Allen's heartbeat sped up. "Huh? Land? What land? Isn't it just a house?"
Varian looked at him with a mysterious smile. "How could a single house be enough to reward Stormwind's great hero?"
He deliberately paused for a moment. "Stormwind has already reclaimed Lakeshire. I'm planning to give you a piece of land at the foot of the Redridge Mountains."
Varian had his own calculations.
That region around Redridge had always suffered from raids by the Blackrock Clan coming from the Burning Steppes.
Giving Allen a plot of land there basically meant getting him to guard the frontier for free.
Allen was genuinely stunned. Leaning against the stair railing, he stared at Varian's smiling face for a long while without saying a word.
Holy shit, I'm actually going to own land in Azeroth? Seriously?
Now he really had to work even harder to make money. After all, he would have both a villa and an estate to maintain. Ideally, he could even build his own mage tower on that land someday...
"But you really can sleep," Varian said with his arms crossed and a grin on his face. "If you keep sleeping like this, they'll finish building Honor Hold before you wake up."
"Hahaha..." Allen gave an awkward laugh before his smile suddenly froze. "Huh? Honor Hold???"
Honor Hold? Wasn't that—
Seeing the expression on his face as if he had seen a ghost, Varian raised an eyebrow.
"Didn't Vereesa tell you? Not long after you fell unconscious, in order to completely cut off those green-skinned orcs from invading Azeroth again, the Sons of Lothar decided to launch an expedition into their world and eliminate the orc threat once and for all."
He paused, a trace of respect entering his tone. "Archmage Khadgar has already reopened the Dark Portal in reverse. The Sons of Lothar Expeditionary Force has entered their world—Draenor. They've been advancing triumphantly and are currently preparing to build a new fortress in the Tanaan Jungle. They're calling it... Honor Hold."
Allen fell silent.
He understood why Vereesa had never mentioned this to him.
If the Sons of Lothar were expeditioning into Draenor, then her sister, Alleria, had definitely gone as well.
Vereesa must have wanted to go too, but she had been unable to leave him behind and didn't want him risking himself again, so she kept the matter buried in her heart without saying a single word.
He remained silent.
"Come on." Varian patted him on the shoulder. "Since you happened to wake up today, I'll personally accompany you for some rehabilitation training."
"But I'm a mage..." Before Allen could finish speaking, Varian had already dragged him out the door.
The training grounds were outside the walls of Nethergarde Keep. Several training dummies hacked beyond recognition were piled up against the corners of the walls.
On the training field, Allen saw two people he hadn't expected.
Jaina stood beside a wooden post, wearing a light blue traveling cloak. The wind had left her golden hair slightly messy.
The moment she noticed Allen looking at her, she quickly looked away—then quickly looked back again. Her eyelashes trembled slightly, and her lips parted as she hesitated over how to speak.
That, Allen could understand.
After all, when the portal from Dalaran to Nethergarde Keep had just been completed and he had been eager to take the lead, Jaina had insisted on coming along too. In the end, it had taken Antonidas personally stopping her.
But this other person—
Arthas stood two steps behind Jaina, his hands hanging properly at his sides like a military academy cadet awaiting inspection.
When Allen's gaze landed on him, Arthas's eyes lit up with the kind of light only seen in a young prince witnessing a legendary knight for the first time during a dragon-slaying quest to rescue a princess.
His lips moved several times before he finally forced out a somewhat awkward greeting. "Mr. Prestor."
Allen nodded to him politely. "Prince Arthas."
Then he thought to himself—I don't think we're even that close, are we?
When Arthas saw Allen respond to him, the corners of his mouth unconsciously lifted before he hurriedly suppressed the smile.
Great. It sounds like he thinks pretty highly of me.
Allen's feat of summoning meteors to annihilate the orc army had been classified by the Alliance as top-secret information.
After further investigation, they had learned that Archmage Allen Prestor suffered from the classic weakness of mages: he was fragile.
And after the battle, he had remained unconscious the entire time, practically like a glass cannon.
In their eyes, a glass cannon like that naturally had to be protected at all costs.
The memory of the orc assassin Garona Halforcen assassinating King Llane Wrynn was still fresh in everyone's minds. They had to prevent the orcs from sending assassins specifically to target the person who had summoned the falling stars that day.
But something like that could never truly be contained with a single order.
There had been far too many soldiers on the battlefield. Countless witnesses had seen it happen with their own eyes.
At the very least, figures on the level of Jaina and Arthas already knew about Allen Prestor's achievement.
Looking at Arthas's face, slightly flushed with excitement, Allen suddenly felt that this young man still seemed rather pure-hearted.
No one could have imagined that, little more than a decade later, this handsome prince would stray onto a dark path—killing his own soldiers, comrades, teacher, and father before ultimately plunging all of Lordaeron into the horror of the Scourge. In the end, he would become the Lich King seated upon the Frozen Throne, commander of the entire Scourge.
If I interfere... can he still return to the right path?
"Benefactor——!!! You're awake——!!!"
Stella dashed toward Allen on her short little legs, her two blue braids flailing behind her, moving at a speed completely mismatched with her tiny frame.
She ran right up to him and was just about to throw herself at him—
For some reason, Allen instinctively bent down, wrapped his hands around her slender waist, lifted her entire body into the air, and spun her around once.
"Where's Morgan?" Allen set her back down and glanced around. "He's alright, isn't he?"
The moment Morgan was mentioned, Stella's little face puffed up like an angry pufferfish.
Planting her hands on her hips, she immediately began tattling. "Benefactor, I have a report! Uncle Morgan betrayed us! That Grandpa Turalyon only had to say a few words before he got all fired up and ran off to Draenor to join the Sons of Lothar Expeditionary Force!"
Allen froze for a moment.
Morgan had gone to Draenor too? The timeline had changed because of him—Morgan had joined the Sons of Lothar because of him.
Suddenly, Allen did not know what to say.
How was he supposed to face Morgan's wife and daughter?
He gently patted Stella on the head, his voice softening. "What are you talking about? Morgan is just pursuing justice and doing what he believes is right."
Vereesa walked over from behind and flicked Stella on the forehead. "You're always here stirring up trouble." Her tone was calm, though the corners of her lips carried the faint trace of a smile.
Standing nearby, Varian added fuel to the fire. "Careful, or they might stop taking you along."
Covering her reddened forehead, Stella's large azure eyes quickly filled with tears. "Waaah——! Don't abandon me——!"
She threw herself forward and hugged Allen's leg, rubbing her little face against his knee repeatedly.
A few steps away, Jaina silently watched the scene unfold.
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