Chapter 611: *Munch Munch Munch*

Shaking his head wryly, Killian reached out, snatched an already buttered dinner roll from Charlotte’s plate, and shamelessly began eating.

Had it been any other time, Charlotte would have scolded her superior, who also happened to be her uncle, for being too childish; however, she knew she was more guilty of that charge at the moment, so she reluctantly held her tongue and just continued eating.

2 more dinner rolls and a piece of smoked chicken later, however, Charlotte couldn’t remain silent anymore and snarled, "Didn’t you order your own meal, Sir?"

"Mmhmm, *munch munch munch*"

Her brow now twitching slightly, Charlotte snapped, "Fine! I admit it! I was being petty! I’ll go apologize after dinner service ends tonight!"

"En, good *munch munch*," Killian nodded, satisfied with Charlotte finally taking some responsibility.

Of course, that didn’t mean he stopped stealing from her plate; far from it, in fact.

As the older brother of the former Duke Roth, and the uncle of the current Duke Roth, Killian had eaten his fair share of delicious foods over the course of his life, but the dishes Christina and her crew were cooking up now were so different and so tasty from anything he had had before that he just couldn’t stop himself.

I can understand why everyone, including this stubborn little missy, keep coming here. This stuff is really good, and so cheap it might as well be free, Killian mused to himself.

He had actually heard a little bit about this from his nephew’s second wife, Ava, and her daughter Olivia, both of them liberally praising the quality of food served at Christina’s recent 16th birthday banquet.

At the time, Killian had just brushed off their words as the usual noble platitudes, especially when they made mention of how many of the dishes were supposedly invented or even made by Christina herself. He knew that the Third Queen was a ’bit’ of an eccentric when she was younger, but ever since Christina turned 10, all he could remember was her trying her best to portray a dignified or even aloof personality.

I wonder what changed, Killian mused to himself, a smirk slowly forming on his face, Come to think of it, Little Olivia mentioned something about a boy... heh, oh Nathanial is going to lose his mind when he hears about this. Wish I could be there to see it.

All this time, as he was lost in his own thoughts, Killian Roth’s hands never stopped moving, pilfering one item after another from Charlotte’s plate despite her increasingly aggressive attempts to block and intercept him.

It was turning into something of a silent battle for food, one which Killian, thanks to his vastly superior cultivation, was clearly winning.

Fortunately, for Charlotte’s sake, Christina soon arrived, along with two others, carrying several large trays of food.

"Oooh! Great timing! I was just getting tired of waiting," Killian said shamelessly as he swallowed down the piece of battered, fried fish he was chewing.

Glancing over at the exasperated look on Charlotte’s face, then back at her Uncle Killian’s completely nonchalant expression as he helped unload the serving trays, Christina opened her mouth to say something, but nothing appropriate came to mind, so she closed it again.

Naturally, Christina’s opinion of Charlotte wasn’t very high given the stunt this woman had pulled on her and the Third Battalion, but seeing that same look she often saw on Allina’s face when she had to deal with Celestina’s antics, the princess suddenly couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her.

Aware of this woman’s grudge against Allina, however, saying aloud that Charlotte actually reminded her of the former would likely lead to an unnecessary argument, so Christina wisely decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

Instead, putting on her best business smile, Tina launched into her usual spiel about what each of the new dishes she had made tonight were.

Considering General Roth had literally ordered one of everything on the menu, it took Christina a good minute or two to run down the list of items, but she didn’t really mind.

As far as Christina was concerned, today was a huge win for her; after all, the strongest master in the entire Roth Dukedom was happily eating at her pop-up restaurant, even ordering seconds of some items before he’d touched the first round. What better advertising and endorsement could she possibly hope for?

As soon as Christina was done introducing her craft, she turned to leave, but Killian quietly stopped her, "Sit down and don’t make a fuss. There are... ’things’ we need to discuss."

Understanding that what came next was serious business, both Christina and Charlotte wore solemn expressions for a split-second before they forced casual looks back onto their faces, displaying their mastery of the essential noble skill of putting up a façade.

Asking one of her hired helpers to inform Uri, the ship’s chef who had again accompanied the Third Battalion to Amherst, to take over for her temporarily, Christina sat down and poured herself a cup of water from a nearby pitcher.

After slaking her thirst, Christina asked in a low voice while continuing to look like she was just having a happy chat with the off-duty General, "Has there been word from our spies?"

"Better than that," Killian muttered as he bit into a piece of boar steak, "A letter arrived via Tartan from the capital less than an hour ago. The final target list has been compiled."

"How many of them are there?" Charlotte asked while buttering another dinner roll.

"In the North East Province? 65 primaries and 23 secondaries," Killian replied flatly.

It took a great deal of effort for both Christina and Charlotte to not spit out what was in their mouths when they heard these numbers.

"That’s more than triple the number we were anticipating... I thought we took out a large part of this problem in the raids two months ago," Charlotte all-but-screamed, "How could there possibly be so many of these... these rats left?"

"Like you said, they’re rats," Killian shrugged, "Where there’s one, there’s bound to be more."

"And if you miss even a couple of them, they’ll just multiple again," Christina added from the side.

"Even if that’s true, how could they have recovered so quickly?" Charlotte was still somewhat in disbelief.

The wide-spread raids they initiated back in late June had swept up over 1,000 criminals and co-conspirators of this hidden enemy in the major cities of the North East Province alone, with nearly 10,000 people being implicated across the greater Rockwell Kingdom.

Now, just a few months later, the heads of the kingdom’s military and spy networks were telling them there were nearly 100 more targets which needed to be eliminated?

Keep in mind, these ’targets’ weren’t just individuals, they were buildings, hideouts, safehouses, ships, caravans, and convoys, each one of them part of this underground network which had somehow managed to infiltrate and take root in the kingdom without anyone being the wiser.