rank of a patrol officer outside the city gate.
Get lost.”
