The Flower Mage instantly regretted raising her voice when a child was in sight and quickly cooed Kai to come out from his hiding place. However, Kai soon forgot what it means to be scared and rushed into Rina's arms while she took her place at the dining table.
"Hey! It was just a hunch; no need to get defensive about it! Why is that worked up anyways, if you truly didn't like him..." teased Z, trying to get a ruse out of the Butterfly Girl.
Rina shot Z a dangerous glare that shattered the glass Z was holding, making a mess of lemonade all over the floor. Gillian was prepared to clean up whatever thing broke without looking but made the mistake of looking at Z's shocked face when the drink exploded in his face.
The Headmaster's roars of laughter were loud enough to wake both children up, and shocked the people upstairs as they were doing the final preparations of the discussion. As for the people in the dining room, Z's face looked like he had dunked himself in a river and came back out.
The Galaxian Mage used his free hand to wipe away some lemonade to make his statement.
"Do that again, and I'll make sure that I'm going to put the fear of God into you until you want to him," bellowed Z, as Gillian finally stopped laughing and helped clean the drink up.
"You have to get Mavislin's permission before you can lay a hand on me, Grand Admiral," said Rina as she stuck out her tongue.
"Honestly! How childish can you be?!" yelled Z, sighing at the girl.
"Ah, forget it, you are under Mavislin, so I can't do anything to you... But if you were in my Ark, there's no chance of that attitude slipping past me," said Z as he poured himself another glass of lemonade and sat at the dining table.
Rina ignored Z's warnings and continued to fix Kai for dinner. Gillian and Ysabeau also got ready for dinner as they poured themselves some cranberry juice. Z was the first to break the silence as the three drank the first sip.
"I've got good and bad news. Judging by your mood today, which one would you like to hear, Headmaster Gillian and High Queen Meslander?" asked Z, changing his tone from fun to serious.
"And since when did the dinner table become a place to give reports? Anyways, I would like to hear about the good news first," noted Gillian.
"Alright then. The good news is that Baldwin has reached Teuton via the express transport of the Puka. And his report states that Baldwin is having a great time over there, seeing how the Mafia has run the streets. And I don't mean it badly," explained Z.
"The Mafia has always run the streets in the Teuton Domain, so there's no big surprise there, but I am curious if Baldwin wanted to interfere with the Mafia there and breach into their space," said Gillian.
"Well, Baldwin isn't suicidal enough to have the entire nation on his head, so he is making do for now. However, the Angry Man did state that he was amazed at the progress of Teuton and its people after losing their leader."
"The Mafia has maintained a relationship with the Five Kings, so it should be expected for the Mafia to step into the fray to help the people of Teuton. Another thing is that Teuton has always been a neutral Domain, never allying with any Domains for help or trade because they are self-sustaining."
"I am very sure that the Mafia will continue ruling the common folk, so there's no point waging war with them," explained Ysabeau.
"And that's where I bring you the bad news; Goibinu Conchorbar is longer a member of the Mafia and has since resigned even before Earl Yan's passing," said Z as Gillian's eyes widened.
"Then it should be great news! We don't have to sneak behind the Mafia to kill that Hound if he isn't in the force anymore... So why are we treating it like bad news?" questioned Gillian, confused.
"We relied on the Mafia's records to track the Hound down. That guy hasn't been in their hands for the past year, so who knows the location of his base. That man is a slippery thing..."
"We've already known that he would be changing base rather frequently, so that's a small issue since we can use other means to find the target's location. So ask Baldwin to head to the 12th province where the Orphanage is and learn more from talking to the people there."
"We've still got a record that Goibinu is still active in the 12th and 42nd provinces, so we don't have to look within all 50."