119 Chapter 119 - The Votes Are In (1/2)

'To my son'.Those words on the envelope could have been meant for any man but why was it in English?Gren knew that the chance of it being meant for him was next to nothing but he couldn't shake the feeling that he should open it.Even if it wasn't for him, the only way of finding out who it was meant for was opening it since there was no name on the envelope.

”Gren, did you find a book yet?”The voice of Estella coming from the other side of the locked door helped him remember what his initial goal was.After failing to open up the door, Estella seemed a bit worried.”Why is the door locked?Is everything okay in there?”

”Everything's fine, I just had to look through my private library.”Gren trusted Estella not to take his spell books so he let her in and locked the door after closing it again.”I haven't found a book to read to them yet.I came across some things that I didn't know that I had so I was just checking them out.”

”Jessica should be getting close to the end of the story now.Just find something that will put them to sleep so that we can go to bed.”It was getting late and Gren seemed to be dilly-dallying so Estella was a little annoyed at him.”If you can't find something to read to them then just find another way to get them to sleep.”

Gren stored away everything that was originally in the pocket dimension, leaving the books he bought behind.Most of the books were related to magic or were historical books that he never got around to reading yet so he stored those away next.There were only a few books left that he could pick from and two of them were from the same series.Telling them the story of a Dark Lord's rise to power would probably give them nightmares and the bestiary--despite having drawings in it--was going to be too boring to read them.”I guess that this is the only one that I can read to them.I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet so I don't know if they'd like it but it's not like I have any other options.What even caused them to need several books to fall asleep, anyways?”

”A bunch of people wearing armor decided to come downstairs when they were almost asleep.This made them become alert and they begged to hear another story.”Gren didn't have to be a genius to figure out who she was talking about.Although it was necessary to bring the people downstairs to help create the illusion that the armor and money were actually stored away somewhere, perhaps he should have kept them further away from the playroom.

”Ah.That would be my fault, then.Hopefully they end up falling asleep with this one then.”Gren headed to the playroom with the book in hand.It was something that he meant to read long ago but didn't have enough time to actually get to it before now.With two out of the three known books in his possession, the first Rumba the Sloth book seemed like the perfect candidate to read to the kids.

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Gren woke up the next day, not knowing what happened.He was sure that he started reading the book to his kids but they were all gone from the playroom without him realizing it before he had opened his eyes.The blanket that was placed on top of him and the closed book by his side showed that one of his wives likely moved them so he wasn't worried but that didn't help his confusion.”You're finally awake.”The voice of one of those wives--even if she was only his wife in name only--got his attention.

It was hard to tell if Tahloh was the person that covered him up.She did seem like she cared about him so it wouldn't be surprising if that ended up being the case but it could have been any of his wives so he wasn't going to make any assumptions.”How long was I asleep for?”

”You've been asleep for about half a day now.I was getting worried about you and kept checking to make sure you were breathing.”It was an odd thing for Gren to hear but he didn't if it was common for someone to randomly die in their sleep.Due to his constant self-healing, he could be considered the picture of health.”Not that long ago, people from the Church came to talk with you but you were asleep.It seemed important.”

”The Church?Did they say what it was about?”Gren figured that it was probably about the run-in with Ophelia.She did end up leaving shortly after seeing his mother so that seemed like the most likely possibility.