Abner took the box and looked at Karen, silently asking if he could open it now. Karen smiled and gestured for him to go ahead.
They had become good friends, so Abner stood on no ceremony. He twisted the delicate knob on the lid and opened the box.
Inside lay a stack of documents. Curious, Abner picked them up and discovered they were the title deed to an estate near Bayam!
Bayam was known as the City of Generosity and was the capital of the Rorsted Archipelago. Land prices there were nowhere near those in a continental metropolis like Backlund, but they certainly weren't lower than in a second-tier city like Tingen.
Judging by the size of the estate in these documents, it's worth at least 1,500 pounds... Karen really is generous!
He does seem to like giving away houses, though... Before the Desolate Ones left Backlund, he put me in charge of looking after the garden villa at 28 Kinster Street.
As Abner mused over that, Viscount Karen asked with a smile, "Well? Are you pleased with the gift?"
Very. Though it doesn't seem much use to me unless I sell it... Abner thought. Aloud, he made a show of politeness. "This is too valuable..."
"It's really not worth that much. Years ago, Roselle advised those of us under him to buy land on some of the larger islands. Once he announced the new sea routes and ushered in the Age of Exploration, all we had to do was wait for the land to appreciate...
"I took his advice and persuaded my mother to buy quite a lot of land cheaply on colonial islands in the Fog Sea, the Sunia Sea, and even along the edge of the Berserk Sea.
"As it turned out, he was right about most