That evening, after helping his sister train, Varhys sat in his office like always as he called for his secretary:
"Helen, give me today's reports, yeah. Prioritize the most urgent for now… it's already getting late" *Yawn*
As it was already late into the night, Varhys decided to look over the most urgent problems that he had been pushing aside right before going to bed.
"Yes sir… There have been reports of a minor drought in the Southern Region and is expected to worsen, there is also an expected plague coming from the Northern Region, they said it wasn't anything too serious but… Bla Bla Bla" Helen continued to give her report as she flipped through the document's pages.
Varhys, on the other hand, got distracted as he stared at the beautiful secretary.
*Tsk Tsk* Clicking his tongue as Varhys thought: [Why is this broad still here? As a young and single woman shouldn't you be outside enjoying life playing with some boys or something?]
Varhys got even more distracted from the make-up she was wearing...
[Is that Ludvig's latest mascara?! Oh my god! I'm so jelly~! No NO! Calm yourself... this isn't the time to go on your gay antics... An Emperor must be 'Composed'] Varhys breathed deeply.
Seeing the emperor intensely stare at her as he breathed heavily made Helen blush from the attention she received from the handsome young Emperor.
[Aghhhh!!!] Helen screamed in her head.
[What is the Emperor planning to do to me?!... It's already late and nobody's around too. If he really wanted to force me down… I'd have no choice but to submit to his strong, and firm, and, and oh my!]
Helen was… new to this job to say the least. As she had been picked from the countless other applicants, she couldn't just easily let go of this job she had worked so hard to obtain.
Sadly, Helen couldn't remove the weird fantasies she was having as Varhys was known as The Immoral Emperor, after all, she thought Varhys was the rough and tough type.
[If he does force me down, I could at least live on as a concubine right?... No, what if... What if he falls in love with me and I change his cold and beastly nature, finding the gentle yet hurt beast within!]
Helen was... had always been a smart girl. Yes, it might not look like it right now but she was quite smart.
Her parents and teachers had always been proud of her... Very proud. Sadly too many love novels had entered the girl's young head as she couldn't stop her wild fantasies.
[I wonder what ravishing thoughts he is having right] Helen thought.
At that moment Varhys was thinking: [Should I replace her and get a hot stud instead? I heard there were a lot of male secretaries in the west... those naught naughty Bishops… No, no I shouldn't let personal agendas hinder me. Helen is a hardworking girl, not many secretaries are willing to stay this late. It would be a shame to remove her… But still, they're hot holy studs] Varhys thought as he forcefully held his right arm down.
"There is also some movement made by the Pendragons you asked us to watch out for" [He must really be controlling himself if he's so silent like this… Maybe he's doing it so he wouldn't scare me away?] Helen, mistaking Varhys' silence as an act of self-control, continued her report.
"Wait what?! Give me the report!" Varhys snapped back from the outlandish thoughts he was having and quickly snatched the report documents from Helen.
"Y-yes" Helen too quickly snapped back to her professional persona at Varhys' rare display of anxiousness.
You see, the other reports so far were quite mundane dangers that commonly happened within the Empire, and so Varhys quickly got used to handling them.
But a report on the Pendragons was quite a sensitive matter to Varhys and to the whole Imperial Family in general.
Varhys was a person with little fears in the world. But the name Pendragon would shake any Emperor smart enough to investigate the incidents that happened many years ago. And the more Varhys investigated, the more afraid he became.
As the saying goes, the more you know about the world, the larger it becomes, then you suddenly realize how scary it truly was.
The Pendragons were once an Archducal family that ruled over Maine and the Southern Region just a decades ago.
The house was once led by the great Gwaine Pendragon, who, during his years as a Knight was titled The Wych Ddraig or The Great Dragon.
He was a legendary knight of epic proportions and was a war hero whose influence eventually controlled 40% of the Empire.
This gave him a position almost equivalent to that of the Emperor at the time who also happened to be Varhys' unlovable father.
Some say he was even stronger than the Emperor and served as the true ruler of the Empire of Brune and that the Emperor was nothing more than his puppet reliant on Gwaine to keep his enemies as bay.
But it wasn't Gwaine Varhys feared. No, at least that old man Gwaine was still a loyal vassal of the Empire.
It was actually his son Wael that plunged the Imperial Family into great turmoil and started the Shadow Civil Wars.
Most of the common folk and even most of the Nobility actually, probably didn't even know a war of Espionage, Assassination, and Mercantile Trade was happening right beneath their noses as blood was secretly spilled behind street corners.
The Archducal Family of the Pendragons vs. The Royal Family's Alastors waged a bloody war in secret.
But the scariest part for the Royal family was, they didn't know it was the Pendragons that were secretly behind everything until the final phases of the war, and even at the end all the Imperial Family had was circumstantial evidence that didn't truly prove the Pendragon's crime.
They were basically fighting an invisible enemy that almost punched them to death right before stopping just before it killed them.
The Emperor at that time, Varhys' father, thought that the Pendragon's heir, Wael, was a good for nothing bum who slowly lost their lands to other Fiefs until only Maine was left.
Everybody in Brune knew just how incompetent Wael Pendragon was. They even dubbed him as 'The Bum', due to their resentful disappointment of him for ending Gwaine's golden era for Maine and the whole South.
Little did everyone know that Wael and his also mysterious wife were secretly manipulating Brune in the shadows, selling off their lands to look like the incompetent victims as they secretly started different large-scale and flexible Merchant Companies that reached out even towards other countries outside of Brune.
At that time the Pendragons secretly became the richest family in the continent as they reigned supreme over the criminal underworld as its overlords.
The underworld even called Wael and his wife The Theif Dragon (lleidraig) and The Snake Dragon (Neidraig) respectively.
It was actually these titles with 'Dragon' in them that made the previous Emperor suspicious towards the poor and weak looking Pendragons who traditionally used the term Dragon in their family's titles.
Other than this piece of almost superstition-level evidence, there was actually nothing that connected The Theif and Snake Dragons to the Pendragons of the Southern Region.
Wael was considered to be the greatest spy-master this era had ever seen, and his wife, the greatest merchant since Mansahada Musa I, First Khalifah of the Desert.
The scariest part for Varhys was although the war was fought with information, this was ALL of the information he was privy to, even after he had become Emperor, Varhys still knew next to nothing much like his father before him.
Varhys knew the Imperial Family won, but he didn't know how, when, or why!
Nobody knew what happened to the Theif and Snake couple nor did he know if it was actually the Pendragons responsible for all that trouble. And if it was them, why they weren't completely eradicated for treason as the Pendragons still continue to this day as a small-time family of Counts…
"A loan?..." Varhys was speechless at the report he had just received.
He already knew that the Pendragons truly had declined throughout the years, but Varhys never thought it was to the point that they had to take a loan out, not to this extent.
Varhys, after taking office became extremingly skeptical of the Pendragons and had investigated them countless times before.
Gwaine The Great Dragon was already an old man, and his old visage of a great war hero could no longer be recognized from his current old and chubby Santa Claus look.
As for the current heir, no matter what angle one looked at, he truly and utterly was an incompetent nincompoop. He was even been given the nickname The Fat Count by his own servants!
He was so incompetent that even the people working under him ridicule him as "The Fat"
Duke's father, Wael, had at least early signs of hidden genius from his early records. Making it somewhat possible that he meticulously hid his true talents.
But Duke? Nope, nada.
The past Emperor even tested Duke once or twice with life-threatening circumstances during his time at the Academy, but the results all point out that he truly was incompetent.
Now that Gwaine was dead, the final remnants of the Pendragon's past glory had finally ended.
And since the Shadow Civil War happened under everyone's noses, the Pendragons now looked like a ruined house declining towards its inevitable end.
But still, Varhys was nevertheless careful in approaching the Pendragons.
"Deny the loan…" he sturdily commanded Helen.
"And give me additional reports on their activities. Don't miss a single detail!" Varhys added.
Feeling that he had taken care of a difficult task, Varhys finally relaxed once more as he asked:
"Are there any other urgent reports?"
Helen: "Ah, yes sir, it looks like the Northmen are showing signs of movement up in the North… And a request for backup has been made"
"Those Barbarians? Although it is never wise to underestimate them... Don't they always attack at this time of year? Surely Sir William can handle it, no?"
Helen: "My Lord... It was Sir William who requested for back-up"
The sudden revelation alerted Varhys of the gravity of the situation in the Northern Region.
"Ha... The Pendragons asking for money and now the Bizmachs ask for military aid... is the world ending or something?" Varhys cynically laughed as he stood up from his chair as he looked outside through the Imperial Study's window.
"Assemble two armies and send them northward... We might actually be going to war"