Overlord: Start from the Goblin Lair.

Chapter 282 Return of the property to its original owner
"Ha, should we thank you for your honesty?" Ivy stared at the elf beside her unhappily. She sat between Ron and Gillianis to keep a safe distance from Ron. "Ron, if you want to use this girl, I suggest you tie her up or put her under house arrest to prevent her from causing harm to the territory."

"Ivy, this is meaningless." Ron opened his mouth to try to persuade the half-elf, but found that Gillianis actually said the same thing as him.

Ron couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed, but the latter stopped talking and motioned for Ron to continue.

"Look, if she had hostility towards us, she would have already taken action. Although the location of the Delusion Land is remote, it is well-known. If she wanted to take action, it would be the same wherever she went."

"You can't just bring her here like this, that's inviting a wolf into the house!" Ivy wanted to argue, "She is the chief wizard of Hailan's evil empire! How many people has she killed!"

"Then, can you name six?" Gillianis glanced at the half-elf human indifferently, "If I am really as evil as you say, this wouldn't be difficult, right?"

"Uh, the former owner of the Blue Wave Grip on Sera's side!"

"I died with him, okay, that counts as one," Gillianis nodded, "what else?"

"And..." Ivy racked her brains to recall the story her mother Leah had told her, "And..."

"The massacre at Nixonk Village! The tragedy of the Haiklan caravan! Valkivi—" Ivy simply listed all the atrocities she knew about the Hailan Empire, but found that Gillianis actually spoke in sync with her! "Why are you imitating me?!"

"I didn't. I just guessed that you would put all the blame on me," Gillianis shrugged. "I'm just a wizard, and Galanold is just a civilian surname. If it weren't for my own efforts, I might have become a slave in the arena."

"I am a scholar, and I am not a necromancer like Henry Robertson. How can I have the time to commit murders everywhere? My only attempt to make war weapons was rejected by those nobles. Besides that orc, I killed only one person with my own hands - the former lord of Carolina."

"I am interested in fighting, but I am not interested in killing people. In fact, even the fight against that orc was actually instructed by the royal family. If it weren't for the princess' insistence on seeing my strength and loyalty, I would not have taken action. The Brilliant Empire can't even suppress the slave uprising, so does it need the chief wizard to take action?"

"Of course I have to admit that there are indeed some warmongers among my researchers, but what does that have to do with me? Wouldn't they serve the Empire without me?"

"So you can rest assured that I am not an executioner. If you can volunteer for me, Ron, I can even be more restrained."

"…Are you so obsessed with me?"

"Of course, otherwise why would I go with you?" Gillianis nodded as a matter of course, "You can definitely understand the feeling of a research project reaching a bottleneck, right? Not to mention being stuck in the bottleneck for two or three hundred years due to various reasons!"

"Oh, you can't understand. After all, human life span is not that long..."

Although Gillianis tried her best to avoid being linked to the evil deeds of the Hailan Empire, Ron still suspected that she was hiding part of the truth. However, if Gillianis was willing to join them, it would be of great benefit to Ron and others in managing the Delusion Land and facing the Delusion Land itself. A powerful, knowledgeable and even melee-proficient mage would be their biggest trump card.

She hadn't managed to revive Highland in a slave-owning city-state like Carolina, so how much of a wave could she create in the land of delusion? Overall, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages!

"Well, I'm also very willing to cooperate with scholars like you," Ron drank the remaining wine in the glass, "but after all, since it's a cooperation, I have to put forward my conditions." "Just tell me."

"First of all, you can't do the old things under my rule. Going back to feudal society is the limit of my tolerance. Slavery is too backward."

"Do you have a large number of elves there?"

“Very few.”

“Then you better spare me,” Gillianis rolled her eyes. “You want to incite other races and say that they are the strongest? Just let me rot together with the Hailan Empire!”

"Okay, then you agree - secondly, there are many dangerous beings in the Delusion Land. Without my permission, you can't use any excuse to provoke them; if we accidentally alarm some of them, you have to stand on our side."

"It's acceptable. I even want to add one more thing: if the situation is irreversible, I have the obligation to take you away safely - how do you feel about it?"

"To protect your 'experiment'." Ivy rolled her eyes, but Gillianis didn't care at all and was even happy to admit that this was the reason.

"Finally..." Ron glanced at the woven foreword beside the archmage, "Regarding the future development of me and my fellow spellcasters, can you provide some help?"

"Teaching? Of course, I have served as an assistant teacher in several colleges, and later became a professor and honorary president of Highland College." Gillianis did not refuse Ron's request. "Oh, by the way, you don't have a spell book now, do you have a substitute?"

"Yes, there is a stack of straw paper in the drawer of my room," Ron pouted. "If you already have a spell book, can you lend me the preface to the weaving?"

"As a spellcaster, without the tools to cast spells, it's quite restrictive."

"Of course, I don't need it now anyway, so I'll give it to you as a small gift from me." Gillianis stretched out her hand and summoned the preface to the weaving spell. This spell book was extremely resistant to leaving its owner, but Gillianis did not have any intention of reluctant to leave and slapped the cover of the book.

"It's been so short since we last met, and you dare not even listen to me? Go!"

"Which god has left a mark on this human? If we can get some clues from him..." At the moment of typing the book, Gillianis's eyes darkened for a moment.

This exchange was limited to Gillianis and Weaving Foreword, and outsiders had no way of noticing it.

"You are just suffering a little more injustice. In my eyes, human life is but a fleeting moment. Don't even think about the high probability that he won't live to the end. Even if you wait until he dies of old age, it won't be too late for you to come back to me!"

(End of this chapter)