Chapter 1284 (1/2)

Even before Salla Elmer had frozen at the door, Tatiana had sensed Randidly’s approach. She turned to Wolfram and tapped her fingernail against the desk twice to get his attention. “Set the trade agreement and mining rights distribution to the side for now. The zoning will also have to wait for later. We have a new project coming in that will likely set us back quite a bit of time. And I also expect the deadline to be quite short… we will need some more bodies. How is the training for your warlocks coming along?”

Wolfram's central head frowned while his side heads took care of neatly putting away the current papers and bringing out a fresh sheet. “A new project? The timing is too poor. But as for the warlocks… their scribe training is basically finished. They will serve you with great pride, Madam Tatiana.”

Only because you bullied them into doing so, Tatiana thought, but it was not without a little fondness for the ogre. Despite the fact that Wolfram had only been around for a few days, he had endeared himself to her quite a bit by virtue of his meticulous mind and respectful nature. Having elegant handwriting didn’t hurt.

It also helped that the former Ogre Lord had graciously volunteered to convert his war mage corps into scribes to assist with the growing pile of projects that Tatiana was expected to oversee. While it was quite easy to make decisions, it was much more difficult to record them and distribute the right information to the right people. Until they got a specialist to come to Kharon and create some computer terminals and a printer, scribes would have to do.

And now here came another paperwork creating project about to walk through the entrance to the tent.

Wolfram glanced down at the schedule and frowned. “This… the project will come from the man who wants access to ogre cultural documents so he could create a soap for us?”

“No, it will come from the only individual powerful enough to come here without an appointment,” Tatiana chuckled. She saw the confusion flash across Wolfram’s face which was quickly chased by a realization.

“The Ghosthound comes,” All three of Wolfram’s head looked up with pensive expressions. “Did I miss his signal? Will there be war?”

“No. No, there was no signal. It’s just…” Tatiana hesitated. Even now, she felt a little embarrassed to admit the true reason that she sensed Randidly’s approach. Sure, her Perception had reached three hundred, but that wasn’t the reason that she knew Randidly would be coming with a project. No, the real reason was a Skill that she had obtained from a Path when Randidly had returned from his Judgment only a short amount of time ago: Fidelity to the Ghosthound.

It was a Skill that directly boosted her capabilities when she was working on projects for Randidly. And in addition, it granted Tatiana a small amount of predictive ability when it came to the matters of Randidly Ghosthound. At this point it was only Level 49, but that was after a few days of use.

With this ogre relocation project and whatever mess Randidly had come to throw on her desk, Tatiana suspected that work involved would quickly force the Skill upward. Probably within six months, it would be her highest Level Skill.

Luckily, she was saved from admitting the strangely intimate Skill by Randidly walking forward into the tent. He smiled at Tatiana in a slightly guilty way that confirmed that he had indeed come to make more work for her. But then Randidly paused as he looked over at Wolfram sitting at an extremely small desk.

“You…” Randidly seemed taken aback. He scratched his chin. “What are you wearing?”

Tatiana covered her mouth with her hand. Wolfram only took a second to understand what Randidly was saying. Affronted, Wolfram used his right hand to adjust his recently purchased eyeglasses for his right head, central head, and then left head. “Eyeglasses. They help me concentrate on the work.”

“...right.” Randidly glanced at Tatiana, who shrugged as she adjusted her own reading glasses. Not that she needed them any longer to improve her eyesight, but she had always thought that she looked more professional while wearing glasses. And as the woman left to run Kharon while Randidly Ghosthound was gone, she had desperately wanted to appear professional. By now, it was simply habit to put her glasses on every day.

Although she didn’t know for sure, she suspected that Wolfram had adopted the habit of wearing glasses after seeing her, perhaps under the mistaken impression that it was a feature of people who did this sort of work. Either way, he had then insisted that his unfortunate batch of ‘scribes’ he was training also wear glasses.

The glassmakers in Kharon were delighted. Tatiana found the whole thing rather amusing.

But since they really were already stretched keeping up with the work they had, Tatiana quickly moved the conversation forward. “So? What do you need?”

“I want to host a party. Probably here on Kharon. On April 28th. My birthday party.” Randidly said each sentence as a clipped, almost independent thing. Seeing Tatiana’s neutral expression, he expounded a bit. “I plan on inviting all the important political figures on Earth. Plus the Nemesai and any System officials that I can get to agree to come. I’ll handle the invitations and contact for the last group. But I think… maybe after the situation at the stadium, the Earth is ready to understand the broader situation at the Nexus. It’s time to provide some context to why we are fighting.”