"How how did you know?"
The youth spoke before Don was so nervous he was unable to speak clearly.
"You had table manners, the one like nobles yet your body showed the hard labor you did so you are not a young master"
Hearing Don the youth's eyes went wide in surprise but before he could say anything Don continued
"And before you stepped forward yesterday you perfectly blended with the crowd and when you did, you didn't show any fear like the others so I guessed you were either a soldier or spy and then I saw the wounds on your body you were tortured by a professional weren't you? "
The youth slowly nodded his head
"Usually a mere soldier won't be tortured like you, I guess the ones tortured you wanted some kind of information from you and looking at the state of you I bet you had already spilled what they wanted or you wouldn't be here alive and talking so connecting the dots I guessed you must be either someone in the upper ranks of the army or a spy but seeing your age and magic level you couldn't be an upper-rank officer that left only one option, spy"
Looking at the youth nodding and Don's reasoning Arrora was shocked but quickly understand all the logic behind it and waited for whats Don going to do about the blonde
"Yes, you are correct your high….lord...lord Don I was a spy from Kingdom Emir"
"What's your name spy from Kingdom Emir?"
"Joel my lord Joel Berkfloth"
Joel was very nervous, but at least he did not stammer like before.
"So Joel what's it gonna be army or civilian work?" Don asked.
"I don't know my lord I don't know I feel like I'm a failure I failed at the one job I know how to do"
Joel said as he shook his head and started to tremble.
"What made you think that you are a failure? "
Hearing Don's question Joel slowly lifted his head as Don could see the young man's fury in his heart just by looking at his eyes. After a moment Joel decided to tell his story
"King Hedor hmm good"
The story Don heard from Joel was indeed a little cruel and sad one. Initially, Joel worked for King of Emir Hedor as one of the spies the King deployed around the empire. Joel was assigned to the nearby Kingdom of Emir, Kingdom Bracidia, a small yet resource-rich Kingdom than Emir.
According to Joel, the Royal family of Moon Empire in the capital conduct an empire wide inspection of its all kingdoms and rank them based on a kingdom's wealth, army power, and its people's life standard once every three years. Then the kingdoms were categorized into four ranks which are, Rank 1 to Rank 4 as Rank 1 being an extremely powerful and wealthy kingdom while Rank 4 is the exact opposite. If the Kingdom was ranked 4 for three consecutive times the empire would take out the privileges provided for a kingdom which basically means ending the kingdom and distribute its lands to the adjacent upper-rank Kingdoms.
Coincidently King Hedor had an eye for Bracidia's lands and its natural resources in Joel's story. Since Bracidia was ranked 4 for two consecutive times, King Hedor made plans to make it three. Based on Joel's story King Hedor asked him to poison Bracidia's water sources but Joel couldn't agree to it.
"What happened to Bracidia?"
Arrora interrupted Joel with a question.
"Bracidia is no more " Joel said.
"Did you do it?"
Don could see the half-elf is just a second away from killing Joel if he answered yes and honestly Don would let her if he really poisoned the water source because there are many ways Joel could have poisoned the water and then prevented the people from drinking the poisoned water.
"No no, I didn't have it in me to do that"
"But someone did right?" Don asked.
Joel slowly nodded his head
"Yes I didn't know who"
"That still didn't explain how'd you get that wounds"
"When I said no to King Hedor I knew it won't end well so I've started to hide from him and gather information about the King that would prove all the cruel things he did before the Royal Family and I've put all of them in a safety box including the letters he sent while I spied for him in Bracidia"
"But you were found by the King I guess" Hearing the story and the state of Joel Arrora knew it doesn't take a genius to figure out how the things went down from there.
However, Joel shook his hand and clenched his fist till the nails started to dig into his palm
"I didn't found out but betrayed, betrayed by the woman I've loved"
"What?"
For a moment Arrora suspected that she had heard Joel incorrectly.
"She was the only one who knew where I stayed at that time when the King's men captured me no one knows except her" tears started to flow out of his eyes when he said.
"You should be a spy again" Don calmly said as Arrora and Joel looked at him with wide-opened eyes in shock and surprise
"First I don't have any spies second only through failure one would improve himself so you are the perfect guy I've got"
"But...but lord Don I couldn't last long while they tortured me, what kind of spy I am who couldn't even withstand one day torture?" Joel said.
"Anyone can be broken Joel with a right kind of torture even I'm no exception to this but a true king would never allow his subordinates to be tortured I give you two more days to think "
As he said Don started to walk towards the outside with Arrora leaving Joel behind.
"Don do you think he's telling the truth?" Arrora asked Don when they stepped out of the throne room into the castle garden.
"Yes I am but I might be wrong after all spy-like him is professionally trained to lie"
"Then why did you want him to be your spy?" Arrora asked, at this point she almost gave up to figure out this human beside her.
"There are many other ways to extract the truth from someone without torturing, Arrora"
"I hope he's telling the truth, It would be a pity to kill a valuable asset like him " Arrora said.
"You are turning into a ruthless woman Arrora " Don said when he heard Arrora talking about killing Joel.
"Is that a bad thing? I've learned it from you and Knight"
Arrora honestly didn't know whether to be angry or to laugh as she let out a subtle smile which added a different charm to her face.
After a few hours of training Arrora and strolling around the castle, Don came to the throne hall and sat on his throne while Arrora stood beside him.
"Here you are" Don saw Amaryll walking towards him while rolling her eyes.
"Read this I've put the people to work according to their previous history"
Amaryll handed over a scroll to Don, as he opened the scroll he saw Amaryll's beautiful handwriting. The scroll showed how many slaves chose civil work as well as how many in each work. However, when he laid his eyes on the last section of the scroll he was surprised and confused.
"What do you mean no work for goblins?" Don asked.
"I don't know what gibberish they are speaking and also what can the little buggers do except making my ears bleed with their shrills"
Hearing Amaryll Don realized that the goblins speak a different language than most of the races.
"I'm sure someone knows goblin language in the castle, put out a notice asking their help and also I've heard goblins are skilled in accounting and building I don't know which is true ask Uncle Dior he may be able to help you with this"
Don gave the scroll back to Amaryll.
"What do I do with them till then?"Amaryll asked.
"Just let them be and ask Elrond to monitor them, he can do target practice with them if the goblins try anything funny"
Elrond is practicing the Asura Archer book that Knight gave him so monitoring or even killing a bunch of weak goblins should not be very difficult for him also Don felt that the little guy wanted something more to do other than practicing.
"Are yo"
"How is your training Amaryll"
Before Amaryll could say anything Don interrupted her but when Amaryll heard Don the color in her cheeks drained as her skin turned pale in a second
"I've got to go I smell something burning from the kitchen see ya"
Seeing the elf running without looking back made Arrora chuckle.