Herald of Steel - Chapter 1070: Heart Attack

As Alexander laid witness to the scale of the fire at the harbor, he felt a slight trepidation in his heart at the size of it.

‘Remus you brat! I asked you to burn down only the ships… not the entire god damned city!’ He could not help but lightly cuss the boy.

*Bang!*

And it was right at that moment that a furious Lady Miranda decided to make her entrance, stomping into the room with heavy hurried footsteps, fury written all over her fair face.

“Lord Alexander, what is the meaning of this? Have you gone insane?” Then eschewing all pleasantries, the slightly plump lady immediately blasted this accusation right onto the man’s face.

To which Alexander only gently smiled back.

He had expected such a kind of reaction from the frank mistress of the house, so the words. did not offend him.

Instead, he took a bit of time to scan the noblewoman in front of him, and found her to be absent of all makeup, and clad only in a simple huge, heavy, black coat- one that both shielded her from the chill of the night and hid all the bodily features, letting only her painted toenails peep out of the sandals she was wearing,

Judging by her getup and the slightly huffing noise she was letting off, it was very clear that Lady Miranda had gotten here as soon as she got the wind of the whole thing.

While following in toe with her was her husband, Lord Cassius, who looked even more out of breath, his broad chest heaving up and down greatly, his face flushed and sweaty.

The man was in worse physical shape than his wife, and for a brief second, Alexander even mischievously wondered if the man could perform in bed with such lackluster stamina.

The young pasha of course quickly extracted himself from such distracting thoughts and greeted the couple with a warm smile, sounding as if they were meeting under the most auspicious occasion,

“Ahhh! Lady Miranda! Lord Cassius! Glad you could join us. Come, come! Sit! Please!”

The couple was a bit taken back by the frank alacrity, as it greatly contrasted the grim surroundings, but ultimately could not help but follow Alexander’s gesture, thus placing themselves on the central sofa.

Once in their position, they then simultaneously turned to look at Alexander, eager to hear his explanation, when they saw the man suddenly face Lord Nolan and ask, “Now, esteemed lord, why don’t you retell everything you just told me? And be sure not to leave a single thing out!”

The withered old man shivered at the manic grin that Alexander produced while ‘asking’ this.

Lord Nolan could easily tell, that this was not a suggestion, it was a command, one that he was expected to follow to the tee.

Thus he grimaced…. as a profound sense of guilt, shame and even slight fear pervaded his soul.

“Fa… fahter? What’s wrong? Are you feeling alright?” And easily sensing the discomfort in the man, Lord Cassius quickly approached to try and aid him.

When suddenly,

“Arghhhh! It… hurts! Arghhh! Ughhhh! Ohhhh!” The elderly man all of a sudden began to clutch his chest with both his hands, his face started to turn blue, his mouth turned into a gaping maw as if he was trying to suck in the last bit of air, and he began to pant.

‘Oh no!’ And seeing this, Alexander instantly understood what was happening.

The man was having a heart attack!

Lord Nolan was already old and it seemed the mortifying thought of having to reveal one’s dirty secret right in front of his son and daughter in law was too much for his psyche to handle.

The shock and stress suddenly caused him to go into cardiac arrest.

“Father! Father! Father!” And seeing this Lord Cassius instantly ran over to the already slumping man, gently holding and shaking him.

While sitting opposite to him, Alexander did not feel the same kind of alarm, not even at the sight of a man dying, as he did not have even the lowest level of respect for this swindler, thus he only cursed in frustration,

‘You old crone! Could not have picked any other time to die? Why now?”

In his mind, the only point of regret was the timing, as Lord Nolan’s ‘condition’ could not have come at a worse time.

Alexander was so close to busting the entire conspiracy wide open, as Lord Nolan’s confession would have made Lady Miranda and Lord Cassius his staunchest allies.

Sure he too could tell them about it later, but it would really not have the same impact now, would it?

Not when there remained the choice of getting it out from directly the horse’s mouth.

Alexander had very much looked forward to seeing how Lady Miranda and Lord Cassius’s face changed into various states of shock, scorn, anger, pain, and surprise as Lord Nolan gradually unveiled the twisted tale of the past few years.

The man was very confident that once they got to hear the whole story, they would completely abandon their father in law and take him, Alexander was their sole protector.

With a bit of luck, Alexander even felt confident enough to be able to puppet the two, turning the Margraves into effectively his vassals.

Ahhh, the scale of the dreams this ambitious man had- eager to eat up an area as big as Tibias in one gulp.

The man had balls, you would have to give it to him.

But it seemed the Lady of the Weave had other plans.

She had allowed Alexander to escape death by revealing his enemy’s plot to him.

But in return she had saved some of his enemy’s ships, letting them conserve some of their strength, as well as snatching this golden opportunity from him, thus balancing out the scales.

“Move! Let me! I can help!”

As Lord Nolan fell to the ground, Alexander, trying to recover this lost possibility decided to finally act, so getting up, he approached the supine men and asked Lord Cassius to give them some space.

The portly man however had trouble complying with this, for so overwhelmed was he by all this that he could only turn to give Alexander a somewhat blank and glassy look, “Wha.. what? What are going to do? My… my father… what is happening to him? He.. help! Call the doctors!”

Alexander suddenly left a touch of disdain seeing this large man dither about in panic, stuttering and mumbling as if he was shocked out of his mind.

This was not how a man was supposed to act.

To Alexander, a true man might see the sky falling and still be able to hold his composure.

Not because he was unfeeling or robotic, but because such a stoic appearance gave confidence to the surrounding others, especially his family.

But here, it was the woman who took charge, as Lady Miranda quickly stepped forward and asked Lord Cassius, “Quick, dear! Let Lord Alexander see father. Zanzan is very famous for its medical technology.”

Alexander was glad to see this was enough to convince the man, as this meant he did not need to get into pointless arguments regarding what was happening to the old man and how he could help.

So he gave a reassuring nod to Lord Cassius, who in turn only scanned him with skeptical eyes, unsure whether he could really trust this man, but ultimately gently separated from his parent.

And seeing such tenderness in the movement caused Alexander to slightly sigh in his heart because he knew how the old man had tried to screw over this filial son.

It was not fair.

But Alexander kept such lamentations to himself for now.

For now, he quickly knelt in front of the lying man and began to get ready to perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation or as more commonly known- CPR.

He had learned this while training as a lifeguard during one of his summer jobs and the man really hoped he had not gone too rusty.

So recalling his training, Alexander first decided to check the responsiveness:

So gently shaking Lord Nolan, he loudly shouted, “Lord Nolan, can you hear? Say yes if can you!”

There was no response, meaning he was either unconscious or unable to respond.

So he then moved on to the next phase, unbuttoning the robes he was wearing and loosening the area around the chest, thus giving the man more space to breathe.

Next, he placed his hand on the chest, and just like he had expected, he felt no movement, meaning the man was not breathing.

So quickly Alexander got to performing CPR, placing the heel of his right hand on the center of the chest, and covering it with his left hand, before interlocking the fingers and then pushing down on the ribs hard and fast.

And he kept doing this, again, and again, while everyone in the room looked into the silent trepidation.

They had never seen anything like this, but because Alxx was not cutting the man up or making his drink anything, and instead was only ‘massaging’ him, the couple did not protest.

Rather they quickly clasped their hands and began to pray, and after some time,

“Ahhhh!”

Their prayers were answered, as Lord Nolan woke up with a great gasp.

Let us say no to piracy! Don’t take part in a crime! Don’t patronize thieves!