“You don’t need to worry too much about that, Anton. Ms. Noria and I will abide by your father’s decision. We just have to prove our capabilities before he arrives, so there would be no reason for him not to accept us,” Mr. Jenkins, Anton’s butler, said.
“Thank you. I will give you 20,000 gold coins for a couple of months' budget. I will be diving back into the dungeon again tomorrow, so I will not be here for the next three or four days. Ronia, please ensure you get the best quality items for the manor. You can go ahead and spend the remaining coins from the budget that I’ve given you, and it’s fine if you and Ms. Orwell spend it all as long as you bought the best.”
After that statement, Anton gave the 20,000 gold coins to the new butler. Thankfully, he had withdrawn the coins from the nearby bank before he arrived at the manor. Mr. Jenkins and the new head maid, Ms. Noria, then left, leaving Anton, Ronia, and Torbin alone in the office.
“Why did you hire a head maid?” Anton asked Ronia.
“I’m much too inexperienced to handle a large manor such as the Rose Manor. Right now, I’m effectively Mr. Jenkins’s assistant and would try my best to learn everything from him.”
“Is it fine with that butler that you plan to replace him?”
“Oh no, I’m not going to replace him. I plan to become your father’s secretary butler while he is at the manor, while Raymond will head the rest of the manor, if your father accepts that plan.”
Once Anton heard Ronia’s plan, he just shrugged. He will just let his father decide.
“What about the status of the guards. Are you doing fine with that, Torbin? If you are, I’ll be promoting you as head guard until my father arrives, because then he will be the one deciding the permanent position for the manor.”
“Are you sure your father will be okay with you throwing all those responsibilities to him?” Ronia asked.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. If not, he will just let the ones currently in those positions remain and will probably let you, Mr. Jenkins, and Ms. Noria handle everything the manor will need. Besides, some of my relatives will arrive with him, and some of them will probably manage the manor. My father and I will probably focus on our business of diving the dungeon and doing mercenary work.”
“Will you be joining your father’s mercenary group?” Torbin asked.
“No. I don’t know exactly what my father is planning to do with his mercenary group. Will he be doing jobs outside the kingdom, or will he focus on diving the dungeon? If he plans to dive the dungeon, I will join them first to ensure my father and his group’s safety, but understand this, I’m much too powerful to remain with him and his group. If my father and his mercenary went with me on the floor that I’m currently delving, they would probably die on the first encounter.”
“Is the 50th floor of the Corridors of Amuneta that dangerous?” Torbin gasped while Ronia looked at him with wide eyes.
“Yes. The monsters there are the most powerful that I have encountered so far. I’m also planning to dive past the 50th floor.”
Anton then turned his attention back to Ronia.
“I must say the cost of the monthly budget of the Rose manor is surprisingly high.”
“That’s the budget of the manor once we have the complete 100 people. I will talk to Jenkins and keep the number of people reasonable. Probably around 50 or 60 is enough, and that meant that the monthly budget will only go up to 5000 gold coins. The 20,000 gold coins that you’ve given him could stretch up to four months,” Ronia said.
“Please go ahead and do so. I’m not worried about coins running out since I do still have more than 130 plus high-level mana stones with me, and of course, all those enchanted gears that I managed to gather from the dungeon, and since I’m still going dungeon diving, the treasure would just accumulate more,” Anton said absently.
The information about the treasure that he had caused Ronia and Anton to gasp again.
“Anton, I want to give you some advice. Please follow Mr. Jenkins’s recommendations about getting a noble title, even the lowest one, because that will help you in a lot of ways inside the kingdom,” Ronia said.
“I’ll think about it once my father arrives. In the meantime, go ahead and invite Ms. Orwells here.”
“Do you still need me here?” Torbin asked, and Anton just said that he might, so the dwarf stayed.
Ronia returned with Felicity Orwells, the designer she hired to decorate the manor.
“Ms. Orwells, is the manor’s furniture complete?” Anton simply asked the designer.
“We’re about 70 percent done.”
“In that case, go ahead and spend the remaining budget that I gave Ronia and make sure that the manor’s fully furnished with the best. Is 20,000 gold coins enough? Please remember that your remuneration will also come from that budget.”
Ms. Orwells retrieved a notebook from her shoulder bag and perused it while mumbling. After about a minute, she closed her notebook and simply said that the budget is more than enough as long as the budget is solely dedicated to the manor’s decorations and furnishings.
Anton assured the designer that the 20,000 gold coins were for the manor only since he had already given the budget for everything else to the butler. That comment made the designer smile widely.
He then remembered that he still had more than a hundred of his own enchanted items that he had made before he arrived at Ormunda. Anton decided to keep around 20 of them for personal use and left everything else at the office’s table, and some of them on the floor. The action surprised Ronia, Torbin, and Felicity.
“These are the enchanted items that I’ve made. They’re for making the rooms in the manor comfortable.”
Anton then explained to them that some of the items would lower the temperature in a room to make it comfortable, another one could heat it, another one would produce water, and some would produce lights. He advised them that none of the items were dangerous, so if they wanted to know what it did, they could just turn it on using the switch. He also told them that if they needed more of the same items, they would just have to tell him once he was back from his dungeon diving.
He also brought out one of the largest mana power banks that he had created, which was the mirror, and taught Ronia and Torbin, while Ms. Orwells watched, how it was used.
“These items will make your Rose Manor truly a magical manor. I would have recommended you some of the same items, but since you’re able to create these, it would be much simpler and would slash my estimated budget by a wide margin,” Ms. Orwells commented.
“Can you bring me to my room? I will need to write letters to my father and my sister to give them the address of the manor. You three will be in charge of distributing these items, and since this office is supposed to be Mr. Jenkins’s office, let the mirror power bank remain here. Please teach Mr. Jenkins and Ms. Noria how to operate it. Ms. Orwells, since you mentioned that the manor’s decoration and furnishing are not done yet, I’ll go ahead and delay the inspection until it’s fully complete. I’ll probably be back here in four days. Is that okay?”
The designer nodded, then Ronia and Torbin led Anton to the room that was assigned to him. Anton’s room was one of the master bedrooms in the manor, and Ronia said that it was one of the master bedrooms that had the best view, which was the garden at the side of the manor.