"And now he’s about to get married to Countess Rowena Elvenheart?" Eric asked with a disbelieving look on his face, but his business partner nodded in response.

Noticing this, Eric stayed silent for a long moment before laughing shortly.

"Austin Rin, the same man who came crawling to our door asking for my sister’s hand in marriage, is finally getting married to the countess, huh." Eric muttered out loud, but his acquaintance simply smiled and said nothing further.

Eric stopped laughing after a moment, then he leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers slowly against the armrest.

"Well. It doesn’t matter how many wives he collects or how many nobles invite him to dinner, because no one in this kingdom can replicate our five percent impurity-free strength-enhancing potion. We’ll just have to work harder at making a better version of it, or else that scumbag is truly going to become the greatest potion maker in this kingdom." Eric muttered as he straightened up and reached for his own drink.

He had muttered his words with complete confidence and he meant every word of it.

***

Meanwhile, back at the mansion, the afternoon sun shone brightly on Rowena’s mansion.

But inside the mansion, in one of the sitting rooms, Tatiana could be seen currently occupying an entire couch by herself.

Her body was sprawled across the couch as she stared at the table in front of her.

The table currently had two cups on it.

One cup had strawberry juice in it, whilst the other had cantaloupe juice in it.

Tatiana reached for the strawberry juice first and took a long swig of it before letting out a long and deeply satisfied moan as she emptied the cup and set it back down.

"Delicious. I will never get tired of this....ever!!! In all my remaining thousands of years I will never get tired of drinking this juice." Tatiana announced with a grin, and her long tail could be seen happily swaying behind her.

Since her tail was currently on the floor, a small little figure could be seen crawling close to it.

Of course, it was none other than Luna, and the cute little pupcake had initially been sitting quietly on a mat a few feet away until she noticed the dragon lady’s tail.

She had watched it swing left.

Then she watched it swing right, and that was more than enough to attract the little wolfkin’s attention, causing her to crawl up to the red dragon tail.

Upon getting closer, Luna pushed herself up onto her unsteady little legs, then she took three determined steps toward the moving tail as she tried to reach it with one of her chubby hands already making a grabbing gesture.

But just before she could fully grab the tail, it swung in the opposite direction, and Luna couldn’t help but blink in surprise upon seeing this.

Then she tried to grab it again, but Tatiana’s tail dodged the little wolfkin again, and the dragon lady wasn’t even glancing in the little wolfkin’s direction.

Meanwhile, Luna was already frowning at why the moving tail kept preventing her from touching it.

But she wasn’t going to give up yet.

The large red tail had attracted her attention and she was definitely going to grab it, but when she tried to do this, the tail slipped away again.

Of course, from across the room, Nora was watching the entire thing with a smile on her face before drifting her attention to her husband, who was seated nearby with a scroll across his lap.

Austin’s eyes moved steadily across the page, but Nora leaned over before pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"What are you working on?" She asked, and Austin replied.

"Just a little something I think needs a bit of tweaking."

Hearing this, a smile graced Nora’s lips as she watched Austin work, then she glanced back at her daughter, only to see the little girl sitting in front of the swaying tail.

After trying to catch the tail a couple of times, she had finally given up on the idea, and had resigned herself to just sit and watch the tail sway in front of her.

Realising this, Nora chuckled inwardly before placing her hands on Austin’s shoulders. "Where is Rowena?" She asked.

"Out at the farmlands. I heard her and Cedric saying something about wanting to check on this month’s harvest, or something along that line."

Nora nodded in understanding before walking toward her baby to try and help her catch the annoying dragon lady’s tail.

***

Meanwhile, at the farmlands where Rowena currently was, the countess could see how far and wide the farmlands reached.

She was currently walking slowly along the edge of the nearest field with Cedric a step behind her, and the head farmer of this village walking beside her as he delivered his report.

The male elf was a broad-shouldered older elf called Gareth, and Gareth revealed that the harvest numbers this month had been really good.

Honestly, it was better than good, because the harvest numbers Gareth was reading out were the kind of numbers Elmfield hadn’t seen in over three centuries.

The man continued delivering his report with barely contained pride, talking about how a lot had changed and how farmers and villagers in general had developed a lift in their moods these past months.

Of course, Rowena listened carefully to everything Gareth was informing her of.

She asked questions where she needed to, and Gareth answered every time she did.

Gareth also mentioned, almost as an aside toward the end of his report, that a small group of monsters had attempted to cross through the southern edge of the territory two nights prior.

Commander Aldren’s garrison had intercepted them before they reached the farmlands and dealt with them without those monsters causing any incidents.

Hearing this, Rowena couldn’t help but ask about her guards. "Were there any casualties on our side?"

"None, my lady." Gareth confirmed, and Rowena nodded in understanding.